The Once Upon A Time In The West Reference In Only Murders In The Building Season 4, Explained

This post contains spoilers for the first episode of "Only Murders in the Building" season 4.

Who doesn't love a good movie reference? Hulu's popular mystery-comedy "Only Murders in the Building" always has, whether it's crafting a set featuring stealth nods to many of Meryl Streep's best roles or letting Steve Martin deliver a cute "Father of the Bride" joke during a climactic moment. The show's references have always been great, but they've never been an overt, overlying theme of the series so much as a series of semi-subtle winks and nods for the movie buffs watching. The new, Hollywood-centric fourth season seems set to change that.

The new season starts off with an ode to the movies, delivered in the form of Charles' (Martin) final podcast recording for last season's mystery, the death of movie star Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd). "Motion pictures were created over a hundred years ago, and ever since then we've had countless moving images emblazoned in our memories," Charles explains. Adorably, the series opts not to show us a movie montage at this moment, but instead a series of clips from what appear to be the actual home movies of stars Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short. All three are caught on camera in their younger days, with Martin joking via voiceover that ever since the dawn of movies, "we've had a chance to ask, 'Is that how I look when I run?'"

The season premiere may start with home movie clips, but it ends with an encapsulation of everything filmmaking has achieved in its century on the scene: fragments of the opening moments of Sergio Leone's famous spaghetti Western "Once Upon A Time in the West." The 1968 movie stars Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards, and it's a gorgeously shot epic about murder and revenge in the American West. "A great movie moment can live in your head forever," Charles says in voiceover during the episode's final scene (it's worth noting that, since the team already wrapped the third season of their podcast, we don't actually know in what context he's delivering these lines). "The opening of 'Once Upon a Time in the West' is seven minutes of nothing but sounds and images," he continues, "but once you see it, you never forget it." But what's the true point of the reference here?

The cross-edited scene that caps off the "Only Murders" premiere is certainly striking, but it also doesn't explain itself: like the first 10 minutes of Leone's film (sorry, Charles, you got the runtime wrong — at least according to the remastered version), it lets visuals, sound, and a stirring score do the talking for it. 

The scene in question shows the trio of amateur detectives finally put two and two together, realizing that Charles' stunt double Sazz (Jane Lynch) was killed after they conclude that the whistling sound they heard earlier in the episode was actually from a gunshot hole in the window. On the most basic level, the "Once Upon A Time In The West" reference is designed to remind us to pay close attention to sounds and details. In Leone's film, the noise a buzzing fly makes suddenly transitions into the sound of a roaring train, and that same fly gets trapped in the barrel of a gun by one of the characters. In "Only Murders," the whistling that Charles was convinced was in his head actually belonged to the New York City winds, buffeting a small hole in his glass window.

The homage is a great one, but it's also slight enough that it seems likely that "Once Upon in the West" could come up again this season. It's possible that every episode will feature a different classic movie spotlight — the season is, after all, about the "Only Murders" podcast being adapted into a film — but it's also possible that Leone's epic could bookend the season. After all, it includes a sort of murder mystery of its own, along with a surprise widow, motives involving money and land, and a poignant, painful revenge story that doesn't become clear until the eleventh hour. Could whoever killed Sazz have done so as a sort of revenge for some long-forgotten slight? If so, it could be Charles, not Sazz, who did the slighting, as it seems quite likely that his stunt double was killed in his place.

The final scene of the episode is surprisingly emotional, and like the movie Charles mentions by name, it manages to convey plenty of human drama with very little dialogue. We see the trio examine the hole in the glass, then see Mabel shine a light on small smears of blood on the stove's dials. Howard's (Michael Cyril Creighton) rescued cadaver dog, Gravey, leads the group down into the underbelly of the Arconia, and without a word, Charles sifts through the ash in the incinerator to find a shoulder joint from Bulgaria — proof that Sazz is dead, and someone disposed of her body. Sounds and images, yet unforgettable.

Is "Only Murders" putting itself on par with Leone's masterpiece here? Not at all, but its premiere is certainly elevated by the cross-cut comparison, which reminds us that this isn't just some show about narcissistic old guys goofing around, but a series made by an actor who's been a major part of cinematic history for five decades and counting. With one well-placed homage, "Only Murders in the Building" takes itself up a notch, promising a season full of not just laughs and twists, but of reverence for movies as a medium that helps us make sense of the world.

New episodes of "Only Murders in the Building" hit Hulu each Tuesday.