YMMV / Only Murders in the Building

• Adorkable: Oliver, due to his unbridled, childlike enthusiasm in filming the podcast.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Mabel is very chill about the fact that Theo kidnapped her and Oliver in Season 1.
  • Neither Oliver or Will seem upset about knowing Teddy is Will's real father.
• Award Snub:
  • Steve Martin and Martin Short received Emmy nominations for their performances but Selena Gomez did not. What makes it especially baffling is that she did receive one in the producing category.
  • James Caverly was also not nominated for Guest Actor, despite his much praised work at the center of "The Boy From 6B".
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening theme by Siddhartha Khosla is mysterious yet dreamlike and whimsical. It's also highly malleable, as shown by the track "Who Was Tim Kono", which provides a much more somber and dramatic rendition of the theme.
  • The bassoon-heavy "Berceuse/Lullaby" from Stravinsky's Firebird Suite crops up a few times around Jan—it's understated compared to the piece's more famous segments, but still quite beautiful.
  • Season 3's first proper musical number is "Look for the Light", a haunting lullaby where Meryl Streep tugs at the audience's heartstrings. Then Ashley Park starts harmonizing, turning the song into a swelling showstopping ballad.
  • Also from Season 3 is "Which of the Pickwick triplets did it". A patter song performed by Steve Martin teased throughout the season. Finally performed in its entirety in episode 8.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • In Season 3, many viewers figured out Ben was talking to a cookie in his dressing room before it was finally revealed. This may have been because Ben's love of Schmackary's cookies and body issues are heavily established in the first episode of the season, the videotaped argument and dressing room message clues are introduced in episodes 3 and 4, and then it takes five whole episodes for the main trio to figure it out, giving the audience ample time to realize it first.
  • Season 3's prominent theme of mothers protecting their children placed Cliff and Donna at the top of many suspect lists prior to the penultimate episode revealing that Donna poisoned the cookie.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • In Season 1, Tim Kono's memorial is attended by people who either didn't know the guy or who did know him and absolutely hated him. At one point, a guy attending starts crying about his dead cat and ends up getting more sympathy than the dead Tim.
    Charles: Maybe we should do a podcast about Evelyn.
  • In Season 1, Howard, the aforementioned owner of the dead cat, passes out from the sight of Charles' nose bleeding. When Charles goes to the man's fridge to get him some ice for his head, he finds the frozen, preserved body of Howard's dead cat and accidentally breaks off its leg which he then keeps in his pocket in his panic. A few episodes later, he mentions that he still has it.
  • In Season 3, Donna intensely kisses her son, Cliff, on the mouth. She then reassures their disturbed audience that "he's gay, so I can kiss him like that."
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Mabel is introduced recapping how she's hyper-fixated on True Crime largely because of a paranoid belief that she might be victimized. She has a reoccurring fantasy about waking up to a man trying to rape her before she kills him, which is apparently such a calming idea to her it helps her sleep. Besides that, she's aloof and casually lives in an unfinished, renovated apartment, and spends her free time digitally drawing profiles from memory. Season 2 reveals she may have dissociative episodes, blacking out Bunny's murder and her attacking someone on a train that may be the person behind said murder. She confirms she's "lost" memories since her childhood, the episodes triggered by the trauma of losing her father.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Sting got a lot of love for his hilarious Adam Westing, to the point where several viewers have been clamoring for a larger role in Season 2.
  • Teddy Dimas for his grandiose charisma and an unexpectedly dastardly performance from a smug and profane Nathan Lane.
  • Theo Dimas for providing a memorable look from a deaf POV and being a very sympathetic villain played expertly by James Caverly.
  • Sazz Pataki, both for her endearing friendliness to Charles, and the hilarious concept of Jane Lynch being Steve Martin's stunt double.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Detective Williams begins Episode 6 with a flashback to her as a child watching Herman's Head, showing a scene with Herman and Louise. Louise was played by Yeardley Smith — who also hosts a true-crime podcast ("Small Town Dicks"). Ironic, as one of Williams' pet peeves is true crime podcasts!
  • In the first season finale, Charles winds up recording Jan talking gleefully about her crimes. This seems to go against Oliver's earlier insistences of making sure that they tell the people they're recording that they're being recorded... except New York is a one-party consent state when it comes to recording, so as long as one person (in this case, Charles) is aware that they're being recording, then it's perfectly legal to record their conversation.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Oliver's canon romance is with Loretta, but most fans prefer to pair him with Charles instead, due to feeling they have better chemistry.
  • Mabel has had three major relationships, with Oscar, Alice, and Tobert. However, most fans ship her with Theo instead.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Mabel's fear of getting murdered or assaulted at first seems like a relatively reasonable anxiety of a young woman living alone in New York. Then you find out that her friend Zoe was killed by being shoved off a rooftop. And years later, another friend of hers was killed in his own apartment.
  • Similarly, her snarkily asking Charles how invested she ought to get in him and Oliver, since "you don't adopt a twenty-year-old dog" becomes a lot more understandable when you realize she's not even thirty and two of her childhood best friends, and her father, have already died. She's hesitant to befriend two elderly men because it will inevitably put her through the same pain again.
