Everything to Know About That Shocking 'Only Murders in the Building' Season 4 Premiere Cameo
SPOILER ALERT! This article contains information about the Season 4 premiere of Only Murders in the Building. Please don't read any further if you do not wish to know any further details.
Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building is bringing our motley trio of Charles, Oliver, and Mabel out west, as the group explores turning their hit podcast into a movie. Naturally, that means a lot of star power is going to make its way into the hit Hulu series. But amongst a celeb-filled guest cast, including Molly Shannon, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, and Zach Galifianakis, we were still caught by surprise with a surprise cameo in the season premiere.
In the first episode of Season 4, our main characters are rubbing elbows with the rich and famous out in Hollywood. Charles spies a familiar porkpie hat on someone whose back is to him. He assumes it belongs to his stunt double Sazz. Little does he know, though, that Sazz is this season's first victim, as the Jane Lynch character was killed in the Season 3 finale.
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Instead, the hat belongs on the head of the episode's surprise cameo: Scott Bakula. Once the mistake is realized, the Star Trek: Enterprise and Quantum Leap actor admits to Charles that Sazz is MIA, saying, "she was supposed to double me on this pilot we shot last week, but she never showed." It's that revelation that leads our trio back to New York, where they discover another murder is afoul.
Bakula's appearance is a happy surprise for OMITB fans. The actor has been a part of the lore of the series previously, as recently as last season, when Andrea Martin's Joy reveals to her ex-fiancée Charles that she was seeing him. And, for what it's worth, Bakula was well aware of his place in the show's canon prior to his appearance on the show. Series creator John Hoffman told TVLine that Bakula was "completely aware of it. He had been told by many friends, 'Hey, you keep coming up on this show,’ and he’d say, 'Yes, I know… but I’m not sure why..'"
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One reason why may be the fact that Hoffman and Bakula have worked together before. Hoffman was a writer and executive producer on the HBO drama Looking. Bakula played a recurring role as the love interest of Murray Bartlett. And the name drops on OMITB led to a reconnection between the two, which then transitioned into discussions of a cameo.
“I saw Scott in a fantastic musical in New York that he was doing right before he came to shoot with us this season," says Hoffman. "I had a nice chat with him about all of this, and he was so game. He was like, 'I’m so excited to be a part of it, even in this small way,' which was basically all we could get with him."
Bakula was clearly game to play a more two-dimensional version of himself. And he apparently was so excited about the cameo that he even vowed to keep it a secret until the premiere aired. It goes to show that there are plenty of mysteries abound in Only Murders in the Building, even outside of the titular killings.
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