Only Murders in the Building Season 3 Episode 9 SPOILER Review
We got the second to last episode of Only Murders in the Building season 3. Here we got some big twists and turns that lead right into the finale. What are my thoughts on this? Let’s get started!
GENERAL THOUGHTS: This season has been on a hot streak ever since episode 5, each episode has been great. So my expectations going into this episode were pretty high, especially after the great cliffhanger that happened in episode 8. And I’m happy to confirm this was another great episode of the show. It always gets exciting as you move into the final few episodes where the characters have all of the clues and start to put them together. That’s what happens in this episode and I found it clever with the way they did some of that here (we’ll talk more about that later on). And once again the show continues to be clever with how it introduces things in the first few episodes that come back later on. In some ways, this episode makes other weaker episodes better. It’s nice that we finally got to see a lot of Paul Rudd in the show, up to this point in time I thought he was kind of wasted. This episode you get a lot of Paul Rudd in here and it’s great. All of this leads up to a cliffhanger that perfectly sets up the finale and once again I’m so curious as to where they’re going to take things in the finale.
EPISODE BREAKDOWN:
Ben Glenroy: So this episode really focuses a lot on Ben Glenroy, probably the most of the entire season. We got a bit of him in episode 1, but then he’s been 10 second cameos in the rest of the episodes. This episode he’s pretty much front and center. It's focused around him and what he was doing the night he was “killed” on stage. Here we learn that he had a falling out with Dickie, who was sick and tired of Ben. Ben from the very beginning was kind of a jerk; nobody really liked him. Loretta was talking with Dickie about how he should quit and stop working for him. Because of this, it led Dickie to being drunk and leaving so he’s off the board as far as being a suspect. We also learn that he made the handkerchiefs that were given out to the cast member with a group of old ladies that were his close friends. They were going to make it to opening night, but couldn't, which caused Ben to freak out and become very nervous for the stage. He’s freaking out and we learn he was talking to a cookie that was on video. Donna had cookies made for the cast members with little rattles on them. Ben was fasting till the play was done, and ate the cookie because he was stressed out. Because of this and how disgusted he was with himself he wrote “F**king Pig” on his mirror. This was very interesting stuff, I loved what they did here and how they used Paul Rudd. One of my issues up to this episode was that it felt like Paul Rudd was underused. This episode we get a lot of him and we see a different side of him. Paul Rudd is a very funny man, he’s so charming and you just love him. This episode, we don’t really get any of Paul Rudd’s charm or appeal. We see the dramatic side of him come out and he nailed it. He did a great job playing this character and it showed his dramatic acting skills.
Putting the pieces together: As we’re seeing the flashbacks to opening night before the show. Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are taking the clues they know and putting them together. They look into all of the people from the video footage from the police investigations in the previous episodes. They tell their stories and all of them match up, none of their stories line up with when Ben was murdered. One of the things set up earlier in the season was this critic that met with Oliver and really didn’t like the play. She mentioned in the review that Ben was holding down the play, which makes our character think of a motive. Actor’s careers rely on this play and if Ben is holding it down, get him out of the picture so it’s better. That’s interesting, that’s an interesting piece of information to throw in there. Two of the characters introduced in here were Donna and her son Clifford, this was Clifford’s first ever Broadway show as a producer on the show I believe, I forget what his involvement was. Donna loves her son, maybe a bit too much and wants her son to succeed in the show business, the worst thing about the show as per the critic was Ben. As of now we are led to believe that Donna put poison on the cookie that killed Ben.
The Ending: Throughout the episode they have this joke about how in a time of urgency things will work to get through. Oliver makes this joke about how people will never stop a man with a ladder. Likewise, Charles says that people will never stop a man that is crying. At the beginning of the episode Charles receives a package in the mail that was Joy’s wedding dress back when she and Charles were engaged. So Mabel has the idea to pretend to be a bride who’s late to her wedding so they get dressed head over to the court house where they’re racing against the clock to make sure Loretta doesn’t get to jail. In the process you get a great joke about Father of the Bride which stars Steve Martin and Martin Short. That’s a great joke that put a smile on my face. So they get to the courthouse in time to prove that Loretta wasn’t the killer. Only to get there and see Donna, the person they presume to be the killer in attendance.
FINALE PREDICTIONS: Next week is the finale, pretty exciting! Like I just said, going into the finale our characters think Donna is the killer. They want us as the audience to think that Donna is the killer. There’s still one mystery left to solve here, was Donna also the one that pushed Ben down the elevator? We think that Donna (not 100% certain yet) poisoned Ben. But we still don’t know if Donna pushed Ben. Was it Clifford? We aren’t entirely sure, but I’m so excited to find out what’s going to happen in next week’s episode. And maybe they throw in one extra twist of Donna isn’t the killer.
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