Series / Only Murders in the Building

"This sends the investigation into a whole new direction."^note Left to right: Charles, Oliver, and Mabel.

"Every true crime story is actually true for someone."

— Charles-Haden Savage

Only Murders in the Building is a Hulu murder mystery/dramedy created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, starring Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez that debuted in 2021.

Charles-Haden Savage (Martin), Oliver Putnam (Short), and Mabel Mora (Gomez) have little in common aside from the fact that they live in the same Upper West Side apartment building. However, one night, they happen to bond over their shared love of True Crime podcasts. When a mysterious death in their building is ruled a suicide, the three believe that foul play is actually involved and — armed with little knowledge or experience, but plenty of enthusiasm — decide to do a little digging themselves and start up their own podcast in the process.

A second season was ordered mid-way through the first's airing and started airing on June 28, 2022 through to September 2022. Likewise, a third season was announced midway through the second. It started airing on August 8, 2023 (see the teaser here). The show airs on the Star hub outside the United States. A fourth season has been ordered.

Warning for those who haven't seen the series yet. It is an intricate mystery and each episode has at least one major revelation that ripples across the plot. Spoilers abound on this and all related pages, so proceed with caution!

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These tropes send the investigation into a whole new direction:

• #1 Dime: Teddy keeps a gold coin on his mantelpiece, explaining that it is all that remains of his grandmother's fortune after she spent the rest to flee genocide, come to America, and start up a deli business that built a new fortune.
• 10-Minute Retirement:
  • In episode six of Season 1, Mabel decides to drop out of the investigation after Charles and Oliver find out about her and Tim Kono's past. By the end of the episode, she has changed her mind and is back in the game.
  • A slightly longer version in Season 3, where it takes Oliver eight episodes to agree to do the podcast with Mabel.
• Aborted Arc:
  • In Season 2, Oliver meets with Amy Schumer about the possibility of teaming up on a TV version of the podcast but this is dropped after the second episode and Schumer does not reappear.
  • Charles is filming the Brazzos reboot at the end of Season 2, and he's told that he'll have a much bigger role due to testing well with the audience. This is handwaved at the beginning of Season 3, where he says it's on hiatus since a producer is up on harassment charges.
  • The fact that Teddy is Will's biological father is not mentioned in Season 3, though it's downplayed seeing as season 2 ended with Will figuring out the truth but assuring Oliver that he's his father in all the ways that matter.
• Accidental Murder:
  • Zoe's death turns out to be an accident when she gets pushed off the rooftop by Theo during a quarrel she initiated.
  • Cliff refers to his murder of Ben as an accident. While it isn't as clear-cut as the case above, it is certainly an act of panic and desperation.
• Accidental Proposal: In Season 3, Charles unknowingly proposes to Joy during one of his White Void Room fugues.
• Action-Hogging Opening: The pilot's opening scene with the police forces storming the building is the most action-loaded scene of the first season so far.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Charles is "haunted" by hallucinations of Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig because they remind him of a bad breakup. Steve Martin played the villain in Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
  • Paul Rudd, known for playing the superhero Ant-Man, plays Ben Glenroy who is famous for playing CoBro, a zoologist who has the ability to turn into a cobra and solve crimes. A Freeze-Frame Bonus also reveals that he played "Papa Ant" in an animated movie.
  • A producer called Donna says that her favorite thing she's ever made was Mamma Mia! Meryl Streep played Donna in the film adaptation of Mamma Mia!
  • Charles tells Matthew Broderick "You are still here? It’s over. Go home." The same thing Ferris says at the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Bonus points because Charles has the same mannerism as Broderick in that scene.
  • Charles talks about his hit single from the '70s titled "Angels in Flip Flops." In real life, Steve Martin is known for a novelty song titled King Tut, also released in the late '70s.
• Actually Pretty Funny: In the season 2 opener, Mabel says "Lawyer" during her interrogation which Detective Kreps takes as a hint that she is not gonna talk without her lawyer. But Mabel corrects him saying that she took him for a lawyer since he was acting "so smart". Detective Williams can't suppress a giggle much to Kreps's chagrin.
• Age-Gap Romance: Jan Bellows notes that she has this dynamic with both Charles (who is roughly 20 years older than her) and Tim Kono (who is roughly 20 years younger than her).
• Airvent Passageway: In the season 2 opener, the trio sneaks into Bunny's apartment via the building's spacious duct system.
• The Alleged Car: Oliver's vintage car from the 1960s breaks down while he and Charles pursue Mabel to Long Island.
• All Gays Love Theater: All the male gays, anyway. Mabel is bisexual, but disinterested in theatre. Jonathan, Howard, Bobo, and Cliff are all gay men who are passionate theatre lovers.
• Almost Kiss: Howard and Jonathan are about to kiss when the neighbor starts sneezing because of his cat allergy.
• Alone with the Psycho:
  • At the end of episode 7 in Season 1, Mabel and Oliver end up alone with Zoe's killer, Theo. He ties them up, but nothing else happens to them because he asks for Teddy's help.
  • The season one finale has Charles in Jan's clutches at the same time Mabel and Oliver discover proof of Jan's guilt in her apartment. They rush over to save Charles and find him in time before the poison gets the best of him.
  • Season 3 has Charles and Mabel kidnapped by Ben's stalker, Gregg, who tries to torture them to get the truth about Ben's murder out of them. Though he's psycho, he is not Ben's killer.
• Always Wanted to Say That: Jan is excited to finally be able to incorporate the word "circumstantial" in one of her sentences.
• Ambiguous Syntax: The trio names their Summation Gathering in the season 2 finale "killer reveal party". Some guests are confused about the name since it could either mean "a killer of a party" or "a party to reveal the killer". Turns out it was deliberately chosen as a Double-Meaning Title since both interpretations apply simultaneously.
• And Starring:
  • Among the three leads, Selena Gomez receives the "And" billing.
  • During Season 1, Amy Ryan receives the "With" billing while coming last in the opening credits as Selena Gomez's credit comes third.
  • For Season 2, only the three leads receive billing in the opening, but Cara Delevingne receives an "and starring" billing in the end credits.
  • Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep get a "Special Guest Star" billing in the Season 3 opening credits.
• And This Is for...: At the boiler room, Mabel steps on Jan's dropped gun and punches her in the face with the line "This is for Tim".
• Animal Motifs: Snakes in Season 3. Ben's famous role is in CoBro (he's a cobra and a bro!) - accordingly, he has a giant golden snake in his apartment - Dickie throws a jade egg in Ben's apartment, Cinda Canning has a jade egg, Ben refers to Loretta as a "snake" and hisses at her, Kimber sells serums with snake oil in them.
• Animated Credits Opening: The show's opening sequence is fully animated.
• Anxiety Dreams:
  • Mabel is paranoid about being sexually assaulted, and has a recurring dream where she wakes up in bed with a masked man standing over her ominously. But rather than panic, she kicks him in the nuts and stabs him to death with a knitting needle.
  • Charles reveals he has these whenever he starts dating, due to the traumatic break-up of his last relationship that involved him having to sit alone at dinner with a duo dressed as Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig dancing around him.
• Apartment Complex of Horrors: Downplayed. The Arconia is a gorgeous, cozy building full of (mostly) rich people. However, sometimes for Mystery Magnet reasons (as all the sleuths live there), there's a high number of murders and other horrible things going on. Mabel's close friend Zoe was pushed off the roof on New Year's Eve when they were teenagers by then-inhabitant, Theo Dimas and fell to her death. Theo's mobster father Teddy, also an Arconia inhabitant, is a grave robber who launders a huge amount of dirty money through jewelry sales, and threatened Tim Kono upon finding out that he witnessed Zoe's death. Tim was then murdered by Jan, another Arconia resident, who is an insane Serial Killer who tries to kill her then-boyfriend Charles and burn down the Arconia. The other residents of the Arconia are shown to be jerks or jerks with hearts of gold at best. For example, nobody cares about Tim's death and is more saddened by the death of Evelyn the cat. The building manager, Bunny, is a despot who's constantly threatening to evict Oliver before she is murdered at the end of Season 1. Her death reveals another web of annoyance and intrigue among building management of the Arconia, though she was ultimately murdered by Becky Butler, in search of another story for her podcast and spicing up the story of Rose Cooper, an abused artist who used to live in the Arconia.
• Apology Gift: Charles bought a bunch of flowers for Jan in order to apologize to her after the group dismissed her ideas.
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Shortly after the demise of Kono, Oliver bumps into Charles and Mabel in the elevator where he assumes they all must have had the same idea about creating a podcast. Turns out the two actually thought about Kono's garbage bag instead.
• Artifact Title: Discussed and subverted. The title comes from the trio's agreement that their podcast would only cover murders that occur in the Arconia, as all three of them live there and New York City has no lack of unsolved murders. However, the second season's cliffhanger ending involves a Broadway actor apparently dropping dead onstage during a play that Charles and Oliver are involved in. Mabel notes this and says that they couldn't cover Ben's death on the podcast because he didn't die in the building but it later turns out that doctors managed to revive him... shortly before he is killed for real by being thrown down the Arconia's elevator shaft.
  • A double subversion. "The Building" is a slang term used for a theatre, so some fans thought that the death in the theater would be a loophole, still technically allowing the title to make sense. But of course the events of the season 3 premiere brought it back to the original meaning.
• As Himself:
  • Sting lives in the building in the first season, and is even considered a suspect at a point.
  • In the second season, he has moved out and Amy Schumer moves into his apartment. She is a big fan of the podcast and wants to make it into a TV show starring herself as Jan.
  • In the third season, Matthew Broderick appears to take over Charles' role in Oliver's play.
• Aside Comment: Each episode begins with a relevant character talking to the audience about what it means to live in New York.
  • At one point in episode seven, Theo turns to the camera and signs "People talk too fucking much in this city."
  • Tim provides one in the season finale as part of his Posthumous Narration.
• Asshole Victim: Each of the main victims of the first three seasons is a deconstruction of this trope, showing that while they had their flaws, they also had good qualities that made them sympathetic and they did not deserve to die just for being unpleasant to deal with.
