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SPOILER ALERT: The following interview contains spoilers from “Valley of the Dolls,” Episode 7, Season 4 of “Only Murders in the Building,” now streaming on Hulu.
A Suffolk County, Long Island safe house full of creepy dolls, past strife between a brother and sister and an epic living room fight? Those are only a few components in this week’s uproarious episode of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.”
As the fourth season continues, most of the action in “Valley of the Dolls” takes place outside Manhattan and the Arconia residence. Instead, our trio of podcaster/amateur sleuths – Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) – go into hiding after realizing in last week’s “Blow-Up” episode that they’re all potential murder targets.
Enter Charles’s brassy sister Doreen (Melissa McCarthy), who opens up her home to keep them out of harm’s way. Of course, there’s little safe emotionally, as old family wounds open between her and Charles over him not giving her a bodily organ when they were kids (“I asked the doctor if I could give you my spleen, and he said it wasn’t necessary because spleens aren’t necessary,” Charles reminds her). The married Doreen finds a distraction by shamelessly flirting with a heartbroken Oliver, grieving over what he thinks is the end of his relationship with girlfriend Loretta (Meryl Streep). Her husband Mike (David Kravitz, who we don’t see until the end of the episode) isn’t far away but has been banished to his boat parked in the driveway for spending too much time at “Can Cans,” a “Hooters for butts,” Doreen explains.
The gang’s hideout also gets more populated quickly, thanks to loose-lipped friend Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) who tells the actors from the “Only Murders”movie (Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria, playing versions of themselves) and movie exec Bev Melon (Molly Shannon) where the trio is staying. Also in the mix was Doreen’s abundant collection of big and small dolls which, McCarthy, reached via email, says were “So incredibly creepy! No offense to anyone who goes down that rabbit hole, but 82% of them were absolutely haunted with dark energy.”
As the episode progresses, so does the chaos, hitting a fever pitch when Doreen throws back several Crystal Light and vodka cocktails (a.k.a., a Sweaty Betty) and, after Loretta shows up (also thanks to Howard) sparks a jealous Doreen to start a living room brawl. “I was not going to miss the opportunity to hurl Streep over the back of a couch,” McCarthy says. “For the record, I wouldn’t want to meet Meryl in a dark alley, she moves like an 18-year-old bobcat.” The sequence, McCarthy adds, took most of a day to shoot and was like a “wonderful fever dream.”
As for how McCarthy ended up playing Charles’ sister — and her insights into the way Doreen presents herself — she says: “I don’t think it’s a huge surprise that I love myself a wig moment and an over-the-top costume, but I also think it really suited Doreen. When the amazing John Hoffman called me and described the episode and the character I said yes before he could even get started.
To tell us more about how the key episode came together, about McCarthy and Streep both refusing stunt doubles for that big fight and his thoughts on the show’s longevity, “Only Murders” co-creator and executive producer John Hoffman spilled all.
In shaping the overall mystery this season and in the past, is it all planned out before you even start shooting, or do things change along the way?
Certain things absolutely change along the way. And we keep open to, like, “Oh, look what’s happening over here.” Then with the bonkers cast that came along with this season, it was like, who was available when? But in general, yes, we do have it all really mapped out. We have to go backwards to forwards, starting at the end and really figuring out what happened in this case and then twisting our way there. This episode is a clear moment where everything sort of pauses the case until the last third, but it gave great opportunity for reflection — which this entire season is about.
I don’t know how much you pay attention to fan reactions, but there was some noise about our main trio being separated a lot last season. Was it a conscious decision to keep them together more, as they’ve been, for Season 4?
Yeah, it was conscious in a way that we love that trio, and we want to see them working together. The story for Season 3 — with Oliver and his drive to aim towards the thing he wants, in contradiction with what the case is doing — felt like a divisive moment, and we’d not really had that before. So, siloing them a little bit felt very right until they burst, and then came back together in the way they did.
But, yes, I do recognize the stuff that people really connect with in our show, and listen to that and sort of go, “OK, let’s see what we can do, and be conscious of that.” The alternative is you’re hitting the same thing over and over again, and I don’t like to do that. I like the chance we’ve had with each season to really pivot that cube a bit.
Like going to Hollywood earlier this season, this episode is outside our usual setting in New York City and the Arconia. What does that do for the overall season and the mystery?
In general, the setting here is driven by what’s happening in the story so that once [Charles, Oliver and Mabel] are feeling threatened in their own home, where do they go? The concept for the episode was always “We need to find a safe house” that turns into the most emotionally fraught, unsafe space in certain ways and made you confront hard questions personally for Charles, certainly for Oliver in what’s going on with his relationship [with Loretta]. Then all of it getting magnified with the movie cast coming in and Mabel’s track of trying to ground herself in the case and find out what exactly is going on here. And then, of course, it’s the flip at the end, with that movie cast giving her what she couldn’t figure out herself.
Guest stars have been there since the first season, but how do you make sure the show stays the show? This week’s episode is just chock full of so many great people — but how do you keep it on track?
It was a concern, and it was something that I was very, very adamant about in making sure any character is a character in our world, of our show, first and foremost. And then it’s about casting the right people who can ride the tones of this show. You need actors who can really keep this stuff grounded.
Like when Meryl joined in Season 3, I was nervous for a lot of reasons, but I watched the way she integrated in and became an organic part of that world. She referred to it as, “I feel like I’m in the Berliner Ensemble!” Just referring to it in that way made me think she’s got such the right attitude, and everybody has come in that way. Like Melissa McCarthy, she went on and on about how her whole family are big fans of the show, so she came with full prep on how to be in that world. I’ve never seen anyone sink so quickly into a character as she did, and land that thing.
Speaking of Melissa, when you created Doreen, did you know it would be her or did that come later?
It came later. I don’t even know if we called her Doreen before, but she’s referenced in Season 1 in the car with Oliver and Charles on their way out to Long Island. And Charles says, “I have a sister on Long Island with all daughters with ‘D’ names.” Also, for where Charles is in this moment after Episode 6 — and feeling like everything he started with this podcast has stepped himself into a world of danger for anyone around him — the guilt around that triggers, of course, the central issue he feels and has had with his baby sister.
What did Melissa bring to the table as far as any ideas about Doreen?
I could not have loved this ride more with her. I love it when I feel something so connective when I’m seeing a great comedic actor hit dramatically in a truthful way. And, boy, she does that so beautifully. We had a big talk about the character. It was one of the great conversations on the phone I ever had with an actor describing everything that she does in this one episode. And she said, “I don’t think I’ve had a better phone call or a better discussion about what I get to do.” She said, “I’m going to explode.”
From there, I got a bunch of emails and pictures, and she was trying on wigs at home. She was describing what she wanted to do with the nails, what the outfits were. She came with a trunk of things and she and Dana Covarrubias, our costume designer, worked together immediately and put this look together, and it was just the most defined person right off the bat. I couldn’t believe it.
Also, I had to tell her that I kind of sneaked a peek at Melissa McCarthy at around 7:15 a.m. many years ago at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. I got there early. She was there early. And she was looking at this very kind of creepy collection of Barbie dolls. I had to tell her, “I don’t know what this means, but this character has an affection for dolls.” She said, “I have an affection for dolls.”
So now I must jump to my doll question, since Doreen’s collection of dolls everywhere in that house was so unsettling. Who wrangled all of them, and how many did you have on set?
We have a new property master this year, Diana Burton, and good Lord, the depth of everything she had to get and craft for us this year and it was her responsibility to get this collection of dolls. I said, “A good amount of them have to be life size.” We landed around 100 dolls, small and large and that Meryl Streep one I know was specially made. My favorite one is the one that Oliver picks up in feeling terrible about the breakup and just needs comfort.
Let’s talk about the Doreen-Loretta fight scene, because having watched it a few times now, they really appeared to have done their own stunts. Just seeing Melissa toss Meryl over that couch, that was clearly Meryl!
Terrifying! I’ll never forget when I told Meryl and Marty over dinner, as I do all the time. We had dinner to tell them what they were going to do across the season. I got to Episode 7 and explained, “There’s going to be this fight.” And the minute she heard it, she raised her hands and she went, “I put my money on me!” She was all in.
