Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Only Murders in the Building Season 4 Episode 5.
Last week’s episode of Only Murders in the Building Season 4 left off on quite the cliffhanger, as the trio came face to face with a gun-wielding Bev Melon (Molly Shannon). Being that she’s the one running the movie adaptation of their podcast it was a very jarring plot twist, but as this show has taught us time and time again, no one is to be trusted. Episode 5, “Adaptation,” doubles down on that and unleashes even more clues in Sazz’s (Jane Lynch) murder investigation. However, it also casts Oliver (Martin Short) to the side in favor of giving him relationship issues with his girlfriend Loretta (Meryl Streep). There are multiple mentions and throwaway lines of him worrying about her cheating on him with her hunky new co-star, who has a reputation for seducing his co-stars. While he’s still a prominent part of the episode, Oliver’s storyline and contribution to the plot of the episode is so minuscule it’s hardly worth mentioning. Though he does have some hilarious one-liners, as he often does, thanks to Short’s impeccable comedic timing. But Oliver’s less-than-helpful presence in this episode allows for some outside perspective, which may have been exactly what the investigation needed.
Bev Isn’t a Threat in ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 4 Episode 5
After coming across Bev at the Sazz Pataki Impact Academy and being threatened while held at gunpoint by her, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver, and Mabel (Selena Gomez) are understandably on edge. Oliver starts mumbling in typical Oliver fashion, which causes Bev to flip the light on when she realizes who has walked into the shed with her, not having been able to see clearly. She immediately softens, as if she wasn’t just pointing a gun at the three of them moments before, but they’re less quick to forget, and Mabel asks her to put the gun down. Bev assures her it’s not loaded and fires a warning round as proof, only to learn that it is actually live. She says she just found the gun in the shed and assumes it belongs to Sazz, since it’s her building they’re all in.
Bev being there at all is a red flag for Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, though, and they ask Bev point-blank if she killed Sazz. She denies it, but adds that she thinks someone working on the movie may have. According to Bev, the night Sazz died, she called Bev and left her a voicemail, which Bev plays for the trio. In it, Sazz expresses that there is a big problem with Bev’s movie, but she can’t get into it over the phone, so she needs Bev to call her back. Bev took her time returning the call, as the voicemail only seemed to spell trouble for her movie, which is something you never want to hear as a creator. Mabel determines that Sazz left the voicemail at 11:07 PM, which was right after she left the party to go and get the wine. This gives the three of them an even more in-depth timeline of the events leading up to Sazz’s death, but still no murderer to connect them to.
It’s a Race Against the Clock in ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 4 Episode 5
The episode begins with a narration from Marshall (Jin Ha), the screenwriter of the Only Murders movie. This is the first time we’ve seen him at length since the first episode of Season 4, when he was observing Charles, Oliver, and Mabel as he worked on his script during their visit to Los Angeles. In his opening narration, we see him put on a fake beard and glasses, and glance at multiple pieces of Charlie Kaufman memorabilia. He ends up bumping into Charles and Mabel when they show up at the production office to investigate. Charles walks around pretending to be on the phone, when in reality he’s snapping pictures for their murder board, and sniffing out people who seem suspicious. This is when they lock eyes on Marshall, who tries to run away when they approach — except, he’s not guilty of murder. He was just nervous that Charles and Mabel had notes on the script because everyone else seemed to have thoughts and wanted changes, and he’d had enough. He’s actually excited to be a suspect and interrogated; he even says it’ll help him, as he’s been trying to write an interrogation scene for the movie.
They all convene at Charles’s apartment, where Marshall says that he has an alibi for the night of Sazz’s murder. He was trying his hand at stand-up comedy in West Hollywood. Satisfied that there’s no way Marshall could have killed Sazz, they decide to let him on in the investigation. Marshall looks over the murder board but finds a discrepancy in it, specifically in the “when” section. They’ve broken the night’s events down as best they can, from the voicemail Sazz left to the power surge. Marshall says that, judging by the timing of everything, there was only a 12-minute window for the murderer to shoot Sazz from the West Tower, walk half a block to the Arconia, sneak their way into Charles’s apartment, get Sazz’s body, and put it in the incinerator. It just doesn’t seem plausible. The screenwriter adds that in order for everything to happen in those 12 minutes, the person who committed the murder would have to be very fit.
Earlier in the episode, Mabel, Charles, and Oliver are invited to a photoshoot for the movie, something they weren’t too keen on coming to. However, as Mabel is scrolling through the pictures Charles was taking at the production office, she notices a very distinct footprint that matches the one in Dudenoff’s apartment, meaning that whoever shot Sazz was at the production office and will likely be at the photoshoot as well. The three of them head to the photoshoot dressed in the same fabulous attire as their Hollywood counterparts, and Mabel enlists the help of her actor, Eva Longoria, to catch footprints. It’s mentioned earlier that Eva specializes in adhesives, everything from breast tape to tacky mats, which is what Mabel needs. The tacky mats are used to catch dust and other particles from the bottom of shoes, and Eva plays the diva card to get them laid out all over the studio so Mabel can get a good look at the footprints left behind.
While Mabel studiously watches the mats for footprints, Charles has an awkward run-in with Eugene Levy, where they repeatedly get in one another’s way as they try to exit the makeup chair. Suddenly, Charles has an epiphany: It must have been two people who killed Sazz. He shares this theory with Mabel, explaining that one person fired the gun, and the other person cleaned up the site and dumped the body. It all makes sense, and it makes even more sense when Mabel notices that the footprint she’s been waiting for has finally crossed the mat. She looks up and sees that it belongs to Tawny Brother (Siena Werber), one-half of the directing duo for the Only Murders movie. This realization puts Charles and Mabel on high alert towards Tawny and her sister Trina (Catherine Cohen). But just when she’s about to approach Tawny, the woman suddenly disappears from sight, and there isn’t any time to look for her because gunshots ring out, and the screen fades to black — where a panicked voice says, “Oh my God, they’ve been shot.”
Only Murders in the Building is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. New episodes premiere every Tuesday.
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