RECAP: “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4, Episode 1
Hulu’s delightful mystery-comedy “Only Murders in the Building” is back for its fourth season, and based on the first episode, it’s as good as ever. Just as the show reinvigorated itself last season by drawing parallels to its new Broadway setting, it seems poised to do the same again by comparing and contrasting the new mystery to its new split setting, Hollywood. And of course we have a shocking new murder for our trio of unlikely detectives to crack.
Below find my thoughts on the first episode of Season 4. Spoilers ahead! Consider yourself warned — as all the residents of the Arconia should be, given the astonishingly high murder rate in that building.
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THE MYSTERY
This season’s mystery continues from the Season 3 cliffhanger, with Charles’ body-double Sazz (Jane Lynch) being shot through his kitchen window. The last we saw of Sazz, she was bleeding out on Charles’ kitchen floor, but trying to write a message in her blood. This episode picks up with our hapless trio returning to Charles’ apartment to check on Sazz, only to find…nothing. In a great bit of tense, dramatic irony, the viewer keeps expecting Charles, Mabel, and Oliver to find Sazz’s corpse, but there’s absolutely nothing there. Charles spends most of the episode concerned about Sazz, temporarily put at ease when he receives reassuring texts from his missing friend. But after running into Scott Bakula at an LA party (more on that in a minute), and realizing Sazz has uncharacteristically missed an acting gig AND not returned home in seemingly quite some time, Charles realizes something is very wrong.
A call from the building superintendent assuring Charles that he would replace his damaged kitchen window — which Charles never asked him to fix, or even knew about — leads the Arconia 3 to jet back to NYC, where they discover the bullet hole in Charles’ window, previously unseen blood splatter on Charles’ stove, and most gruesomely, what appear to be Sazz’s replaced joints (ID’d by the “Bulgaria” stamp on them, connecting to a smart bit of mystery writing from earlier in the episode) in a pile of ash in the building incinerator.
The immediate assumption at the end of last season was that whoever shot Sazz likely thought they were shooting Charles. Sazz was dressed as Charles, the lights were not on — easy mistake. This episode complicates that, because when the Arconia 3 break into Sazz’s apartment in LA (Charles had previously lived in the unit, which is either — again — smart mystery writing to explain how he knew the address, OR potentially related to motive) they discover Sazz’s table full of research that seems to suggest that Sazz was aware that someone was spying on Charles via a unit in the building across the street. So is it possible the shooter knew they were killing Sazz? And did so to keep her quiet about spying on Charles? Before her death, Sazz was about to have a private conversation with Charles about a “delicate subject.”
What we know for sure about Sazz’s killer is that they’re a pretty good shot, they are quite effective and efficient (moving the body and cleaning it up in what seemed to be a relatively short amount of time between Sazz’s death and the Arconia 3 returning to the apartment), they had at least a working knowledge of the Arconia (they knew there’s an incinerator in the basement — although Oliver comments that it was decommissioned years ago), and they appear to have Sazz’s cell phone. And they clearly do not like Charles.
THE ARCONIA 3
The action of the premiere very quickly wraps up the Broadway plots from last season — Death Rattle is closed for good after one performance, since the producers who were arrested for the death of Ben Glenroy pulled their funding to pay their legal fees — but miraculously a new opportunity has fallen into their laps. First Mabel, then Mabel and Charles (interestingly not Oliver!) receive emails from Bev Melon (always wonderful to see Molly Shannon on our screens), a producer at Paramount who wants to fly them all to Los Angeles for a meeting about a major film about their podcast. Charles is excited by the prospect of Hollywood calling, Oliver is absolutely desperate for money, but Mabel is uncertain about this seemingly too-good-to-be-true development. Still, they decide to take the meeting.
But it’s not just a meeting. Bev informs the Arconia 3 that they are all in on the movie version of “Only Murders in the Building,” they’ve got major Hollywood talent onboard, big up-and-coming auteurs The Brothers (a pair of sisters) attached to direct, and all they need to turn their soft green light into a hard one is for our protagonists to sign over their life rights. Charles — via a hilarious bit of physical comedy — brings up the topic of compensation, and is told that whatever it costs, the studio will make it work. Hello, red flag. Mabel bolts from the room when confronted by the unflattering logline for her character, and is in, as usual, a full-blown existential crisis about who she is and what she’s doing in her life.