  • Tim Kono was Hated by All in the building which keeps the range of potential suspects wide open. It's revealed that he and Mabel were friends in the past and while their friendship ended on bad terms, Mabel was still hurt by his death. It's also shown that Tim refused to testify on Oscar's behalf because Teddy Dimas threatened him and Mabel. Before his death, Tim was trying to atone for letting Oscar take the fall for Zoe's death by gathering evidence against the Dimases that would exonerate Oscar. Ironically, despite how widely he was hated by the other tenants, Tim was actually murdered out of love — Jan was so obsessed and triggered by his rejection that she murdered him rather than risk him leaving her.
  • Bunny Folger is not the most popular person in the Arconia either. Like with Tim, Mabel, Charles, and Oliver suspect that it'll be relatively easy to find people who wanted Bunny dead. However, their investigation shows that while Bunny was cantankerous, nobody hated her to the point of wanting her dead. Even Nina Lin, someone who clashed with Bunny over renovating the Arconia, actually says that she wishes Bunny was there while in labor and hopes that the main trio finds out who killed her.
  • Ben Glenroy is an arrogant movie star who is disliked by many of his costars in Oliver's play. We then find out that Charles had Ben fired from his first job when he was 8 years old and his arrogant attitude since then is him compensating to cover up the insecurities that moment left him with. It's also mentioned that watching Ben on Girl Cop got Mabel and Silvia through a hard time after her father died. As Ben is a diva, a spoiled brat, and a bully, he's still the clearest example of the trope the show has provided so far, but he's shown to be a deeply troubled and unhappy person.
  • Averted with Season 4's victim, Sazz Pataki, who is sassy but generally well-liked. This may be because her killer most likely mistook her for Charles, who genuinely is very disliked by most people (excluding Mabel and Oliver, of course).
• Audible Sharpness: Knives tend to make a "zing" sound when being waved around by characters.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Howard turns out to be a terrible actor as he overplays his part in the season 2 finale's Summation Gathering. Oliver signals him to tone it down.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The first few episodes tease Charles's relationship with someone named Lucy, framing her as if she's an ex-girlfriend. He eventually divulges that she's actually the daughter of an ex-girlfriend. He cared deeply for Lucy but was abruptly cut out of her life when her mother ended the relationship.
  • The episode "The Boy from 6B" did it twice in one scene: Zoe wishes Teddy and Theo a happy new year in ASL whilst wearing Teddy's stolen ring, Teddy stops her... and asks her pleasantly surprised about her ASL. Once Zoe turns her back, he signs to Theo to get the ring back.
  • The victim for season 3 appears to be Ben Glenroy…but he is revived by doctors after his “murder”. Subverted again when he dies for real at the end of Episode One.
• Bathos: When Charles and Oliver confront Mabel and Oscar at the tattoo studio at Long Island, the dramatic moment is undercut by Oliver getting a Brain Freeze from eating his ice cream too fast.
• Berate and Switch: Mabel when pondering her newfound friends' proposal to sneak into Kono's apartment.
  "Do I wanna break into a dead guy's apartment and go through all his shit?" — Beat — "Sounds like an afternoon."
• Black Comedy: Oliver's description of one scene Splash: The Musical - Despite a stage malfunction (a trapdoor to a pool failed to open) during a preview, Oliver had the performance go on, leading to 12 actors jumping and badly injuring themselves. We hear the audience scream in the background, while Charles looks incredibly disturbed.
• Blood from the Mouth: The last scene of season 2 has a Broadway star dying on stage with blood pouring from his mouth.
• Boggles the Mind: "The Boy from 6B" features Charles and Jan playing Scrabble while on a date, playing words such as "SEXY", "HARD", "WET", and "YUM".
• Bookends: Season One begins and ends with an excerpt from the song "Manhattan".
• Book Safe: Mabel discovers that Tim used his adventure books as hiding spots for mementos and jewelry.
• Bound and Gagged: Oliver and Mabel end up like this in the back of Theo's van after they discover Teddy's family business.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Charles is rehearsing for Death Rattle Dazzle in "The White Room" when he blacks out. He comes to in the middle of a scene of complete disarray and asks "Am I dead? Am I on drugs? Am I dead and on drugs?"
• Brick Joke: The murdering knife that ends up stuck in the ceiling earlier in episode 3 of season 2 comes down unexpectedly towards the end of the episode, now stuck in the floor.
• Bringing Running Shoes to a Car Chase: Charles tries to track Mabel on foot after she drives away. Fortunately for him, Mabel is stalled by traffic until Oliver arrives with his car.
• Budget-Busting Element: Features an In-Universe example; one of the major expenses that caused Oliver's musical adaptation of Splash to go over-budget was an elaborate set that was supposed to open onto an actual pool of water. Unfortunately for Oliver, the hydraulics failed during previews, and when the chorus boys all dove for the pool, they hit the stage instead, causing multiple injuries and a string of expensive insurance investigations.
• Building of Adventure: The majority of the plot happens inside the Arconia building, which over the course of the series has been revealed to host at least two murders, two pet poisonings, a stabbing, and the central hub of a graverobbing ring.
• Bystander Syndrome: The residents of the Arconia who aren't the main characters are apathetic jerkasses at best on most days. They do almost nothing to help with the investigation and on occasion make it more difficult. To the point where some residents see Charles lying on the elevator floor after he's been poisoned, assume he's on a drunken bender and nothing to help him, even shushing him after he cries out for help.
• Cacophony Cover Up: The group surmises that Teddy pulled the fire alarm at the building in order to give his son the chance to shoot Kono without anybody noticing. It was actually Jan who pulled the fire alarm but they were right about the motive for pulling it.
• Call-Back:
  • Oliver asks Mabel if she likes her Beatz and Amy Schumer tells Oliver to bring her a turkey. Both are Lampshaded as call-backs.
  • The trio has pictures of Theo and Teddy on their suspect boards in the first half of Season 2.
  • In Season 3, Oliver uses a ladder to try to get into a backroom. Mabel says the ladder is the new turkey.
  • In Season 3, when Cliff is hanging from the theatre skylight he asks if the Spalsh dancers were this high up when they fell.
• The Cameo: Mel Brooks appears via FaceTime in Season 3 when Oliver is at his wit's end dealing with Matthew Broderick.
• Casting Couch: Implied in season 3 to be how Dickie was conceived. Loretta describes in a flashback how when she was in high school, a visiting theater director from New York praised her acting skills, while the camera shows him leering at her at a rehearsal. The next scene shows her at the OB/GYN's office.
• Casting Gag: Several characters involved in Oliver's hammy play Death Rattle are played by actors best known for the theater. Linda Emond (Donna) is a three-time Tony nominee; Wesley Taylor (Cliff) originated roles in Rock of Ages and The Addams Family; Ashley Park (Kimber) originated the role of Gretchen in Mean Girls.
• Catharsis Factor: Invoked Trope - Even if they were quickly cleared, Oscar admits to being glad that Teddy and Theo Dimas were falsely implicated in the murder of Tim Kono, because they framed him for Zoe's death and cost him ten years of his life.
• Caught on Tape: Charles manages to catch Jan in the act of confessing to Tim's murder and actively poisoning Charles the same way by secretly recording the whole thing with his phone under a couch cushion.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • In the first episode, Oliver and Charles discuss The Office (US), which features Amy Ryan (Jan Bellows) as Holly Flax.
  • There are two in the same scene in Season 3.
    • Loretta gets an audition for a spin-off of Grey's Anatomy. Jesse Williams (Tobert) played Dr. Jackson Avery on that show.
    • Loretta also mentions that she was up for the part of Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, the film adaptation of which featured Steve Martin (Charles) as Orin Scrivello.
  • Oliver says he never got around to seeing The Producers. Nathan Lane (Teddy Dimas) played Max Bialystock in the show on Broadway and in the 2005 film, while Martin Short (Oliver) played Leo Bloom in the LA and San Francisco productions.
  • In "CoBro", Matthew Broderick appears As Himself. He's starred in multiple plays with Martin Short. He also co-starred as Leo Bloom alongside Nathan Lane (Teddy) as Max Bialystock in The Producers (which is referenced in the episode), while they also respectively played adult Simba and Timon in The Lion King.
• Central Theme:
  • Season 1 is about isolation and coming out of isolation, especially after loss. The main trio are all isolated by past losses (Charles by losing Emma and Lucy, Oliver by losing Will's college fund and his marriage, Mabel after Zoe's death and Oscar's imprisonment). The podcast brings them together after Tim's death. Tim appeared to be a friendless Jerkass, but he was actually a hero working to fix his mistake, and he was murdered by someone who loved him. Jan is Always Second Best until she starts a new relationship with Charles, though in fact Tim was not planning to break up with her and seemed to genuinely care about her; she simply misinterpreted the ring in his possession. Theo's isolation due to his deafness and his family business leads him to a whirlwind hookup with Zoe, which results in him accidentally killing her, and thus ending up in even more despair and isolation.
  • Season 2's can be seen as confrontations with the past and how they can be for the better. Each protagonist either confronts or is confronted with the past. Mabel has to confront the prospect of whether she is a killer by confronting the black outs she had a major moments in her life. Charles confronts his past by talking to Lucy again after years of avoiding her because of his relationship with his ex. He is also confronted with his relationship with Jan and with what his father was really like. Oliver is confronted with the prospect of not being his son's birth father. Thankfully, for all of them, they all get a good resolution from confronting the past. Mabel realizes that she isn't a killer and that she was there for her father during his dying moments. Charles reconciles with Lucy, moves on from Jan and learns that his father did love him. Will figures out that he isn't Oliver's birth son, but doesn't care.
• Character Narrator: Each episode features narration that provides insight into a character, context for the plot, or a bit of additional color to the setting.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Mabel's knitting needle, which she uses when she fantasizes about killing an attacker in her apartment. That's the weapon which is used to kill Bunny in the Season 1 finale and frame her for the murder.
  • The trio searches through Tim Kono's apartment and discovers a box of sex toys, including one that looks like some sort of whip or crop. Much later, they reexamine the toys and discover that the whip/crop is actually a bassoon cleaner, implicating Jan in the murder.
  • Oliver's dip bag, received at the beginning of the blackout and dropped at the staircase. Mabel then later picks it up and hits the man following Lucy with it. Though it turns out to be Marv.
