Spoilers to follow for the first three series of Only Murders in the Building
Three seasons in, Only Murders in the Building is one of the campest and most entertaining murder mysteries of our time. The Hulu comedy is taut with questions that always deliver the answers, an outrageously over the top but simultaneously approachable sense of humour, and brought to life by its eccentric cast and their chemistry. If it wasn’t for the reunion of iconic 80s/90s double act Steve Martin and Martin Short, together with pop singer turned actress Selena Gomez, then there’s no way this programme would be as compelling.
It’s certainly clear that season two, while enjoyable, was a step downwards as the show embraced its more farcical elements a little too deeply, and became obsessed with wrapping up threads from the first series for which conclusions had already been established. By keeping a revolving door of recurring characters, propped up by the Arconia itself, in addition to a new mystery for Charles, Oliver and Mabel that is separate from the suspects introduced in the previous season, series three – about the murder of Paul Rudd’s action hero slash broadway theatre debut actor Ben – starts off on a promising note, following last season’s cliffhanger.
Episode One: The Show Must… (Watched 11/9/23)
Ben’s dead, now he’s alive, now he’s dead again. We saw the last twist in the elevator coming, but then pretty much everybody would have done. It’s too early to say who could have killed Ben, but not too soon to say for sure who didn’t. There will undoubtedly be red herrings in the double murder flashbacks that place Howard as a possible contender, and many will think he’s the most obvious and impactful choice as he has jumped from supportive character to main cast member in the space of one episode. We can also rule out Meryl Streep’s Loretta, because having ten episodes dedicated to a mystery where the most probable suspect is the culprit would feel like a waste of time, especially if the producers are vying for a fourth season.
Any good murder mystery chooses the middle person; not the least obvious, not the most obvious, because either would give too much away. In season one, Jan was clearly going to be the murderer from the get go, but there was nothing to link her to Tim Kono that could reasonably mark her guilt. In season two, too many fingers were pointed at Carla Delavigne and Tina Fey for us to ever suspect that Poppy could have been responsible for the crime. Given that we’ve only known these new characters for one episode, and we can probably rule out Charles, it’s difficult to say for sure, but the double murder idea seems to point to there being two separate culprits, or two characters in league with one another. Mabel and Oliver also have no reason to be guilty, that we know of, and they need to be innocent for the fourth season commission to be a worthwhile movie. The guilt of one of these characters would be a prison sentence both for said character and for the entire show.
Two characters in league with one another immediately points us to the strange sort-of incest mother and son characters, Donna and Cliff, who seem to be wanting more control than they’re getting of the production of Death Rattle. Let’s consider the other people that Ben has angered. We hardly know Kimber yet, but we learn Ben made things messy between them, implying a romantic connection, or a case of unrequited love. We don’t know the details of why Ben got so annoyed by Ty asking for CoBro’s personal trainer, but there’s nothing to say Ty can be ruled out, and the same goes for Kimber. We don’t know enough yet. There’s Bobo, but we know next to nothing about him yet, and there’s stage manager K.T, but the same goes for her. At the moment, Tobert seems like the most obvious candidate. He’s unobvious but not too unobvious, close enough to Ben (as his documentary director) for him to have substantiated motives, and we don’t know a lot about him just yet, only enough for him to be focused on. Plus, we haven’t had a male killer yet. Tobert’s my bet.
Characters we’re ruling out: Charles, Mabel, Oliver and Loretta
The prime suspect after episode one: Tobert
Episode Two: The Beat Goes On (Watched: 12/09/23)
We don’t have many more clues from this episode, which features a memorial service for Ben and some more personal crises for some of our leads, as Charles and Mabel are kidnapped and work out the super fan kidnapper is innocent of Ben’s murder, and Oliver has a health scare, but the podcast is back, so expect our characters to interview every single member of the cast in the search for their culprit. Though an enjoyable episode, this one was more about further establishing the leads than the suspects, so it’s still going to be the same person we’re pointing the finger at.
