The fifth season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building is now streaming, and sees Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez once again trying to solve a murder that has taken place in their Manhattan apartment building.
The story this season involves a secret, illegal casino operating under their noses, and Martin’s character—a washed-up actor who decades ago had a hit detective series—gets to show off some cardistry skills.
Martin, of course, started out his career as a magician before becoming a comedy legend. His card-handling, however, is still there based on what he does with a deck in the season’s first episode. For a brief moment, we see him make a fan and do some second deals, just for fun.
The cards themselves also have some magic to them in that they’re marked: He notices he can see a map to the secret casino on one of them when he looks at it through the red tint from a glass of wine. And without getting into spoilers, the fuzz from the green felt on a dealer’s table apparently plays a role in figuring out the mystery.
In the official podcast that goes with the season, Martin talked about what it felt like to work with cards on the show.
“When I’m practicing cards in my little apartment [on set], I’m doing stuff I did when I was 15.”
He also added that, separate from Only Murders, he recently did a shoot at Disneyland for an upcoming, unnamed show. “It took place in the magic shop where I worked when I was 15, on the very spot where I stood,” he said. “So I had the feeling that I went to work and I was 15, and I came home and I was 80.”
Photos by Patrick Harbron/Disney