The New Trailer For 'Only Murders In The Building' Teases A Bad-Acting Meryl Streep And The Wildest Season Yet

*MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD*

First of all, I can't believe the third season of Only Murders in the Building is coming out on August 8. For such a smash hit streaming show, the marketing campaign has been pretty quiet. I get that the promotional side of things is complicated by the SAG-AFTRA strike, but I can't remember they dropped any sort of teaser or trailer until this week.

In case you aren't familiar with the premise, Only Murders follows the power trio of Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. They start a true crime podcast after someone is murdered in their Upper West Side apartment building. Pretty straightforward name for the Hulu series, eh?

Good start to Season 3 on the ol' Tomatometer if that's how you gauge whether or not to watch things:

Carrying on to the actual substance of said trailer, and of the show itself. The first two seasons of Only Murders are really good. Martin's still got it. Where did Short go for such a long time? Because he's fantastic. We need as much of him as we can still get. Gomez nails that sort of dry-delivery, deadpan comedy and gets even more to do in Season 2 character-wise.

Now we're getting a third season that will prominently feature Meryl Streep. Yep that's right. Meryl Streep. I almost can't believe it. And it seems she's playing an actor of some kind. We've seen other celebrities make brief appearances as versions of themselves. Don't think she's doing that, but it's hilarious to me that Streep is portrayed as bad at acting. What a fun challenge it must be for arguably the best actor of all-time to actually not be good.

Reminds me of this joke about Streep from the Anchorman cast:

The end of Only Murders Season 2 leaves quite a cliffhanger with Paul Rudd's character dying onstage in a Broadway play directed by Short's Oliver Putnam. You see some of that in the trailer. I bet we're getting a flashback to when Putnam's play was in development, as Rudd and Streep are at what looks like a table read.

Among other things, this trailer also provided a brief shot of Matthew Broderick, who I had no idea would feature in Season 3. Martin and Co. keep getting all sorts of stars to pop up in surprise roles for Only Murders. I'm sure there are more than a couple surprises in store this time around. The trailer doesn't give away a lot and I don't get the sense that they wasted their best jokes here. It does say this will be "the wildest season yet." Love to see it.

Both season finales to date have had excellent twists at the end. The last of them involved Michael Rapaport, which a Barstool audience can find humor in for obvious reasons. I'm not gonna lie, I pretty much loathe the whole true crime podcast/documentary fascination. I think it's kinda fucked up. But Only Murders as a show makes strong arguments to justify the existence of that type of content — not only in the meta sense of the show itself — yet also provides really interesting commentary on the uglier/darker side of it. Makes for a hell of a compelling watch throughout.

Plus, you have comedic geniuses like Martin and Short somehow adding levity to such grim situations their characters find themselves in. I don't know how Only Murders juggles it all and keeps so many balls in the air. What could be a tonal catastrophe (h/t Whiplash) has been one of the best, most consistent shows on the small screen in recent years. All sorts of Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Now would be a good time to binge and catch up if you haven't already!

Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok