Meryl Streep and Martin Short’s Budding Romance is the Best Part of ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 3

Only Murders in the Building Season 3 is a mixed bag of mystery cliches and hack jokes, but it has one thing that makes it compelling, must-watch TV: an insane celebrity cast. While everyone from Selena Gomez to Paul Rudd shines in Only Murders Season 3, the show really sings when Martin Short and Meryl Streep are onscreen together. Pairing the Canadian clown with America’s finest dramatic actress might seem like a gambit, but Short and Streep draw their best work from each other. Short is able to flex his dramatic muscles as a dashing romantic lead while Streep gets to embrace her hippie dippy side. The result? A tender romance that propels the emotional center of Hulu‘s Only Murders in the Building Season 3.

Only Murders in the Building Season 3 mixes up the Upper West Side-set show’s vibe by fully embracing the world of the theater. After the explosive success of their true crime podcast, Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) is tapped to return to Broadway, helming a murder mystery called Death Rattle, and Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) will tread the boards as one of the play’s leads, an inspector. However, Oliver, Charles, and millennial pal Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) are once again pulled into the center of a murder investigation when Death Rattle‘s leading man, movie star Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd) drops dead on opening night. Suspicion settles on everyone involved with the production, including a discovery of Oliver’s, Loretta Durkin (Meryl Streep).

Only Murders in the Building‘s third season opens with Loretta’s all-too-common tale. As a girl, she fell in love with the theater and devoted herself to studying dance and drama. When she finally moved to New York City, Loretta constantly came close to a big break, but never broke through. That is, until she auditioned for the role of “The Nanny” in Death Rattle. Her audition moves Oliver and by the time of Ben’s death, their relationship has become flirtatious. The one silver lining they both see in the play’s demise? They’re now free to be a couple.

Of course, that doesn’t last long. The play is immediately resurrected and Oliver pours himself into saving the one show that could rehab his ruined career. Loretta, likewise, is keen to take advantage of the first break in her whole career. Nevertheless, the spark between Oliver and Loretta stays sizzling throughout the rest of Only Murders in the Building Season 3.

This marks the first time Only Murders in the Building has given Oliver a contemporary love interest. So far, we’ve only seen him boo-ed up in flashbacks showing his marriage to Roberta (Adriane Lennox). Watching Oliver flirt with Loretta, fret over Loretta, and even protect Loretta is as endearing as it is electric. Meryl Streep, for her part, seems to come alive in a way we’ve never seen before with Martin Short as a scene partner. It’s as though the two actors are as in love with working together as their characters are with each other.

Both Meryl Streep and Martin Short are legendary in their own right. Although they are best known for wildly different genres, Streep and Short’s careers have been distinguished by their shared ability to morph into any and every imaginable character. Here, though, it feels like they are stripping the masks of drama and comedy back to expose a tenderness you don’t typically get to see in twilight couples onscreen. There is gratitude mixed with regret, joy and trauma in their scenes. Most of all, there is supernova bright light jumping off both stars as they play off each other in Only Murders in the Building.

Only Murders in the Building might have built its reputation as a genre-bending mystery show, but this season the main event is Meryl and Martin together at last. The onscreen team up we never knew we needed.