You may be under the false assumption that Murderville is an improv-game show hybrid in which the celebrity guest star for each episode must help solve a murder. Well, that is what happens, but there's actually another game going on right under our noses. The real goal of Murderville is to get as many of the show’s cast members as possible to break character. To score points, the guest stars will need to make a scene unmanageable in some way for one of their co-stars — meaning more than just a chuckle or smirk. Any kind of sustained reaction that poses a significant obstacle to carrying the scene will count for points.
With the Netflix original series sporting an all-star comedy cast, this is no easy feat. Each guest star is introduced as the new partner of Detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett), who is not an easy personality to keep a straight face around. The trainees are given no script and experience the mystery in real-time, with regular cast members bending their lines around the variables introduced by the guests. Since they need to be prepared for anything, the supporting cast of Murderville is hard to crack — but not impossible. To make things more interesting, trainees can stand to lose points when they fail to maintain their undercover personas during investigative sequences. Some trainees fair better than others, so let’s break down each contestant’s performance and find the champion of Murderville’s true challenge.
Conan O'Brien
In Conan’s episode, Terry and Conan establish themselves as two master riffers during their introductory office banter. With Conan proving himself capable of keeping up with Arnett’s quips toe-to-toe, one can’t help but see the amount of hot sauce Arnett later puts on Conan’s sloppy jalapen-joes as an act of sabotage against a comedic rival.
Conan’s time to shine arrives when he is sent undercover to interrogate the leader of the Mothers Against Magic Association, Kathy Johanson (Mary Hollis Inboden). As Todd Caringtonbergensonfield, Conan does an excellent job keeping composure while Terry gives him an increasingly long cover name to recite over his earpiece. When Kathy puts him on the spot and asks him to share his experiences with magic, Conan tells a beautifully composed story about being beaten by children who grew up to be senators. Without missing a beat, Kathy asks him to name one.
Totally deadpan, Conan replies “Dianne Feinstein." Kathy stops dead in her tracks, loses her character’s suspicious expression, and turns from the camera suppressing her laughter. Conan mercilessly presses on with the scene, and while Inboden recovers quickly, Conan got her dead to rights. Good job, Conan!
Conan’s Score: +1
Marshawn Lynch
Marshawn is at an inherent disadvantage in his episode. All three of his suspects are played by the same actor, Rob Huebel. This means Marshawn loses out on two other potential victims for this game. It doesn’t help matters that all three suspects have larger-than-life personalities, and Huebel is a master of staying in control while steering extremely exaggerated scenarios.
The moment of each episode where the guest star is most vulnerable to losing points is when Terry makes them go undercover. Up until this point, the guest star is simply playing themselves. Once they go undercover, they are no longer acting naturally, they are playing a role; which means they themselves can break character.
When Marshawn investigates the last of the triplets, Chadd, he assumes the role of blackjack dealer Octavius Shitwagon. Marshawn has to repeat everything Terry tells him over his earpiece. Chadd asks about his usual dealer and, per Terry’s instructions, Marshawn tells him the usual guy as Tommy Tune in a movie musical. Marshawn keeps his head above water until Terry feeds him over the earpiece the line, “Tommy Tune taps his way all over the canoe.” Marshawn tries to repeat this, but he breaks, tries again, and keeps laughing. For some reason, this one line nails him — maybe it’s the alliteration? Marshawn does recover, and he keeps his composure as Shitwagon for the rest of the scene, but Tommy Tune’s tapped canoe is going to cost him the game.
Marshawn’s Score: -1
Kumail Nanjiani
For Kumail’s episode, he helps investigate a murder at Terry’s old high school. There is a moment while they inspect the body together that the victim's corpse appears to be smirking slightly, but it’s so subtle we’ll let it slide. Keeping perfectly still as a dead body is incredibly difficult when someone is pulling a piece of paper out of your mouth, and Kumail’s laugh is infectious. No points here.
However, they later investigate Terry’s old crush, Lisa Capobianco (Erinn Hayes) and Terry needs Kumail to make him look good by doing the “ugliest dirt walk” he can muster, along with a “signature sound.” As they walk toward Lisa, what comes out of Kumail’s mouth can only be described as Yoda in heat. Arnett covers his mustache with his hand to mask his laughter and actually has to stop walking in order to give himself time to recuperate before advancing the scene. Since Arnett is such a seasoned improv veteran, the points awarded for this achievement will be doubled. Well done, Kumail.
