Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building pulls off magic every season, but this fourth go-around is its biggest and most personal mystery yet. The old saying goes that comedy is all about timing, but the editing team behind the John Hoffman comedy series has to keep that in consideration while also stringing tension through a murder mystery. It’s tension on top of tension. Co-editors Shelly Westerman and Payton Koch balance genres beautifully again in season four, but they also drive the deepest emotional story through to its end. They do Sazz proud.
This season had me guessing who the killer up until the very end, and every episode ended with a new cliffhanger. Of all the seasons so far, this latest mystery had me switching my theories by the time each episode ended. Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Detective Williams even says, “”There are approximately forty thousand fucking suspects,” so it’s like the show even acknowledges how vast it is or how tough the case becomes.
“We have to credit our amazing writers, and we are just as shocked as the viewers are when we end of a cliffhanger,” Koch says. “When a new seasons starts, it’s fun to dissect the scripts and find the red herrings, and when we are in production, the scripts are still coming in and we are putting the pieces together. We don’t know immediately, unfortunately. Sometimes Shelly and I will go to John [Hoffman] and demand to know who the murderer is. Ending the episodes with the cliffhangers and point to other people. I loved how every episode ends with a vignette opening with a character and closing with a suspect.”
“We’re always talking amongst ourselves,” Westerman says. “We’ve got a big text chain going, because we talk about every clue, and we are constantly trying to keep tabs on each other. Our assistants are our safety net, because they’ll kind of remember everything and talk between them too. I edited the first episode of this season, and I didn’t realize until later that there was a key person in the background but in the distance kind of out of focus. Later on in the season, we find out that that person is important, so I like discovering those things too.”
Because the latest victim of Only Murders is close to our main trio, this story reveals new emotional depths. This is Steve Martin’s most deft performance as Charles as he tries to grapple with someone who he thought would always be there. This pair of editors were eager to sink their teeth into a hearty season.
“Payton and I have backgrounds of a little bit of every genre,” Westerman says. “You [don’t want] get pigeonholed as an editor, otherwise they will think you can only do one thing. We have both done horror, drama, comedy–everything.”
“Some of my favorite scenes that I’ve cut throughout the series have been the super emotional ones that are also comedic,” Koch adds. “One of my favorites in the second episode of this season is when Charles and Ghost Sazz are talking, and he tells her, ‘You were my best friend I’ve ever had…how am I going to go on without you?’ The piano is playing and it’s such a heavy scene, but it’s able to balance all of those feelings and tones.”
Even though they cut their own episodes each year, there is a sweet tradition that they have in working on the finales together. Director Jamie Babbit also gets in on the fun by stepping by the camera.
“Jamie has directed every finale, so it’s been us every time since season two,” Koch says. “When we joined the show, I was Shelly’s assistant, and she became my mentor. We edited everything together, and by the end of season two, we did the finale together–that was our first co-edit. From that point on, John gave me some of my own episodes, and we wanted to finish the season together. It’s more fun when Shelly and I get to spend a late night together, watching cuts and we both edit all the scenes. When we watch each other’s versions, and Shelly will find something that I never would have tried. Because we have those different perspectives, we can find the magic in it.”
When Jane Lynch’s Sazz discovers who has betrayed her, it’s some of her best acting that she’s done on the show. She’s hurt, and she couldn’t imagine that another stunt person would wrong her like that. When I chatted about the high stakes of that arc, Westerman reveals something that blew my mind.
“That was body doubles,” Westerman says. “I was watching a scene, and I thought it was Jane Lynch performing in the wide shot until she started talking. That was not Jane’s voice. They shot it on separate days with doubles, because of scheduling. That was post-production magic.”
“That goes to show how these actors can step into the scene without their real counterpart and really perform,” Koch says. “It was fun to see them separately and then piece them together to build the scene. The camera stays on Sazz a lot, because you are really feeling her emotion. At the same time, we’re in Marshall’s POV since he’s telling the story. I loved that contrast throughout that confrontation.”
“That was more about watching the dailies and feeling her performance,” Westerman says. “We wanted to give her a moment, and we felt like there was no reason to cut away from her. Jane is absolutely spectacular, especially because we’ve been building up all this time with her character.”
I couldn’t let this pair go without tell Westerman how much I love the finale of the premiere. When Charles, Mabel, and Oliver descend to the Arconia’s basement, they discover remains in the incinerator. We all know who has died in that moment, and the realization hits Charles like a ton of bricks. Westerman knew she wanted to stay on Martin’s face as long as she could.
“When I saw the dailies, I told myself, ‘I don’t care what anyone says, I’m staying on that shot,'” Westerman says. “We have to temp score this stuff with hostless music from all the other seasons, and so Payton and I will go and find stems of music. I’ll have different instruments of a cue, but I can pick it apart, so you immediately know when a cue is to big. But that ding…ding…ding…I did that as a temp and John loved it.”
Only Murders in the Building is streaming now on Hulu.
