Did 'Only Murders in the Building' Just Kill Off a Fan-Favorite?
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The following story contains spoilers for Only Murders in the Building Season 3, Episode 8, "Sitzprobe."
THINGS ARE REALLY starting to heat up as we get into the home stretch of Only Murders in the Building Season 3. There are a few different threads, all humming: first and foremost, we've got Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) all trying their best to solve the mystery of Ben Glenroy's (Paul Rudd) murder. Oliver (and, to a lesser degree, Charles) is also particularly invested in the idea that Ben's murderer... not be someone from the cast of his forthcoming reworked play, Death Rattle Dazzle. And then there's Loretta (Meryl Streep).
We thought for most of the season that we had Loretta's whole deal figured out—she's a late bloomer, a theater lifer who's finally getting a real chance at her big break in her 70s (and if her breakthrough musical performance is any indication, she's got star potential). But Episode 8, "Sitzprobe," revealed a whole new connection: Loretta was always a theater lifer, and when she was a teenager got taken advantage of by a director who paid her attention. She got pregnant and gave the baby up to parents who otherwise couldn't conceive; that baby turned out to be Dickie (Ben's brother/manager, played by Jeremy Shamos), and those parents eventually were able to conceive—and that baby was Ben.
"Sitzprobe" revealed that Loretta has been closely watching Dickie's (and Ben's) life for quite a while, and auditoning for the play in the first place was an excuse to get close and reveal the truth. But then, well, [gestures broadly at the entire Only Murders Season 3].,
By the end of the episode, we seem to be really getting somewhere with the mystery. Loretta intends to come clear to Dickie about his parentage, while Mabel, Oliver, and Charles are all beginning to greatly suspect Dickie in Ben's death. Mabel discovered that Dickie was adopted, and also that he was the original creator of Ben's CoBro character; that's motive.
As the police begin to close in on Dickie, Charles and Mabel also discover Loretta's letter to Dickie—just as she began to take the stage for a performance, under Oliver's direction. Oh yeah: Oliver and Loretta, in case you missed it, are also romantically involved. There's that too!
In an earlier conversation between Loretta and Dickie—where she didn't give him the letter—we get a tease that perhaps Dickie wasn't Ben's original murderer, who poisioned him before the show. But that he perhaps was the one who killed him in the Arconia (he mentioned feeling "free" after Ben's first death).
As the episode concludes, Loretta, crushed to see the police come for the son she's felt distant from her entire life, confesses to Ben's murder. As we're left wondering what the real truth is, Oliver—who's already had a couple heart scares in Only Murders—clutches at his chest, falling to the ground, heartbroken by the seeming destruction of both his Broadway comeback and his most promising romantic endeavor in a long time.
But none of that matters if he doesn't make it out of the theater alive. Could Oliver really die in Only Murders in the Building?
Did Oliver die in Only Murders in the Building Season 3?
While Oliver certainly had another heart attack, we can be realistic and say that given the cozy, comedic nature of Only Murders in the Building, the odds that he actually died at the end of "Sitzprobe" are very low.
That being said, however, as Only Murders often does, the moment of Oliver's heart attack is a masterclass in acting, as the tone bounces from musical comedic tension to pure drama. In just a few seconds of screen time, we see Oliver's concern and heartbreak for Loretta turn into a real, phsyical heatlh concern that he suddenly can't control (keep in mind that in addition to his show being in duress and his love interest turning herself in to the police, the entire thing is being witnessed by Maxine, the career-impacting theatre critic).
Things then shift to the serious concern from both Charles and Mabel as well, something that Martin and Gomez do an exceptional job with; these three have been close friends for years at this point, and we really, totally buy it.
Anyone who's ever suddenly lost a loved one—or even had this kind of scare—is familiar with how a moment like this feels, and Only Murders nailed it.
Presumably, Episode 9 will feature Oliver in recovery (hopefully taking it somewhat easy and not stressing too much about Death Rattle Dazzle), as he, Charles, and Mabel try to make sense of Loretta's surprising confession. After all, they've still got a murder to solve—and only two episodes left to do it.
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