Review: “Murderville”

Will Arnett keeps viewers guessing and laughing through “Murderville”

Mollie Herron | News Editor

Netflix’s “Murderville” is a new comedy series that shows what would happen if we were put in our favorite murder mystery show and how ridiculous we would look trying to solve them.

Will Arnett is hilarious as Detective Terry Seattle, who is joined every episode by a new celebrity guest. The catch is the guest is not given a script and must investigate without any prior knowledge. Arnett is joined by guest stars such as Ken Jeong, Marshawn Lynch and Annie Murphy.

Arnett’s character Terry Seattle is an unhinged detective who urges his guest stars to make unarguably terrible decisions which only encourages them to break. The best moments are when the guest star also plays into the absurdity of the show and Arnett breaks character himself. That leaves the audience watching two comedians play with the nipples of a corpse or arguing over whether or not pancakes need to be boiled.

In almost every episode there is a scene that truly tests the guest star’s acting skills. They are given an ear piece and sent into a ridiculous situation with Detective Seattle whispering absolute nonsense into their ear. This often leads to more breaks in character that will leave viewers clutching their stomach.

The setup for each murder mystery is very obvious and makes it clear what the guest should be looking for. This allows the audience to figure it out alongside them. Personally, I only guessed three of them right because I spent much more time laughing than trying to figure out who the killer was ⏤ that is probably exactly happens with most of the guest stars.

If viewers aren’t interested in comedy detective shows but still want to check it out, I highly suggest watching episode three with guest Kumail Nanjiani. The pair goes to Detective Seattle’s high school reunion where we get to see a bit of his backstory and why he acts like the absolute fool that he is. I made the bad decision of watching this whole series in public and had to hold back many laughs and tears while watching Nanjiani attempt to keep it together on set. 9/10.

Contact the author at newseditor@wou.edu