The prime suspect after episode two: Tobert
Episode Three: Grab your Hankies (Watched: 14/09/23)
“That stalker in prison did it”, says Robert with a T, as he forms a budding romance with Mabel, but we can’t have Mabel’s arc be about her falling in love with somebody who’s a murder suspect again – surely? It’s an insult to Selena Gomez and the relatable and independent woman that she has created in her character to make all of her arcs to do with the men and women she falls in love with, first tie dye guy (who mysteriously vanished after series one; what’s with that?) and second Carla Delevingne. Only Murders has become knowing, and that’s a sign that it should end sooner rather than later. Loretta has been introduced to throw a red herring into the equation, and it’s starting to become apparent that Tobert, like Delevigne last series, is another trick, but it’s going to be a man; that’s what Charles’s meta comment about another female murderer indicates, so that’s another few names we’re crossing off our Whodunnit version of guess who. Obviously his brother didn’t do it either, or maybe he thinks he did, but he didn’t really.
A new theory is emerging: could everybody on the cast be involved? That would be an interesting twist. They all hate Ben so much that they’ve come together to end Ben’s life. I’m sure that’s been done in a murder mystery before, but it would be pretty cool. Charles said the others liked to keep their distance because they were intimidated by him, and because they idolised him for his role on Brazzos, so could they all be in on something he was excluded from? Oliver too, and maybe even Mabel.
If we’re labelling one person to move the show on, it might be Howard’s boyfriend, who’s been established enough in the previous season to mean something, but hasn’t done anything more than play a subsidiary role in Death Rattle Dazzle.
The Prime Suspect: Jonathan
Episode Four: The White Room (Watched 16/09/23)
Charles learns that he can only sing his Death Rattle Dazzle showstopper if he mimics the movements of making an omelette and ends up entering into a white limbo where all actors go when they lose their creative direction. He also discovers that his girlfriend, Joy, could be a potential suspect in Ben’s murder, and if he didn’t expect her to be involved following her claim that she would have hurt Ben to protect Charles – who we know had his beef with Paul Rudd’s character, absent from this instalment – then the discovery of her lipstick at the scene of an obscene insult would place her as a prime candidate. Her motive: to protect Charles. The likelihood of her being involved, considering how early in the season this is revealed, is minimal, and pretty much invalidates her from being responsible, especially since Charles has already had the fateful lover trope play out in his life in series 1.
If Joy isn’t involved – which she most likely isn’t, and this will just be an attempt at a new story to play with Charles’s paranoia about perhaps having met another Jan – then the question lies over who could have been in the dressing room and why the person responsible had the lipstick. Could somebody be trying to frame Charles? That sounds like something that would happen in Only Murders. With Kimber’s name seemingly cleared, new clues have been paved, but we always knew she probably wouldn’t be responsible anyway. As mentioned earlier, it will probably be a man, if not everybody is a little involved.
One episode earlier, we never would have expected that it would be possible to point the finger at Charles’s seemingly innocent new missus, to whom he is recently betrothed. It’s looking likely that if there’s only one/two culprits, it’s going to be someone we don’t expect who pushed Ben down the elevator shaft. Maybe Joy poisoned him but somebody else finished him off? Who knows, but this return to a form of an episode – funny, dramatic, leaving us asking questions to the extent that we’re reminded of why we fell in love with the programme – bodes well for this to stand a chance of being the most open mystery in the show to date. Plus, Cinda’s back, and we should have known sooner that they’d never be able to resist a chance to bring back Tina Fey.
The Prime Suspect: Jonathan poisoned Ben, and Howard helped him plant the lipstick to make it look as though Charles and Joy were responsible. Although, it did look like a woman’s handwriting on the mirror, not to be sexist, so this fan theory may just be a failed attempt at being clever.
Episode Five: Oh Love! (Watched: 18/09/23)
While this season may be the best and most open mystery the show has executed to date, it’s also not the most cleanly handled when considering that some of the suspects (Bobo and Ty, in particular) haven’t yet featured in a great capacity and we hardly yet understand their motives, although their time is still to come. The season instead seems more concerned in its three leads, who are the most compelling thing about it, and who have always been at the centre of the focus since this programme began, but this season, it feels like they and their romances with others close to the case are at the centre. In this episode, Mabel, Charles and Oliver are all seen to be dating members of the suspect list.
While we can discount Loretta for being too obvious, and Joy for being too like Jan for the comfort of an easy solution, there’s no way we can rule out Tobert, who’s gone back to being suspect number one. This episode puts Jonathan front and centre as one of the suspects, so it’s so obviously not going to be him, unless the writers have gathered some incredibly high amount of self-acknowledgement. We know this show is clever, but we know this murderer’s obviously going to be Tobert, who says in this episode that he “cleans up”. Too obvious? Well, Jan was the only suspect that could have killed Tim Kono from episode one for it to actually mean something, and we expect literally everybody else. Unless it’s Bobo. Maybe they’re saving Bobo until last because it’s him. This episode doesn’t give us much, but it does give us more Saz. Jane Lynch is great.