• I Knew It!: Some fans correctly guessed that the woman claiming to be Leonora Folger was in fact the missing artist Rose Cooper.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Tim Kono. He was abrasive and rude to most people, having very little friends by the time he died. He was also threatened into staying quiet and letting his friend go to prison for a crime he knew he didn’t commit, which costs him his friendship with both Mabel and Oscar, and is killed because of Jan’s petty jealousy that wasn’t even warranted.
  • Bunny is a Hate Sink in the first season, but gets a sympathetic look in Season Two. Acting like an all around asshole and her antagonistic relationship with the Arconia's saviors has made her hated by pretty much everyone in the building, she continues to be pushed out of her job even after she realizes she still wants it, and despite trying to make peace with the trio, they don't invite her to join their celebration, which leaves Bunny furiously sobbing. Then she gets murdered.
  • The season 2 killer, Poppy White, AKA Becky Butler, in a contrast to Jan Bellows, is a much more sympathetic character. She had an Abusive Dad and worked for a Sleazy Politician who was trying to coerce her for sex, and was so miserable with her life she decided to fake her death and stage her own murder to attract the attention of her idol, Cinda Canning, in the hopes of working with her. Cinda however proved to be an abusive Jerkass, and "Poppy" was even more miserable. The Jerkass part comes though with the fact she still killed an innocent woman to get famous, but you can empathise with how miserable she was.
  • Ben Glenroy is self-important and a bully to everyone on set, as well as a Spoiled Brat and a plagiarist who treats his adoptive brother like a servant. But he's also deeply caught up in his inadequacies and self-loathing (including what is all but explicitly stated to be an eating disorder), works hard with the women of his sewing circle to make gifts for the cast to try and make amends, and ultimately was a very lonely and neurotic man relying on a cocktail of drugs just to get through. There's also the fact that Charles got him fired off of Brazzos when he was just eight years old, just because he thought he was a phony.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Charles' "death scene" in "I Know Who Did It" is very well-acted by all involved but unlikely to fool the viewers, given that Season 3 had already been announced by the time the episode went out.
  • Oliver's heart attack at the end of episode 8, Season 3. He accordingly wakes up the next episode fine.
• Magnificent Bastard: Teddy Dimas is an old friend of Oliver Putnam who runs a grave robbing ring in the Arconia, using his jewelry shop as a front for his operation. While he puts on the appearance of an honest and benevolent businessman, he is willing to threaten others to keep his illegal activities hidden. Notably, when Tim Kono witnesses Teddy's son Theo accidentally shove Zoe off the Arconia's roof, Teddy scares Tim against testifying by threatening his life and Mabel's, resulting in his friend Oscar unfairly going to prison. When the trio find the connection between Tim and Teddy, he threatens them into ending the podcast and absolving him of any wrongdoing, only failing due to the trio finding incriminating evidence on Tim's phone and releasing it. Returning, Teddy seeks revenge against Oliver for getting him arrested, but upon learning that he is the biological father of Oliver's son Will, drops his grudge and makes peace with Oliver, admitting that he envies the latter's positive relationship with Will.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize:
  • Amy Ryan is among the show's most famous stars and is credited in the main cast. Many fans guessed Jan was the murderer long before the reveal.
  • Michael Rapaport, who is recognizable enough that as soon as he starts displaying shifty behaviour, it becomes easy to guess he's involved in the murder in some way. While he's not the mastermind, Detective Kreps is aiding Poppy and is very much guilty of attacking Mabel and trying to frame her.
  • Subverted by Nathan Lane. While Teddy is a bad guy, he is actually protecting his son, Theo, who killed Zoe.
  • Also subverted by Tina Fey as Cinda Canning. Cinda is a Jerkass, but while she falls under suspicion of being the killer in Season 2, she is actually innocent; the killer is her less-recognizable assistant, Poppy.
• Nightmare Fuel: The image of baby Charles and baby Oliver with adult heads in Season 3 is funny but also quite disturbing.
• Older Than They Think: The premise of an out-of-work actor known for playing a detective who attempts to solve a real crime had been done 30 years earlier in Lookwell, a failed pilot for NBC starring Adam West. The key difference is that Lookwell was no good at crime-solving whereas Charles (with help from Mabel and Oliver) does manage to solve the murder.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: "Theobel" has caught on for Theo/Mabel, although some use "Mordimas," a combination of their last names.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Amy Schumer for Sting. The musician's comedic performance As Himself proved to be a big hit with fans, and in his absence, the second season made a clear attempt to replicate the Adam Westing with Schumer. As soon as she first popped up though, fans criticized her appearance as feeling forced and unfunny in comparison to the pleasant surprise of Sting's work. It doesn't help that Sting is a suspect in Tim's murder, while Schumer disappears almost as soon as she arrives with no effect on the plot.
