Spoiler alert: This article discusses the Season 2 finale of “Only Murders in the Building” — “I Know Who Did It.”
The goal was always to hand back the investigation of Bunny Folger’s murder to the Arconia trio of Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez), according to “Only Murders in the Building” showrunner John Hoffman. After the disorientation of the season, which saw them all publicly implicated in the former board president’s killing, the executive producer and co-creator’s aim was to restore agency to the spun-around group.
“’Go get ’em once you know how to do it,’ — the notion is to hand it to them in a way that they would present their case enough to unravel and ensnare the actual killer in their own fashion,” Hoffman told TheWrap in a postmortem interview about the Hulu show. “And it was very inspired by Agatha Christie in ways and it was inspired by their own theatrical expertise.”
The Season 2 finale, largely unfolded via Instagram Live, as the amateur podcasting gang did a live reveal — or killer reveal party — to ensnare the murderer. Twists abounded, fake blood was spilled, gasps were uttered and several bouts of fainting took place, but it all came together in one spectacular splash: It was Becky (formerly known as Poppy, Cinda Canning’s oft-berated assistant), played by Adina Verson, and Det. Kreps (Michael Rapaport) in cahoots.
“It’s a sad story,” Hoffman said. “That’s kind of what I like to do without apologizing for a murderer, but I want to get to the human side that might explain what would compel them.”
And, of course, there’s the Paul Rudd of it all: In the last several minutes of the finale, we find out that a year has passed since the conclusion of the whodunit mystery. Since then, the trio has been living murder-free. That is, until Ben Glenroy (Rudd), a snobbish performer at odds with Charles, dies on stage ahead of Oliver’s triumphant directorial return to Broadway.
“God knows the excitement over having Paul Rudd in the show playing Ben Glenroy, the leading actor of the show, victim or otherwise, knowing that our victims tend to have a lot of screen time in our seasons,” Hoffman teased of Season 3, which is now several weeks into its writers’ room “I’m really excited about that and a couple of other surprises yet to come.”
Read on for TheWrap’s full Q&A with Hoffman.
TheWrap: The approach to this season’s killer is, to me, very reminiscent of Agatha Christie novels. How did all the pieces come together and how far in advance was this all planned out?
[There’s] the drawing room, Agatha Christie, whodunit quality to the setup. Ultimately, looking at the whole of Season 2 and a bit of Season 1 as well, that disorienting quality — they keep getting pummeled by new evidence being planted on them and they keep getting hit on their own personal reputations — makes it very hard to focus and make a podcast about a murder investigation when everything’s pointing you. On top of it, there’s these emotional stories that are coming up in their lives that they’re also having to manage and work through.
Once in Episode 9, we resolve basically all of the emotional storylines for them, I was just very excited and the plan was always to hand the show and the investigation [back to them] to remind the audience of the tremendous skill sets that all of them have to solve this case, and hand it back to the trio and say, Go get ’em once you know how to do it. The notion is to hand it to them in a way that they would present their case enough to unravel and ensnare the actual killer in their own fashion. And it was very inspired by Agatha Christie, in ways, and it was inspired by their own theatrical expertise with the directing and acting and then Mabel being the one who’s putting the pieces together. That really was a plan right from the start, and I love it. There’s nothing better, after hopefully a satisfying journey to get there, to see that trio be dazzling.
How did the killer reveal party come together from the page to filming?
Beyond the writing — Rob Turbovsky, Matteo Borghese and Dan Fogelman and I were working on this — knowing that we had this collection of character actors, unlike any other show in New York, that felt like Oh, I just can’t wait to have them all in a room, or as much as we can have in a room.
When we handed it off towards production, it was just kind of terrifying how we were going to get all that done and how we’re going to cover it all. We had schedules where people weren’t available on all the days together, and it required a mathematician’s mind and a director unlike any other like Jamie Babbit, who I really give full credit to in that whole sequence in Bunny’s apartment, the way she shot it over four days. I think three of the four days Tina Fey was not available to us, and you would never know it. We were nervous until we saw the cuts and we realized how seamless it all was. That is so due to both Jamie and our editors on this finale, Shelly Westerman and Payton Koch, who were just spectacular.
The last two episodes unravel who Poppy/Becky and Det. Kreps are. Could you speak to their characters, what draws them together and their unique sort of Bonnie and Clyde relationship?
