The devil said to Adrian Leverkühn, the genius protagonist of Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann said that “true passion can only be found in ambiguity and irony.” For those of us who grew up with Tarantino, the Coen brothers, the grunge, the endless jokes, the sarcasm of Seinfeld and the embers of the now criminalized generation X this sounds strange to us, because they have convinced us that irony (the axis of all that popular culture that we suck on) is a decadent trait, the door to nihilism. Ironic is he who does not believe anything, and he who does not believe anything, does not get involved in anything and contemplates the world from the distance of a sofa, with a half smile that is not rebellious, just lazy. However, Mann’s devil believes in irony as a passionate force, as the engine of all truly fertile creation. That is, of demonic creation, because there is no authentic art if one does not first make a pact with Satan.
It was very comforting to read it in these times devoid of irony, and Only murders in the building —one of the few examples of vitality, audacity, intelligence and popular success on television today— confirms the diabolical phrase. Like all successes, this one was also unexpected and overwhelming (despite the financial bet and the star-studded roster). The series was born in the corset of parody, which can dazzle and deafen with laughter, but always has a short fuse: the mockery, however brilliant, quickly runs out and, if it is not transformed into something else, it stagnates and stinks.
But Only murders in the building Its premise soon transcended—parodying the police genre and making fun of the trend of podcasts— true crime— and, without abandoning the farce and a touch of delirium that some will say is Beckettian and others, Kafkaesque, it has grown to honor the Satanic idea that true passion is only found in ambiguity and irony. Its metanarrative plots, its winks to star system and the hilarious grace with which it shows the tricks of the entertainment business make it one of the few current titles that will deserve a mention in the history of popular culture of the 21st century. Although it may appear there as a dirge or as the last truly passionate (that is, artistic) expression of a cultural industry that will soon forget its glory years.
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