Note: The following story contains spoilers for “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4, Episode 1.
The “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 premiere solved the mystery of where Charles Haden-Savage’s stunt double Sazz Pataki’s (Jane Lynch) body disappeared to following her death by sniper in the Season 3 finale.
In the final minutes of the episode, Charles, Mabel and Oliver discovered that Sazz’s body was brought down to the basement of the Arconia and thrown in an incinerator, with one of her metal joints from Bulgaria left behind.
“It’s about as dark as we’ve ever gone on the show, and it needed to be,” showrunner John Hoffman told TheWrap. “The episode is structured in a way that the audience has a sense about something that our trio doesn’t. We needed to give the trio, and mainly Charles, a sense that something’s not right… And finally confirmed by our surprise bit of casting at the Hollywood party who says Sazz didn’t show up on set last week when she should have. And that for Charles is like a gut punch.”
While the trio receives hints about Sazz’s murder throughout the episode, they are initially redirected to Los Angeles, where their true crime podcast is being turned into a Hollywood film, with Eugene Levy, Zach Galifiankis and Eva Longoria set to portray Charles, Oliver and Mabel, respectively.
“It felt like a perfect marriage of the podcast being pursued as IP for a Hollywood treatment, matched with our Hollywood stunt double in a whole season that really points to these reflections for our central trio of themselves,” Hoffman explained. “Right off the top of the season, you’re getting these home movie reflections of our trio, and they’re talking about, ‘is that who I want to be, is that who I was?’ It felt like great fodder for exploration spawned from the central heart of the season, which is all about this relationship between a doppelganger double, who has been your stunt double and worked with you and you’re only now realizing all the ways in which they were profoundly affecting your lives and how deep the friendship was.”
That question is key for Selena Gomez’s Mabel, who struggles throughout the episode with whether to agree to the Hollywood adaptation and sign over her life rights to Paramount Studios.
Hoffman also enjoyed getting to play into the Hollywood tropes during the negotiation scene between the trio and Molly Shannon’s Bev Melon, in which Steve Martin slides a piece of paper across a long table with the number “4” as he prods Shannon on how many zeroes she’s willing to add.
“That bit with Steve was one of my favorite things we’ve ever done,” he said. “When you have an idea on something, you share it with Steve and watch him on the day just so perfectly, gracefully do that ridiculously funny bit of physical comedy. And nothing was more important to me than finding the exact right scale of table you could deliver that number four over to Molly Shannon.”
The idea for the home movies of Gomez, Short and Martin spawned from Hoffman’s conversations with the show’s co-creator, who was in the process of working on his Apple TV+ documentary while filming the Hulu comedy.
“Steve and I talked a lot about that and it was really hugely helpful in shaping the season, and how it is to go back and look at your life and have a researcher finding things and bringing them to you,” he said. “So all of that reflection through film or through documenting coming back on them felt like a great opportunity. So it made sense to me to start at what the nature of film is and the fact that it’s only been around for a little over 100 years. Film is a unique part of our human existence.”
He addedL “I just think with this group of people that we’re working with on this show, I won’t rest easy if I don’t feel like I’ve stepped it up in every way I could possibly step it up.”
In addition to the home movies provided by Gomez, Short and Martin, the episode titled “Once Upon a Time in the West,” features footage from the 1986 western of the same name.
“That was an influential movie for me… I was fascinated by the choices that Sergio Leone made,” Hoffman said. “Being able to use that and intercut and build a climax that felt earned over the course of the episode, but twists it in a way that I think the audience might not expect but makes perfect sense for a stunt double who’s seen a lot of wear and tear, all of that felt kind of awful and right for the show.”
He added that it was “very gratifying” to have Scott Bakula finally cameo after name-dropping him several times in previous seasons.
“I hope it’s not the end of him for our show, because I love Scott Bakula,” Hoffman said. “I worked with Scott about 10 years ago now on a show called ‘Looking’ and got to know him and had a lovely time with him. But I hadn’t reached out to him when I was dropping his name through many seasons of ‘Only Murders.’ He was being made aware that his name was being used and he when we finally connected about it for this, he was like, ‘I am so delighted to be part of this.’ He’s great.”
“Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 releases new episodes every Tuesday on Hulu. The first three seasons are now available to stream.
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