The Prime Suspect: Tobert (Again)
Episode Six: Ghost Light
Howard comes to Mabel’s doorstep and tells her that he’s the one who killed Ben Glenroy. It turns out that he didn’t sweep properly on the night of the opening, and Howard believes the ghost of an old theatre performer could have put a curse on Ben. It turns out one of Oliver’s former colleagues, his doppelganger, is the one who’s responsible for the ghost callings, but obviously not the murder. Oliver’s getting jittery, though, because he suspects that Loretta could have been the one who killed Ben and he’s falling in love with her too much to let his suspicions lean that way. It’s a highly dispensable episode, with a title that reminds me of a classic doctor who story even though it alludes to an old theatre technique. We didn’t find out much, but at least now, we can probably rule out Howard, and possibly even Jonathan. KT’s in this one too, but we’re still none the wiser about why she might have done it, so nobody will care if she did. That’s the problem with this series: it’s really good, but it’s not quite established its characters well enough.
The Prime Suspect: Tobert (Again, again)
New Characters to rule out: Everybody other than Tobert at this point, which makes me think it won’t be him, and I really am a poor sleuth.
Episode Seven: CoBro
Matthew Broderick appears as himself, sweeping in to take on Charles’s role, and it turns out that Uma stole something from Ben on the night of his death when she discovered his body in the elevator shaft. Also, Theo, the deaf son of Teddy from season one, is back and he’s helping Maeve with the case. Also helping her is Tobert, who claims that he, like Cinda Canning, has “Top notch equipment.” He keeps using this fancy terminology. It can’t be that obvious, can it? This far in, it’s seeming naïve that we’ve also ruled out Charles. We know he had beef with Ben, and that’s not fully been explored. I don’t think it will happen, but imagine how interesting series four could be if this time Charles actually is the killer. It’s not gonna happen. Tobert killed Ben, and he has enough hate towards his former boss to show for it.
The Prime Suspect: Tobert (Again, times 3)
New Characters to rule out: While we can’t exactly rule out Ben’s brother, we can rule out Greg (if we didn’t already) and Uma, of course.
Episode Eight: Sitzprobe
We didn’t see this one coming! Meryl Streep is the adopted mother of Paul Rudd’s brother. It wasn’t a twist we could have seen coming, but it’s one that excludes neither of them from being accused of the crime. Detective Williams is back, Charles gets through his patter song just so Oliver can sneak into the interrogation room, and Tobert is mysteriously nowhere to be seen. Straight after mentioning Tobert, Charles says “Do you have a subject”, and he is somebody who Charles likes and approves of, which won’t bode well, but now I’m starting to think the writers might have gone with the underwhelming answer of having the incestuous mother and son as the murderers. It would be underwhelming, but then again most characters will be. We hardly know a lot of them. Like who is Bobo and KT? Though hooking, this has been season three’s greatest flaw. Even though she’s been arrested, it’s certainly not going to be Loretta. PS. Poor Oliver! He’s been through the rounds in this season, and we can’t (and luckily probably won’t) lose the show’s best character.
The Prime Suspect: Currently it’s still Tobert, but Cliff and Donna are starting to look sus, and they are some of the only characters in the cast that have actually been expanded on. Plus, there’s two of them, so it could be that Cliff poisoned Ben, Donna found out and finished the job to protect Cliff.
Episode Nine: Thirty
A full review will be coming next week, where all will be revealed, along with the many complaints and compliments that can be addressed about series three. Anyway, a line in the previously trailer caught my attention: “you spend all your life looking after your child and you’ll do anything to make sure your child is alright.” Murder? Too obvious? Everything’s going on in pairs so it would make sense. Or is it Tobert? Well, it’s going to be Tobert. Tobert’s not even been speculated. Ben will ruin Tobert’s career, and Tobert is close to everyone, and will give all of the characters paranoia about who they trust. It’s going to be Tobert. Find out whether it is next week…
Oh right, I’ve got to the Father of the Bride reference, and the reveal with the rat poison, so we now know that Donna did it, apparently. Cliff probably pushed Ben down the elevator shaft after he found out about it, or someone else did. I always theorised they could be disconnected. Next week’s article will be more formal, promise…
Writers' Room Reviews 