Only Murders in the Building: Double Time

October 12, 2021 4:26 PM - Season 1, Episode 9

With the residents growing upset at the building’s negative publicity, the trio faces a revolt. Charles is visited by an old colleague who sheds light on his past.

description via hulu

posted by everybody had matching towels (32 comments total)

I still don't trust Jan.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:33 PM on October 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

This episode was fantastic. Jane Lynch! And a really vicious HOA meeting. And another twist too! Very excited to see how they land this all in the final episode.
posted by simonw at 5:10 PM on October 12, 2021

Did my jaw drop at the 'sex toy' reveal? It sure did!!!
posted by everybody had matching towels at 5:12 PM on October 12, 2021 [8 favorites]

The Jan reveal seems too simple. I mean -- she didn't leave herself a note and stab herself. This could go could anywhere.

But I love it.

The Jane Lynch stuff seemed like another misdirection but also too obvious of one.

I am going to be so sad when this season ends. I'm glad we're getting another one. I like these people so much and I want them to continue to sloppily solve the random murders in their building.
posted by edencosmic at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

"I'd like to point out that when I offered to help, everyone sent me home to get stabbed."

Oliver's tie-dyed podcast hoodie!

"If you're a murderer, STOP MURDERING!"

"I'm a New York broad who's been stabbed, I can handle shit."

I don't know WHAT to make of Jan now!

Jane Lynch was a hoot.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:26 PM on October 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

Ugh, SO annoyed it's Jan. None of the evidence led to her so we're going to get a huge info-dump to make this make sense, and Charles DOESN'T DESERVE THIS.

I hope there's one more twist coming, but I doubt it.
posted by tzikeh at 6:46 PM on October 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

The "I'd like to point out that when I offered to help, everyone sent me home to get stabbed" is actually the first thing that made me think it's not her? Being petty is instantly exculpatory for me I guess.

Jane Lynch was very fun here! This is such a fun show -- I don't know if it was just a COVID project, but I hope there's another season.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:21 PM on October 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

My wild theory: the young man Charles sits next to at the symphony - the one who is there to see his girlfriend the actual first chair bassoonist - looks a lot like Tim Kono, no? Maybe the prodigy is Jan’s protege, who came to the Arconia for lessons with Jan and met Tim there. Maybe she has a type? Maybe she’s the murdering woodwind player?
posted by minervous at 7:29 PM on October 12, 2021 [8 favorites]

I saw an interview that quoted Steve Martin as saying his one criteria for doing the show was that there would be a full solution at the end of the season, so I'm glad we have that to look forward to next week.

Also, I'm suspicious of Jan but I don't think she killed Tim.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:42 PM on October 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

Maybe the symphony guy is the killer, or at least a shooter - maybe the poison and shooting were by different people.

If Bunny is not the culprit, can I vote for her to be the 'star' of season 2?
posted by Marticus at 8:05 PM on October 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm going to go back through the series before the finale to try to piece together what I can. I feel like while Jan has some secrets she's probably not Our Killer, and there's at least one final twist awaiting in the last episode. Some remaining questions include:

What was Zoe's connection to the Arconia? Her family presumably lived there, right? Was Jan maybe Zoe's mom (though if so, would Mabel not have put that together by now?)

Why poison Tim Kono and then shoot him? I feel like the Smart Money points at two different killers here, one of whom might have actually been Tim himself.

Who stabbed Jan? It seems silly that she would have left the note for herself (though given that right now we don't know what her motive was for lying about being first chair, maybe she did stab herself? Feels like wild stretch though.)

Who poisoned Oliver's dog? And why would they think that was a useful course of action? Does this have anything to do with Oliver's son (who definitely rests in that narrative role of being someone we've been introduced to just enough to remember, but who hasn't interacted with the plot except to point out Mabel's personal history with TIm.)

Whose body was Mabel hovering over in the first episode?

And most importantly: HOW DOES THE GUT MILK FIT IN WITH EVERYTHING ELSE?
posted by Navelgazer at 8:39 PM on October 12, 2021 [12 favorites]

Someone's going to try to kill Charles and mistake Sazz for him, right?
posted by Pronoiac at 2:18 AM on October 13, 2021 [14 favorites]

grandiloquiet: I hope there's another season.

