WMG / Only Murders in the Building

General

The series will end with the Arconia being condemned.

After so many deaths and other criminal activities taking place within its walls, the building will eventually be declared unfit to live in (similar to how Jefferey Dahmer's old apartment building was shut down and destroyed), and everyone will be forced to move out. The building will then either be demolished entirely, or the space will be used for something new.

Teddy came between Theo and his mother.

In Season One, Teddy mentions that his wife's poor reaction to Theo being deaf is part of what destroyed his marriage, along with his cheating. However, by the time of the series, Theo's mother is never around, and there's no indication she was in his life by the time he met Zoe as a teen, either. Perhaps in revenge for his wife leaving him, or in desperation to not lose his son forever when she divorced him, Teddy pulled some strings to gain full custody and make sure Theo's mom couldn't be around him much.

Someone among the supporting characters is a "Moriarty" figure.

Sherlock Holmes' greatest nemesis, Moriarty, is famous for the fact that in most media, he is responsible more manipulating the events of killers behind the scenes. As such, many fans theorize that the person who poisoned Winnie and left notes at Jan's door will serve as a Moriarty figure who is manipulating the trio from behind the scenes.

• Semi-confirmed: The creator of the series, John Hoffman, reveals in a Q&A that loose ends like Winnie's poisoning and the notes on Jan's door are a "Moriarty" situation.

Suspects on who the Moriarty figure is include

• Howard
• Uma
• Arnav (Charles' next door neighbor from season 1)
• Ursula
• Sazz (see below for more information)

Sazz is a villain

Whether she's the "Moriarty" or not, Sazz is going to turn out to be bad. She is confirmed to be dating Jan since she broke up with Jan for Charles. She also mentions that she does hard things for Charles so he doesn't have to, and there are aspects of Charles's life he doesn't remember (like firing Ben). That's going to turn out to be Sazz, either trying to villainously "help" Charles, or as a Toxic Friend Influence.

Season 1

Oscar is the tie-dye guy

Although Oscar went to prison for killing Zoe, that's not what actually happened. Tim accidentally killed Zoe during a drunken argument and blamed Oscar for it. 10 years later, Oscar gets out for good behavior. He then sneaks into the Arconia and pulls the fire alarm. While everyone is busy exiting the building, he breaks into Tim's apartment and shoots him out of revenge. He tries to make it look like a suicide but Evelyn the cat wanders in and messes up the crime scene so he has to kill her too. Of course, this is one of the more obvious solutions to the crime and solutions are rarely obvious in mysteries.

• Semi-confirmed: Oscar is the tie-dye guy, but he didn't murder Tim.
  • Zoe was accidentally killed during an argument but by Theo Dimas, not Tim.

Cinda Canning's assistant(s) are involved with Tim's murder

There was something off about Canning's office in her big scene in "The Sting". She seems to be someone who makes her assistants do all the work and then take their credit, considering how agitated those assistants seemed to be. Maybe the entire set up for her show is faked, maybe Canning gets the assistants to go "discover" clues to ensure that she actually has an episode to keep her in business, long enough to be bought by a major network and get a huge pay raise. Tim's murder was no exception, considering that he worked with them and was aware of their finances. Maybe something off book made him suspicious, Canning made the call and the assistants murdered him.

• Jossed: Jan killed Tim on her own. Although one of the assistants does turn out to be a murderer in Season 2.

Everything is connected - Example #1

Minor plot points that seem to go nowhere mean something. In the first episode, Mabel suggests that they get into a neighbor's apartment through an air duct in her bathroom. They instead get into the apartment in question by picking the lock. Air duct access will come up later when we learn that the killer accessed Tim Kono's apartment using that method.

• Semi-Jossed: Jan poisoned Tim, then pulled the fire alarm and used the key he had given her to let herself into his apartment and shoot him - she didn't enter through the air duct. However, the air ducts - along with the previously disused fireplaces - did factor into her backup plan to poison the whole building with gas once she realized Mabel and Oliver were onto her.

Everything is connected - Example #2

The mysterious death in the park mentioned by Oliver towards the end of the first episode is somehow connected to Tim Kono's death. The dead person is either involved with the jewelry caper or saw who killed Tim.