  • Poppy's liverwurst and marmalade sandwich that she orders in the season 2 finale becomes a clue later on in the episode.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • When talking about Teddy in the pilot, Oliver quickly notes that he has a "deaf son." This is Theo Dimas, who won't be introduced properly until episode 3, and is then revealed in episode 7 of Season 1 to be Zoe's killer.
  • Becky Butler, the missing girl from Cinda Canning's podcast "All Is Not OK in Oklahoma." Mentioned a couple of times by Cinda as her topic and in the podcast, ultimately revealed to be Cinda's assistant and the Season 2 killer, Poppy White.
• Clean Food, Poisoned Fork: When Jan poisons Charles, she is not drugging his drink as he wrongly assumes but the ice pack she gave him to treat his bloody nose.
• *Click* Hello: Jan announces herself in the boiler room with a loud cock of a revolver^note despite the revolver being hammerless.
• Cliffhanger: Every episode has at least one.
• Climbing Climax: Inverted. The showdown of season one takes place in the boiler room of the Arcadia.
• Colbert Bump: In-Universe. After Cinda Canning mentions the podcast on Jimmy Fallon they go from 17 subscribers to over 1000.
• Comically Missing the Point: The following exchange when the trio snoops around Kono's apartment and finds the bloody paw prints:
  Oliver: That dead cat. What was her name? Ethel?
  Mabel: Evelyn.
  Charles: This doesn't make sense.
  Oliver: Oh no. A lot of people name their pets human names.
  Charles: No. The cat was here after Tim died.
• Consulting a Convicted Killer: Charles does this with Jan in Season 2, who's been convicted of the murders and attempted murders from the first season by then, hoping for insight on the current killer.
• Continuity Reboot: In-universe. In season 2, Charles is offered the chance to appear in a reboot of his show Brazzos as the uncle of the new Brazzos.
• Continuity Snarl: Charles and Emma's timeline is a little inconsistent. He mentions Lucy was 7 when she and her mother moved in and stayed for 6 years. Lucy then mentions 8 years have passed which would put her at 21 but some dialogue suggests Lucy is in her mid to late teens by alluding she's still in high school. Though Charles may have meant that Lucy was seven when they left when he referred to her as a seven-year-old which would make the math make much more sense.
• Convenient Photograph:
  • The Former Friends Photo of the Hardy Boys taken at the fateful night of Zoe's death reveals a clue in "Twist." Zoe was wearing a ring that disappeared by the time her body was found.
  • A capture from the building's security camera emerges in episode 8. It places Teddy and Theo outside the building at the time of Kono's murder rendering them innocent of committing the crime.
  • In Season 3, Loretta happens to see Dickie in the background of a newspaper photograph with Ben, revealing to her that she needs to audition for Death Rattle.
• The Corpse Stops Here: Season one ends with the three heroes winding up in a room with the freshly murdered Bunny. When the police arrive, Mabel is covered in blood and leaning over the body. They arrest her, Oliver, and Charles for being the prime suspects of a new murder case.
• Couch Gag: The Opening Credits are altered slightly for each episode to feature an Easter Egg relevant to the associated episode's plot. Bonus points for the first Easter egg being an actual egg.
• Creator Killer: In-Universe:
  • Oliver had been a highly successful Broadway producer who defied odds for hit after hit. Then his 2005 production of Splash: The Musical turned into a disaster thanks to multiple actors diving into an empty pool set. Combined with his already huge ego and overspending and he's now Persona Non Grata on Broadway and can't afford to actually stay in his apartment building.
  • This turns out to have been the motive for Season 3's murder. Maxine pinpointed Ben as the weak link in Death Rattle. When Donna read this, she became concerned that this trope would come for her precious son Cliff for his solo producing credit, and poisoned Ben's cookie.
• Creepy Mascot Suit: Played for Laughs, and yet also Played for Drama. In one episode, Charles is haunted by visions of people in Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig costumes. He treats them like minor annoyances. However, he later reveals why these visions exist to the audience. He took his girlfriend and her daughter on a family cruise, but the girlfriend dumped him by abruptly leaving with her daughter when the ship was docked midway through the cruise. Charles had already hired the costumed performers for a celebratory dinner and they came and performed even though Charles was alone. He still remembers the mascots dancing around him.
• Crowd Song: The whole of Arconia sings "The Sound of Silence" during the blackout.
• Crystal-Ball Scheduling: In season 3, the plot of the murder mystery play Death Rattle (and later its musical reimagining, Death Rattle Dazzle) has a few parallels with the actual murder plot of the season; for instance, both the fictional and real victims died by falling. Though the parallels aren't really brought up by the characters, the way the show presents things often plays them up.
• The CSI Effect: Invoked in the first episode. Detective Williams groans at dealing with a trio of true-crime podcast fans who think they know how to solve a crime, and the later episode focusing on her shows that she hates the genre in general, partly because she finds nothing entertaining about the messy consequences of murder cases (which are often not that mysterious).
• Cutting Back to Reality: In the season one finale, we see Charles suddenly defy the effects of the poisoning. He gets up and delivers a speech to the villain about valuing his friendship with Mabel and Oliver over his own life. Then we cut back to him still in delirium unable to voice a single comprehensible word.
• Dawson Casting: In-universe: Ben Glenroy played a high school senior in the TV show Girl Cop when he was 31.
• A Day in the Limelight: Since each episode begins with narration from a different character, this trope is seen often:
  • "To Protect and Serve" focuses on Detective Williams, her childhood and marriage, and her realization that she missed a couple of big things in the case procedure when her wife plays the podcast for her. She sends Kono's unprocessed phone to Mabel as a result.
  • "The Boy from 6B" is mostly from Theo Dimas's perspective, including his own past encounters with the Hardy Boys gang. This is repeated to a lesser extent in Season 2 in "Flipping the Pieces" when he rescues Mabel from Glitter Guy and they go to Coney Island together.
  • "The Last Day of Bunny Folger" goes through the events of Bunny's last day from her perspective (without revealing who her killer is).
  • "Performance Review" spends time with Poppy White and her relationship with her boss, Cinda Canning.
  • "Sitzprobe" retells the events of Season 3 and before from Loretta's perspective.
• Dead Animal Warning: The killer poisons Oliver's dog (who survives, due to Oliver getting home in time and Oliver's son being a veterinarian) and leaves a message with a demand to close down the podcast.
• Death by Irony:
  • Tim Kono was hated by virtually all the other tenants of the Arconia. The main trio and by extension the audience are led to believe he was murdered by someone who really hated him; as it turns out, Tim was murdered by a woman who loved him to an unhealthy degree.
  • Bunny Folger was the strict head of the Arconia's co-op board and rubbed just about every tenant the wrong way. She was murdered by someone she barely knew nor had offended in any way and who wasn't even a tenant of the Arconia.
• Deconstruction: Zoe Cassidy's death shows the realistic consequences when a bad person is murdered. Her death isn't cathartic AT ALL, toxic friend or not seeing the mangled, crushed body of someone who was close to you is still a traumatizing sight, and while, yes, she was a thief and a Rich Bitch that didn't mean she deserved to die, not to mention the fallout destroyed the friendship of two of her friends and ruined the lives of another friend and even her guilt stricken murderer.
• Detective Mole: In an in-universe example, the killer in Death Rattle Dazzle turns out to have been the main detective character, as revealed when the musical is shown in the final episode.
• Detective Patsy: Discussed in episode 5 between Charles and Oliver in their car as they ponder about Mabel's motivation to engage in the investigation of a murder she potentially committed herself.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: While developing their podcast's soundtrack, Charles uses a concertina to play the melody of the series' theme. Oliver isn't completely sold on it, though.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Why was Ben Glenroy poisoned? Because his performance got a scathing review from one critic. Even if Donna's claim that she didn't intend to kill him was true, that's still an extreme thing to do to someone for simply not being a great actor, especially since there were presumably easier ways of removing him from the show.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Bunny's murderer turns out to be unsuspicious side character Poppy White aka Becky Butler.
• Downtime Downgrade: Mabel and Oscar spend most of their time in the first season building up to consummating their mutual feelings, but almost immediately in the second season, Mabel confesses that their relationship isn't strong and they both are waiting for the other to admit that they should just be friends.
• Driving Question:
  • Season 1: Who killed Tim Kono and why? ^Answer Jan Bellows. She and Tim Kono were in a Secret Relationship. She killed him because she mistakenly believed he was cheating on her.
  • Season 2: Who killed Bunny Folger and why? ^Answer Poppy White a.k.a. Becky Butler. She wanted to make it big as a true crime podcaster, so with the help of Detective Kreps, she murdered Bunny and plotted to frame Mabel for it, hoping to use the story to launch her career.
  • Season 3: Who killed Ben Glenroy and why? ^Answer Cliff Demeo. His mother Donna poisoned Ben to prevent him from ruining her son's first Broadway show. Ben found out about this and threatened to have her arrested so Cliff pushed him down an elevator shaft.
  • Season 4: Who killed Sazz Pataki and why?
• Dumpster Dive: The first thing the protagonists do when investigating Tim Kono's death, is going digging through the building's garbage.
• Dying Clue: After Bunny is murdered, she says what sounds like "Fourteen Savage" to Mabel. She was actually saying "Fourteen sandwich" in reference to her killer's usual order at the diner.
• Easter Egg: Each episode's Opening Credits feature a subtle clue related to something that will happen or be seen.
• Elevator Action Sequence: Played for laughs. Oliver and Teddy have a Wimp Fight in the elevator in season 2.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: At Mabel's place, Oscar discovers an album with childhood photos of hers. Mabel is embarrassed about it.
• Empty Swimming Pool Dive: We learn that Oliver's musical "Splash!" was doomed from the start when during the first night of previews hydraulic problems led to actors diving from a pier onto the stage floor instead of the pool beneath it.
• Engineered Public Confession: Season 2 has one in its finale that borders on a stage play featuring the people in the building, with two Fake Out Twists to eventually make Poppy admit she was the one who killed Bunny.
  • They do it again at the end of season 3. It's fair less elaborate, as Donna is a dying woman who didn't even intend to kill Ben when she poisoned him. Subverted since she also falsely confesses to pushing Ben, once the trio show evidence that makes her realise it was Cliff.
