One Of The Best Actors Of All Time Keeps Ruining TV Shows (But It's Not Her Fault)

This article contains discussions of domestic abuse.

If any TV casting directors are reading this, I have a favor to ask you. It's a doozy, but I'm begging you: Please stop putting Meryl Streep in your TV shows.

As I write this, the fifth season of "Only Murders in the Building" is about to hit Hulu, and I reviewed the latest season of this ensemble comedy for /Film (it's fine, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here). Without getting into spoiler territory, Streep, who has been nominated for a whopping (and record-setting) 21 Academy Awards and won three, appears about halfway through the season, and her mere presence isn't a spoiler. Her character Loretta Durkin was introduced back in season 3 as, hilariously, an aspiring actress who just can't seem to book a role. When I saw her reappear onscreen, I should have been excited. I love Meryl Streep. She's one of our greatest living actors! Instead, I simply sighed and thought, "Great! Meryl's back."

Note that I didn't think that "Loretta" was back. This is actually a huge part of the problem. We're well past the era where television was perceived as obviously inferior to film, and there are plenty of prestigious actors who work between the big and small screen with ease. Streep is a totally distracting presence on television, though, which is unfortunate and also isn't her fault; she's simply taking jobs she enjoys (and apparently jobs that lead to romance, as Streep and "Only Murders" star Martin Short have been dating for a little while now). 

Putting Streep in an ensemble simply doesn't work, though, and "Only Murders in the Building" is a show that lives and dies by its ensemble — especially its main trio Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez. Frankly, Streep never should have been cast on the show in the first place. Did the casting directors for "Only Murders" not bother to watch season 2 of "Big Little Lies"? She ruined that too!

Let's back up. In 2017, HBO released what was, at the time, a miniseries titled "Big Little Lies," based on Liane Moriarty's bestselling novel of the same name. The adaptation moves the action from a posh Australian suburb to a ritzy California suburb, but the gist is the same: the story begins at the end after someone in said suburb is killed, and a handful of wealthy moms make up the suspect pool. That group includes Madeline Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), Renata Klein (Laura Dern), and Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman), and I'd like to specifically draw your attention to Celeste, who's married to the handsome, successful Perry Wright (Alexander Skarsgård). Behind closed doors, Perry and Celeste's marriage is far from perfect. Perry is physically abusive towards Celeste, who's afraid to leave him and fears for the safety of her twin boys, and shortly into the intended miniseries, we learn that the person killed was Perry himself.

The story could have (and arguably should have) ended after that first season, but HBO decided to do two things instead. First, it brought "Big Little Lies" back for a second season, and second, it cast Meryl Streep as Perry's mother Mary Louise Wright, who shows up in Monterey to vy for custody of Celeste and Perry's kids in the wake of her son's death. I've never used this word to describe a Streep performance before and don't want to do so ever again, but Streep is dreadful in "Big Little Lies." She's totally over-the-top, wearing obnoxious fake teeth, and is utterly distracting. Every single time she's on screen you end up doing the Leo DiCaprio pointing meme and going, "Hey, that's Meryl Streep in a wig and fake teeth." Not only is the entire second season of "Big Little Lies" totally unnecessary, but Streep's mere presence throws it out of whack.

With that said, "Only Murders in the Building" is a more consistent show than "Big Little Lies" was across its two seasons, and one could also make the argument that season 2 of "Big Little Lies" was generally bad and that explains why Streep sucks in it. I think her similarly distracting turn in "Only Murders" proves, though, that Streep can't really be part of an ensemble. In fact, putting her in one — on the small screen, to boot — only worked once.

There is exactly one television production that deploys Meryl Streep correctly, and it's the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's sprawling, Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Angels in America." Why? She's surrounded by other heavyweights, and also, "Angels in America" is a heightened, dreamlike story where most of the actors are playing multiple characters, so Streep's impulse to "go big" totally works here. Alongside Al Pacino as infamous lawyer Roy Cohn, Dame Emma Thompson as one of the titular angels, and other powerhouse performers like Patrick Wilson, Mary-Louise Parker, Justin Kirk, and Jeffrey Wright, Streep plays a whopping four characters: Hannah Pitt (mother of Wilson's Joe), real-life figure Ethel Rosenberg, Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz, and The Angel Australia. (She is truly amazing in this. Go watch it on HBO Max if you haven't.)

If you look up how many TV shows have featured Streep versus how many films have featured Streep, it's a huge difference, and I think it's down to one thing: aside from "Angels in America," Streep fares best when she's the center of attention. Who did she play in "The Iron Lady?" The Iron Lady herself. What about "Florence Foster Jenkins?" Florence, of course. "Julie & Julia?" She scored the much more interesting role of Julia Child, leaving Amy Adams with the thankless job of playing Julie Powell. You see where I'm going with this. "Angels in America" was a smart use of Streep's talents because of its superb cast and overall vibe, but tossing Streep into a richly populated ensemble just sucks the air out of the proverbial room. That's what happened on "Big Little Lies," and if she sticks around on "Only Murders in the Building," it'll happen there too.

"Only Murders in the Building" is available to stream on Netflix, and if you want to watch the infamous Mary Louise scream in "Big Little Lies" season 2 for some reason, that's on HBO Max.