• Jossed: The death in the park is unrelated to either plot.

Tim's killer is trying to frame Howard

When interviewed by Mabel and Charles, Howard voices his suspicion that his cat, Evelyn, was poisoned. According to episode 8, Tim Kono was also poisoned. They were killed by the same person, who is trying to frame Howard for Tim's death. Tim was the only person in the Arconia who vocally disliked Evelyn, so Howard would blame him for Evelyn's death, having a motive. What adds to this theory is Jan's insistence to reconsider Howard as a suspect, and the fact that she was being threatened. She saw the real killer and they instructed her to mess with the investigation.

• More likely killing Evelyn was an accident when she ate the same food that poisoned Tim Kono. As for Jan's insistence on considering Howard, if she was trying to run interference for the real killer then all she had to do was keep quiet and let them continue to accuse the Dimases.
  • The killer might still be connected to the jewelry business, so looking into the Dimases would expose them eventually. The fake motive for Tim's death would have to be unrelated to his investigations, so their idea was to give one of the many people who didn't like Tim a reason to kill him.
    • Semi-confirmed: Jan is Tim's killer and tried to divert attention away from herself by pointing to Howard but Evelyn's death was an accident.

Tim Kono drank some Gut Milk that was poisoned

The Gut Milk subplot has not played that much of a role so far. In mysteries, the solution is often hidden in a plot point that is seemingly unrelated to the crime. If so, this would make Ursula, manager of the Arconia, the prime suspect since she supplied the Gut Milk. Also, they called attention to the fact that she was not at Tim's memorial service.

• Jossed: Gut Milk played no role in Tim's death.

Jan killed Tim Kono...and her motive had nothing to do with him at all.

Mabel and Oscar find a bassoon cleaner in among Tim Kono's sex toys but it wasn't Jan's bassoon cleaner. It belonged to the young bassoonist who upstaged Jan at the concert. Note the very Tim Kono looking boyfriend said bassoonist had at the end of episode 9. Just a weird coincidence? Or a clue hinting at a woman clearly not over the mourning period?

Which leads into the motive for Tim's murder: Jan had secretly been struggling with seething jealously over this prodigy bassoonist. It wasn't just that she was so gifted at such a young age, it was that she was gifted at an instrument that Jan had previously explained (with pride, even) was not commonly played and rather difficult to master. In short, this young bassoonist had taken the one thing that made Jan feel unique, that made her "Jan".

The envy kept rising and rising until one day Jan decided to get even. But she didn't want to merely get revenge on this bassoonist, oh no. Jan wanted to take something away from her, something that was as vital a part of her life as the bassoon was for Jan. And this young woman's boyfriend, Tim Kono, just so happened to live in Jan's apartment complex...So, Jan visits Tim supposedly on friendly terms and secretly poisons him. Tim promptly dies. Then, perhaps to throw suspicion off her, Jan finds Tim's gun and, using his hand, shoots him in the headd to make it look like suicide. She then grabs a trash bag from her apartment and fills it with trash and planted suicide notes ot make it like look they were Tim's.

• Jossed: Jan is Tim's killer but she killed him because he broke up with her. Tim was not involved with the young bassoonist and she played no role in his murder.

Alternative to the above, Jan was actually trying to save Tim's life.

To present an even more complicated and wackier solution: Tim's dating the young bassoonist prodigy...who turns out to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that planned to murder him and stage it as suicide (The trash could very well had been hers, complete with planted suicide notes). Jan finds out and tries to stop her from poisoning Tim by barging in on them with a gun she brought for protection. Naturally, this only makes Tim suspicious of Jan which the bassoonist plays into effortlessly. A scuffle happens and Jan ends up accidentally shooting Tim Kono. Now, since Jan can't expose the bassoonist without her crime being revealed and vice versa, the two reluctantly agree to flee the scene and pretend this never happened. And then, three amateurs decide to look in on the case. Jan, worried that the bassoonist will go after the trio, decides to infiltrate the investigation and attempt to throw them off wildly. Perhaps her increased attempts to frame Howard are her way of trying to discredit the investigation by giving an obviously ridiculous suspect.

• Jossed: Jan meant to kill Tim because he broke up with her.

