Only Murders in the Building: Fan Fiction
October 5, 2021 3:31 PM - Season 1, Episode 8 - Subscribe

Hitting a dead end, the group calls for reinforcements in the form of their podcast’s Superfans.

description via hulu
posted by everybody had matching towels (24 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow!
posted by Monochrome at 4:26 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Brazzos was their safe word! (Also I definitely don't trust Amy Ryan, even if she ended up bloody at the end.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 4:32 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


I was relieved to see the Dimas crime family arrested. They may not have killed Tim Kono, but they were thieves who were ready—eager—to murder anyone who stood up to them. Also it was nice of Oliver to include the fans. Although Oliver's rudeness to Jan probably indicates that he didn't value the fans' input as much as their adulation.
posted by Monochrome at 4:33 PM on October 5, 2021 [5 favorites]


So I think the Dimas didn’t kill Kono - I agree with their fans. I’m not sure I agree with Jan’s pointing at Howard Morris. I think she’s either wrong, or she’s trying to misdirect them. My guess: Howard’s relatively innocent. Investigating him will point to the real culprit(s).

I *hope* Jan isn’t a poisoner. (I say, after they ate her pizza rolls.) I think she’s involved.

I wonder if their fans will make their own podcast?
And it looks like Tim didn’t share many details from the roof with Mabel.

This is a lot of (attempted) kills and injuries for a building:
* Tim Kono
* the neighbor’s cat
* Oliver’s dog
* Jan
* the figure in Mabel’s apartment in the first minutes of the premiere

Fun bits:
“Is that a good ‘shit fuck fuck’?”
Itty-Bitty OMITB-itty Committee
posted by Pronoiac at 5:13 PM on October 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Yeah, clearly that Tim was poisoned points to the cat being poisoned. And Oliver's dog, right? This show likes misdirection so while I hope it's not Jan (because that may be too obvious), I like the twists.

(I don't think they're going to pull the whole "It was someone you didn't expect!!!" thing or someone we haven't met. I don't think it's Oscar, either. I think the whole Cinda Canning doing an "Only Murderers in the Building" podcast months later bit from a previous is maybe a clue but I'm really bad at these things.)

I do like the Dimas family weren't the killers but they were still criminals. At least these people solved some crimes ...

This show is fun.
posted by edencosmic at 6:19 PM on October 5, 2021 [4 favorites]


"celebrate each other's bodies." "Oh, you went there."
"I cannot function with all this pressure and nothing to dip."
"Wouldn't we want us on this case before we were us?"
"Is that a good shit fuck fuck?"

Amazing "we wrapped it all up, good job everybody!" Like, you knew it couldn't be done when there's 2 more episodes to go, but still, enjoyed it?

I enjoyed seeing Ali Stroker of "Oklahoma!" fame as one of the fangirls. And how it suddenly became a giant family, whether they wanted it to or not, LOL.

Unsure if Jan was being "reverse helpful" or not, exactly, but now the end of this makes you wonder.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:13 PM on October 5, 2021 [7 favorites]


I loved the Arconiacs, heh. Jaboukie Young-White's narration was a delight, and it was great that they fit in some more Broadway cameos with Ali Stroker and Daniel Oreskes. My favorite was Oreskes as weird old man, with his speech about kids these days not knowing how to wait for things that ended with him not being welcome at his daughter's wedding, as well as his comment to Jan and Charles that his wife was also much younger than him.

It was pretty clear timing wise that this would not be the ultimate conclusion, but I enjoyed Detective Williams getting all the confirmation that their theory was wrong while on the phone with Oliver. Who, to be fair, took that pretty much in stride.

I have no guesses about the actual murderer, beyond agreeing that Jan's input seemed like a suspicious attempt at misdirection - but that, itself, could be misdirection. I'm expecting something scooby doo ish for a final twist - someone has almost gotten away with it, but here come our meddling podcasters!
posted by the primroses were over at 7:20 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


The murderer is Gut Milk lady! She's been poisoning annoying residents and their pets!! She shot Tim Kono to cover it up!!! The "G.M." on the Post-It note stands for Gut Milk!!!! Why isn't anyone listening to me?!?!?!
posted by Paragon at 8:45 PM on October 5, 2021 [31 favorites]


Uhm somehow I did convince myself this was the last episode, so the meta worked on every level for me. I'm excited to have a couple more episodes, and genuinely very pleased Oscar will at least get the benefit of the doubt about murdering Zoe going forward.

I definitely thought Jan was engaging in misdirection with her terrible attempts to resurrect the cat guy as a suspect. And...maybe I still do? If she DID poison Tim, she would've known that reopening the case would mean that the police would catch the poison. Maybe she staged the attack to throw off suspicion? ...though that seems too rough on Brazzos.