Kumail’s Score: +2
Annie Murphy
Annie and Terry quickly establish a bitter animosity as Terry sabotages Annie’s attempts to interrogate suspects. He does this by interrupting her questions while making macarons, and by reverting to toddlerhood in the kindergarten teacher’s classroom. Annie expresses her frustration with Terry, and teacher Ms. Anya Cortez (Erica Hernandez) suggests drawing self-portraits. Impressively, when Hernandez is shown Annie’s alarmingly buxom nude stick figure self-portrait, she doesn’t so much as blink while praising her artistry and knowledge of anatomy.
Without scoring any points, Annie moves into the danger zone when it comes time to go undercover as Johnny Maplecock. Working at a disadvantage, trying to rough up her voice as a Jerseyian pancake king, Annie is forced to repeat gems such as “dog poop inside your head instead of brains” and “flapjack orgasm." She struggles at times, but she actually manages to make it through without totally breaking down. Her nervous smiles and laughter are mostly masked by her mustache and gruff voice (a trick pulled straight from Arnett's book), and she is able to steadily get her lines out. You broke even, Annie!
Annie’s Score: 0
Sharon Stone
Sebastian Pierce, MD is murdered in a hospital, and the actor playing the victim struggles to keep composure as a dead body while Terry and Sharon boop his nipples. However, the nipple-booping is shamelessly initiated by Arnett, not Sharon. Although she eagerly participates, she may not have ever thought to bother the poor body’s nipples on her own, thus she can hardly collect points just for jumping on the bandwagon.
During the undercover segment, Sharon assumes the persona of German surgeon Dr. Eva Brownfinger. Arnett’s face becomes noticeably taut as Stone employs an impeccable German accent, inquiring their suspect, Dr. Gonzales (Josh Banday) about “ze hanky-panky with ze wife." In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot, Arnett has his fist raised up to his mustache, attempting to hide a smile while Stone asks Dr. Gonzales what made him want to become an anesthesiologist. Whether due to production editing or Arnett’s own caliber, the scene continues without a hitch. Despite this, Sharon deserves a little something for her efforts.
Sharon’s Score: +0.5
Ken Jeong
After laying in the victim’s chalk outline and pretending to die for Terry, Ken tells him that he will go “balls deep” in the investigation. The Chief (Haneefah Wood) scoffs, rolls her eyes, and puts her hand over her face at this. It is unclear if this act is done in-character, or if it’s Wood's attempt to mask her reaction to Ken’s solemn vow. Chief is usually smiling when we see her, so Wood has a strong defense against visible tells. It's too close to call — no points here. Ken never comes this close to scoring again.
While undercover, Ken is a mess. He laughs through almost all the prison interrogation — while doing push-ups; while confessing his murder of Santa Claus; at Seamus Doyle (Peter Giles) using Irish Spring; at Taken and Taken 2 jokes; he basically loses all control by the end of the interrogation and is stuck laughing nonstop. As Phil Danger on the Shark Tank parody, “Den of Snakes," he does a much better job. But when Terry puts him on the spot to impersonate the President of Finland over the phone, Ken is asked to spell “Greensboro” and can’t even get started past his immediate laughter. Terry has to give Ken the “straight face” hand gesture to no avail. Finally, Ken wrecks again while pretending to be the future self of Police Commissioner Barton (Phil LaMarr) under threat of being tasered. With so many breaks of laughter, and no wins under his belt, Ken is going to round out the group firmly in last place. Sorry, Ken.
Ken’s Score: -3
Final Tally
Now that everyone’s points are tallied, let’s take a look at the scoreboard.
Ken: -3
Marshawn: -1
Annie: 0
Sharon: 0.5
Conan: 1
Kumail: 2
Congratulations, Kumail! You won Murderville according to completely made-up rules, unsanctioned by the show’s producers, by Netflix, or by anyone whose judgment actually matters. May your championship title remain intact for Season 2.