This week’s episode of Only Murders in the Building calls for a different kind of introduction. While the show always has a tinge of the macabre, the 6th episode of Season 3 comes with an added dose of paranormal activity. Is the Goosebury Theater haunted? Find out in this week’s episode recap.
Episode 6: “Ghost Light” – Written by Madeleine George
“Theaters are known for their ghosts,” Howard Morris (Michael Cyril Creighton) explains in the introduction. As the story goes, the Gooseberry Theater’s namesake, Gideon Gooseberry, died on stage in 1919 when a falling sandbag hit him on the head mid-show. Ever since then, theater managers have been doing superstitious rituals before performances to avoid tragedy striking again, believed to be the work of Gideon’s ghost. By the end of his introduction, Howard has run through rainy New York streets to get back to The Arconia, knocking frantically on Mabel’s door. “I have something I need to confess, he announces as he stands in front of Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), and Oliver Putnam (Martin Short). “I killed Ben Glenroy!”
As Howard explains himself, he shares that he was told to always sweep the energy of Gideon Gooseberry off the stage before every show. But on the opening night of Death Rattle, the broom was locked inside stage manager K.T.’s office. Since Howard hates her, he decides to skip the superstitious ritual. He thought this was all in his head, but today he was back at the Gooseberry Theater to prepare it for rehearsals to resume on stage. While there, he felt a sudden rush of wind on stage, and the ghost light went out. Howard called for whoever was there to reveal himself and then he saw a figure staring back at him from the empty seats. “There he was in his signature cap and red coat,” Howard finishes. Charles tells him that ghosts aren’t real, just as Tobert (Jesse Williams) emerges from Mabel’s bathroom in a towel. He shares that he once shot a ghost documentary aboard the Queen Mary.
Mabel, Charles, and Oliver step over to their murder board to discuss, and Tobert follows them. He and Mabel theorize that Dr. C. went to the theater to remove any medical evidence from Ben Glenroy’s dressing room. Oliver interrupts, hinting for Tobert to give them privacy. Mabel reminds them that she was with Tobert last night on a stakeout, which is why he’s involved now. Charles reveals that Joy left him and that she didn’t write on Ben’s mirror. Oliver, who now has a temporary tooth, doesn’t mention his theory that Loretta wrote it but suggests the three of them accompany Howard to the Gooseberry Theater to make sure everything is okay. They tell Mabel that Tobert isn’t invited.
The storm is still going strong as they arrive at the theater. Charles brought his fish, President McKinley, with him in a bag of water. He comments on the tradition of a ghost light and how it never goes out. But just then, it does. Oliver thinks it’s just K.T. testing things out, but then sandbags begin to fall suspiciously close to Charles and Oliver. Oliver wants to split up to investigate, but Mabel insists they stay together.
Backstage, Howard leads the trio to K.T.’s office to grab the broom. K.T. (Allison Guinn) is inside, shredding the pages of a highlighted script. They tell her what happened, and she asks them to stay calm while she tests the stage. Oliver orders Howard to go with her. Mabel notices a clipboard on the wall that contains an attendance sheet from opening night, with each person having signed themselves in. She wants to take it to Ben’s dressing room to look for a handwriting match with the lipstick message on the mirror, but Oliver stops her, grabbing the clipboard and venturing into the hallway alone. Charles tells Mabel he’s upset that she let Tobert see the murder board. “How can we trust you with confidential case information?” This upsets Mabel, who points out Charles’ poor track record with getting love interests involved in cases. Charles notices that President McKinley’s bag is leaking and wanders off to find water to put him in. Now, everyone is on their own.
Oliver enters Ben’s dressing room, closing the door behind him. He has Loretta’s Ben Glenroy scrapbook with him, holding up the handwriting sample and confirming that she writes “F” and “P” the same way as the person who wrote in lipstick on the mirror. A noise from the hallway draws Oliver out, thinking it could be Charles or Mabel. He follows the sound up a metal spiral staircase that leads to a crawl space that seems to be lived-in. “This looks like the Phantom of the Opera’s dorm room,” he comments. He notices a red coat on a chair in a corner and remembers what Howard said about the appearance of Gideon Gooseberry. Just then, someone’s hand covers Oliver’s mouth to stop him from screaming.
