Headscratchers / Only Murders in the Building

Remember that Fridge and Headscratchers pages do not conceal spoilers.

Why did Jan lie about being first chair bassoonist?

• It did hint to the audience that she wasn't as honest as she seemed, but did that lie help her cover up her crime in any way?
  • That wasn't connected to the crime, that was a normal self-improvement lie (Like anybody lying about being a higher rank or making more money). She was just embarrassed to not be first chair despite doing this for so long, and even specifically points out how embarrassing it is that the new first chair is somebody so young.

Why didn't Jan murder the child prodigy first chair bassoonist? That situation pushed every one of her buttons.

• Probably because unlike her past crime(s), she couldn't think of a way to do it that wouldn't put suspicion back on herself. Even if she poisoned the first chair like she did with Tim (before shooting him), people might still look to her since, as second chair, it would be advantageous to her and her career if the first chair suddenly got sick or died.
  • Also, it's possible that Jan copes better with envy when she's in a loving relationship. She wasn't triggered in the same way before Tim died because they were together, and then she moved on quickly to Charles. It's possible she used the same lie on Tim about being first-chair bassoonist which also scratched the itch for her.

Could someone please explain to me why Mabel didn't tell Charles and Oliver that Tim and her were friends when they first started the podcast?

• I know that that was private information and that their friendship ended years before, but she did join the investigation into Tim's death, and might as well have just told them since it was probably going to help the case.
  • At that point, Mabel was a very guarded person with basically no close friends who was reluctant to share anything about her personal life. It may not be the most logical decision, but it makes sense given her personality. She also had no reason to think that it would be relevant to the case. She and Tim had been functionally strangers for years, and they no longer have many friends or acquaintances in common. It's reasonable to think that Tim was murdered by someone still actively involved in his life, in which case their friendship wouldn't have mattered. In fiction, if someone's high school friends are part of the plot, they're always relevant. In real life, that's not always the case.

What’s going on with the purse and the Son of Sam Card in S2 E5?

• Is it Mabel’s purse? Was she the Son of Sam? Did they switch cards or something? What’s going on here?
  • It’s Alice’s purse - she had the Son of Sam card and hid it. Showing us that she had the card proves that Oliver was right in his assessment of her in the game, and suggests that he’s right in his assessment that she’s involved in the murder
    • In that case - why did Mabel not realize that Alice had to be lying about having an Innocent Blonde card? They were the only two players left in the game, so if Mabel had an Innocent Blonde card, then by process of elimination she must have realized that Alice had the Son of Sam card. Also, Oliver's line of logic was "When you play with your hair, you're lying. I'm using this game as a test case, even though it doesn't matter, to prove that you were actually lying about a much bigger issue, which is your background/identity." Alice's response was essentially, "Yes, you're right that when I played with my hair earlier, I was lying about my background. But 'this' time when I played with my hair it meant nothing because I'm not lying about this minor game." Why bother, when she'd already confessed to the more important issue?
    • Possibly just plain spite. She might be jealous of her new girlfriend's close friends, and/or hypercompetitive. Mabel, meanwhile, might have assumed someone else was lying, Oliver screwed up dealing the cards, or ignored Alice's deception due to still being in the infatuation stage of their relationship.

In terms of framing the trio, there is conflicting evidence. We know Poppy killed Bunny with Oliver's knife and Mabel's knitting needle, and planted the painting and knife in Charles' apartment.

• But she also texted Charles and Oliver to get them out of the building and said that Mabel returning to her apartment was not part of the plan. So was she really trying to frame them or make it seem as if Cinda was framing them to get her out of the way? Also, was Poppy the one who left the notes on Oliver and Jan's doors and poisoned Winnie in Season 1?
  • Most likely, Poppy was trying to sell the narrative that Cinda was setting them up for the murder in order to bolster her podcasting career. That way, Cinda would get arrested for the murder and Poppy would have a sensational story to use for her own true-crime podcast. Eliminating her biggest competition and launching her career all in one. As for the notes and the poisoning of Winnie, that was most likely Jan. She could move freely around the Arconia to leave the notes, and she is a Master Poisoner. She was trying to get the main trio to back off the case.
  • I don't think Poppy went into the whole thing planning to frame Cinda for framing the trio. There was never any evidence indicating Cinda's involvement, only a couple of statements by Kreps about being involved with a smart woman who worked on the Not OK podcast. It seems more likely that Poppy only decided to imply that Cinda did it once she realized that Mabel suspected Cinda.
    • That sounds plausible. Also, the show runner is being cagey about who really poisoned Winnie and left the notes, suggesting that question could be answered later on.

Is it a plot hole, or did I miss something? In season 2 the trio learns that det. Williams is on maternity leave from det. Kreps - and that means that they are texting with the killer. So why did he reveal this information, since he was the one behind it all?

• Kreps is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Mabel even says he's not sophisticated enough to pull off a murder on his own. She's right, since it turns out Poppy was the one behind Bunny's murder.
• I thought it was Poppy they texted, and Kreps wasn't in the picture then.
  • Poppy was shown setting the whole thing up with Kreps. I also thought Poppy was the one texting with Mabel, and she sent Kreps to the evidence drop in her place. She probably assumed he was smart enough not to blow her cover by revealing where Williams was, but clearly overestimated him.
  • I'm still not convinced. Sure, Kreps isn't particularly bright and I can imagine that he revealed this information without thinking. But he should have realized it later, since he was the one to collect the evidence they were supposed to leave for det. Williams.

How did Poppy know about the passageways within the Arconia?

