Ben has a strong mix of swagger, insecurity, and outright cruelty and I wanted to see more of him – the season is sorely missing the cool antagonism previously provided by criminal podcast sponsor Teddy Dimas (Nathan Lane).Īnother meta gag in season 3 comes from Oliver discovering Streep’s Loretta Durkin, who spent decades searching for her big break before landing a role as a nanny in Death Rattle. Rudd does an excellent job of parodying himself as the seemingly ageless star of CoBro, a movie series about a zoologist who fights crime by turning into a giant snake. With their wealth and uncomfortably close relationship, the Demeos come across like a pale imitation of Arrested Development’s Lucille and Buster Bluth.ĭisappointingly, scenes focused on these characters is time we don’t get with season 3’s marquee guests. The rest of the characters involved in Death Rattle are largely one-note caricatures like actor and TikTok influencer Kimber (Ashley Park) and mother-son producing team Donna (Linda Emond) and Cliff Demeo (Wesley Taylor). The ensemble is also overstuffed this season: Michael Cyril Creighton is elevated to the main cast, but his cat-loving character Howard Morris gains no additional depths beyond an enthusiasm for The Great White Way. The situation isn’t improved by seemingly dead-end plots like famous podcaster Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) offering Mabel a job or the jettisoning of major character growth from previous seasons like Charles’ reconciliation with his daughter-figure Lucy (Zoe Colletti).
Season 3 seems to mostly be focused on a parody of the theater world (complete with original songs from the La La Land duo of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul), which has its highs but leaves Mabel highly disconnected from the rest of the cast.
Past seasons skillfully blended the mystery with a powerful theme, with season 1 focused on loneliness while season 2 delved into issues of legacy and the complexity of family bonds. But they don’t get on the mic until well into season 3 and until then the characters leave some of the most obvious evidence and suspects unexamined while worrying over clear red herrings. Only Murders in the Building’s meta structure previously ensured that the plot kept moving forward, since the characters always needed new material for their podcast in the form of new clues in the mystery they were solving.
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