• Entertainingly Wrong: The trio thinks they've got a clue in Bunny's parakeet going "I know who did it." Turns out the bird was just repeating a line from a movie Bunny had been watching.
• "Eureka!" Moment: When dumping his omelet in a garbage bag in his kitchen, Charles realizes that he saw Kono with such a bag on the wrong floor.
• Everyone Has Standards: Charles and Oliver consider stopping the podcast in Episode 6 for two reasons:
  • The victim was a close friend of Mabel, and they don't want to profit off his death in that case. Mabel is willing to see it through though for this reason.
  • They don't want to do the podcast without Mabel, whose mother forbade her from participating in it. Luckily, she relents.
• Evidence Dungeon: Jan's apartment is full of evidence for her crimes like the emerald ring and her drug kit. She even kept the knife which she stabbed herself with in a hidden spot behind a duct outlet.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Poppy White for Mabel. Both are young dark-haired women (Poppy is at most in her mid-30s, while Mabel is in her late 20s) who grew up in single-parent households. Both are true crime fans living in New York City and big fans of Cinda Canning. Both are revealed in Season 2 to have fought back against sexual harassment they received from their employers. Both are shown to be intelligent, creative, and quick-thinking. Both work on a podcast about a murder close to them. However, while Mabel is valued as an equal (and sometimes a superior) by Oliver and Charles, Cinda mistreats, bullies, and plagiarizes from Poppy. Meanwhile, Poppy framed Mabel and killed Bunny to give her content for the podcast. This is even underlined by Poppy's real name, which is alliterative like Mabel's: Becky Butler.
  • Detective Kreps for Charles. Both are older men who get in whirlwind romances with much younger women who are revealed to be the killers of their respective season. Both remain besotted by the killer in question — Jan and Poppy/Becky - even after learning of her crimes. However, while Charles breaks up with Jan because of Mabel's hurt, Kreps continues to help Becky/Poppy.
  • Donna and Cliff for Loretta and Dickie in Season 3. Both are beloved only sons of mothers involved in Death Rattle. Both are overshadowed by a more famous relative: Cliff has Donna herself, while Dicky has his younger brother Ben. Both mothers are extremely protective of their sons, to the point of both falsely confessing to a murder to save them. Though Donna actually killed Ben via the poison cookie, while Loretta simply confessed and Dickie turned out to be innocent.
  • Also Cliff for Ben. Both are the beloved children of their families who are arguably coasting on a relative's talent (Cliff relies on Donna to produce, Ben stole Co Bro from Dickie) and show deep insecurity about their identities. The difference is that Ben is implied to have lost his parents and is unmoored without them, whereas Cliff remains in Donna's pocket.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Done frequently in "The Boy In 6B," as Theo is shown frequently eavesdropping on incredibly relevant conversations. What's impressive is that he's doing this by reading lips, so these conversations manage to happen with all relevant information being shared while facing Theo's hiding spots.
• Failure Montage: Oliver auditions several terrible singers in his effort to replace Charles in Death Rattle Dazzle.
• Fake Kill Scare: In the season 2 finale, Charles jumps in front of Mabel and gets stabbed to death by Alice. However, it turns out his death was faked in order to draw out the real murderer.
• Fake-Out Twist: The season 2 finale provides two twists in quick succession. In their summation the heroes accuse Cinda Canning of having killed Bunny. Then the suspicion shifts over to Alice who in a rage kills Charles with a knife. After she has been restrained, there is another twist revealing that everything up to this point was staged in order to draw out the real murderer amongst the guests, side character Poppy White.
• False Confession: In season 3, both Loretta and Donna wrongly confess to Ben's murder to protect their sons.
• Fantasy Sequence: At the boiler room in the season finale, Charles imagines himself having faked the poisoning attack and standing up to Jan and delivering a speech about how Mabel and Oliver revived his hollow life. Then we cut back to his poisoned self mumbling unintelligibly.
• Fauxshadowing: In "I Know Who Did It", the camera focuses on Alice Banks entering the room just as Charles says that the killer is in the room with them. A short while later, she is revealed to be the killer and stabs Charles with a knife. Except not. Both Mabel's accusing of Alice and Alice's subsequent stabbing of Charles were staged as part of a ruse to trap the real killer, Poppy White.
• First-Episode Twist: The first episode ends with a look around Mabel's apartment. We see a photograph revealing that she and Tim were childhood friends.
• Flashforward: "The Sting" ends with a scene that takes place months later in which Cinda Canning says that the three protagonists will be the subject of her next podcast, Only Murderers in the Building.
• Follow That Car: Charles and Oliver in pursuit of Mabel going to Long Island.
• Former Friends Photo: Mabel keeps a photograph of herself and Tim Kono when they were still friends.
• Fowl-Mouthed Parrot: Bunny has a parrot called Mrs. Gambolini that spouts foul language.
• Frame-Up: The trio is framed for murder at the end of Season 1 which then kick-starts Season 2's plot. It's revealed the perpetrators had framed another person for murder too.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In Season 2, Episode 6, a freeze-frame of Poppy's tablet shows Cinda's extremely packed schedule, including "5 am primal scream", "7:30 am ask Poppy to stop doing that thing", "8 am goat yoga", "9 am clitoral stimulation session with Jake", "3 pm neck thing", and at least two sessions of "underwater pilates".
• "Friends" Rent Control:
  • Discussed in regards to Mabel. Charles and Oliver acquired their apartments decades prior when the Arconia was affordable, but Mabel is a young new arrival at a time when Manhattan's real estate prices are through the roof. She eventually reveals that the apartment belongs to her aunt and she's living there temporarily to oversee a renovation. Despite his downturn in fortune, Charles is still decently financially well-off from his long-running series which presumably gives him enough in royalties to afford his apartment and living a fairly modest life otherwise.
  • Also Subverted with Oliver, whose inability to find work has made him struggle to maintain payments for the Arconia's building fees and bills, and is close to being kicked out. Something similar was going on with Tim Kono prior to his death, as they find a pile of unpaid bills on his mantle and the detective on his case notes money troubles as the assumed reason behind his "suicide".
  • Word of God (courtesy of a People magazine article) is that much of Oliver's lavish furniture is "liberated" from his Broadway shows.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Parodied during the season 2 finale's Summation Gathering, where Charles dramatically turns around to point his finger at the supposed killer but he turns a little too much and ends up pointing at an unwitting bystander much to everyone's confusion. Shortly after, Mabel plays the trope straight by pointing at Alice as the new potential killer.
• Glitter Litter: Exploited. In Season 2, a glitter bomb is used in an attempt to track a suspect. The main characters miss the bomb going off, but later, the glitter is seen to still be stuck on the person who set it off, allowing Mabel to identify them.
• Going by the Matchbook: In season 2, Mabel finds a matchbook in her apartment that later provides a clue to the identity of Bunny's murderer.
• Hand of Death: In Episode 3, we see that Bunny's murderer wore black gloves and the murder itself is shown in shadow. In Episode 4, Lucy barely manages to avoid encountering the murderer who is dressed all in black.
• Happy Circus Music: In "Flipping the Pieces," a cheerful, nostalgic circus waltz tune is heard as Theo plays a claw crane game at Coney Island.
• Hated by All:
  • At the Arconia's memorial service for Tim Kono, not a single person can muster a kind word about him and instead talk about how much he annoyed them. As the episode goes on, Charles himself, who barely knew the guy, grows increasingly annoyed by what he learns about him.
  • Both Oliver and Charles separately seem to have also been this themselves. Charles's views on tipping, aloof nature, and difficulty remembering people's names make him unpopular among the other Arconia residents and staff. Oliver's flamboyant and needling personality makes him quite grating to those around him, best seen with how his own son and Charles both react to him.
  • The negative impact of their podcast, makes it so all three of them are much more actively hated by the other tenants, and Bunny has no problem getting enough votes to evict all three.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?: After Charles and Jan slept together, he can't help mentioning the fact to his friends at every turn.
• Held Gaze: Mabel and Oscar share one in episode 6.
• Hereditary Wedding Dress: After Charles accidentally proposes to Joy and then breaks up with her, Joy got her mother and grandmother's wedding dress sent to Charles's apartment in the interim. As a result, it's still there when Mabel, Charles, and Oliver use it to storm Loretta's indictment for Ben's murder. Mabel and Oliver express shock that Joy's parents are both still alive, as, apparently, is her childhood dog.
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of Season 2, Broadway star Ben Glenroy drops dead on stage and Mabel says, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
• Highly Visible Password: When Charles unlocks Kono's phone, the password (Theo) is displayed in cleartext.
• His Name Is...:
  • The podcast that Mabel, Oliver, and Charles are listening to is magically cut off by the fire alarm just as the podcast is about to reveal an important plot point. When the three assemble at a restaurant nearby their desire to find out what the dog Beau had in his mouth brings the three together.
  • Bunny managed to say only two things to Mabel before dying: 14 and Savage. In the Season 2 finale, it's revealed that she actually said "14" and "Sandwich", a reference to the favorite sandwich of her murderer, Poppy White, which was number 14 on the menu at a local diner.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • The trio goes to Cinda Canning for advice, she acts helpful, but then goes on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to make fun of them. This ends up giving them so much free publicity that their podcast becomes a big enough hit to rival her own, and eventually they expose her as a fraud.
  • Teddy financially supports the podcast with a cheque, ostensibly because he and Oliver are old friends, but actually because he's concerned they may uncover the link between Zoe and Theo. The cheque Teddy wrote is signed to his other business (Angel, Inc), which allows the trio to put it together that Teddy is a grave robber, and starts the chain of events that leads to Theo's role in Zoe's death being exposed.
• How We Got Here: The show starts In Medias Res, with an ESU team infiltrating the building while Charles and Oliver find Mabel kneeling over an apparently dead body as she tells them it's Not What It Looks Like. Then we cut to the story's real start two months before.
• Hubris: Discussed by the fans waiting outside the building regarding the reason why the suspected culprit Teddy funded the podcast that would go on to expose him.
