Hulu’s hit series Only Murders in the Building aired its final episode a couple of weeks ago. Already renewed for a second season, the show has become an audience’s favorite extremely quickly. With a mixture of comedy and drama, Only Murders in the Building is refreshing to watch for many reasons, and one of those is the creative ways they chose to tackle different subjects.
What is Only Murders in the Building About?
The series tells the story of a murder that happens inside an apartment building, the Arconia, in New York City. The main characters, Oliver, played by Martin Short, Charles, played by Steve Martin, and Mabel, played by Selena Gomez, seemed like an unlikely trio. However, they have something in common: their love for true crime podcasts. Because of this, they decide to start their own investigation, which lead to the creation of their true-crime podcast, called Only Murders in the Building.
Each episode is told from the perspective of one of the characters. Through voice-overs and focusing on their actions and past stories, we learn who they truly are. So, when it came to the episode of the deaf character called Theo, played by James Caverly, the spectators became intrigued. How are they going to do it? The answer: brilliantly.
How Does the Series Portray Disabilities?
The episode starts with a painful scene of Theo’s father, played by Nathan Lane, trying to show his son a Broadway show soundtrack. However, just like Theo, the audience can’t hear the music. From that on, sound design became a major character in the storytelling of this episode. When Theo is on screen, we only hear muffled sounds, nothing with clarity. When he is not on the screen, we can hear when the character knocks on doors, etc – because the characters are hearing these sounds. Nevertheless, the characters don’t speak, even when Theo is not present. Also, the soundtrack is audible through the episode, but that happens because none of the characters can hear the soundtrack.
“To Theo, his deafness is not a problem that needs to be fixed (…)” Dabis, the director of the episode.
How did the murder investigation move forward without the character speaking?
Besides a few characters using sign language (with subtitles), because Theo is deaf he can read a person’s lips. So we watch the characters speaking from afar. These scenes showed the audience that the once side character was following closely the investigation as well. Also, because he is so far away it would be impossible to hear anything anyway.
The writers were extremely smart in placing the characters that are not deaf in situations where they can’t speak anyway: at a funeral, hiding in someone else’s apartment, etc. When they do have to communicate, they send text messages to each other or mouth words. Another clever idea was to use the game Scrabble to communicate. Charles and Jan, played by Amy Ryan, do this on their first date.
The director of the episode is called Cherien Dabis. is a queer woman of color. She mentioned in interviews that she is aware of the marginalization that characters – and actors – can suffer. Because of that, she took extra care and thought while planning on how to direct this episode. She said she studied various documentaries and analyzed how deaf characters are usually represented on tv and in film.
“How will they see the difference between the point of view of Theo versus the trio?’ And it was a really great question that challenged me to find a visual language for differentiating those two storylines.” Dabis, the director of the episode
Is this show the first to have an ASL episode?
No, it is not. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer did an episode where the characters couldn’t talk because of a monster that could find them by the sound they made. There are other episodes from different tv shows that have already done similar storytelling techniques. However, Only Muders in the Building is the first to have an ASL episode with a deaf character played by a deaf actor. The sensibility showed in the way it was shot and how the sound was designed shows the series creator’s worry to do justice to the deaf community.
Only Murders in the Building set the bar high for upcoming shows for numerous reasons: the compelling storylines, relatable characters, interesting concepts, and the inclusion of diversity in a way that allowed everyone in the team to be creative. While also being respectful and inclusive.
If you want to know more about the diversity of the leadership roles in Only Muders in the Building, check out this article: https://insight.balancenow.co/how-diverse-is-only-murders-in-the-building/