The first season will end with someone else being murdered in the building.

• The show has a tendency to end each episode with a big twist that leads into the next episode. Since there's giong to be a second season, and the show isn't called "Only a Murder," it seems reasonable to assume that the second season will have our heroes investigating another murder. It only makes sense for this murder to happen at the very end of the first season to set up the second.
  • Maybe the final scene will be the In Medias Res seen in the first episode, where Mabel is leaning over a seemingly dead body and says it's not what it looks like.
    • Confirmed: Bunny is murdered at the end of Season One, thus setting up Season Two, and this is the source of the In Medias Res scene shown at the beginning.

Sting left the note on Jan's door.

• Sure, she stabbed herself, but that doesn't explain who left the note on Jan's door earlier that morning, & it doesn't scan that she left the note for herself. But who, then? Mayyybe Teddy Dimas, as they were neighbors, & Jan may have picked up on their racket, making her a threat - but that connection never surfaced (& is frankly a little boring). Then who? Well, Sting is a tantric icon, & Jan is a sex-positive woman with a stated penchant for age differences. Both she & Sting are professional musicians, giving them common ground & reason to get acquainted - more than likely in the elevator, as is shown to be her custom. It stands to reason she & Sting may have had a thing going on.
  • Considering how she liked to get down (that bassoon cleaner didn't end up in a sex toy box by accident), it wouldn't even be weird if being watched wasn't a threat in this context, but part of erotic games (certainly Jan knows how to work those courtyard windows). If the note had been worded "I'll be watching you" that would cinch it.

Season 2 (SPOILERS for Season 1)

Bunny's murderer is specifically trying to frame the main trio.

They will make people believe that the trio committed this murder to keep their podcast going.

• Semi-confirmed: Poppy made it look like Mabel did it, though it's implied she may have done it so that the trio would ultimately suspect Cinda of killing Bunny and framing them for it.

Everybody will live in the same apartment in season 2.

Once they are out for bail, they discover they were evicted during their incarceration and have to share one dwelling from now on.

• Jossed.

Jan did not leave the note on her door.

And whoever did also left the note on Oliver's door when Winnie was poisoned. Jan seemed surprised to see the note, which might be more than just a red herring to throw the audience off her scent before she was revealed in the following episode.

Whoever left the note might be Bunny's killer, but not necessarily. Like the Dimases, the note-writer might turn out to be somebody who is guilty of many crimes, but not the main one being investigated by the trio.

Jan did not poison Winnie.

Adding to the above theory. Using Detective Williams's logic, it doesn't quite add up that Jan would poison Winnie.

• The "how" almost fits - she has access to poison and knowledge about them - but she never showed any aptitude at lockpicking and would have no reason to know Oliver doesn't lock his door.
• The "why" is too obvious. Yes, she might want to send a message to stop the trio investigating - but that never motivated her to violence before. All her murders were for jealousy or for covering her tracks. Intimidation was never her motivation - if she wants to stop something, she'd jump to killing before threats.
• The "why now" is probably the biggest question left by her poisoning Winnie. She doesn't attempt to kill Charles or the trio despite having several opportunities (the pizza rolls, for instance) until they're right on the verge of solving the case. She enjoys the cat-and-mouse game she sets up. It seems confusing that she'd poison a dog and then do nothing for weeks to dissuade them. Why would she poison a dog before any evidence pointing to her had come to light?

Cinda Canning will get a Heel–Face Door-Slam.

Over the course of her investigation, she'll realize the trio is being framed, possibly even having a My God, What Have I Done? moment when she realize she's played right into the real killer's hands by publicly accusing them. However, before (or perhaps right after) she publishes a retraction or realizes who the real culprit is, she'll be killed or otherwise silenced.

• Semi-confirmed: After the trio get confirmation of who the killer is, they team up with Cinda to trick the killer into confessing.

Bunny's murderer is male.

While by no means definitive, the glimpses we get of the murderer in Episode 3 (feet and shadow) strongly suggest a male body. Not to mention it would arguably be repetitive to have two female murderers in a row. Episode 4 hints at Teddy Dimas being the murderer because he wears similar shoes but this could very well be a Red Herring.

