Only Murders in the Building season 4 is underway, and our three favorite podcast hosts—Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez)—have their toughest case yet, emotionally. It’s a good thing they’ve got Sazz’s clues to lead the way.
Spoilers ahead for OMITB season 4 episode 2!
For years, Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch) tapped in for Charles as his stunt double when he played Brazzos onscreen. They had a great friendship, she always had his back, and Sazz even dated the people that Charles had dated after he left them, like Jan (Amy Ryan)! But at the end of season 3, as Charles, Mabel, and Oliver are celebrating solving another case and a successful podcast season, Sazz ends up getting shot by a sniper when she’s in Charles’ apartment. But when the trio go upstairs, the body is moved and they assume Sazz went home.
It isn’t until the end of the episode, after they’ve made a trip to Hollywood to get propositioned for a movie about their podcast, and discovered Sazz’s empty house in the process, that they realize something might’ve gone wrong with her. Well, sure. Sazz is dead, and they find her burned to ashes in the out-of-order incinerator at The Arconia. Poor Sazz!
But also, poor Charles! With episode 2, we see him struggle to come to terms with the death of Sazz, one of his closest friends. This is easily one of the best episodes of OMITB already, because of how it handles Charles processing his grief. The episode begins with Charles watching an old documentary featuring Sazz talking about what stunt doubles do for their actors. He begins hallucinating Sazz in his house, and while he waits on call with 911 to report her murder, they have quite a few heart-to-hearts. He even gets a surprise visit from Jan, who has escaped from prison after she doesn’t hear from Sazz, and she too reveals things that give Charles plenty to think about in the case.
While hallucinating Sazz helps Charles emotionally, the clues she left behind at her desk in her L.A. home help Oliver and Mabel begin their investigation into her death. In fact, the episode ends with a pretty revealing clue that spins the case into a whole new direction.
1. West Tower, the Arconia
On one of the several pieces of paper lying on Sazz’s desk, she had written “West Tower Arconia.” And this season, the show’s titular building expands to include the residents of the West Tower of the Arconia, which isn’t as fancy as the East, as suspects. As Oliver and Mabel are trying to line up the sniper shot that could’ve killed Sazz, Charles explains to them about the residents directly across from him in the West Tower. There’s Stink-Eye Joe, a.k.a. Vince Fish (Richard Kind), who looks menacing and wears an eye patch. There’s the Sauce Family, always stirring their pots as they stare at Charles. There’s also Christmas All the Time Guy (Kumail Nanjiani), who never takes off his Christmas decorations and wears a holiday-themed jumper all the time.
There’s also a fourth window that could’ve lined up with the shot, but Charles doesn’t know who lives there because the blinds are always drawn, even though he has seen the lights come on in the apartment a few times. The note leads Oliver and Mabel to investigate what each of these residents are up to.
2. “Dudenoff” and the post-it with numbers
On a folded piece of paper, in black marker, Sazz has written the words “Dudenoff.” A post-it is attached to it with the numbers 773440.
Oliver and Mabel go over to the West Tower pretending to scout shooting angles for their Hollywood movie. They discover that Stink-Eye Joe is actually a nice guy and more Pink-Eye Joe—the eye patch keeps the medication for his chronic pink eye problem intact. He is excited to meet his famous podcaster neighbors and invites them over for a game of Oh Hell! But not before showing them that the windows in the West Tower are no good for shooting because they are painted shut and do not open.
Next door, they meet the Sauce Family. Inez (Daphne Rubin-Vega) has a crush on Charles and calls him her “hall pass.” Alfonso (Desmin Borges) hates that he has to live across from the man his wife has a crush on, and Ana (Lilian Rebelo) is their daughter who wants to move out. As they all sit down to play a game of Oh Hell, the West Tower residents take turns to go to the bathroom with a huge knife to “take a hit.” It turns out to be a huge chunk of ham they stab to let off steam. Creepy!