• We don't have any real indication she spent much time within the Arconia, and IIRC the most we get is a throwaway line in the finale that she happened to discover them. How, when people who lived there for decades didn't know about them? It's a bit perplexing that the passageways are crucial to the murder itself (it's why I never really thought Alice or Cinda made sense as suspects), yet neither the murderer nor her co-conspirator spent much if any time there, nor had any apparent reason to suspect the passageways' existence.
  • I think it's just a sign that Poppy is a genius. But there are a couple of other possibilities. Could she have found it out during her efforts to research a Rose Cooper podcast? Bear in mind that Poppy is also shown to be a thorough researcher and investigator. It wasn't that she chose to murder Bunny; the passageways came first and Poppy just happened to murder someone who was conveniently there.
  • There are various possible in-universe explanations like the above. In real life, it appears the show just wrote itself into a corner. In the scene where Poppy tells her accomplice what she found, the dialogue is clearly looped and doesn't match the actors' movements, indicating it was recorded and inserted after filming had wrapped and they realized they needed some sort of explanation.

How did the trio not discover that Poppy was the one Bunny had been meeting with much earlier?

• They had the security footage from the Pickle Diner, and while Oliver did note in episode 2.05 that he wasn't able to see the mysterious companion from that angle at a particular span of time there were multiple security cameras covering multiple angles on both entrances. There was also the rewind button on the recording, which would have allowed him to scan from the time Poppy entered the diner, unless by some freakish mastermind ability Poppy figured that she would need to keep her back to what she somehow knew was the only working camera for the entire time she was in the diner. Might be considered an Idiot Ball for Oliver, except that he seems to often be that clueless, so maybe it's an Idiot Plot or Third Act Stupidity since it also requires the waiter Ivan, and both Mabel and Charles, to have not thought of the possibility either.
  • In what little we saw of the footage, it's extremely poor quality. Most likely Oliver could see the figure but just couldn't identify them.

Why is everyone shocked by Charles' second "White Room" episode?

• It's probably just Rule of Funny, but: In "The White Room," Charles attempts to perform his Patter Song in front of the company and launches into a rage, horrifying everyone. Later, he discovers that he can actually sing the whole thing as long as he's making an omelette. When he goes to perform for them again, Charles mimes making an omelette onstage, which distracts everyone so much that Oliver makes him sing with his hands behind his back, triggering another White Room breakdown. But until Oliver did that, Charles was obviously doing much better, and afterwards no one mentions the fact that forcing Charles to be still is clearly what made him freak out. Why didn't they just let him do his song while pretending to make an omelette? They're still just in rehearsals, and at this point, Charles finishing the number at all would be an improvement. And surely Oliver, who's worked in theater for decades, has seen actors do weirder stuff than this to learn their parts.
  • The implication is that each episode is worse than the last and that the ones Charles experiences are the worst Oliver has ever seen.

Who is the author of Death Rattle?

• We know it's not Oliver because he got the offer to direct the pre-existing play from Donna, the producer. We saw the read through with Oliver, Donna, her son Cliff and the entire cast but there was no mention of the author. Oliver also turns the play into a musical, seemingly without consulting the unseen author. It's almost as if the play somehow wrote itself into existence.
  • I believe at one point Oliver described it as a classic, presumably Death Rattle is a relatively old play, not Shakespeare old, but maybe Dickens old, where the original author has passed on, and it's been adapted enough times for certain adaptations to start taking on unique twists, such as making it a musical.
  • It was described as such in the review after the premiere ("this dusty old chestnut has been brought back to life").
  • The author of the play isn't revealed because it isn't necessary to the plot. Comments from various characters and glimpses of the performance in the Season 3 finale show that Death Rattle isn't a particularly good play or mystery to begin with — the plot is convoluted, plot twists come out of nowhere, and no one can figure out what is going on even after months of working on the script. So, presumably, it was buried away after its initial run (maybe during the middle of the 20th Century when such plays were in vogue) and Donna was able to purchase the rights to stage it and make changes to the book at a low price as a cheap starter project for Cliff.

What is Oliver's dip obsession meant to be about?

• The man lives off dip, pretzels and gut milk. More than once it's pointed out that it's no good for his health. But are we meant to see it as a joke, a character trait, a consequence of him having no money, evidence of an eating disorder, what?
  • It's an eating disorder as a character trait. Time and time again, we see that Oliver will do whatever he wants with little concern with what might happen if his plans fail. This is reflected in his limited diet. It has negative effects on his health but he enjoys dips too much so he'll continue living off of them with only the hope that the problems won't tip over to become life threatening.

Why did Cliff want to support Death Rattle Dazzle?

• Donna is ready to cut and run, and it's only when Cliff insists that the musical is worth backing that she stays. Except the reveal that Cliff killed Ben makes this a wildly dumb idea, since he's more likely to get caught by sticking around the production. If he'd just let Donna cancel the show he probably would have gotten away with the murder.
  • It can be explained by Sunk Cost Fallacy - psychological mechanism making hard to step back if a lot of effort has been invested. Cancelling the show would mean that Cliff's actions (including murder) was All for Nothing.

How on earth does Theo understand a word Mabel says?

• She constantly turns her back on him or talks looking down, only to turn around for his reaction. Good thing the actor got the script in writing, I guess.
  • It's a stretch, but it's suggested that Theo actually doesn't understand a lot of what Mabel says. When she turned her back on him, he pulled a face because he couldn't follow her. He knew she was in full flow and understood enough to leave her alone to complete her train of thought, but he couldn't understand her.

---