After realizing in last week’s episode of “Only Murders in the Building” that Season 4’s killer has been watching the trio, Charles, Oliver and Mabel leave the Arconia and New York City to go lay low at Charles’ sister Doreen’s house in Long Island, who is portrayed by Melissa McCarthy.
Showrunner John Hoffman told TheWrap that working with the “Bridesmaids” actress on the Hulu comedy had been a dream of his for years and was previously upended by the pandemic. (He declined to reveal details about what her role at the time would have been.)
“I just love her so much. I think she’s wildly talented in both funny and dramatic ways. I tried to get her on the show a couple of years ago, and it was deep in the middle of COVID. There were many complications and we both looked at each other and said ‘We can’t do this now, can we?’” Hoffman said.
“Schedule-wise with this incredible group of people, it’s always a dance of, ‘Wait a minute, okay. Wait no, not available. Who’s available now?’ But this is the window we have. This is Meryl Streep in an episode, so we had committed to when we were shooting this no matter what, plus this incredible collection of actors that we wanted for this episode. And then lo and behold, Melissa’s schedule opened up when we were really at the last minute,” he added.
Hoffman quickly jumped on the phone with McCarthy to explain the role she’d be playing, which she agreed to immediately.
“Everything from that point on as I was describing the character and the story, she literally said, ‘I’m going to drop the phone. I cannot believe what I’m hearing. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.’ I’m like, ‘Oh my god. Really? I’m so excited.’”
It didn’t take long after that for McCarthy to completely throw herself into the character.
“I tell you, she just arrived full flourish, just a complete genius. She had a bag of wigs she wanted to try on and landed the one she wanted. She had French tips on feet and hands. She had a look and vibe of Long Island,” Hoffman said. “And then Dana Covarrubias costumed the holy hell out of her in one day, and she was Doreen right from the get go and brought mad, insane brilliance in comedy and then kills you.”
Among Doreen’s quirks is an obsession with collecting dolls, which she developed as a coping mechanism after her fully grown children moved out of the house.
“I didn’t know that Melissa has her own doll obsession/collection that she’s shared with me. I actually saw her at the Rose Bowl flea market one early morning, and I didn’t know her personally then and she was looking at a collection of old Barbie dolls and she ended up buying those,” Hoffman said. “So it might have been subconscious, but it was an idea before we were certain that she was going to be able to do it with us.”
McCarthy’s arc as Doreen ultimately culminates in an all-out brawl with Meryl Streep’s Loretta over Martin Short’s Oliver, which both actresses were immediately on board with.
“The first time I told Meryl you’re going to be in this real fight for Oliver, she raised her hands up over her head and replied ‘I put my money on me,’ which I loved,” Hoffman said.
After watching the scene mapped out by the show’s stunt coordinators, Streep and McCarthy decided to ditch the original plan.
“Melissa and Meryl looked at each other like they were in the WWE and said ‘Yeah, I don’t think that’s going far enough. We have some ideas about what we’d like to do.’ And both of them started rolling up their sleeves and mapped that out themselves,” Hoffman said.
“I was terrified and I watched Meryl flipping herself over that sofa and was like ‘Wait a minute, we’re going to be shooting this, which means we’re doing it many times. I can’t. What are we doing?” And they just said, ‘Get out.’ They took it over and it was a feast, they did that all themselves,” he continued. “There may be one shot of a double at one moment, but beyond that it’s all them and I still can’t believe we have this insanity. But it was a blast and they were both so up for it.”
After McCarthy and Meryl finished chewing up scenery, Zach Galifiankis, Eva Longoria and Eugene Levy confirm what audiences may have been suspecting in the previous episode: That the killer has been watching the trio since Season 1.
They match the “I’m watching you” texts to the same handwriting and note that was posted on Jan’s door back in Season 1 and also suggest that the unidentified culprit who poisoned Oliver’s dog Winnie is likely the same suspect. And Charles realized that Sazz figured everything out and was trying to warn him before she was murdered.
Howard also learned and immediately notified the group that Dudenoff’s checks were being cashed by none other than the Westies — setting up yet another twist.
“When we were incorporating our doppleganger trio, I really wanted to include that they had perspective and the underselling of them by our trio. And then have them get investigative in the way that Meryl says — actors are investigators — and honoring that and getting to it. And the idea of that felt really right to me for the end of this episode that after all the insanity, they’ve landed one of the biggest turns in the season case-wise and wake up our trio,” Hoffman said. “And then, there are big moves yet to come from that West Tower that turn the story and change everything you thought you knew.”
New episodes of “Only Murders in the Building” drop Tuesdays on Hulu.
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