• Jossed: Poppy White killed Bunny. While she had help from Detective Kreps, Poppy is the one who decided Bunny should die and the one who actually committed the murder.

Lucy has been secretly living in the Arconia

She mentions she ran off right before her mother’s wedding two weeks earlier then was at the Arconia the night Bunny was killed. Where did she go after that? She knows the building pretty well and still has a key to Charles apartment. Its possible she might be squatting in one of the empty apartments that she accessed through the hidden tunnels.

• Jossed.

Nina's boyfriend killed Bunny

He either did it in a misguided attempt to help Nina or he has financial interests in Nina's new plans for the Arconia.

• Jossed: Poppy White killed Bunny with help from Detective Kreps. Nina and her boyfriend had nothing to do with the murder.

Cinda is the mastermind. She hired someone to kill Bunny and frame the main trio.

Jan says that the killer must be an "artist" or someone who enjoys storytelling and manipulation. While we don't know for sure that this is correct, it would make sense that this is the kind of person who would've committed the murder. Cinda outright says in one episode (possibly "Performance Review?") that she enjoys weaving stories out of people like Mabel who seem innocuous. Also, at the end of "Performance Review," Poppy frantically warns Mabel that Cinda will do "anything..." right before Mabel meets the apparent killer, and then seems to stab them before running away. It seems likely that Cinda would hire someone with a deep knowledge of the Arconia to kill Bunny. But why? To get her competition out of the way. The OMITB podcast is getting very popular in-universe, and Cinda outright tells Detective Kreps that she hates being "lumped in" with the main trio.

• Jossed: Poppy killed Bunny and misled the trio into thinking Cinda was responsible.

The blackout is not a coincidence

Much like the fire alarm in Season 1, the killer deliberately caused the blackout to create confusion and make it easier for them to commit a crime.

• So far, jossed. Of Season 2, there's no indication that the blackout is connected to the murderers.]]

Cinda Canning and Detective Kreps staged their confrontation in Episode 6

If they're working together, then they may have figured that pretending to be at odds with one another would have thrown the trio off their scent.

• Semi-confirmed: Kreps did stage the confrontation but with Poppy's help, not Cinda's.

Season 3 (SPOILERS for Season 2)

Ben Glenroy was poisoned at the Arconia

While he dies onstage, the poisoning must have taken place elsewhere. If it was the Arconia, then the trio can resume the podcast because the murder did technically happen in the building.

• Kinda but not really confirmed. Ben is killed in the Arconia, and he dies onstage, but he actually comes back from the dead and is then murdered in the Arconia in separate circumstances as far as we know.
  • Jossed: He was poisoned at the theater.

The person who killed Ben also poisoned Winnie

The mystery of who poisoned Winnie is still unsolved and Ben was probably also poisoned since he collapsed seemingly out of nowhere with no injuries.

• Jossed: Ben was poisoned by Donna who had neither motive nor opportunity to poison Winnie.

Oliver will replace Ben's character in the play with...

Lester, which will restart his career on stage. His appearance at the premiere of the play may have been foreshadowing.

• Jossed: Jonathan replaces Ben. Who is than replaced by Oliver when Jonathan drugs himself.

Jonathan will be involved in the murder for season 3

Like with Poppy, Jonathan is introduced in a prior season with no connection to the murder, but with some connection to the podcast (Poppy being a part of Cinda's team and having met the trio plus coming up with the Only Murderers name. Jonathan being involved in the Killer Reveal Party). This season's murder also takes place on Broadway. Jonathan is a Broadway actor, giving him access to Ben and maybe motive.

• Confirmed: Jonathan is Ben's understudy in Season 3.

Howard is the killer

The show will subvert the"murderer being introduced in the previous season" by using Howard, who has been around since Season 1. So far we've only had female murderers, but that will be subverted in Season 3. Howard is terrified of blood, which is why he used poison, which doesn't cause massive amounts of blood loss (and at the theatre, too, so that Howard wouldn't have to see it. His possible motive might be to try and get Jonathan a role.

• Jossed

Teddy will die in season 3, and be the victim for season 4

Teddy has a lot of enemies and is still in the building as of Season 2. His death will implicate Oliver, Will, and Theo, not to mention his other shady associates. The former two would motivate Mabel and Charles to investigate.