Renewed for season two.
posted by tzikeh at 7:14 AM on October 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also, not sure how you make a second season of a show with this tight of a premise (another murder in the same building would be a real stretch), but I'm definitely tuning in. Maybe when they do solve it (ugh PLEASE don't be Jan), the podcast gets national attention and then a murder in another building elsewhere in Manhattan intrigues them enough to keep going? It wouldn't have the same feel to it (they won't have any real connection to or knowledge of the residents) but I'm certain Martin(s) & Co are much more clever than I.
posted by tzikeh at 7:23 AM on October 13, 2021

It's a big building! There could definitely be another murder! (Also maybe that body Mabel was hovering over in the 1st episode is at the very end of this season, and this becomes the start of the next murder investigation?)
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:45 AM on October 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

Jane Lynch is delightful. Maybe too delightful? I felt like her scenes were so fun it made me realize that most of the show is not very fun.
posted by amarynth at 9:49 AM on October 13, 2021

Odds are pretty high right now this entire bunch gets kicked out of the Arconia and have to solve murders in another building...
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:20 PM on October 13, 2021 [8 favorites]

Also, not sure how you make a second season of a show with this tight of a premise (another murder in the same building would be a real stretch)

It's called Only Murders in the Building. That's the premise.
posted by crossoverman at 4:20 PM on October 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

My halfbaked wild theory for the week is that prodigy bassoonist was Tim's girlfriend, Jan tried to poison her rival and accidentally took out Tim instead. Still doesn't explain the shooting, though!
posted by eponym at 7:37 PM on October 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to leave a threatening note on Jan's door and then immediately stab her before she has a chance to get scared off. Maybe there is a note leaver/poisoner AND a shooter/stabber. That would allow someone (like Bunny) to be terrible, but not violently murderous (maybe she didn't intend to poison Tim?) and could presumably get our heroes out of being evicted.

I guess it will come down to whose trash was Tim taking out/who lives on 6?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:23 PM on October 13, 2021

I don't think Jan is the killer, but I think she's at least somewhat involved. Maybe she wants to kill the prodigy bassoonist? I also think another guy looking suspiciously like Tim may be A Thing.

Only Murders in the Building’ Creator Was Really Hoping You Wouldn’t Notice That Key Clue
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 PM on October 13, 2021

My halfbaked wild theory for the week is that prodigy bassoonist was Tim's girlfriend, Jan tried to poison her rival and accidentally took out Tim instead. Still doesn't explain the shooting, though!

I think the prodigy bassoonist is too young - she appeared to have braces. I think she's there only to show that Jan was lying about being first chair.

I think it's more likely that Jan wasn't sleeping with Tim at all, but that her package of bassoon cleaning tools got delivered to Tim by mistake (which means maybe Jan has the green ring and doesn't know it?).
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:25 AM on October 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

Howard says that Evelyn's toxicology report confirms it was the same poison Tim had, which we'd figured out already, but he doesn't say what the poison was, which would have been helpful. I'm wondering now if the poisoner isn't the shooter, and didn't intend to kill anyone, just make them sick (for some reason -- to do something? to not do something?), and got the dosage wrong. Teddy has a deli, so that could be one way to get Tim to eat poison. Jan is a baker, but not a good one -- the pizza rolls were dry. So perhaps she'd meant to sicken Tim (or someone else?) but got the dosage wrong. Maybe Jan baked poison treats for the first-chair bassoonist and Tim got them somehow, then Evelyn ate one and died, and maybe Winnie the dog found the rest?

I'd love Bunny to be the murderer. Anyone who's had to deal with a co-op board considers homicide at some point.

I loved Jane Lynch as Sazz Pataki! Her perfomance was so dazzling, though, that it took me longer than it should have to question why her character would be introduced in an already-busy kind of show. I mean, maybe she's there to illustrate a facet of the profound theory of duality of man, that people have two sides to them, that the murderer could be anyone? But it also means that if she was seen at the Arcadia and assumed to be Charles-Haden Savage (can I just laugh here about the placement of the hypenate?) then the real C-HS could have been up to nefarious things with Sazz as his natural alibi.

