Summary of Only Murders in the Building, Season 4, Episode 3

Photo: Patrick Harbron/Disney

The only thing worse than murder is being stalked by actors. This week, the trio have to deal with both when the cast of their upcoming film arrives to tail them. But before that happens, along comes an actor we always love to see – Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Detective Williams, who oddly enough wants to help Charles, Mabel and Oliver with their investigation. Since the feds have taken over the case, she's not involved and decides to pass her knowledge on to more capable hands than said feds. She tells the trio that they believe Jan hired someone to carry out the murder from prison, that the shooter was a very good shot, and that they found a bullet casing in the apartment of “M. Dudenoff,” a retired professor whose neighbors claim he's in Portugal (where, if you remember, their bathroom ham comes from). She adds that Rudy (aka Christmas All the Time Guy) is the only one who heard the bullet because the other neighbors were playing a card game. This debriefing is interrupted by the movie's stars, including Zach Galifianakis, whom Detective Williams describes as “delicious, fuckable baklava.” An absolutely beautiful collection of words.

With this acting troupe arriving unannounced, the gang is undecided about whether to let them stay. Mabel is all about business and doesn't want Eva Longoria to limit her style, but Oliver thinks it's important that they let their actors rehearse to make the film as good as possible. Charles is the tie-breaker and is persuaded by Eugene Levy, who is Brazzos stan. This allows the actors to experience a classic Hide Meeting. Charles believes that Vince (aka Pink Eye Joe) may be hiding something else under the eye patch, while Mabel believes that the Christmas All the Time Guy wanted to kill Charles because he tried to ban real Christmas trees from the building. So in reality Hide And Scooby Doo Style, they separated.

Charles and Eugene Levy go to Vince to get him to take off his eye patch so they can see if he's hiding a bruise underneath that he got from the recoil. Rather than follow Levy's suggestion of using a spit attack to get him to take off the eye patch, Charles has another plan. When Vince opens the door, they're both standing there… also wearing eye patches. This goes without saying, of course, but Steve Martin is a comedic genius. I hate to state the obvious, but this whole scene is just too good for me to legally acknowledge. Their plan, as it turns out, is to claim that they also have pink eye, but to use miracle drops that they recommend to Vince. Unfortunately, he applies the drops in the bathroom, leaving them no choice but to attempt Operation Spit Attack. Neither Charles nor Levy want to be the ones to spit in the face of a suspected murderer, but their hot potato game lands on Levy, who promptly gets a punch after spitting on Vince. Despite this violent streak, when he takes the bandage off, he looks like Bob Costas at the Olympics – no bruise, just pink eye. So Vince is innocent for now, but as they leave, they see a photo of the entire floor with someone's face scratched out. The mysterious person is holding a pig, so presumably it's the mysterious Dudenoff (unless there's more than one pig roaming around this building).

Down the hall, Mabel is busy investigating Christmas All the Time Guy alone after shaking off Eva Longoria. “Mabel works alone,” she tells her, which is notorious for not being true. In fact, there are three seasons of this television series that disprove that claim. Nevertheless, Mabel arrives to find that Eva is already at Rudy's apartment, determined to solve a murder. Mabel goes about it tactfully, quietly noticing the gun on the wall and Rudy's ham radio, but Eva doesn't have the patience for it. She jumps in bluntly and, after some brief pleasantries, quickly accuses Rudy of trying to kill Charles because he loves Christmas. But as it turns out, in one of the series' classic twists, Christmas All the Time Guy is hates Christmas. His Christmas lifestyle is a lie. In reality, he's a fitness influencer who made a viral Christmas video, and now all of his content has to be themed around the holiday to gain any traction. Despite this, he's still an expert on the subject, so Mabel asks him what he thinks of the tinsel she found at the crime scene. He lights it with a lighter, and since it doesn't burn, he tells Mabel that it's not actually tinsel (which is highly flammable). Okay, Rudy, but what if it was tinsel? Then you just destroyed an important piece of evidence with fire!

