Felicia Nickens
The following recap contains spoilers for Only Murders in the Building S4E3, “Two for the Road” (written by John Hoffman, Steve Martin & Ben Smith, and directed by Chris Koch).
The biopic about the trio is still moving forward as the actors make their way to NYC to spend a day with their real-life counterparts. Using their murder board as a guide, the team looks at all of the clues and determines that the killer had to be strong enough to move Sazz’s body, skillful enough to use the sniper, and hate Charles (Steve Martin) enough to try and kill him. Detective Williams (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) comes by Charles’s apartment and confirms much of this. She isn’t involved in the case any further as the FBI has taken over, so she takes the opportunity to tell the trio that the FBI has it all wrong. They are following the Jan trail to Florida.
As this proceeds, the actors playing the trio arrive at the door, ready to shadow their counterparts and help solve a murder. They each decide to break into pairs of three to follow their various leads.
Oliver & Zach Galifianakis
Oliver (Martin Short) is supposed to be going through the messages on the radio that they found in the apartment and see if it yields any more clues. However, it becomes clear to him that Zach is very obviously disinterested in Oliver. As he states later to his manager, he only took this role because he thought it would be easy money. Oliver is determined to show Zach that he is a man worth remembering and so he passes the radio on to Howard.
Oliver spends the day changing Zach’s hair, outfit, and attitude to fit his and it genuinely appears that they have become one. They wrap up their day of shenanigans and return to Oliver’s apartment to find an aggravated Howard. While Zach walks off to take a call from his manager, Howard updates Oliver on all he hears on the radio. It doesn’t seem important at the moment, but one of the things heard was the song to the old show, Perfect Strangers. Oliver decides to eavesdrop on Zach in hopes of hearing something good. His hopes drop low when he hears Zach complaining about the day he had and the lack of substance in Oliver.
Howard isn’t having any of this and marches up to Zach and puts him in his place (while simultaneously throwing Oliver under the bus). Zach has an “ah-ha” moment and realizes that all the tragedies that have happened to Oliver indeed make him someone complex to play and finds a new angle in which to portray the character.
Mabel & Eva Longoria
From the start, Eva is playing on her interpretation of what she wants Mabel (Selena Gomez) to be and understandably it is frustrating for Mabel. Eva tells her that her version of Mabel is a strong thinker who drinks at 10 am among her other vices. Mabel wants to question Rudy (Kumail Nanjiani) aka “Christmas all the Time Guy” to see if he has any connection to the tinsel found in the shooter’s apartment. Mabel wants to take a cautious approach, but Eva wants to get it over with by provoking him until he admits he is the murderer. At this point, Mabel can’t take it anymore and says she works alone.
Later, Mabel shows up at Rudy’s apartment only to find that Eva has made it there first. Mabel does things her way and works her way into questions. Eva wants to get his confession in time for her dinner with Michelle Obama at seven. Rudy steps out momentarily, but when he returns Eva begins breaking his ornaments and then grabs his gun off the wall. She tells him to admit he is the killer and shoots at his twerking Santa doll. Thankfully, it’s not a real gun, and no harm is done. Rudy is appalled that they think he is the murderer and begins to confess that he hates Christmas but only keeps up his charade because his followers on TikTok only watch his workout videos if they are Christmas-themed.
Mabel shows him the tinsel and asks if he knows anything about it. He takes his lighter out and lights one end, but nothing happens. He tells her that real tinsel is extremely flammable and therefore this isn’t tinsel. Another dead end.
Charles & Eugene Levy
Eugene is smitten by Charles and so excited to play such a complex character (much to Oliver’s surprise). He and Charles try to figure out a plan to have Vince remove his eyepatch to see if he really has antibacterial-resistant pink eye or if it is a bruise from the kickback of the gun. Eugene wants Charles to spit water in his face, but Charles has a better idea.
They show up to Vince’s apartment where he doesn’t look pleased to have visitors. All three are wearing eye patches and Charles explains with much uncertainty that his cousin is an eye doctor in Paraguay and sent him eye drops formulated from some sort of cactus only found in that country. Vince takes the drops but uses them in another room. Eugene tells Charles they need to go with his water plan but Charles doesn’t want to. Vince brings Charles a cup of water which he pushes off to Eugene. Eugene does the spitting, which earns him a punch in the face. Vince removes his eye patch to reveal a really bad case of pink eye.
After some words, Vince and Charles realize that they do like each other and are both just too weird to have formed a friendship earlier. They hug it out and Eugene joins in on the hug, but not before motioning for Charles to check out the photo sitting atop the table. In the photo are all the neighbors from that floor except one has their face scratched out. Who could that be?
Time to Squat
After Eva Longoria leaves for her dinner, Mabel sneaks back into the shooter’s apartment. Since it is abandoned she googles the rights of squatters in NYC and then invites Charles and Oliver over for a housewarming party. She is hoping that by squatting there, the renter (who suspiciously disappeared to Portugal on vacation) will show his face and they can see if he has anything to do with the shooting.
Mabel and Oliver begin singing the Perfect Strangers theme song when it dawns on Oliver that Howard heard it over the radio earlier, and also a number. They tune to that number on the radio and lo and behold a woman is warning them to stop searching or else one of them will be next. Oh, and she loves her piggy (that solves that one).
I can honestly say, I have no idea what’s going on and who is involved. I don’t think the pink eye is just pink eye. I believe that will come to be an important clue later on in the season. The tinsel not being tinsel is important as well. Could it have come from a dress? How about the Perfect Strangers song? Why does that keep coming up on the radio? Is this about Charles at all? This could be a red herring and it could’ve been Sazz all along. She may have known something she shouldn’t have, which seems likely. I don’t want the season to end, but I’m already so excited to see where this is all going. Until then…
