The Stall
Charlie's drive has taken her to Boyle's BBQ in Texas. An incident involving a stray (and possibly racist) dog has gotten her a job there. As she strikes a rapport with the pitmaster George Boyle, she ends up accidentally converting him to veganism, quitting the meat industry, and putting someone else in his place as partner.
This would naturally be a problem for a BBQ joint, but it's especially a problem for George's brother and the BBQ's owner, Taffy. The slick talker is in deep financial straits (including debts to those of a shady nature), and with Taffy having a "particular" way of balancing his books, buying George out is not an option. Taffy decides on drastic measures, slipping out of a radio show he performs regularly and murder George, framing things as a suicide.
Charlie's bullshit radar pings when Taffy says George would have wanted the BBQ to go on, and decides she has a little smoking out to do...
This episode contains examples of:
- Absence of Evidence: A double dose.
- Charlie notices that the recording of Taffy's radio show didn't have a train noise in the background as usual because Taffy had muted the background audio so no one would hear him sneaking out of the booth and then back in.
- Charlie sniffs George Boyle's beer bottle hoping to get the scent of poison or sleeping pills and smells neither. In fact, she doesn't smell anything at all, not even beer, because Taffy Boyle washed out the bottle to hide evidence of the Ambien he slipped into it.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: As Taffy is wrapping up his murder, the dog Charlie found starts barking at him. Not wanting to risk being found out, he eventually clubs it in the head with George's special wood for his smoker and leaves it for dead on the side of the road.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The episode begins with George in tears saying he's a murderer. So he's the murderer of the episode, right? Wrong. He just watched Okja and is horrified about how many animals he's killed while running his barbecue. Instead it's George's brother Taffy who's the murderer, murdering George so that the barbecue won't be shut down.
- Later on, Taffy is seen nervously sitting in his car, and putting something together that is making metal clicking noises. So he's loading a gun, ready for a last stand if need be? Nah, he's actually assembling an AD recorder to record the audio he'll be using to construct his alibi.
- Cain and Abel: The premise of the episode. Taffy becomes angry that his older brother George is leaving the family business, and conspires with his wife to murder him so they can keep the BBQ going without him.
- Caught on Tape: Charlie tricks a confession from one killer by having the local DJ (who can impersonate almost anyone) call her up, posing as her accomplice and getting her confession, which he then plays on the air.
- Character Filibuster: Twice in the episode. This first time is Taffy Boyle going on for 16 minutes about hot links, a recording he put together earlier in the day to play it during his radio show and sneak out to murder George. Charlie provides the second one to Taffy, a long speech that will supposedly prove how he committed the murder. In reality, however, she's stalling Taffy so that Austin can manipulate Mandy into ratting him out.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The various radio hosts that are heard throughout the episode are later revealed to come from one singular source: a man named Austin who created said radio personas to entertain himself at work. His talents come into play when he's able to perfectly impersonate Taffy to trick Mandy into ratting the man out to the police.
- Exact Words: When Charlie wonders how Taffy knew he was going to get a question about hot links, Mandy tells her straight up that it was planned. Her exact words are, "He asked me to cue him. It's something we've done before when we're trying to move a particular cut of meat," carefully leaving out that she knew full well that wasn't the reason this time.
- GPS Evidence: Wood flakes left in the dog's wounds eventually lead Charlie to realize it was hit with some of the wood George uses in his own personal smoker, the one he supposedly used to kill himself.
- Ironic Name: George's younger brother Taffy helps sell the family business by selling floss to customers who visit the barbecue. George himself doesn't care for it, comparing it to an airhorn at the symphony.
- It Amused Me: Why did Austin start doing all the other radio shows in town? He was bored.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: As it turns out, Austin is incredibly talented at creating different radio voices. These include a deep, suave jazz host, a Southern right-wing conspiracy theorist,
a female soft rock host, and Taffy Boyle. - My God, What Have I Done?: George starts regretting the BBQ business once he's done watching Okja.
- Never Suicide: Taffy drugs his brother George, then pipes the fumes from a smoker into his trailer and rigs the doors to lock from the inside to make it look like he committed suicide.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Charlie manipulates Mandy into "preemptively" ratting out Taffy by making her think Taffy is wavering with an impersonator; Charlie knows that Mandy is such a self-centered liar she won't be able to tolerate any sign of weakness in her co-conspirator.
- Recorded Audio Alibi: Taffy prepares a long-winded diatribe that, once he plays it on his show, buys him 16 minutes to snuff George out. Charlie eventually realizes it's fake when, upon re-listening to it, she finds out the show for that night doesn't have the train whistle that it should have.
- Shout-Out: Charlie compares herself to Gene Hackman when she was listening to the recording of Taffy's radio show, saying "she was looking for a sound," which is a reference to The Conversation.
- Sinister Suffocation: Taffy "smokes" his brother by piping the fumes from the smoker into his trailer. He was going to use classic carbon monoxide from George's car, but since George owns a Leaf, that doesn't happen.
- Slipping a Mickey: Taffy gives George a beer laced with sleeping pills in order to have him unconscious for the murder.
- Spanner in the Works: The dog ends up being one for Taffy. Him being near George's trailer and barking when the crime was committed makes Taffy attack him and leave him for dead, which not only makes Charlie stay in town for more days to let him heal, but also makes her suspect foul play on George's death.
- Stealing from the Till: The way Taffy talks about how "special" his books are, it's likely he was cooking the books and maybe embezzling from the company.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Charlie shows the movie Okja to her new friend George. The movie causes George to become a fervent vegan and immediately quit the barbecue business, leading his brother and wife to kill him for his stake in the company.
- Voice Changeling: Along with his "general archetype" impersonations (like MAGA racist), the other DJ at the station can imitate Taffy's voice well enough to trick Mandy into a confession.
