STEVE MARTIN, MARTIN SHORT
This season has been double the trouble from the start – from the stunt storylines surrounding Sazz, to the actors playing the true crime trio in the movie adaptation, it seems impossible to discover who might be the real killer from all of the fakes. In Only Murders in the Building Season 4 Episode 5 “Adaptation,” we take an even deeper dive into this idea, and find out that the characters might be in twice the danger this time around.
We start out in the mind of movie writer Marshall (Jin Ha, Pachinko), who is eager to take the lives of our favorite podcasters and turn them into the next biggest blockbuster hit. This is one of the great things about this show – we’re able to explore so many different characters and hear their inner thoughts. He talks a lot about imposter syndrome – something Mabel admits she can relate to, as she has begun to embrace her career as a podcast producer – before following around the trio on their adventures for the day.
First, we need to find out if Bev (Molly Shannon, Superstar) is really behind Sazz’s death. We were left on a cliffhanger the week before, but now all is explained. Bev tells Charles, Mabel, and Oliver that she didn’t kill Sazz but she thinks someone on the movie may have. She also received a voicemail from Sazz on the night of her death, only moments before the murder, which helps us figure out the timeline a bit more. Though Bev’s innocence may still be slightly suspect, for now, she seems to be put on the backburner as the trio regroups and starts to investigate the rest of the cast and crew on the movie.
The suspect list now looks to be never ending. Lucky for them, the directors and film staff are planning for a photoshoot, with the true crime trio at the forefront. Mabel and Charles begin hunting for clues by taking not-so-subtle pictures for their murder board while pretending to be on the phone. This is the kind of classic Only Murders scene that will have you laughing out loud. They look for nervous members of the staff, and come across Marshall, who looks fidgety as hell.
It turns out he’s just nervous about being the writer, not about the murder questions or interrogations. Joined by Marshall, the trio go through aspects of the murder board and try to run through the ideas in their head. They realize not everything is adding up, especially how the killer was able to shoot Sazz from the West side of the building, and then clean up everything, including the body, within minutes.
We get a few fun sequences here, like a look into Charles’ imagination of how it all went down and a scene of Oliver attempting to emulate what the killer did on the night of the murder, proving it could happen in just minutes. The latter is mostly because Oliver is trying to prove he’s athletic, and not to be trifled with, since the hunky arm on Loretta’s shoulder was revealed as Jack Jonk, a hot and famous athlete. Unfortunately, it takes Oliver 38 minutes to run only part of the killer’s course, thus proving this whole timeline very unlikely.
Fear not! Our trio is extremely good at finding unexpected diamonds amongst the rough; Mabel notices that a shoe print in one of Charles’ photos from earlier in the episode matches the shoe print in Dudenoff’s place. They enlist the help of Eva Longoria to put out mats at the photoshoot and track the shoe prints of everyone who walks around on set. At the same time, Charles realizes something about the murderer – or should we say, murderers! Yup, there was most likely more than one this time, explaining the incredible speed of the crime.
All the pieces start to fall into place as Charles and Mabel look around for who it could be, until finally someone steps on the mat and it matches the shoe print, leading them to none other than one of the Brothers Sisters. The second murderer seems obvious, as the sisters may have pulled it off together. They certainly had a motive, if Sazz mentioned problems with the Only Murders in the Building movie that could have halted its production.
Only, one of the sisters goes missing on set, and before long, gunshots are heard – and someone else might be dead. The group has yet another murder, or serious injury, on their hands, it seems. It would make sense if the person who gets shot is actually one of the sisters, and this supposed suspect is another red herring, but it looks like we’ll have to wait and find out in the next episode.