• Jossed: Teddy was absent from Season 3 and Sazz is the victim for Season 4.

Mabel's wedding.

Behind the scenes photos for Season Three have shown Selena Gomez in a wedding gown, so place your bets here.

• Mabel is getting married to...
  • Oscar, having gotten back together with him.
  • Theo.
  • That season's murderer.
  • Alice, having gotten back together with her.
  • Charles or Oliver, but for solely platonic and legal reasons.
  • Tobert (Jesse Williams' character).
• It's a dream sequence.
• It's a setup for the murderer.
• It's a flashforward to next season and will not be answered.
• Mabel won't actually make it to the altar because...
  • Her spouse-to-be dies.
  • She pulls a Runaway Bride.
  • Her spouse-to-be is arrested or suspected of being the murderer.
    • Jossed: Mabel is not getting married. She wore the dress to get into Loretta's arraignment.

The solution to the murder in Death Rattle will be a clue to the murder of Ben Glenroy.

Oliver's play is a murder mystery. Eventually, the trio will realize that the identity of the murderer in the play will lead them to Ben's murderer. It probably will not be as simple as the actor playing the murderer being the culprit but something along those lines.

• Jossed.

Clifford is not Donna's biological son.

The borderline French kiss was pretty dark. Cliff isn't Donna's biological son. She adopted him from his real mother (possibly someone else involved in Death Rattle).

• Jossed.

Mabel will move in with either Charles or Oliver.

Mabel's aunt's apartment is being sold. But she won't leave the Arconia; she'll move in at the end of Season 3 with Charles or Oliver.

• Jossed.

The elevator was tampered with.

Whoever killed Ben made sure the elevator was not functioning so they could throw him down the empty shaft.

• Jossed.

Mabel will get together with Tobert.

They have a bit of a meet cute when they’re stuck in the wardrobe together.

• Confirmed: He tricks her into going on a date in Episode 5 and it is implied they sleep together at the end of the episode.

Ben wrote the lipstick message on the mirror after gorging on cookies.

As of Episode 5, here's a possible timeline of events: Loretta calls Ben a "fucking pig" and he attacks her. Charles intervenes and punches him. Ben calls Joy to cover up the bruise and she leaves her lipstick behind. The "sexy thing" Ben addresses in the video is actually a plate of Schmackary's cookies, which he had already referred to as such at the table read. He stuffs his face and then, in a moment of shame, writes on his mirror. Doesn't help us solve who murdered him but does at least clear a few of the other suspects.

• Confirmed.

The person that poisoned Ben and the person that pushed him are two seperate people.

Howard poisons Ben in order to get his boyfriend to be center stage with what he hopes will be a blood-free method, but doesn't get the chance to retry. The trio won't believe him as he is carted away when he says he didn't actually kill Ben. And the actual killer? Loretta. Or some other combination, I don't know.

• It's clearly not Howard, and Loretta seems like an obvious red herring, but the idea of the person who poisoned Ben and the person who pushed him being different people is very plausible.
  • Confirmed.

Dicky killed Ben, and he is Loretta's son.

• Dicky becomes invested extremely quickly in helping Loretta's career, and Ben hated Loretta for some reason. He calls Loretta a "snake", and Dicky is Ben's "CoBro". It's actually because she is Dicky's mother, and when Ben attacked Loretta a second time, Dicky pushed him down the elevator shaft.
  • Since episode 7 reveals Dickie is adopted, this lends more credence to the theory-perhaps Ben hated Loretta for "stealing" the brother who'd always looked after him, and Dickie wanted to protect the mother he'd just found…
    • Semi-confirmed: He is Loretta's son but he did not kill Ben.

There's more to Girl Cop than meets the eye.

When Mabel watches Girl Cop, they clearly show the actress playing Girl Cop. Why even cast this role? Because she's going to be important later. In actuality, Ben pulled some MeToo type sleaze with the actress, ruining her career, and someone involved in Death Rattle is the perpetrator (guess: Loretta, because she's an aunt and her song is about looking after someone who isn't her child but could be.)

• Jossed.

Someone will die at Mabel's wedding.

