RECAP: “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4, Episode 8
I am conflicted regarding my thoughts on Episode 8 of “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4. On the one hand, I enjoyed the episode on its own — it was strangely heartwarming, and it effectively wrapped up one of the main plot threads of the season (which seems to have been a red herring).
But in terms of the season overall, it was our second “downshift” episode in a row, and I’m not sure that works well for the overall momentum. I believe we only have two episodes left in Season 4, and it’s feeling like a LOT has to fall in place in about 45 minutes to wrap up not only Sazz’s murder, but address the string of other crimes going back to Season 1 that have been plaguing the Arconia 3.
But I suppose that’s all yet to come. For now, let’s jump into “Lifeboat.”
Read on for my take on the episode. Spoilers ahead! Consider yourself warned!
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This episode put to rest the Westies plotline that has been simmering like one of Inez’s sauces all season. The Arconia 3 and the Hollywood 3 suggest differing approaches on how to entrap the Westies into confessing to the murder of Dudenoff. The Hollywood 3 were hilarious here, with Eugene Levy suggesting a complicated ruse involving Tony Danza (the way he is namechecked this episode almost guarantees that Mr. Danza appears before the end of the season; also I would absolutely try a bottle of Who’s the Sauce?), and Eva Longoria suggests a “ding-dong,” which is a shocking/sexy surprise at the door, a la soap operas. (Eva Longoria has been such a delight this season, and I was howling at her ridiculous beauty contraption this episode; she’s so game to take the piss out of herself, I find her wildly endearing.)
Ultimately the investigators decide to lure the Westies up for a celebrity-filled edition of the card game Oh Hell, but the Westies are not that stupid. As soon as they arrive, they stick up the assorted protagonists and confiscate their phones, as they divulge the true, unvarnished story of what really happened to Dudenoff.
Kind of. Even as they’re retelling it — each neighbor giving their specific tale on how they came to know Dudenoff and live in one of his units — there still seem to be details that don’t add up. Kumail Nanjiani finally gets his big moment this season, as he recites both parts of the courtroom scene from A Few Good Men (hilarious), and if I were Daphne Rubin-Vega, I would get on the phone to my agent because she was given virtually nothing to do this season compared to the rest of the Westies. The basic gist is, they all naturally encountered Dudenoff as they floated through life, knowingly or unknowingly desperate for connection, and he brought them all together, gave them rent-controlled apartments in which to live, and created a genuinely lovely found family in the West Tower. And then one day he sent them all a letter saying he was moving to Portugal. And that was the last time they saw him.
But then, the ding-dong! Mabel actually took Eva Longoria’s idea and invited a surprise guest: Helga, who Mabel connected with over HAM radio early in the season, and who warned her that the last person to investigate the strange goings-on in the building was murdered (presumably Sazz). The Westies dismissed Helga as Christmas Guy’s “weird” ex-girlfriend, but here we get the full story: Helga was herself a Westie, a locksmith also brought into the fold by Dudenoff, after he recognized the deep sadness she felt over the death of her father.
I’ll pause here to specifically call out the wonderful acting done this episode by Griffin Dunne. He’s been playing Dudenoff in flashbacks for a few episodes now, but this episode really gives him more emotional heft — he even narrates the episode from the beyond, “Desperate Housewives” style — and it’s one of the most human, realistic performances I’ve ever seen on this show. Even though Dudenoff is only on screen for a handful of minutes total this season, his shadow looms large, and Dunne has succeeded in making him both mysterious and warm. That’s very complicated, and I hope he gets some attention at awards time for his guest work.
Helga comes in guns blazing, saying that she left the Arconia after Dudenoff’s abrupt departure, and always assumed that her former Westie companions had something to do with his disappearance (Helga comes off highly paranoid, which lines up with her earlier scene over the HAM). The Westies confess: they all got notes, but theirs were different.
According to Vince Fish, the Westies sans Helga were all invited to the West Tower basement the night of Dudenoff’s disappearance for a “murder mystery party.” There they found Dudenoff in a chair in front of the incinerator, and a film camera set up. Dudenoff explained to the the Sauce Family, Vince, and Christmas Guy that he had been diagnosed with a fatal health condition, and was given only months to live. He decided to die on his terms, so he had taken a large number of pills, and asked his friends to place his body in the incinerator. In exchange, they would be allowed to stay in their units rent-free, and he asked that they continue cashing his social security checks, because as soon as the Arconia management realized he was dead, they would swoop in, seize his units, and his little found family would be scattered to the winds.
He also explained that he could not include Helga in this, because she was so “stuck” by the death of her father, and he knew she saw him as a surrogate father figure. So Dudenoff swore his “family” to secrecy over his death. But he recorded his final message to Helga via the film camera, which Vice Fish played for her.
This was all quite moving, and effective storytelling. I had criticized the Westie plotline a few episodes as leaning too far into caricature and not believable characters, but in the end I think the show did a great job humanizing them. The Sauce family still got short shrift here, but Nanjiani’s Christmas Guy (Rudy is his name) came into focus this episode, and Vince Fish has been wonderful pretty much the whole time. While the Westies were, seemingly, a total red herring to the mega-plot of the season, they did provide a much-needed heart to the proceedings, and I’m glad we got this arc. I’m glad the show also completely resolved the weirdness around the illegal sublet scheme, because as a New Yorker, that never made any sense to me based on the earlier explanation. Also, if there is a real-life Dudenoff reading this, I would love a cheap, rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan. Slide into my DMs. I will play your card game, eat bathroom ham, and talk movies with you.
That said, the episode ended with Helga ding-donging the now-stymied Arconia 3, who have seemingly run out of leads. She informs them that she had been communicating with Sazz over the HAM radio prior to her death. Sazz had been trying to piece together the bizarre activities in the Arconia going back to the now-unexplained Season 1 crimes, and shared with Helga that she was deeply concerned about her former stuntman protege, who had become unstable and would be “the death of her.” That stuntman? One Glenn Stubbins, currently in a coma in the hospital after being shot two episodes ago, allegedly in a bullet meant for Oliver. The Glen Stubbins plotline has been sus from the very start, and my current theory is that Glen Stubbins AND Ben Glenroy — who is somehow still alive — are actually behind at least the Sazz part of this; remember, it almost certainly took more than one person to shoot Sazz and dispose of her body in the time allowed. But that still doesn’t explain who has been trying to get rid of the Arconia 3 since at least Season 1…
What did you think of the episode? Leave your takes in the comments!