• Iconic Item: Teased and invoked before being subverted with the tie-dye hoodie, worn by Tim's maybe-killer and the victim in the flashforward. However, since the podcasters call him "tie-dye guy", it becomes an official piece of fandom lore, and an in-universe example of Official Cosplay Gear. That's why Bunny is wearing it at the end, and it has nothing to do with Oscar.
• Imagine Spot:
  • In the first episode each of the characters gets a surreal moment tying into Oliver's opening narration involving trampolines. They each imagine dropping something and having it return to them as if it bounces: Oliver imagines himself jumping off a set of stairs, Mabel drops the engagement ring they found in Tim's package, and Charles bounces the omelet he was cooking.
  • Oliver has an extended sequence as he reviews the potential suspects, imagining them at a theater audition confessing their crimes to him.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: In season 2, when Oliver reconnects with his son in preparation for the "Wizard of Oz" School Play, he makes a promise that the commitment to his family will never again take a backseat to his murder investigations. Then his phone rings and he takes off to resume his murder investigation.
• Immediate Sequel: Season 2 picks up right after the events of the Season 1 finale, with Charles, Oliver, and Mabel being interrogated overnight and released the following morning.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Tim Kono's neighbor mentions hearing loud female screams coming from his apartment.
• I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One on TV: When Nina goes into labor, Charles says he can deliver the baby because he once played an OBGYN on TV. Fortunately, the paramedics arrive before that can happen.
• Impairment Shot: After Mabel walks in to see Alice's elaborate re-creation of Mabel's apartment and Bunny's death as part of an art project, the picture repeatedly blurs both when the camera is shooting her first-person point of view and Mabel herself, broadcasting her internal collapse at the betrayal.
• Important Haircut: Becky Butler changes her hairstyle so that no one will recognize her when she leaves her hometown.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: How Poppy gives herself away. She begins sneezing from being exposed to Bunny's parrot Mrs. Gambolini. When Oliver and Mabel point out that a witness (Lucy) heard the killer sneeze while fleeing the scene, Poppy snaps, "It's not a crime to be allergic to rancid bird molting. And what? You're gonna believe some... some young girl that's hiding in your walls?" a fact that only the killer could have known.
• Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!: Played straight as an arrow with Nina who goes into labor right after her water breaks when she is pressured by the heroes to confess to the murder. Charles instantly takes on the role of Delivery Guy, a skill he learned from performing it on a TV show called "The Deliverer".
• Instantly Proven Wrong: When Poppy assures Mabel that her boss Cinda Canning respects her, we hear Cinda whistling after Poppy to follow her like a dog. Poppy claims it's an inside joke they are having.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: In-Universe. Oliver knows that Tim Kono's family is Asian but is unsure of the specific country, so he speculates wildly, to the annoyance of Charles.
• Internal Reveal:
  • At the end of "The Sting", Charles and Oliver learn of Mabel's connection to Tim Kono, as well as the fact that one of her old friends also died in the building from Oliver's son Will.
  • In episode 8, the group learns from Kono's phone that Theo was the one who pushed Zoe from the rooftop.
• It Will Never Catch On: Seeking old friend Teddy for a loan, Oliver is struck when Teddy starts listing the number of Broadway hits Oliver talked him out of investing in.
  Teddy: Le Miz? "It's such a downer, Teddy and all over a loaf of bread."
  Oliver: Well, it was...
  Teddy: Mamma Mia!. "I didn't like ABBA when they were ABBA."
  Oliver: Yeah...
  Teddy: Hamilton!
  Oliver: They picked the one Founding Father with no pizazz!
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Martin Short's former SCTV co-star Andrea Martin appears in "Performance Review" as Charles' make-up artist Joy.
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: The trio lures Uma into the Summation Gathering in the season 2 finale with the promise of cake. However, the ordered cake is late and Uma doesn't stop complaining about there not being any cake.
• I Will Find You: Played for laughs. During the Power Outage Plot in season 2, Oliver delivers a dramatic speech to come back and find his dips when he has to leave them behind in the building's stairway.
• Just Between You and Me: When they are alone, Jan runs Charles through her Evil Plan and how she murdered Tim Kono. Then she decides to leave the room expecting Charles to succumb to her poison.
• Keeping the Enemy Close: Despite being warned by Theo that the trio is snooping around their business, Teddy prefers to continue sponsoring their podcast, believing he can better monitor them that way and learn what they know.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Oscar was falsely blamed for Zoe's death thanks in part to the Dimases threatening Tim into keeping quiet about Theo being the one responsible. When the Dimases get falsely accused of being Tim's killers only to be proven innocent of that crime, Oscar considers it karma.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Episode 6 ends with Oliver noting that Charles's line "Our prime sponsor is now our prime suspect." makes a great last line for an episode.
  • In Episode 8, fans of the podcast say that the Sting episode was a waste of time and had no stakes since Sting obviously isn't going to the killer. (They probably mean that a famous rock star wouldn't personally commit a revenge murder, but it sounds like they're talking about how the show's writer wouldn't make guest star Sting the killer.)
  • Plenty of jokes regarding a second season are raised, in universe to the podcast, but that could easily apply to the show.
  • When Mabel storms off in a huff, Oliver brushes it off as "she does this every third or fourth episode."
  • In the Season 2 finale, Oliver says that this "isn't feeling like a season finale yet", and asks Charles and Mabel if they feel the same way. That's the last line before the credits roll.
  • In the second episode of season 3, when Mabel is talking to Ben, she notes that she "hasn't spoken to a dead person since Tim Kono". Indeed, she saw Tim but did not see Bunny.
  • In the second episode of season 3, when Charles and Mabel are being held hostage by Ben's stalker fan, Gregg, and he seems to be the killer, they muse about the fact that it usually takes them at least eight episodes to find the killer, and this time they managed to solve it without any falsely accusing anyone, non-consensually recording people, or interrogating a bird.
  • In the third episode of season 3, Charles dismisses the idea that Ben's killer is female because both of the previous seasons' killers were women. Also, Tobert says he liked the first season of the podcast more than the second, echoing the sentiments of fans and critics who felt the show's first season was superior to the second.
  • In the fourth episode of season 3, when Cinda Canning tries to convince Mabel to work with her, she says she should try to take advantage of her "Bloody Mabel" fame while she still has it, as the nickname is starting to feel "very last season".
• Leave No Witnesses: In the season one finale, Jan intends to gas all people in the building because they know too much.
• Leno Device: Teddy Dimas is overjoyed about the unexpected Colbert Bump when the heroes' podcast becomes a topic at the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
• Locked Room Mystery: In Death Rattle, Oliver's Broadway show, a woman is thrown from the top of a lighthouse and the only person in the room at the time is a baby.
• MacGuffin:
  • The ring Zoe's wearing in the New Year's Eve picture. It disappeared when Zoe's body was found and Tim was devoted to still looking for it years later. The investigation into the ring leads the trio to uncover the Dimases' smuggling. It also turns out to be a MacGuffin in another way. It's not expensive, but it has sentimental value and Theo gave it to Zoe because of that. When Teddy finds out that Zoe had the ring, he insists Theo go back to get it, which causes the argument that led to Zoe's death.
  • Bunny's murder apparently has something to do with a valuable painting she had in her apartment. It turns out the painting belongs to her mother Lenora and the one in her apartment was a replica. It's also at best only tangentially related to her death (since Poppy was interested in doing an art podcast), but it's actually a coincidence.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Mabel, who favors a feminine style, is revealed to be bisexual as she dates tomboy lesbian Alice in season 2.
• Metafictional Title: Both the show itself and the podcast Charles, Oliver, and Mabel start are titled Only Murders In The Building.
• Miscarriage of Justice: Oscar was wrongly convicted of killing Zoe and did ten years in prison before he got released. After the true facts of her death come out, he's exonerated offscreen.
• Missed Him by That Much: The season one finale has a Running Gag of characters missing each other going in and coming out of elevators.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Charles walks in on Jan undressing in front of his Stunt Double and wrongfully assumes the situation to be romantic.
• Mistaken Nationality: Poppy mistakes Alice's British accent for an Australian one.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Mabel recognizes how badly Cinda is treating her Beleaguered Assistant Poppy, and urges Poppy to stand up for herself. After Cinda not only refuses to give her a promotion but outright says she'll never promote her, Poppy calls Mabel and offers to give her any dirt on Cinda she wants. Poppy's actual betrayal started before that, though.
• Mood Whiplash: When Charles reveals that he's still in sort of a relationship with Jan in Season 2, he and Oliver start bickering about it in their usual fashion. The humor of the scene stops when Mabel reminds them that "she killed my friend."
• More Diverse Sequel: In-universe. Brazzos had a white male lead (played by Charles). The sequel series is led by Brazzos' black niece, while dementia and illness has left Charles's Brazzos in a wheelchair. He does, however, get to throw off the disability after testing well with audiences.
• Muse Abuse: Mabel is distraught when learning that Alice was making art from her tragedy.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Sting initially blames himself for Tim Kono's death, thinking that his firing of Tim drove him to suicide. He is relieved to learn that Tim was actually murdered.
  • A darker example with Theo in episode 7, when flashbacks reveal he was the one who inadvertently led to Zoe's death. He's shown immediately horrified.
  • The trio immediately regret slamming their door in Bunny's face when they realize that she is still standing there, indicating that she wanted to be included in their celebration. As they debate their next course of action, Bunny starts crying loudly, making everyone nervous and uncomfortable. Charles acknowledges that "with a simple act of kindness, they could have saved [Bunny's] life"
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels:
  • In season 1, Lester attempts to communicate with Theo via ASL but gets it wrong. "I hate these fucking people." becomes "The cheese is always right."
  • In Season 2, Mabel starts picking up some sign language from Theo and when they part she signals him accidentally "Thank you for stealing my fish."
• Narm Charm: In-Universe, this is Discussed in Season 3. Theater critic Maxine Spear notes that, while Oliver has produced some truly awful shows in the past, even the worst of them had a certain charm because his passion and creativity was oozing out of them, and all the camp. Even if they weren't good, they were entertaining and enjoyable. Part of why she panned the (initial) production of Death Rattle was because, unlike Oliver's previous productions, "It just didn't sing," meaning it was just bad, with no redeeming qualities. Oliver takes this criticism to heart in a very literal way, and retools Death Rattle into Death Rattle Dazzle, a musical with singing crab people, sparkly costumes, and the same, truly bonkers plot still being played totally straight. It helps that the music absolutely slaps, almost too much for the story it's in. The retool works. Maxine loves the new production for it's silliness, over-the-top aesthetic, and high energy, and from what we can tell, so does the audience.
• Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognise: Generally averted despite having some pretty famous people in the cast.
  • Averted by Nathan Lane in Season 1. He does have a bigger role than is first suggested, but he is not the killer. Even though his son Theo - played by James Caverly - killed Zoe (but not Tim) prior to the events of the series, he did not. Though he does have multiple secrets that the trio deduces and plays a large antagonistic role.
  • Averted by Tina Fey in Season 2. She is suspected of being the killer, but she is not. Possibly played straight by Michael Rappaport, who is a recognisable actor who shows up only briefly.
  • Inverted with Paul Rudd in season 3 who plays the victim.
  • Averted in Season 3 Meryl Streep, arguably the most famous actor in season 3, which has a decently stacked cast is not the murderer.
• Never Suicide: The three protagonists, using their Amateur Sleuth "skills", immediately suspect Tim Kono didn't kill himself, based on the fact they heard him on the phone saying he was expecting an important package. After their initial snooping they realize that he really did kill himself, only to snoop some more and swing back around to suspecting murder.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Tina Fey plays Cinda Canning, a thinly veiled parody of Sarah Koenig whose podcast Serial kickstarted the true-crime podcast craze that this series satirizes.
• No-Dialogue Episode: "The Boy from 6B" is from the perspective of Theo Dimas, who's deaf, so there's no audible spoken dialogue (except for the Previously on… and at the end) and no ambient noise at all when Theo is the POV character. Instead, those who know American Sign Language sign with each other (with subtitles provided) while others communicate through facial expressions, gestures, and text messages. Also, Theo eavesdrops on other people's conversations by reading their lips (also with subtitles provided).
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-Universe example. Oliver and Charles's podcast being mocked on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon leads to a massive spike in popularity for them and Teddy giving them their first paycheck for $50,000.
• Not in Front of the Parrot!: Bunny's parrot proclaims "I know who did it" implying it saw the murderer. Subverted when it turns that the parrot only repeated a sentence from a movie Bunny watched.
• Not the First Victim: Tim Kono was not Jan's first victim, though we don't learn the details of her other murders.
• Oblivious Mockery: Charles voices his disgust for people, like Kono, who are behind with their rent since it makes the rent for everyone go up. Oliver looks abashed.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • Episode 5 shows the scene from the pilot where everyone is rushing out of the building but this time revealing the identity of the person under the hoodie walking up the stairs.
  • Season 1 ends with replaying the Action-Hogging Opening of the pilot, this time showing the murder victim being Bunny. .
  • When Poppy confesses to her crime in the season 2 finale, we see the flashback again where Detective Kreps turns around at the bar but this time he doesn't lock eyes with Cinda but Poppy across room.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His encounter with Teddy in the elevator in the penultimate episode of Season 2 is the first time we see the normally upbeat Oliver legitimately pissed. He shoots a Death Glare at Teddy before throttling him as the doors close.
• "Open!" Says Me: Subverted in the season 1 finale when Oliver tries to ram in the front door to Jan's apartment but fails miserably. Mabel then solves the problem with a lockpick.
• Overly Long Gag: In "The Tell," Charles and Oliver have an extended bit where they prepare to tell Mabel about the Iran-Contra scandal and list off nearly every person or entity involved, despite her clearly being uninterested.
• Parents as People: Grandparents in this case; Oliver's a troubled but sympathetic man who is apparently quite neglectful of his grandkids even despite his claim that he wishes he could spend more time with them. He's a source of frustration for his son, who he regularly tries to borrow money from, until recently where his son has put his foot down on the matter.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
  • The password to Tim's phone is "Theo". It makes sense, though, since this is a form of insurance for Tim to expose Theo's involvement in Zoe's death and the Dimases' smuggling ring.
  • Mabel correctly guesses that the password to Howard's phone is "Evelyn".
• Patter Song: "Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It," performed by Charles, who defines the trope like so: "It's a speed-singing information dump they always give to the guy who can't sing. It's basically a rap."
• The Peeping Tom: Archibald Carter, the architect who built the Arconia, installed a secret elevator that he used to watch women undress.
• Perp Walk: The last scene of season one shows the three protagonists being carried off by police in slow motion while the tenants of Arcadia line up to cast a last Disapproving Look on them.
• Person as Verb: Charles's Stunt Double mentions Charles getting "Tarantino'd", whatever that means.
• Plot Allergy: The killer's parrot dander allergy in season 2 becomes a plot point.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The mystery around Tim Kono's death brings the three protagonists together.
• Poison Is Evil: Jan may have shot Tim to make it look like a suicide, but poison is her preferred weapon.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
  • Early in season 2, Oliver comments that he loved Sting even before he was in The Police. Amy Schumer responds she didn't know Sting was in law enforcement.
  • Charles has trouble connecting to the Gen Z Lucy, because he doesn't get any of her cultural references.
• Pop-Up Texting: Text messages received by characters are shown as text bubbles on-screen.
• Posthumous Character:
  • Tim Kono, who dies in the first episode yet reappears throughout, including in flashbacks, and remains a big presence in Mabel's life.
  • Rose Cooper, an artist who disappeared under mysterious circumstances decades ago and had an affair with Charles' dad. Subverted when she turns out to be alive and well.
• Posthumous Narration: The Season 1 finale has Tim take the reins of narrator, taking the audience through the minutes leading up to his murder.
• Power Outage Plot: Episode 8 of season 2 deals with the trio surviving a city-wide power outage at night with a murderer on the loose.
• Pregnancy Makes You Crazy: Exploited. When Nina, who is pregnant at the time, comes under suspicion, Lucy suggests driving her over the edge and forcing her to make mistakes because she is "super hormonal".
• Product Placement: State Farm has an overall sponsorship deal with Disney. OMITB has fun with its contractual obligation to plug the company by having Howard annoy Oliver through repeated mentions of an unseen cousin who works at State Farm.
• Promoted to Opening Titles: Michael Cyril Creighton is billed in Season 3's opening credits and Howard, his character, is shown walking his cat in the title sequence.
• Proxy Breakup: Charles cannot bring himself to break up with Jan in person so he has his stunt double Sazz read out a letter to her instead. It backfires on him when Sazz gets together with Jan.
• Pseudo-Crisis: Episode 8 ends with Charles finding Jan stabbed down, possibly dead. The next episode shows her recovering from what seemed to have been a minor stab wound.
• Quiet Cry for Help: Charles wrongly assumes Mabel has been kidnapped by Oscar and her casual "just chilling" comment on the phone was secret code for "help, I've been taken hostage."
• Reboot Snark: Charles Haden-Savage is a washed-up actor whose biggest claim to fame was being the star of a long-running Show Within a Show about a detective, Brazzos. After his podcast blows up, he gains newfound notoriety and in season 2 is offered to star in a Brazzos reboot. Though he is initially overjoyed to receive the call, his excitement dims when he learns it's a Spin-Offspring revival and he'll be playing the mentor "Uncle Brazzos" role to a new, younger Brazzos.
• Recorded Audio Alibi: In Season 1, on the night of Tim Kono's murder, Jan's signature instrument (her bassoon) is heard playing across the courtyard of the Arconia, as she does with Charles later. She establishes that she practices nightly. But, on the night of Tim's murder, it was a recording to cover up the fact she killed him.
• Red Herring: It's a murder mystery, so it might be easier to list who isn't a red herring:
  • Many characters are briefly considered but eliminated over the course of a single episode. Howard is notable for being eliminated in a single episode but coming back as a suspect later on... only to be eliminated that same episode again.
  • "Tie-dye guy"'s identity remains a mystery for half of the first season but he's eventually revealed as Oscar, who's not only a red herring for this crime but also was wrongly convicted of killing Zoe ten years ago.
    • "Tie-dye guy" is also a red herring in another way. Because the victim is wearing a tie-dye hoodie in the flashforward, it naturally suggests that's who Mabel may have killed. However, the hoodie itself is a Red Herring, because Oliver ends up manufacturing them for the podcast fans, and instead it's Bunny wearing one.
  • After spending most of the first season setting Teddy and Theo Dimas as being responsible for Tim Kono's death, it turns out they were connected by an entirely different crime.
  • Alice is suspicious from her first appearance, as she pushes into Mabel's life as soon as Bunny dies and is revealed to be a liar. She's not a good girlfriend to Mabel and is exploiting her for her art, but she didn't do anything to Bunny. This becomes a plot point in the Season 2 finale when the podcasters use her suspicious behavior as ammunition against the real killer.
  • Much of season 2 is spent on Bunny's dying words "14 Savage" and an infamous painting of Rose Cooper and how both connect to Charles. It's eventually revealed that Charles's relationship with his father and Rose Cooper had nothing to do with the murder. It was Poppy White/Becky Butler trying to spin a story featuring the painting in order to have fodder for a podcast.
• The Reveal:
  • The end of the first episode reveals that Mabel and Tim knew each other, and he was part of the Hardy Boys group that she had earlier talked about with Charles. She keeps their history a secret from Charles and Oliver, until Oliver's son remembers her and gives the info to them.
  • Theo not Oscar, killed Zoe, and Teddy covered it up for him. That's also why Teddy was bankrolling the podcast.
  • The Arconia is filled with secret passageways and an elevator system the original designer used to spy on tenants.
  • Season 2 reveals that Oliver's son is actually Teddy's biologically.
  • The trio has actually been texting with Bunny's killer instead of Det. Williams.
  • Charles got Ben Glenroy fired from the set of Brazos when the latter was eight years old.
  • Loretta is Dickie’s birth mother.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • When Mabel flashes back to the immediate aftermath of Zoe's death and she and Tim are talking about it, Theo can briefly be seen behind her in a Meaningful Background Event as he leaves the roof. As he's only appeared for about ten seconds in total before this, though, and it's dark, the odds of viewers recognizing him - even after his formal reintroduction to Oliver - is close to nil.