Oliver, meanwhile, is less focused on the investigation and more on himself. More specifically, he's determined to win over Zach Galifianakis because he doesn't want his one chance at an immortal biopic to be ruined by an actor who couldn't care less about him. Since Galifianakis believes he needs no preparation for the role of Oliver Putnam, Oliver Putnam puts him through the ultimate Oliver Putnam test. “You're six cosms deep in Joe Allen when Frank Rich starts an argument: Who's the final Mrs. Lovett? Lansbury or LuPone?” he asks. Galifianakis guesses and incorrectly answers LuPone – to which Oliver and Howard groan in horror. The thought alone is sickening. Ashford, to be honest, turned him down.

While trying to style his counterpart as himself with hair filler and bronzer, Galifianakis asks him if all those typical Oliver Putnam stories (most of which could also pass as asides about Jenna Maroney) are actually true. Oliver admits that they are sort of true, in the sense that he wants them to be true, and teaches him the rules of how to construct the perfect story. After that, Galifianakis suddenly comes to his senses, which made me think that this honesty finally gave him something authentic to hold onto with Oliver, and the pair have a productive montage (set to the Perfect Strangers title song) will get along well.

Amazing, right? Wrong! It turns out it was all a lie. The actor was acting, and Oliver and Howard overheard him on the phone ranting about him to his agent, calling him a narcissist. While that may be true, Howard doesn't let it happen, and defends Oliver and his resilience in a way that unfortunately makes him seem pathetic. I don't like seeing Oliver Putnam sad; in fact, I hate it. He's such a silly character that it hits even harder when he's so dejected and ashamed in reverse. But as it turns out, that brutally honest portrayal from Howard is exactly what Galifianakis needs to see Oliver as a tragic character worth playing. A win is a win, I guess.

Taking inspiration from Eva Longoria (as I often try to do), Mabel decides to be brave herself and returns to Dudenoff's abandoned apartment – but not to investigate. Instead, she researches the city's squatters' laws and decides to move in. This way, Mabel not only finally has an apartment again (and for free, too), but she also hopes that Dudenoff will have to show up when he finds out she's living there. Two birds with one stone! Posing as bait for a suspected murderer is probably not the best idea, but that just goes to show how expensive rents are in Manhattan.

At their impromptu housewarming party for Mabel (sitting on the apartment floor with a pig), she and Oliver realize that they both have the theme song to Perfect Strangers sticks in their minds because it was on Dudenoff and Rudy's ham radios. But more importantly, Oliver brings up something else that came over the airwaves: a message that said “Meet us on 445,” which, Oliver realizes, is a frequency. They quickly tune to that frequency (or whatever the proper ham radio terminology is, I have a phone like a normal person), and a voice sternly tells them they shouldn't be there. In fact, the voice says, the last person who was snooping around is dead—presumably meaning Sazz, who we know was hot on Dudenoff's tail. “Drop that or you'll be next,” the voice warns, but not before recognizing the pig's grunt and sending its love.

We don't know who the voice is, but whoever it is knows the pig. In fact, he knows the pig well enough to send him his love. He loves that pig. Now, I don't suspect that pig gets out that much, so I guess it's safe to assume that that voice on the radio (a Delilah, if you will) was in the Dudenoffs' apartment, if it wasn't Dudenoff herself. And thanks to the photo at Vince's, we know that everyone on that floor hung out with the pig in question.

But I'm honestly still hung up Perfect Strangers. That must be something, right? The sitcom from the 80s was about an American from the Midwest who moved in with his distant cousin from the Mediterranean. Could Sazz have been a double for Bronson Pinchot? Or was that perhaps a Mediterranean accent we heard on the radio? The character of Balki in Perfect Strangers was originally a shepherd and “Dudenhöffer” is a German name that roughly means “farmer,” so maybe that means something? Or maybe they just wanted to use the theme song for this montage!