Name: Only Murders in the Building season 3 episode 8
Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Released: 2023-09-19T12:30:00

In episode 8 of Only Murders in the Building season 3, Detective Williams is back to question every cast member as the case of Ben’s death is reopened. The episode is streaming on Hulu.

Recap

Loretta is dictating a letter wherein she talks about her life growing up and how she decided to be in musical theatre very early on. An early pregnancy left her with a callous choice and after giving her baby away to a young couple, she moved to New York.

She kept track of the boy’s life as the couple had another child, giving him a younger brother. It is gradually revealed that Dickie was that child and Loretta auditioned for Death Rattle so that she could finally meet him.

She goes to the bookshelf and finds that her book with all his pictures is missing. She heads to the theatre where they’re having their sitzprobe, their first rehearsal with the live band.

She tells Dickie that she has something important to tell him after the rehearsal but Mabel shows up so Charles and Oliver speak to her before they start. She tells them that she’s focusing on Dickie but she still isn’t happy with either of them.

The rehearsal begins but is once again interrupted when news of Ben’s case reopening reaches everyone and Detective Williams makes a grand entrance and announces that they are all suspects.

Oliver begs Detective Williams to do the interrogations in the theatre so that he can carry out his rehearsals as well, and she agrees. Mabel says they need to find a way to listen in on those interrogations to gather clues.

Howard turns up and asks Mabel to follow him because he made a break in the case. Oliver and Charles promise to snoop on Detective Williams.

Howard takes Mabel to the stage manager’s room and points out a shredder, claiming that he heard the noise of it running on opening night when the door was locked. He insists that he can reassemble the shreds and figure out what the killer might have tried to hide.

Charles lets Detective Williams use his dressing room to question the cast and then looks for ways to stick around but she kicks him out. Oliver goes to see Loretta and gives her back the book, letting her know that she doesn’t owe him an explanation.

He then asks for one but she heads out because she is called to the stage. Oliver mentions that Mabel thinks Dickie is the killer, so Loretta tries to change her mind after running into her backstage.

Oliver goes to Charles’ dressing room to apologize to Detective Williams and then tries to hang around but she kicks him out as well. It’s Charles’ turn to perform his patter song and Detective Williams goes out to the audience to watch him mess it up.

He manages to perform it effortlessly. Howard is ready to give up but Mabel sees a box of rat poison in the room and tells him that he must keep trying to find out what paper was shredded.

She goes back to meet Charles and Oliver who are looking very smug about themselves. They say that they hatched an elaborate plan to distract Detective Williams and then placed a GoPro in the room so they could record the interrogations, which they successfully did.

The three of them have a moment of joy as they celebrate the progress of their investigation. Loretta meets Dickie who was asked to meet the police later that night for questioning, forcing him to cancel on their plan.

She apologizes to him for everything that has happened to him but he says that she’s been the best part of his life recently. She is then called to the stage to perform the final number where Oliver stops her and professes his love for her.

She leaves her bag on a seat and goes center stage. Charles and Mabel sit right there and Charles points Mabel towards the book. They also find the letter and Mabel explains that she kept the book for pictures of Dickie, not Ben.

Loretta is performing when she notices the police taking Dickie away so she stops singing and then confesses to killing Ben. Detective Williams takes her away and Oliver suffers a heart attack from the stress.

Review:

The small section that played out like a heist movie is just one small amazing part of such a great overall episode. Watching the split perspectives while Charles performed, and then the recap of what was really going on is brilliant.
There are so many subtle nods that only become clear later on and that is how a proper heist sequence is written.
And coming to the performances, Steve Martin and Meryl Streep absolutely knocked it out of the park with their respective renditions. Martin has so much fun in this episode and the audience has fun watching him.