  • In "Performance Review," Poppy White sits down in front of a poster for Cinda's previous podcast, which boldly asks "Where is Becky Butler?" Well, she's right there.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When the trio find a sewing circle instead of a secret brothel, Oliver says, "You're the five whores?". It turns out one of them used to be a prostitute.
• Rotating Protagonist: While it's undeniable that Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are the main characters, every episode of the first season rotated the primary viewpoint character/narrator serving as A Day in the Limelight, usually with increased prominence as well as bookending the episode with their narration:
  • The first episode, "True Crime", is primarily from Mabel's point of view
  • "Who is Tim Kono?" is from Charles's perspective, with much of his narration being lines from the podcast that he's narrating.
  • "How Well Do You Know Your Neighbors?" has Oliver in the limelight, with the framing device being him viewing the suspects in a similar manner to a director casting a play.
  • "The Sting" is bookended by scenes with Cinda Canning and her role in the episode is a major part.
  • "Twist" is told from Oscar's perspective.
  • "To Protect and Serve" is told from the perspective of Det. Williams who dismissed the main trio in the first episode as she gets reinvolved with the case.
  • "The Boy From 6B" is from the perspective of Theo Dimas. As he's deaf, the episode features no spoken dialogue until the very final seconds.
  • "Fan Fiction" is from the perspective of Sam, a superfan of the podcast.
  • "Double Time" is initially from Jan's perspective. Notably, she gives no closing monologue, likely since the episode ends with the implication that she's now the prime suspect.
  • "Open and Shut" is from Tim's perspective, who provides a posthumous account of the events leading up to his murder.
  • The second season continued this trend with "Persons of Interest" opening with a brief fantasy sequence narrated by Charles.
  • "Framed" gives us a brief history of the Arconia narrated by Leonora Folger who is actually Rose Cooper.
  • "The Last Day of Bunny Folger" is told from Bunny's perspective.
  • "Here's Looking at You" is narrated by Lucy who records a video on her phone while hiding in the Arconia's secret passages.
  • "The Tell" is narrated by Oliver's son Will.
  • "Performance Review" is narrated by Cinda Canning's assistant Poppy White.
  • "Flipping the Pieces" has Mabel as the narrator once again.
  • "Hello, Darkness" is narrated by Marv, one of the Arconiacs.
  • "Sparring Partners" is narrated by Det. Kreps who was revealed to be Glitter Guy at the end of the previous episode.
  • "I Know Who Did It" is also narrated by Poppy, only this time her narration reveals her past as Becky Butler.
• Searching the Stalls: On Coney Island, Mabel hides from a suspect in a changing room's locker. But then she makes a noise that alerts the man who starts searching the set of lockers one by one. When he reaches the one Mabel is in, she pushes the door open and bolts.
• Second-Hand Storytelling: Played for laughs whenever Charles blanks during rehearsals of his solo in Oliver's musical, mentally disappearing into a "white room" and only coming to at the end of an unspeakably disgusting and offensive performance, not shown on screen. Oliver is outraged at the "filth" from Charles, Howard asks to be excused to call his therapist, and another onlooker, deeply offended as a Christian, rushes out to consult a priest.
• Secret Path: The trio finds a hidden door in Bunny's closet leading to a private elevator at the backside of the building.
• Secret Room:
  • Mabel discovers a secret room at Teddy's place where he hides urns and the jewelry from his Robbing the Dead business.
  • Mabel and Oliver discover a secret compartment in the embalming room of the funeral home where Theo works.
• Self-Serving Memory: Oliver at one point claims people have a bad habit of this, openly telling Charles he imagines his TV stardom being much bigger than it was. However, Oliver likewise falls into this, such as talking about how everyone at a theater, including a batch of kids, laughed at his joke about Orson Welles. In reality, he only said that joke to his son, who didn't laugh.
  Oliver: Memory can contain both objective reality and subjective perception.
• Sequel Hook:
  • Season One ends with Mabel, Oliver, and Charles getting arrested for a crime they didn't commit, hinting at a continuation of their adventures in a second season.
  • Season Two ends with a Broadway star dying on stage during a production that Oliver directed and Charles costars in.
  • Season Three ends with Sazz Pataki dying after having been shot by a sniper.
• Sequelitis: Invoked by Oliver in a metafictional moment in the premiere of the second season, who notes that following up their first podcast might be difficult.
  Oliver: Well, second seasons are tough, you know, but people keep dying. So, I suppose there's... always a chance.
• Serious Business: True Crime podcasting seems to be a huge thing for some people.
• Shadow Archetype: Teddy for Oliver. Both are fathers to one son (Will and Theo) with a Missing Mom to whom they're bad parents but try to be better. Both are former close friends who are passionate about the arts, especially musical theatre. However, Oliver's worst crime is that he mooches money off Will, which has damaged their relationship. Teddy loves Theo a lot, but is very protective/controlling towards him, involving him in his grave-robbing business and manipulating him with money, but also covering up his role in Zoe's death. This becomes text when Teddy says he tried to be as good a father as Oliver to Theo. And becomes even more obvious with The Reveal that Teddy, not Oliver, is Will's real father.
• Shame If Something Happened:
  • Teddy gets Tim Kono to keep mum about Zoe's death by saying it would be a shame if something similar were to happen to him or Mabel.
  • He pulls the same Implied Death Threat on Mabel and Oliver when they have a chat in the car after their abduction.
  Teddy: You'll make the right choice. Because if you don't, well, I know where you live.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mabel and Tim bonded over The Hardy Boys books, to the point that it was the name of their friend group. The group also had matching whale tattoos, which is in reference to one of their stories.
  • The crime board in Charles's apartment gets likened to the one in A Beautiful Mind.
  • The design and fonts of the titles reference fellow New York-based media The New Yorker. Fittingly, the series feels like something from their old web video spinoff, or even true crime entry or a genre fiction short in one of their magazines.
  • Oliver refers to Face/Off when mistaking Charles's Stunt Double for him.
  • Oliver also refers to Paper Moon when seeing Mabel following in Charles's footsteps as a Master of Unlocking in front of Jan's apartment.
  • Lucy's exaggerated "Gen Z Speak" tirade contains a number of these, most notably her mentioning how she Prayed to the 100 Gecs tree." The tree on the cover of 1000 Gecs did actually become a pilgrimage site for fans of the band, so much so that the campus it was on had to fence it due to excessive traffic.
  • "Flipping the Pieces" has Oliver and Detective Williams talk about A Chorus Line. Oliver sings "One" to help Williams's son with gases.
  • "Hello, Darkness" is a reference to the song "The Sound of Silence". The episode also features a scene where multiple people sing it.
  • Cinda likens the final episode of Season 2 as being "very Scooby-Doo."
• Shower Scene: Mabel has a brief shower scene at the end of the first episode, which reveals the whale tattoo on her shoulder.
• Show Within a Show: "Brazzos", a fictional cop show from the '90s that Charles starred in.
• Skewed Priorities: The building meeting to evict the trio revealed that many in the building were more upset at the poor publicity brought on by the podcast and not the grave robbing ring and murderer living in the building which are the actual causes of the poor publicity.
• Slow Electricity: When the power outage occurs in season 2, the lights in the city go out district by district.
• Social Deduction Game: "The Tell" is themed around "Son of Sam", a parlor game of Oliver's. It is a social deduction game themed similar to Werewolf (1997) (but themed around David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer). Characters are handed cards — most are "innocent blondes", but one is the Son of Sam killer, who pinches/"kills" an unknowing victim in each round. The group must then vote on who they think the killer is (if Oliver doesn't get it before them) lest the killer gets them all; if an accused person turns out to be innocent, they die as well.
• Sophomore Slump: Invoked in-universe.
  • The fans are relieved that the podcast is picking up after the Red Herring-heavy first half of the second season.
  • In Season 3, Tobert says that he preferred the first season to the second.
• Split-Screen Phone Call: Charles and Jan's phone call in season 2 is shown via split screen.
• Spot the Imposter: The gang is thrown in Season 2 when, after texting with Detective Wiliams for a while on the case, they hear she's in Denver on maternity leave. When they text on possible evidence, "Williams" responds to just leave it in a park and she'll pick it up later that day and the gang realizes this isn't her.
• Spotting the Thread: "Open and Shut" reveals that Charles had his suspicions about Jan after noticing that the supposed suicide notes, threatening letters, and the notes she sent to him all feature a distinctly written "J".
• Stereo Fibbing: When Charles and Oliver decide to hand over the bloody knife that was used to kill Bunny to Detective Williams, they forget to align their stories. Charles claims they found it in the toilet and Oliver says it was in the ceiling. Then they swap their answers. Williams calls their skit a Cringe Comedy.
• Stopped Clock: Ben's death in season 3 was estimated at 12:06 am, going by the time his watch broke after the fall in the elevator shaft. Later Mabel learns from Dickie that Ben used to set his watch 20 min early so he would be notoriously late for any appointment. His actual time of death at 12:26 places the creepy stalker Gregg Rivera outside of the building and renders him innocent.
• Sudden Downer Ending:
  • At first the first season seems ready to go out on an Earn Your Happy Ending note, but then Bunny is seemingly murdered and Mabel is found over her body, which leads to all three of our heroes being arrested and carted off.
  • Downplayed in the second season finale, which involves a one-year Time Skip, allowing the trio some downtime before witnessing their next murder which provides the season's cliffhanger.
  • The third season ends with another murder solved and Oliver's play being a success, only for Sazz Pataki to be shot to death.
• The Summation: Subverted during the Summation Gathering in "I Know Who Did It": Mable, Oliver, and Charles give a summation in which they first accuse Cinda of Bunny's murder before eventually settling on Alice, who grabs a knife and stabs Charles. It's eventually revealed that the whole scene was staged for the benefit of the real killer and Alice was in on it. Charles is fine.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Charles, Oliver, and Mabel sneak into Tim Kono's apartment, see his body, and are repulsed to find that a chunk of his skull is missing and his brains are leaking out. Charles says that it's nothing at all like the neat bodies he encountered as a TV detective.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In "Performance Review," Oliver is sitting in a doctor's office getting ready to take a paternity test to determine if he is Will's father. While flustered, he tells the person next to him that he is not nervous about it.