Whatever the circumstances of Mabel's marriage (see above for speculation on that), it's going to turn out to be a hook for next season. Someone is murdered there, and as she's getting married in the building, it becomes the next murder for Season 4.

• Jossed: There is no wedding.

Ben's murderer isn't involved with Death Rattle.

In both Season 1 and Season 2, the killers at first didn't seem to have any connection to their victims at all. While Ben's return from his "first death" has him casting suspicion on everyone involved with the play, it's likely that whoever killed him is connected to him in some other way that is yet to be revealed. Detective Biswas and Maxine the theater critic are two possibilities in this regard (with Biswas being the most likely choice due to his suspiciously convenient timing in rescuing Mabel and Charles, and due to Charles's remark that a woman being a killer for the third season in a row wouldn't be a very interesting choice).

• Jossed: Ben was poisoned by Donna and pushed to his death by Cliff, the producers of Death Rattle.

At least one of Ben's "deaths" wasn't a murder at all.

His poisoning may have been an act staged by Ben himself, either as a publicity stunt or as a way to catch someone off-guard during the scene where he addresses all the people he was working with. Likewise, while it's assumed that someone pushed him to his death during a confrontation, it's possible that said person actually tried to pull him and failed, or just pushed him by accident (similar to Zoe's death in Season 1).

• Jossed: Episode 10 shows that the fall down the elevator, while not pre-meditated, was still a murder. Donna claims the poisoning was done to make Ben too sick to do the show rather than outright kill him.

Howard will take over Charles' role in Death Rattle Dazzle.

Who else would be willing to step in at such short notice?

• Jossed: It's Matthew Broderick (but only briefly).

Oliver will have another heart attack.

He and Will talked in the first episode about directors who've survived multiple heart attacks, after having a heart attack. He will have another one before the end of the season, and…

• Confirmed: He has one at the end of Episode 8.

Oliver's death will be faked at the end of the season.

Possibly, like Charles's fake death in S2, this will be a way to catch the murderer (or the presumed murderer, or at least to flush them out.)

• Jossed.

Oliver will not have another heart attack, but the killer will try to kill him.

Oliver has been wearing a heart monitor since his heart attack. Even though this isn't actually how heart monitors work, Will will be watching the heart monitor and will know when Oliver is being attacked. He'll rush to save him and succeed (of course).

• Jossed: Oliver has another heart attack in Episode 8.

Ben was poisoned via his meds.

That's why there was no meth in the tox screen. Whether his doctor swapped the meds or someone else did remains to be seen.

• Jossed: Ben was poisoned with a cookie. Dickie faked the tox screen to cover up the drugs.

Tobert added the "Bloody Mabel" line to the podcast teaser himself.

• Based on Mabel's horrified reaction to him using it for a poster mock-up, it seems bizarre that she'd reclaim it so quickly when recording...unless Tobert used soundbites from past episodes to include it as a way to boost clicks, using the engagement to raise his own profile (which will turn out to be his reason for going after Mabel in the first place).

Tobert is working with Cinda Canning

Hence he used "Bloody Mabel" (which was how Cinda also encouraged Mabel to market herself).

Uma lied about selling Ben's hanky

Episode 7 opens with a monologue from Uma about placing sentimental value on objects belonging to people who have since died. Later on, she claims to have sold such an item. What seems more likely - that she went up to the auction and sold it for money she doesn't need, or that she gave it to the person it would mean the most to (and lied to Charles so she didn't look soft)? And what seems more likely - that Dickie agreed to pay $7000 for something he knew to be stolen, without revealing his identity as Ben's brother, or that Uma knew who he was?

• Jossed.

Jerry Blau is Dickie's father.

Jerry Blau seems to come out of nowhere in Episode 6, so having him be Dickie's biological father would allow him to play a larger role than just giving Oliver exposition that the audience already knows about.

• Likely jossed. Loretta never identifies Dicky's biological father (only that he was someone involved in auditioning and production), and Jerry mentions a male partner.

Donna poisoned Ben but Tobert pushed him down the elevator shaft.

Ben was most likely pushed by whoever called him at the afterparty. Donna was present so she could not have made the call. Tobert is the only major character who was not at the party and has a motive for murder (being unceremoniously fired).

