On an early March day cloaked in gray skies, Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short are taking a stroll down a bustling New York City block — it’s the start of filming for the fourth season of “Only Murders in the Building.” In the scene, they witness a series of vignettes: A guy who looks like a background actor in “A Bronx Tale” hollering at a taxi that won’t stop; an annoyed kid in a Knicks jersey evading his mother’s calls from the fire escape of an apartment overhead, where a sign hangs that says “Diversity”; and a young couple who failed to gaze up at the imaginary Godzilla in the distance — each going from one over-the-top New Yawk accent to another. There‘s also a group of kids uncapping a fire hydrant and a hot dog vendor sluggishly pushing a cart down the sidewalk lined with garbage bags.
You know, just everyday New York things in New York. Or is it? The unfolding cliché-riddled scene is really just showbiz, baby. The actors, who play true-crime-obsessed, murder-solving New Yorkers in Hulu‘s comedy series, are actually wandering a Hollywood backlot, on a set doubling for New York, as the show finds a new way to get meta.
After spending last season dabbling in the theater world, the trio are nearly 3,000 miles west of their stomping grounds — the murder-prone Arconia building on the Upper East Side — as their characters juggle a new mystery and a tempting opportunity. Season 4 picks up with Mabel (Gomez), Charles (Martin) and Oliv.