So we’re there, and we cleared the room with our stunt person, Chris Barnes, and his team had mapped out a plan for what they were going to do. It was in great detail, and looked good to us. Meryl and Melissa stood and said, “Watch this, and let’s see if it’s too much.” They looked at each other after, and they said, “It’s very good. We have some different ideas.” They didn’t think it went anywhere near far enough!
They got to choreographing this themselves, and when I saw what they were doing, I was like, “This is not mapped out with the stunt people.” They’re like, “No, no, we don’t need stunt people.” I’m like, “Meryl, you’re being thrown over that couch on your neck! I can’t!” She says, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I love it. It’s a blast. Can I hop on her back like this? And [to Melissa], ‘Grab me harder!’” They went at it so viscerally in a way that none of us were prepared for. And each time they did it, I couldn’t look.
How many times did they do it?
I think they did it three times through the whole thing. It is a brutal scene with all the timing of everyone coming in and down the stairs and all the angles. I will say there’s one shot of a stunt person for one quick second because it was just a shot that we needed but otherwise it is all them, all the time. That was a night for the ages on set.
When Meryl says “I was Lieutenant Holly Goodhead” to try to jog Eugene Levy’s memory about the “Moonraker” summer stock play that they’d done years before, how did anyone keep a straight face?
You’re picking out all my favorites. She says that with pride and with a straight face. It was more on Eugene Levy, really. Honestly, the idea that he has to go “The face isn’t ringing a bell” and then she’s coming back at him with that. They’re all such wild pros. It was a time.
With all this lunacy, your show can also hit tender moments so well — like when Charles and Doreen make amends. It’s a simple scene, but also so moving.
Truthfully, without that scene, I lose a little bit of that interest in the show in some way. It has to be grounded. It has to be understood. She’s so out of control — she’s getting drunk, but it must be sourced in something that we can recognize. And that reparation she does with him there is so heartbreaking. I knew Melissa was capable of it, but I wasn’t prepared for that. Each take was better than the next from both of them. The balance of tone is a trick here, but I somehow feel like it’s become signature to the show now. The feeling of trusting that we can get there after a while, and it’s right up against the big fight. And then, boom, in comes this emotional moment.
Do we see Doreen anymore this season, or will we see her again in the future?
That is a big hope. We will. I can’t say more than that.
Oliver and Loretta get engaged in this episode. Will there be a wedding this season?
Well, once you have an engagement, it’s really hard to avoid a wedding. That’s what I would say. I want to give a big tip of the hat to Mr. Martin Short, genius that he is, in the last moment of the takes for that engagement scene. It was his suggestion in that line, “Before I accept, is there any family money?” And no one laughs better than Meryl. That was pure, genuine delight.
Given that it’s discovered that the Westies — the Arconia residents on the West side of the building — have been taking turns cashing the deceased Dudenoff’s social security checks, is it safe to say we’ll see them in the next episode?
They’re definitely in the crosshairs. They have a lot of explaining to do, I will say that.
And, based on the actors’ case discovery, how much of past seasons will we really be diving into in the coming episodes?
The premise belies to me what I’ve always loved about New York and these buildings, and thinking of the spirits and the history and what other secrets are in these buildings. You feel them when you’re there. I think that’s the opening that I walk through every season: “OK, what now? Where can we go that surprises us?” In that way, I think there’s lots to be told about who lived there, and what choices they’ve made. And then the secrets of the actual physical building.
Speaking of, just how many more murders in the building will there be? Do you have a vision for the longevity of the series?
Dan Fogelman and Jess Rosenthal and I, and Steve Martin, we all talk about certain things like that — but we also really recognize this rare thing that somehow has come together with this show. I love the challenge of surprising ourselves as much as possible. Once you get over the hump of how many murders can happen in one building, you’re really stepping back and looking ultimately at the true original concept, which is three lonely people in New York City brought together by a common interest in true crime. Hopefully, we’ve tethered out our stories and hit reflections of things that we all recognize about life and death — and being that close to it and examining and investigating and following that, and then reflecting back. All of that feels very fertile always, so I’ll go as long as they’ll have us.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
English (US) ·