Anyone think that Jan could be Teddy's ex-wife? No? Too much? Just me?
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:20 PM on October 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


AAAAAAAAAAH I'm so glad this is here I just discovered this show and have watched up to this episode -- I thought that this was the finale! I didn't want to cliffhanger myself AND LOOK WHAT I DID!!

My housemate and I spent the last 20 minutes doing what Charles, Oliver, and Mabel did in the bar in the first episode. "Who are we missing? Do we know anything about Zoe's family? Was the note to Oliver to end the podcast on the same paper and in the same hand as the note to Jan and Kono's suicide notes? Did the cat die from ingesting the poison that killed Tim Kono?"

I should be sitting on a sidewalk in front of Steve Martin's house with a crude hand-painted sign wearing a one-hour tee.
posted by tzikeh at 9:29 PM on October 5, 2021 [9 favorites]


Oh man, I thought that ending was a set-up for a season 2!
posted by TwoWordReview at 11:14 PM on October 5, 2021


Jan's totally the murderer and she stabbed herself. She was able to witness all the goings on in various apartments while bassooning from her courtyard window.

Admittedly I have very little to hinge this on except that weird little throwaway line early in the season where they talk about whether they'd care whether Steve Carell's character in The Officer were murdered, and Amy Ryan played his love interest in that. If The Office exists, and therefore Amy Ryan exists, then who exactly is Jan?

I'm still unclear as to why Dimas was sponsoring the show, considering the victim is someone he'd had an unusual connection with and both Teddy and Theo had a lot to lose if the investigation came anywhere near them.
posted by mochapickle at 10:04 AM on October 6, 2021 [4 favorites]


Admittedly I have very little to hinge this on except that weird little throwaway line early in the season where they talk about whether they'd care whether Steve Carell's character in The Officer were murdered, and Amy Ryan played his love interest in that. If The Office exists, and therefore Amy Ryan exists, then who exactly is Jan?

I forgot about this line, but I've been having a terrible time wrapping my mind around Amy Ryan's character being named Jan, given that she's basically the ANTI-Jan in The Office. Does anyone else feel this?
posted by dlugoczaj at 12:02 PM on October 6, 2021 [8 favorites]


I forgot about this line, but I've been having a terrible time wrapping my mind around Amy Ryan's character being named Jan, given that she's basically the ANTI-Jan in The Office. Does anyone else feel this?

YES! Ahem, sorry for the shouting. But if she turns out to be our murderer, I really hope we get a confession in Amy Ryan's very best Jan Levinson Gould impression.

Anyone think that Jan could be Teddy's ex-wife? No? Too much? Just me?

I like this idea, but I don't see a plausible way that Oliver wouldn't know that, right? He and Dimas seem to go way back.
posted by the primroses were over at 1:10 PM on October 6, 2021 [8 favorites]


If the cat died from the same poison as Tim, it's quite possible that it was not poisoned on purpose but got it from whatever source Tim did (or from his blood?). The frozen leg will definitely come into play next.
posted by Marticus at 3:42 PM on October 6, 2021 [3 favorites]


Yeah.... So maybe Tim was poisoned and shot, then shortly after that, Evelyn The Cat prowled into Tim's apartment and wandered around leaving bloody paw prints and injesting whatever Tim was poisoned with (pizza rolls? Gut milk?), then Evelyn wandered back down to Howard's.

Who lives on the sixth floor again?
posted by mochapickle at 4:32 PM on October 6, 2021 [4 favorites]


Teddy and Theo live on the sixth floor.

I am just passively enjoying this, and I have no theories, but I loved the fans getting plucked from the sidewalk into podcast production. I wasn't far from that in some Serial FanFare threads way back when.
posted by gladly at 5:09 PM on October 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


I love the concept of a bad idea truffle pig, and also Mabel's plaid coat.

Possibly the Dimases have bigger issues at the moment than a defamation suit, but I both do and absolutely do not want to hear the excruciatingly awkward retraction episode.
posted by eponym at 5:27 PM on October 6, 2021 [4 favorites]


To be fair, the Dimases are guilty of at least grave robbing, if not murder.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:45 PM on October 6, 2021 [1 favorite]


It's obviously Sting.
posted by h00py at 4:14 AM on October 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


every little thing he does is murder
posted by mochapickle at 5:55 AM on October 7, 2021 [34 favorites]


I hope it's not Jan. Because 1) Charles deserves a little happiness and 2) They'd have to reveal a *lot* that we currently have no evidence of in order for that to make sense. Surprise twist killer only works well if it works in retrospect, and they'd have to dump a lot of info on us at the last minute for Jan to be a part of it all.
posted by tzikeh at 4:59 PM on October 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


I also like the idea of letting the designated love interest character be demystified into just another person who's also thinskinned and weird and occasionally irritating in her own way.
posted by eponym at 5:16 PM on October 7, 2021 [9 favorites]


The part where they were sitting around at the beginning whining about stakes had me yelling. Are the writers here on fanfare???
posted by bleep at 7:16 PM on October 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


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