That evening the Arconia 3 — who still have not signed on to this movie, let’s remember — show up to a party announcing the film, and unveiling the stars who will be playing the leads: Eugene Levy will be playing Charles, Zach Galifianakis will be playing Oliver (the two of them are hilariously dismissive to one another right off the bat), and Eva Longoria will be playing Mabel, aged up because “focus groups found the age difference between the three of you creepy.” I think we’re in for some wonderful meta commentary this season, and I hope we see plenty of the Hollywood versions of our heroes, as they’re all perfect.
At the party, Oliver briefly reunites with Loretta (Meryl Streep), his Broadway leading lady who immediately flew out to LA for a role on a “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff as soon as Death Rattle, well, died; the two of them talk around the future of their relationship, which you can tell they both want to continue, but about which both have logistical reservations. Charles has an unexpected encounter with nemesis Scott Bakula (the actual Scott Bakula), in full Charles Hayden Savage/Sazz Pataki drag, who not only drops the bomb about Sazz missing a shoot, but mentions that he’s now dating Charles’ ex-fiancee, Joy (Andrea Martin), who sends him a pic that he “cannot show” Charles. Finally, Mabel is convinced by both a financially desperate Oliver and a well-meaning Eva Longoria to say yes to the movie deal, but to make them pay through the nose and then invest that in her dreams. Mabel has an encounter with Producer Bev and screenwriter Marshall, who insists on sitting in on the conversation between the women. We don’t see what Mabel demands from the studio, but Marshall does, and he is stunned.
THE SUSPECTS
This show has been pretty good about not introducing an out-of-nowhere character as the killer thus far — we’ve at least always KNOWN the characters fairly early in the mystery. With that in mind, here’s my list of current suspects for Sazz’s murder:
Joy: My top suspect is Joy, Charles’ ex, current paramour of Scott Bakula. Joy was deeply hurt by the end of her relationship with Charles last season, and had been in love with him for decades prior to them even getting together. I think it’s also fair to say that Joy struggles with mental stability, and is prone to bouts of rage. She knew Charles’ apartment, she had at least some awareness of the Arconia, and do I put it past her to get a unit across the street from Charles herself? No I do not. I also kind of wonder if Scott Bakula knows about this plot to get Charles, and is actually in on it. That photo Joy sent Scott during the party could have been a nude, but it also could have been proof of Joy in New York, cleaning up after the murder. It’s a longshot, but it’s not out of the question.
The Brothers Sisters: We know virtually nothing about the “twins” who are set to direct the feature film version of “Only Murders,” but they’re obviously quite strange, and certainly don’t appear to actually be twins. In our brief introduction to them this episode, something is clearly off. And Paramount’s intense rush to make this movie, without even having the rights to do it, is ridiculous to the point of conspicuous.
Bev Melon: Bev is also hella sus. (Are we still saying “sus”? Like Charles, I am also an un-fun turtle.) The breakneck speed of this project and the seeming blank check they’re waving around to make it happen HAS to have a catch, and I can’t help but wonder if this is a situation similar to Cinda Canning (Tina Fey’s character), creating the true-crime narrative to sell her own mystery. I know this is weird, but the fact that this supposed high-powered LA producer was at an industry party looking at a pizza recipe on her phone just screamed that something about this character is totally off. Is she actually a producer? Is her name even Melon? I’m dubious.
Screenwriter Marshall: I don’t think he killed Sazz, but that interaction he had with Mabel and Bev was strange. If nothing else, there’s more to unravel there, even if he himself is not involved in the crime.
Cookie: Longest of longshots, Cookie is Charles’ ex-wife who left him for Sazz. We’ve never seen her, only heard her discussed. Sazz somehow knew that someone was stalking Charles before she was killed. The logical move here is Joy, who is connected to Bakula, for whom Sazz was actively working as a body double. But Sazz may also still have contact with Cookie, and Cookie may have her own reasons to stalk and/or hurt Charles.
What did you think of the episode? Who do you think killed Sazz? What do you think is up with his obviously bonkers movie scenario? Leave your takes in the comments!