It’s so funny, in these little moments you can capture a lot. There are two shocking images which we played with, which was the moment when Kreps turns around in that bar and he’s looking first at Cinda and then when you come back to see it, she’s asking for the check and we pan over and we discover Oh my god, he’s looking at Poppy. Then the one where they’re in bed together. That’s all we have, really, of that whole thing, but it tells the story and the Bonnie and Clyde quality about it is true: the idea of Oklahoma, the Southern roots for Becky, the general sense of the sad life she had — the intelligence she had, the ambition, the drive — but no one to help inspire her to get out of there.
And I think with Kreps, being someone who was also aspiring for more; he’d worked his ass off as a cop and he felt very unsatisfied with his position and in the world in a certain way. Love can make you do some crazy things. I quickly got a handle on both of them, particularly Poppy, once I understood if she found success by disappearing herself: Was she inspired by the Rose Cooper story she probably read before that and all of it tying in and feeling fateful in meeting Kreps and getting his help and then falling in love — that this is what she should be doing. The Rose Cooper painting being at Bunny Folger’s apartment, who was the board president who was contentious with the three people who came to Cinda Canning’s office — all of these things, I have a whole chart lined up on what Becky was doing. But it’s a sad story. That’s kind of what I like to do without apologizing for a murderer, but I want to get to the human side that might explain what would compel them.
With Bunny — similar in a way to Becky — there’s a sense that people could be saved by kindness. Was that a theme you were cognizant of bringing to the forefront?
I hadn’t quite thought of it in specific terms like that — it makes perfect sense, but I do like playing in storytelling with the moments that [could have] gone one way, as opposed to another; it’s an entirely different result, and maybe an entirely different person, five years from now. I was delighted to have the audience move through that very challenging and difficult moment at the end of Episode 3 in Season 2, when you realize the culpability or the responsibility that our trio feels for Bunny’s death had they just invited her in for the glass of champagne. It’s heartbreaking, and I like living with those moments and feeling compelled, and it feels even more victorious emotionally to me when the trio solves and finds some justice for Bunny in the end. And I think that goes both ways, for the victim and for the killer.
Fast-forwarding to those last five minutes, what can you say about Paul Rudd’s casting and what’s in store for Season 3?
We’re about four-five weeks into the writers’ room for Season 3 now, and I’m out of my mind excited where we’re going for Season 3 with this show. I think the most clear way to set up people is to understand that Season 1 maybe leaned a little bit more towards Mabel because of her relationship with Tim Kono and the emotional arc of that was very much in the forefront, and then in Season 2, we have Charles and the history of the building and his history with his father. And then in Season 3, it just felt it was due time to go into the milieu of Oliver Putnam and his dreams of redeeming himself on the Broadway stage after his debacle with ‘Splash,’ and the fun of that and the reset of jumping a year ahead.
Hopefully, the audience is going to be very excited to know what happened in that year for our trio, and also what happened with that show, and God knows the excitement over having Paul Rudd in the show playing Ben Glenroy, the leading actor of the show, victim or otherwise, knowing that our victims tend to have a lot of screen time in our seasons. I’m really excited about that and a couple of other surprises yet to come.
With that, what was the reasoning behind the one-year time jump? Did you just want to give these poor people a break from the murder, at least for a little bit?
Kind of, yeah. Particularly Mabel. I was talking to Selena yesterday, actually, and I was walking her through the major beats of what we’re planning for Season 3, and I watched her just light up and she was so excited. For Mabel, there’s a brightness to it suddenly, and there’s been a year without murder as she says as she gets into the seat in the theater at the end of Season 2, you feel her — there’s a brighter energy to her already. And I’m leaning in that way in many ways for Mabel and yet trying to take some more agency over this notion of challenging the sort of, Am I just haunted or cursed by having these dead bodies around me all the time?
How long would you want to keep doing ‘Only Murders in the Building’?
I mean, I feel bad for the ones who are gonna get murdered. We’re in such a rare moment with the show and we all so appreciate and love our time at work and doing it. To have the kind of cast we do feel as happy about going to work every day and looking forward to it — I love finding hopefully fresh and clever ways to keep the general format and spirit of the show alive while continually challenging ourselves to be a little bit unexpected with our storytelling. So, for a while, I hope.
This interview has been condensed and edited for concision and clarity.