Couldn't it still be Oscar's dad? Jose is the super. Jose goes up to see Tim and tell him to stay away from Oscar and let him get a fresh start now that he's back home from prison. Tim, delirious from poison, isn't thinking straight, doesn't respond as Jose hoped. They scuffle, Tim gets shot. Jose, in grief and shock tells Oscar what's happened. Oscar, protecting his father, races up the stairs in his hoodie with Jose's keys, and writes out a few suicide notes that don't quite ring true?
posted by mochapickle at 9:08 AM on October 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

Was Jan lying?
Or demoted very recently because she was stabbed and probably was "not at [her] best"?
I can easily see that as just being scared to admit she lost her spot - they introduced the first chair which seems to imply that this is a recent change.

The poison should have been in something that a cat would drink - so not the alcohol glass. Some kind of... milk substitute, maybe? That a certain dog might also have had access to?

So - all poisonings could be accidental (bad batch of GM), and the shooter/stabber is someone who had a reason to dislike Tim Kono (because he was investigating something) and also Jan (who was also investigating something).

Nothing so far has explained why the tox screens were cancelled initially. Who has ties to the PD or government or other very influential people?

I don't think Jan was a bad baker. That was just jealousy. He ate six!
posted by Acari at 9:14 AM on October 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

As much as I want Jan and Charles-Haden to work out, I mostly just want her to be the murderer for the pleasure of watching Amy Ryan perform a classic confession scene.

Also, was the nosebleed at the end CGI? It seemed too perfect.
posted by mochapickle at 10:32 AM on October 14, 2021

Yeah, I didn't assume Jan was lying about being first chair. I figured that she had been out recuperating for a month after the stabbing and came back to the humiliating discovery that she'd been replaced by "the youngest first chair bassoonist in the history of the symphony." Wait, now I'm feeling kind of murderous on her behalf. But if Tim were dating the prodigy bassoonist when Jan tried to murder her, surely the team would have found something about Tim's girlfriend on his phone?

I don't buy Oscar's dad as the murderer. Tim and Oscar's dad lived in the same building for the last decade; if Oscar's dad wanted to talk to Tim at any point, it wouldn't have been difficult. The only reason he talked to Mabel is that Mabel knocked on his door. And...Jesus, that would just be a really grim ending to write. Even worse than ruining Brazzos's new love life.

I want gut milk to be involved, but did they find any in Tim's apartment? Everyone said he was an asshole; I can't imagine he'd buy some to make the mail desk happy. Especially if they were always screwing up his package deliveries!

I truly don't know. Bunny had such a heel turn -- or, uh, a heel who suddenly gets very proactive turn? -- in this episode that it makes me want it to be her. But on a story level, it's hard to imagine how they could pull enough threads together to make a satisfying end with Bunny as the murderer. Which makes me think it has to be Jan again?
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:23 AM on October 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

Everyone's takes at thinking Sazz was Charles were beautiful and perfect.

I think it is Jan, and the note was from someone else who had figured it out. Maybe Jan confronted them and got stabbed.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:06 PM on October 14, 2021

I love Mabel's mural.

The bassoon cleaner reveal was an excellent penultimate episode cliffhanger, but Jan grew on me this episode, so I'm choosing to believe it's a final red herring until proven otherwise.

The whole HOA evicting them due to complaints thing seemed silly - didn't we just see an enormous file of complaints that did not lead to Tim Kono's eviction? - but I guess they needed another thing to break up the gang for finale plot reasons?
posted by the primroses were over at 4:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Who has ties to the PD or government or other very influential people?

Are we really sure it wasn’t Sting? He’s the only character so far who could have gotten The Police to back off.
posted by snofoam at 4:11 PM on October 17, 2021 [23 favorites]

Boo to that sting joke!

Finale tonight, I think. I can't see how Jan won't be involved, but I just don't want it to be true.

That was too many negatives.
posted by Acari at 3:56 PM on October 19, 2021

Waiting for the next post to share my opinions. Not right to do it here.
posted by tzikeh at 5:32 PM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

The running joke of people freaking out at mistaking Sazz for Charles really reminded me of the "Gene Parmesan" gag from Arrested Development. "Ahhhh!" Delightful.
posted by tomboko at 7:22 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]