Summary of ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 4 Finale

Photo: Patrick Harbor/Disney

As our trio close in on yet another killer, Charles realizes that every time they solve a crime, another body is right on their trail. That’s usually what needs to happen for a cliffhanger at the end of the season, but it’s fun to see the characters catch on to their show’s patterns. It feels like we’re watching them gain sentience and soon enough they’ll realize they’re trapped in a TV show. But Oliver, whose wedding to Loretta is tomorrow, doesn’t appreciate the prediction that someone else is about to die, worried that Loretta will be the next victim. And that may well be the case depending The Devil Wears Prada 2‘s admission schedule.

However, there is a more pressing threat: Mabel is being held captive by Marshall P. Pope (Rex Bailey, if you’re nasty), who uses his phone to text Charles and Oliver to get away. The thing is, they didn’t know she was in danger until that text, so he said something to himself. The good news is that she’s still alive at all, a feat she was able to accomplish by reminding Marshall that he needs her to fix his script’s terrible dialogue. A lesson to all aspiring screenwriters: Be so good they can’t kill you.

Looking across the yard into the hostage zone, Charles realizes that the murder was not a two-man job after all, and that Marshall was able to pull it off in such a short time by walking along the building’s ledge to get between the units. One wrong move from a pigeon and splat. Despite his own fear of heights, Charles decides he will do the same to save Mabel – especially since he was unable to save Sazz. He won’t make the same mistake twice. But instead of dramatically scaling the entire perimeter, they realize they can get a head start by using Vince Fish’s window. Any excuse to see more Richard Kind.

While the plan is to have Mabel escape with them through the window while Marshall is distracted, Charles cannot resist confronting his friend’s killer and jumps into the apartment with them. The problem is that his friend’s killer has a gun. But Charles has his own weapon: “It’s Eva Longoria’s 19-in-1 multi-tool; at least four of the settings can kill you” – and somehow, in all the commotion, they are able to disarm Marshall, who Mabel tells them stole Sazz’s script.

With Marshall cornered, we finally get to the point in all murder mysteries where the killer gets to monologue about his motives. We hear all about his hunter father who encouraged him to be a shooter instead of a writer, how Sazz befriended him when he was struggling to be discovered, and how she continued to support him even after he almost set fire for Ron Howard. All that talk about writing even inspired Sazz to write his own script based on Only murder podcast, which she asked him to read her only copy of. Having only one copy of her script might have been Sazz’s craziest dare of all. Back that shit up to the sky, diva!

Marshall tells us the script was great, but he wouldn’t admit it to Sazz. “It’s not very good. But everybody has to start somewhere,” he tells her, and we can see poor Sazz’s heart break. Seeing a normally confident and bombastic Sazz with his tail between his legs is brutal. Marshall should be fried! Not enough he made a copy, created a fake name and shopped around as his own in an attempt to get an agent, the next thing he knew they were making it into a movie.

Naturally, being an entertainment industry insider, Sazz figured this out pretty quickly and tells him that this betrayal hurts more than any other hit she’s taken on the job. He tries to explain himself, but Sazz tells him that she is going to New York to see Charles’ play and plans to tell him the truth about the movie. To quote the great Scooby-Doo, ruh roh. But instead of letting Sazz unravel his (stolen) big break, Marshall hatched a plan that criminals tend to do. He knew all about the Dudenoff apartment thanks to Sazz’s script (handy), so he takes a red eye to New York himself to eliminate this new threat. He shoots her, but before she dies, she assures Marshall that her “number one” will get him.

And just as Sazz predicted, Charles is so enraged by all this that he throws Eva Longoria’s laser at him, but in the commotion, Marshall is able to get his hands back on the gun. This is obviously not good. “Welcome to the end of your movie,” says Marshall, like a villain in one Scream film. But just as they stare death in the face, someone shoots Marshall. From across the yard, Jan took his shot and demanded revenge for the death of Sazz, who had apparently been hiding in the walls of the building the whole time. Story-wise… of course it works, it’s fine, but it’s kind of practical. It feels like this season’s loose ends are being wrapped up a little quicker than we’re used to.

Free from the threat of murder and with a new appreciation for their film, the trio visit the stage where they see their fellow actors in a scene. “Poor bastards think they only have to solve Tim Kono’s murder,” they say, watching their past from the outside. It’s a cool way for the series to show us how far these three have come over the seasons. Charles especially has a new fondness for the project now that he knows it was written by Sazz, who returns as a made-up fantasy one last time to tell him he did well.

With this season’s mystery solved, Oliver and Loretta are able to get married unhindered by a killer on the loose and do so despite the uncertainty of whether or not Oliver will come with her to New Zealand, where her show is moving. But let’s be real, season five has already been greenlit, so we know Oliver isn’t going to New Zealand. Since the entire season borrowed its episode titles from various movies, the finale is aptly named My best friend’s wedding – but with Meryl Streep walking down the aisle, it feels like a missed opportunity not to go along Mamma Mia.

So where do we go from here? In the midst of all the excitement, they are approached by Téa Leoni, who plays the wife of missing gangster Nicky Caccimelio, asking for their help in finding her husband. Oh, that explains why we got the shoehorned news report about him last week! I was excited at the prospect of this as a fresh framing device for a new season. Plus, it would dismiss people wondering how many more people are going to die in this building just to serve the show’s premise — but I don’t care because it’s a TV show. Additionally, there have only been a handful of incidents so far. My apartment building has seen far worse and there are hardly any character actresses there. Alas, the trio rejects Téa Leoni, citing their strict rule of only investigating murders in Arconia. But Ms. Caccimelio says that Arconia is actually closely related to her husband in some way. Guess we’ll have to wait until next season to find out exactly what that means. But just think of all the fun guest stars we’ll get with a mafia-centric season.

With the podcast ending, Oliver getting married, and Téa Leoni ditching, it looks like this might be our happiest ending yet. But just as they begin to celebrate making it through the wedding without another body turning up, they discover Arconia’s doorman, Lester, dead in the fountain. I’d be sadder if he hadn’t let all those killers into the building all along.