However, it is during this game that Ana lets slip that their next-door apartment with the blinds closed belongs to Dudenoff, but she is hushed and things get a bit awkward when our podcasters try to pry. They find a lockbox on Dudenoff’s door and realize that the post-it with the numbers on Sazz’s desk could be the code to unlock the door. And turns out it is! Inside the filthy and rundown apartment, Oliver and Mabel find paint chips by the window and a footprint on the radiator, suggesting that the shooter could’ve stood at the window and pried it open to take his shot.
But the most bizarre discovery is in the bathroom, where instead of ham, they find a live piglet! It runs out after they open the main door because someone is knocking on it (turns out to be no one). Interestingly, at the end of the episode, as Oliver is trying to move a few things around on the murder board at Charles’, they find out that the post-it with the numbers turned upside down also spells “OH HELL”!
3. “Lookin at Charles”
On a mutual funds envelope, Sazz has scribbled “Lookin at Charles,” and this could mean that someone in the West Tower was keeping an eye on Charles, as is confirmed by the discovery made by Oliver and Mabel in Dudenoff’s apartment.
4. “Sick Pup”
Yet another one of Sazz’s scribbles, “Sick Pup” is on a paper from La Cienega Heights, which is supposed to be an LA neighborhood. But what could it mean? Well, our best guess is actually a rather interesting one. Back in season 1 episode 3, “How Well Do You Know Your Neighbors?” Someone poisons Oliver’s much loved and pampered bulldog Winnie and leaves a threatening note pinned to this apartment door that said “End the podcast or I end you.” While Oliver’s vet son Will (Ryan Broussard) manages to save the dog, it is never revealed who poisoned poor Winnie, which is one of the “loose ends” that Mabel talks about at the end of the podcast in season 1.
Was Sazz suspicious and trying to tie up these loose ends because she always watched out for her BFF? And maybe she found out who poisoned Winnie and made the pup sick?
5. “Helga” written on a boarding pass
One of the clues on Sazz’s desk is a boarding pass for LAX to JFK with the name “HELGA” written on it in red marker and underlined. Who could Helga be? Could this be someone from the studio making the movie about our podcasters traveling to New York with a sinister agenda? Who is Helga? An elusive answer that we’ll surely know soon.
6. The tissue with the number series
A tissue with a series of numbers, with 11 and 13 struck off and three more written with question marks on their sides—“26? 14? 86?” It’s still unclear what these numbers mean. Was Sazz trying to find a pattern? Were these apartment numbers?
7. A golf tournament scorecard
Amongst Sazz’s things was a scorecard for 5½ Lesbian Brothers Invitational Golf Tournament. Not sure about the golf tournament but the “Lesbian Brothers” sound familiar, don’t they? Remember the twins who will be directing the movie about the podcast? The Brothers Sisters Trina (Catherine Cohen) and Tawny (Siena Werber) Brothers! Everyone we met at the studio meet—from Bev Melon (Molly Shannon) the producer to Marshall Peepope (Jin Ha) the eavesdropping writer—all seemed odd and suspicious. But could they be capable of murder?
8. The message in blood
And last, but not the least, as she lay dying on Charles’ kitchen floor, Sazz wrote a message for him in her own blood the had a special meaning for him. Throughout the episode, we see Charles reminiscing about Sazz and his time together. He begins blaming himself for Sazz’s death because it looked like he could’ve been the intended target but Sazz’s hallucination asks him to not blame himself because as his stunt double, “taking hits for my guy” was all part of the gig.
So when Charles sees the message she wrote in blood after Oliver sprayed the floor with Luminol, it hits him because it is something that directors would tell Sazz when they needed her to step in a scene to takeover for Charles—”Tap in.” That’s when Charles confirms to Oliver and Mabel that he was indeed the intended target of the shooting, and that “We’re not investigating Sazz’s murder anymore. We’re investigating mine.”
One thing the clues do confirm: Only Murders in the Building season 4 is getting more interesting with each episode!
Published: Sep 4, 2024 01:44 pm