Top 10 Funniest Moments on Only Murders in the Building

The fourth season of “Only Murders in the Building” introduces us to the Arconia’s West Tower, from which the gang’s presumed murderer took the shot that killed Sazz Pataki in the previous season’s finale. But a troubling question arises as the trio attempts to piece the puzzle together: could the suspect have committed the crime and run back to the main building to collect the body in time– twelve minutes, to be exact? Well, Oliver bravely tests out this theory– and the results are… unsuccessful, but hilarious! After battling birds, berating a group of children on leashes, and being screamed at by John McEnroe, Oliver asks Mabel what his time was. To which she replies… “it’s been 38 minutes.” So close, Oliver!

The main trio are getting a lot of extra help from an unknown source. Evidence from the latest murder keeps showing up in their apartment. A bloody knife, presumably the murder weapon, becomes the object of some tension. But Oliver, spooked by a knock at the door, flings it so violently it embeds in Charles’ ceiling. A hilariously suspenseful scene with their needy and eccentric neighbor Howard plays out as he unknowingly stands right under the precarious weapon. No one can manage to go from calm to panic with as fast a turnaround as Martin Short. It gives the eccentric theater director he plays a flair for being completely unhinged.

Charles, Mabel, and Oliver attend a building-wide memorial service for the dead Tim Kono, hoping to spot a likely suspect among their neighbors. Unfortunately, Tim is not anyone’s favorite person. Every single resident of the building seems to have had beef with the guy, and no one is all that sorry to see him go. In fact, they’re just thrilled they can use their fireplaces again, and the neighbor next door already called dibs on his now vacant apartment. Instead of limiting the pool of potential suspects, this scene just opens up an overwhelming number of possibilities.

The show’s third season presents murder and mayhem behind the scenes of a musical. Oliver puts his director cap back on for the whodunit musical, “Death Rattle Dazzle.” While it gives him a great vantage point to investigate a new murder in the building, it also introduces some great moments of stress, beautifully played by Martin Short. Money troubles and lackluster performances dog the production. One disastrous rehearsal leaves Oliver feeling a little devastated. Hopeless, he tries to put on his best face before calmly disappearing into the kitchen to hurl verbal abuse at himself.

His leading actor takes a little too much chemical assistance before the musical’s big opening, but Oliver Putnam believes that the show must go on. He assumes the role himself. This last minute switch goes about as well as you’d expect. The acerbic Uma Heller sums it up in as harsh a way as possible. Oliver is a quadruple threat. He’s bad at everything he does. She may be blunt, but maybe she’s the theater critic this show needs. We can only imagine how quickly her reviews would make her the show’s next murder victim.

With a new season came an entirely new mystery to solve. Charles-Haden Savage, formerly the star of the fictional police procedural “Brazzos,” dips back into his character’s hardboiled persona when he’s arrested for murder. Unfortunately, Brazzos just doesn’t hit the same way in real life. As he’s been reminded several times over the course of the show, investigating murders is not as easy as it looks on TV. Everything he knows is really just what TV writers came up with. He mistakes a decorative mirror for a two-way mirror and generally makes a fool of himself in front of the interrogating officers.

In season 3, Meryl Streep joins the cast as an aspiring actress who falls for Oliver. During what should be a romantic candlelit dinner for two, Loretta’s steak proves to be a tough sell. It’s actually so tough that Oliver’s tooth literally becomes embedded in the meat. What might spoil anyone else’s meal becomes something truly sweet and totally bizarre. Oliver starts whistling through the gap in his teeth and Loretta compares his snorting laugh to an adorable little piglet. These two weirdos deserve each other. It makes it even sweeter that Streep and Short are such close friends in real life.

It’s not everyday a picture of your father ends up being a clue to a murder mystery. It’s also not everyday that you find out your father might have posed without clothes for a portrait . When a mysterious person, presumably the killer, leaves an erotic portrait of Charles’ father in his apartment and then vanishes, it raises a whole lot of questions. Who was his father? Did he know him at all? Is that a shadow, or…? Between Charles’ ensuing identity crisis, Oliver’s focus on the wrong things, and Mabel’s exasperation with men being weird, it’s moments like this that really make the show.

A prized piece of evidence arrives at Charles’ door. It’s the latest murder victim’s pet parrot, who tells them it knows who the killer is. Mabel, being the most sensible one, suggests they try imitating the parrot’s deceased owner to get it to spill what it knows. Oliver and Charles, ever the hams, take turns trying to adopt the owner’s characteristically nasal croak of a voice. Of course, because these two can’t ever work together, it becomes an impromptu contest to see which of them can do the best impression while an annoyed Mabel looks on.

Mabel and Charles drop in on their grieving neighbor, Howard, to pay their respects after the recent death of his cat, Evelyn. However, their real motive is to question him about Tim Kono’s murderer. This goes as disastrously as we could hope for when Howard passes out at the sight of Charles’ nosebleed, and they’re forced to take care of him. In his panic, Charles goes to the freezer for some ice and comes face to face with Evelyn herself. Howard has frozen his cat and stored her in his freezer, presumably next to some frozen pizzas. It’s one of those moments when the show asks how much we know, and how much we want to know, about our neighbors.

What’s the moment that made you fall in love with the residents of the Arconia? Tell us in the comments.