  • Also in that same episode, when Mabel asks Charles if he is seeing Jan anew, Charles remarks he isn't despite having the correctional facility's number multiple times in his recent call log. Mabel sees right through this.
• Take That!: The second season gets some shots in against the True Crime genre.
  • Oliver, in dismissing Howard, says that they're going to switch to a subscription model as a dig toward podcasts that do so to increase revenue after building up a listener base with a free season.
  • Oliver and Amy Schumer discuss adapting the Tim Kono investigation for television in a stab at the proliferation of True Crime adaptations coming out on TV and streaming. Oliver suggests cutting out Charles to focus the potential show on himself and Mabel while Amy Schumer proposes making Jan the central character by recasting the Ax-Crazy Serial Killer as an Anti-Hero as a criticism of how adaptations take Artistic License for the sake of narrative and drama.
• Tempting Fate: While in an elevator with Mabel and Oliver, Charles says they could not have done a podcast about Ben Glenroy's murder because he did not die in the Arconia. Cue blood dripping on Charles, and seconds later, Ben's dead body falling through the top of the elevator, having just been murdered in the building.
• That Satisfying "Crunch!": Alice makes Mabel destroy a sculpture with an ax to help her resolve her internal conflicts.
• This Is Reality: When Theo reveals he can barely understand her, Mabel notes how "people seem to lip read much better in the movies."
• Time-Shifted Actor: In "The Tell", there is a flashback to Oliver's life as a young man in the 1970s. In the flashback, he is played by Samuel Farnsworth rather than Martin Short.
• Title Drop: When Oliver suggests that they bank material for their podcast by covering another murder in Central Park, Charles immediately declares they'll cover "only murders in the building!" This ends up being the title of their Podcast as well.
• Totally Radical:
  • In-universe, Charles picks up the word "rando" from Mabel. However, he combines it with the Eye Am Watching You gesture which Mabel notes is not making sense.
  • Lucy asks if Charles and Oliver are "queer-coded" in season 2. "x-coded" is a real term used to describe fictional characters^note e.g., a character that is queer-coded is supposed to be seen as queer by the audience without the writers explicitly stating it but it is used exclusively in meta discussions, not as a descriptor for real people you know.
• Trashy True Crime: Zigzagged.
  • Mabel, Charles, and Oliver are all sympathetic fans of true crime who start their own true crime podcast upon the death of their neighbor, Tim Kono. Though somewhat attention-seeking, they are portrayed very sympathetically.
  • Their fans, on the other hand, are pretty creepy and over-invested, with Marv being revealed as a deadbeat dad who searches for respect through their coverage, though harmless (and, in one Season 2 episode, actually helpful).
  • Cinda Canning, the famous podcaster that the group idolizes, is perhaps the worst of the lot, as a podcaster who plagiarized from her assistant and an all-around Mean Boss. Her assistant is also a murderer.
  • Also, Detective Williams, the only person who'll help the trio, is herself no fan of true crime, outwardly referring to it as disgusting and encouraging untrained citizens to think they can do police work. She does warm up to the trio, however.
• Troubled Production: Death Rattle (Dazzle) is an In-Universe example. Ben Glenroy dying on stage was just one of the problems in addition to Loretta struggling with her acting, Charles struggling with singing, Loretta falsely confessing to Ben's murder, and Oliver having two heart attacks.
• Twofer Token Minority: The cast is largely white, with a few exceptions.
  • Mabel is Latina and bisexual.
  • Additionally Detective Williams and her wife are both Black lesbians.
  • Jonathan, a Black gay man, becomes a supporting character in Season 2.
• Tyrannical Homeowners' Association: The board of the Arconia functions as a homeowners' association (though applying to an Apartment Complex of Horrors).
  • The initial head of the board, Bunny Folger, is a petty tyrant and grumpy misanthrope who never smiles. The entire board shows complete disinterest in Tim Kono's suicide or murder. While Bunny has cause to evict Oliver in Season 1 (which she does), she's still extremely humorless about it. The board also votes to evict Mabel and Charles, though they haven't done anything wrong except publish the podcast (and have actually exposed crimes at the Arconia). Bunny then becomes the Asshole Victim for S2, though she is revealed to have a softer side and a Hidden Heart of Gold.
  • Bunny's replacement, Nina Lin, is a cruel and dismissive woman who throws Bunny off the board and apparently has severe anger issues, even punching Howard in the face at one point. The trio find it easy to believe that Nina and her husband killed Bunny all to modify the building in some way. Although they are wrong. Nina genuinely mourns for and misses Bunny, didn't kill her, and is extremely upset that Bunny won't get to meet her baby.
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment:
  • The three protagonists, along with Tim Kono, share one in the first episode, with Oliver awkwardly trying to talk to Charles and Mabel while they both do their best to ignore him.
  • Oliver has an excruciating elevator ride with Teddy in season 2 because Teddy is out on bond before the trial. Oliver's awkward inquiry of how prison was gets answered by an extended, smiling series of threats by Teddy.
  • Oliver goes through another one with Teddy after getting confirmation that Teddy is his son's biological father, but this time he goes for Teddy's neck while threatening to kill him. Then the elevator doors open to reveal that Howard is about to enter the elevator. Oliver beckons him to come in and lunges at Teddy again, resulting in Howard going through one.
• Unconventional Food Order: The Pickle Diner serves a sandwich composed of liverwurst and marmalade though everyone hates it, with Bunny even calling it "freak food". Mabel notices the sandwich is designated "Sandwich 14" on the menu, causing her to realize Bunny's dying words were her trying to identify her killer as the only person who enjoyed Sandwich 14- Poppy.
• Unholy Matrimony: Poppy White and Detective Kreps, the killers in season 2, turn out to be a couple who apparently genuinely love each other even as they murder for personal gain while framing people for their crimes.
• The Un-Hug: At the end of season 2 episode 6, Oliver and Charles lean in to give each other a comforting hug over the shock of watching footage of Mabel stabbing a man on the subway. It turns into an awkward moment though since both men are not comfortable with embracing each other.
• Unstoppable Rage: Oliver has this during his second above Uncomfortable Elevator Moment with Teddy, which they do fight and right after Howard leaves, they keep on fighting which Teddy ends up winning.
• Virtual Assistant Blunder: When Charles is poisoned by Jan, he attempts to use his iPhone's Siri, saying "Siri, I don't feel good". Siri ends up playing "Fields of Gold" by Sting.
• Wham Episode:
  • Season 1Episode 7, big time. Teddy is revealed to be running a grave robbing business out of the funeral home he owns, stealing jewelry off of corpses before they're cremated. The ring Zoe had the night she died was stolen from Teddy's apartment. Teddy's son Theo is his accomplice tasked with getting it back, and was accidentally responsible for Zoe's death. Tim Kono saw what happened and was threatened into silence by Teddy who told him Mabel might meet a similar fate if he didn't stay quiet. Charles, Oliver and Mabel discover Teddy's operation, with Oliver and Mabel captured by Theo after they went to investigate the funeral home. However, Oliver manages to get a message off to Charles before that happens telling him to use THEO as the password on Tim's phone, which unlocks all of Tim's data.
  • Season 1 Episode 8 reveals that Tim was poisoned before he was shot and that the Dimases weren't even in the building when Tim was killed.
  • Season 1 Finale The trio successfully solving the case and proving that Jan was Tim's killer. However, after that, while celebrating getting their apartments back and completing the first season of their podcast, Charles and Oliver receive a mysterious text to get out of the building. They hurry to check on Mabel, who went to get more champagne, and find her in her apartment, lying in front of Bunny's dead body. The three are swarmed and immediately arrested by the police.
  • Season 2 Episode 9. The woman who claimed to be Leonora Folger turns out to be Rose Cooper, an artist who went missing years before. Oliver gets confirmation that Teddy Dimas is his son Will's biological father and confronts Teddy about it. Cinda Canning's assistant Poppy White reveals to Mabel that she is Becky Butler, the supposedly dead girl whose murder Cinda became famous for solving.
  • The Season 2 finale. With the help of Cinda Canning and Alice Banks, the trio successfully tricks Poppy White aka Becky Butler into confessing to the murder of Bunny Folger. It seems like their podcasting days are behind them. But a year later another murder happens, this time involving a Broadway star whose co-stars is Charles, and is directed by Oliver.
• Wham Line:
  • From the end of "Double Time":
  Mabel: Why is there a bassoon cleaner in Tim's sex toy box?^ContextSuspecting that Tim Kono was murdered by a secret lover, Mabel and Oliver look into his collection of sex toys, only to discover that one of them came from a shop that sells musical instruments and is a device for cleaning bassoons, the same instrument played by Charles's girlfriend, Jan.
  • From the end of "Sparring Partners":
  Poppy White: I'm Becky Butler.^ContextMabel asks Poppy why she is afraid of Cinda Canning and Poppy reveals that she is the alleged murder victim that Cinda's podcast was about.
  • "I Know Who Did It" gives us a Wham Sound: After Alice Banks has supposedly been implicated in the murder of Bunny Folger, Cinda's assistant, Poppy, begins sneezing uncontrollably. ^Context Just like the person Lucy heard while she was hiding in the walls the night Bunny was murdered.
• Wham Shot:
  • The first episode ends with a photograph of Mabel's group The Hardy Boys with Tim Kono, the murder victim pictured.
  • The Season 3 premiere has one when the supposedly dead Ben Glenroy enters Oliver's apartment alive and well. We get another Wham Shot in the same episode when blood drips onto Charles, and then Ben's dead body drops through the elevator.
• White Void Room: Played with in Season 3. Whenever Charles tries to sing his big number for Death Rattle Dazzle, he enters a kind of fugue state that his co-stars call the "white room". It consists of a single room painted entirely white. The same thing happens when he tries to break up with Joy and accidentally proposes to her instead.
• Who Murdered the Asshole:
  • Tim Kono was Hated by All in the building which keeps the range of potential suspects wide open.
  • Bunny Folger is not the most popular person in the Arconia, and is shown making enemies before her death.
  • Ben Glenroy is an arrogant movie star who is disliked by many of his costars in Oliver's play.
• Window Love: Charles and imprisoned Jan perform the window touch gesture during their second meeting.

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