• Jossed: Cliff pushed him.

Donna poisoned Ben, but Cliff pushed him down the elevator shaft.

The theme of Season 3 is mothers protecting children. Donna poisoning Ben fits with that, but the ultimate solution is the reverse. Ben figured out that Donna poisoned him, and told Cliff he'd ruin her. Cliff pushed him down the elevator shaft to stop that from happening.

• Confirmed.

Howard incapacitated Jonathan to steal his role.

Jonathan has apparently been self-medicating for his nerves, but he's been able to perform fine on every other occasion. Until opening night, when we don't see Jonathan passed out, but Howard simply tells Oliver that Jonathan isn't able to perform. This happened because Howard intervened, either directly through drugging or indirectly through psychological manipulation and caused him to be unable to get on stage. When Howard arrives in the dressing room, he's gleeful, with no concern for Jonathan at all. This is because he planned the whole situation to steal the lead role, and only his Beneath Suspicion nature stopped Oliver from giving it to him (and taking it himself).

Death Rattle was written by the late Harlan Thrombey.

Any author who could create a cow with a shotgun is capable of creating a murder mystery with a baby as the prime suspect.

Within the story of Death Rattle, the Nanny is meant to be the primary Red Herring.

The last song of the musical starts with the detective seemingly incapacitated and the Nanny singing about her willingness to kill. This suggests that at this point in the story, the audience is meant to assume that she is the killer, until the truth is revealed. This makes a nice parallel with Loretta's role in the actual murder plot of the season.

Season 4 (SPOILERS for Season 3)

The next murder victim will be...

A cold case. The Arconia bosses will discover a skeleton when fixing the elevator after Ben's death, and the trio will investigate in Season 4.

• Jossed. It's Sazz.

Will will try to bond with Theo in Season 4.

Theo's return has been confirmed and Season 2 ended with Will finding out that Teddy is his real father. Though Will clearly views Oliver as his father, Will will still show an interest in getting to know his half-brother.

Charles was the real target.

It was dark in Charles' apartment so it was easy for the killer to mistake Charles' stunt double Sazz for him.

Sazz was going to tell Charles that someone was after him.

Before leaving the afterparty, Sazz says she has to talk to Charles about a sensitive topic. Somehow she learned that someone is threatening to kill Charles. Also, the final shot of Season 3 shows her trying to write something in her own blood, possibly the killer's name.

In S4, Theo and Mabel will be living in Teddy's apartment full-time.

Mabel is crashing in Theo's apartment for now, presumably Teddy's apartment in the Arconia while he's in prison. She'll still be there in Season 4.

• Theo had a small apartment near train tracks in Season 2. Pressumedly, Teddy's apartment was seized after he was arrested. After all, he had some unexplained (i.E. the stolen jewelery) income.

Teddy will be back this season.

Potentially as a suspect in Sazz's death, since he may be out of prison and out for revenge. But he'll be back in general.

Mabel will live with Charles.

Mabel is hyper-vigilant, while Charles is neither handy in a fight nor especially danger-conscious. Charles and Mabel will respond to Sazz's death by moving in together, so that Mabel can stand guard and keep an eye out if anything else happens.

Jan will appear in the season.

Charles will probably have to break the news of Sazz's death to her, and he might even consider the possibility that Jan somehow had her killed from prison.

Scott Bakula will appear in Season 4.

Joy is supposedly shacking up with Bakula now, and as a talented singer and actor it would make sense for him to appear in one of Oliver's musicals. He could be an Adam Westing rival to Charles and teased as a possible suspect a la Sting.

Hugh Jackman will be the penthouse occupant.

Sazz was the intended target

It's easy to assume that Sazz was killed due to a case of mistaken identity. But given that this show loves it's red herrings, it wouldn't be surprising if it turned out the shooter wasn't trying to kill Charles and was instead going for Sazz the entire time.

Sazz will not die

Sazz will in fact be severely injured/in a coma, and the season will derive tension from the trio having to find the culprit before they realize she's alive/it wasn't Charles (depending on who the intended target was), which will also give the show a chance to put a new spin on the formula to keep things fresh.

They will flip the script.

This time, they know who the murder is from the beginning, but need to prove it by scavenging clues.

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