There are two questions facing Only Murders In The Building fans as we approach the Season 3 finale.
The first is obvious:
Which of the Pickwick Triplets did it?
Who of the crew could commit this crime?
Might a little brat, make a mommy go splat?
It’s a story pretty gory for a nursery rhyme.
This is hilarious because a baby as a killer in a musical is hilarious but also, have you read The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury? You should.
The second question is, perhaps, even more important: Who killed Ben ‘CoBro’ Glenroy (Paul Rudd)?
In the penultimate episode of Season 3, our intrepid podcaster-detectives—Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez)—think they’ve cracked the case.
In a last-ditch effort to exonerate Loretta (Meryl Streep) they cobble together the clues and realize that the likely killer is actually Donna DeMeo (Linda Emond), the wealthy producer who was backing Death Rattle before it closed, and continues to back Putnam’s reinvented musical version of the play.
The thinking goes like this: Donna came across an early review of the show that pegged Ben as the weakest link. Since this was her son Cliff’s (Wesley Taylor) first show, she took drastic measures to protect him from ruin, poisoning Ben’s cookie and leaving it for him to eat before opening night. She then shredded the review, a clue Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) came up with. They arrive at court just in the nick of time, and just as they’re about to tell Loretta who the real killer is, they spot Donna. Credits roll.
The only problem? Our investigative trio is dead wrong in the whodunnit department.
The killer isn’t Donna. This is obvious. They’ve already had two female killers in Seasons 1 and 2, and dropped a line about it earlier this season basically telling us that another female killer would be too predictable. Right away you can eliminate every woman in the show as a suspect.
But beyond that, what actual proof do they have? The shredded review could have been anyone. And the story about the cookies? The only reason they have that is from the police interviews, and the only person who told that story was Donna’s son, Cliff.
Cliff described his encounter with Ben. He brought him the cookies and Ben spurned him, telling him to go away quite rudely in the process. In Cliff’s story, the cookies were from Donna but that doesn’t mean Donna left the cookie. It’s much more likely that Cliff did. After all, Cliff had the cookies.
Why would Cliff want to kill Ben? It’s entirely possible that he was the one who read the review and wanted to save his own career, or at least not disappoint his overbearing mother. (Motherhood is a recurring theme throughout the show, and I think it’s obvious that one of the mothers or sons must be the killer at this point).
Whatever the case, my money is on Cliff as the killer though I suspect Donna knows and is helping to cover it up. She could very well have been the one to shred the review, but I doubt she poisoned the cookie.
What’s your theory? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
Only Murders In The Building airs its final episode on Tuesday, October 3rd.
Check out everything new to stream this weekend right here.
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