Only Murders in the Building's best aspect is its willingness to depict true-crime aficionados without looking down at them

Los Angeles Times

"The genius of the show is its willingness to navigate the gradations of true-crime culture, from mild enthusiasts to dangerous zealots," says Lorraine Ali of the Hulu series. "It has fun with the fascination around crime-solving fare, but it takes a more critical tone when depicting the desperadoes who insert themselves into cases — and the hassle they can cause investigators, exemplified by Da’Vine Joy Randolph‘s exasperated detective. By the end of this week’s episode, it turns out that the theory the Only Murders superfans helped devised is wrong: The Dimas family did not kill Kono. “Real life doesn’t always resolve like mysteries do,” one says in voice-over. But the series also resists the urge to look down on my (maybe occasionally trashy) bingeing habits. I’ve spent countless hours watching and listening to investigations, from Netflix’s Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan to Peacock’s Dr Death: The Undoctored Story. It’s morbid, I know. But it’s one slice of televised reality where avengers who are not superheroes sometimes achieve justice and, as rarely happens in cases of political corruption or corporate crime, there’s the possibility of accountability if the culprit is caught."

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