  • Also, Alice Banks for Oscar. Both are Mabel's love interests (in Seasons 2 and 1 respectively), but Cara Delevingne's performance was negatively received, with a lot of people considering her wooden, and to be too obvious of a Red Herring. It doesn't help that Oscar's relationship with Mabel became a jarring Aborted Arc when he disappeared from Season 2 with their breakup apparently happening offscreen, despite their close connection and long friendship. Tobert in season 3 is this to a lesser extent, as while he's more likeable than Alice the general consensus is that he's unnecessary as a character.
• She Really Can Act: Selena Gomez being cast alongside comedy veterans like Steve Martin and Martin Short was left with a lot of scratched heads at first, but she quickly won acclaim for how well she meshed with the two of them, and won over many of her detractors that viewed her as just another Disney Channel has been.
• Shocking Moments:
  • A picture of Tim and Mabel (along with two other people) reveals that the latter knew the victim.
  • Oliver returning to his house to find that someone poisoned his dog, much to his distress.
  • Theo Dimas accidentally pushing Zoe off the roof to her death.
  • Charles going to Jan's room to find her lying in a pool of blood. Downplayed as she recovers by the next episode.
  • Mabel and Oliver finding a bassoon cleaner in Tim's sex toy box.
  • The final scene of Season 1 - the trio are framed for the murder of Bunny and the episode ends with them being arrested
  • Mabel stabbing a man on the subway, and the next episode revealing she doesn't remember doing it.
  • The penultimate episode of the second season reveals that not only did Cinda have evidence planted in the past so she could "solve" the murder of Becky Butler, her assistant Poppy is Becky.
  • The Season 2 finale reveals that Becky is actually the one who had the evidence planted so that Cinda could "solve" her murder and that she did the same after killing Bunny.
• Spoiled by the Cast List: Amy Ryan is listed in the main credits, despite being a minor character for most of the season. Turns out her role is much more significant.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • Episode 8 ends with Teddy and Theo being arrested and the podcast concluding... except that there are two episodes left.
  • The Season 2 finale has Alice Banks being detained for the murder of Bunny after stabbing Charles in the chest...with about a third of the episode left to go.
    • Poppy is the POV narrator for the episode, the exact same way Jan was for the penultimate episode of the first season, when she was eventually revealed to be the murderer.
  • A "previously on" in Season 2 reintroduces the podcast "All Is Not OK In Oklahoma", and the murder of Becky Butler from the pilot episode, spoiling that it's connected to the Season 2 mystery. More literally, it led a lot of people to speculate that Poppy was Becky Butler, which turned out to be true.
  • Donna is "revealed" to have killed Ben extremely early in the Season 3 finale. This gets invoked when Mabel is suspicious of her extreme under reaction. It's revealed that, while she did poison Ben, Cliff was the one who threw him down the elevator shaft which actually killed him.
• Strangled by the Red String
  • Mabel is extremely quick to get together with Alice, taking only two episodes. This has struck some as odd given her usually distant demeanor, which you'd think wouldn't be so easily worn down by Alice, who quickly comes across as shady. Adding to this is the fact that Oscar, who Mabel appeared happy with at the end of Season 1, is given the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome treatment, with Mabel going from saying the two are "waiting for the 'let's just be friends' conversation" to actively dating Alice without any resolution as to how or why the previous relationship fell apart.
  • Mabel gets together with Tobert fairly quickly, even showing him the murder board on their first date. They've been dating for approximately a month when he asks her to move to L.A. with him.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While Season 3 is at worst a Contested Sequel, unpopular things about the season include how different it is to Season 1 and 2, with some fans missing the Arconia (3 is mostly set in the theater), the podcast (it only starts right at the end of the season), and the other Arconia residents.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: At the end of Season 2, we learn that Lester the doorman was an actor in his younger years. Season 3 revolved around the theater world but Lester is barely in it and his acting career is not brought up at all.
• Trailer Joke Decay: Most promotional material for season 1 featured the scene of the podcast's fans excitedly telling Oliver "we're dying for the next episode!" and Oliver's response "We may be too!". Given the scene doesn't happen until the latter half of the season, the joke fell a bit flat in the actual show as a result.
• The Woobie:
  • Oscar Torres, for spending 10 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
  • Mabel. Her friend group was broken up after one of them died, another was sent to jail, and the third cut contact with her for reasons she couldn't discern. This leaves her hesitant to make new friends due to a fear of inevitably losing them. In the Season 2 episode, "Performance Review", she gets slandered on Cinda Canning's podcast, learns that Charles is dating her friend's murderer, finds her girlfriend recreating her apartment and filming Bunny's murder in it, and confronts the glitter bomb victim in the subway, apparently stabbing him and sinking her reputation further.
  • Charles. His career has been in a rut ever since his hit show ended, and his personal life hasn't been any better. His social skills are so bad he doesn't even realize that almost all of his neighbors hate him, which certainly doesn't help his already present insecurities. Adding to it all is when the woman he falls for turns out to be a horrific murderer who tries to take his life. And even after that, he's still desperate enough for a romantic connection that he greatly struggles to break up with her.
    • This gets worse in season 3, in which his neuroticism causes him to self-sabotage his relationship with Joy. Not to mention that Sazz, his greatest confidant and closest friend for decades, is killed in the season finale - presumably because the killer mistakes her for Charles.

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