Only Murders S02: How are we feeling?
the true crime that's worth your time
…Has there been a DIP in quality?
Before I show myself out, a couple quick notes, the first being that I don’t think the show’s gone down in quality. I think it’s different — more disjointed, less interested in the rhythms of true crime than in city living and the connections among its characters. This isn’t per se a problem, but as an insightful commenter at Episodic Medium noted recently (forgive me, wise one, and if you’re here too, take credit!), it seems to want to be a hang-out comedy, not a plot-driven parody of a genre.
It’s still commenting fairly acidly on said genre with the latest twist, but I also think it’s a show that, in my household at least, works better when watched in chunks or straight through. DPB and I have felt…bemused, I guess, through a lot of the second season, because we watch it once a week and as a result we really feel the silo-ing of various characters (or, to put it less charitably, the show forgetting/not knowing what to do with/realizing it can’t afford the actors who play them). Last night, we watched the latest two back-to-back; we still had issues, economy-of-characters-wise, and I still don’t care for how the show did Oscar if it wasn’t going to avail itself fully of Cara Delevingne’s Alice — but when you’re immersed in OMITB’s world for more than 30 minutes, that world coheres better, at least for us.
It’s still such a pleasure to look at, to watch titans working together (Shirley MacLaine’s touch is just right), to see the production making a little why-not room for a New York City cast to sing in the dark. But maybe the show needs to slip the surly bonds of satire, give Da’Vine Joy Randolph her own Maternity Leave, She Wrote spin-off, and just be a hang-out comedy. What do you think?— SDB