Charles has gone into a storage closet in search of a bucket to put President McKinley in. But he finds something even better, a toilet. He puts the fish in the upper tank and turns to leave but finds that the door is locked from the outside. He begins to panic.
Mabel is looking for Charles and Oliver in the dark backstage hallways when she hears a noise. She’s being followed. But it ends up being Tobert, who tells her he was tailing Jonathan and followed him to this theater. She admits that she’s glad to see him.
As K.T. inspects the ropes connected to the sandbags, Howard asks her why she doesn’t like him. She tells him that his role is irrelevant to the show. Howard accuses her of thwarting him by locking her office door on opening night, but she tells him she never locks it. Howard tells her he needs the broom to sweep Gideon Gooseberry’s ghost off the stage, which makes K.T. laugh. She tells him she’s done 43 shows there, and the sweeping ritual is just an urban legend. Howard seems crestfallen, confessing that this job is the closest he’s ever gotten to achieving his dream to be an actor. His mom didn’t support him when he played John Proctor in his school’s production of The Crucible. K.T. shares that he dream was to be a director. “That ship has sailed,” she tells him. Howard tells K.T. not to give up on her dream. She tells him the way to appease Gideon Gooseberry is to include him, not sweep him away.
Oliver finds himself face-to-face with one of his peers, Jerry Blau (Peter Bartlett). After a spat with his partner over the mortgage, Jerry decided to squat in the Gooseberry Theater since it was vacant. When Howard thought he saw a ghost, he was really seeing Jerry, who fed into his fears by dropping the sandbags. Oliver confesses to breaking an important rule as a director, falling in love with an actor. “You’re worried because of her violent temper,” Jerry says, which confuses Oliver.
Jonathan (Jason Veasey) walks out of his dressing room with a clear plastic bag full of prescription drugs. Mabel and Tobert surprise him, grabbing the bag and getting a closer look at the bottles. Everything was prescribed by a Dr. Camrary. “I’ve been really anxious since taking over Ben’s part,” Jonathan admits. He knew that Dr. Camrary had given Ben medication to help him, referring to it as “The leading man cocktail.” He asks them not to tell Howard that he’s stressed about being the lead, sharing that Jonathan is living Howard’s dream and doesn’t want to let him down.
Charles talks to President McKinley and seems to have no clue how long he’s been locked in the storage room. But he does know he needs to urinate, and so he does… in the toilet… and then he flushes. He freaks out, believing he just doomed the only consistent living creature in his life. Thankfully, he soon hears a flopping sound and finds that President McKinley has arrived safely in the toilet bowl. Looking around the room, Charles finds what he thinks is an intercom but is actually a button to activate a smoke machine. He begins to choke as the room fills with fog.
Jerry takes a puppet theater he uses to entertain himself and demonstrates what happened. He saw Loretta and Ben fighting on the lighthouse set. He doesn’t know what made Loretta angry, but Ben got rough with her, and she called him names. Charles entered and came to Loretta’s defense on the other side of the set. And then Charles punched Ben. “Chrarles punched Ben?”, Oliver asks in shock. As Oliver leaves, he promises Jerry that he won’t tell anyone he’s living in the theater but suggests he go home and make up with Marshall.
On the stage, the ghost light is still out. Howard holds a script of the monologue Gideon Gooseberry was reciting when he died. K.T. gives Howard prompts as he delivers the lines with emotion and emphasis. The ghost light comes back on as they both step into their dream roles.
Charles is suffocating in the smoky closet. His phone doesn’t have a signal, but he begins to record a video to showcase how he died. He talks about all of the things he tried to do to escape, mentioning his jimmy keys and then realizing he hasn’t tried those. He rushes to the door and picks the lock, breaking out just as Mabel and Tobert walk by the door. He’s gasping for air and seems to think it’s been days. Mabel informs him it was only 20 minutes. Tobert runs to get Charles some electrolytes. Charles asks Mabel what Tobert is doing there, and she tells him about Jonathan. When Mabel sees Oliver running through the hallway, she abandons Charles to follow him.
Inside Ben’s dressing room, Mabel watches in horror as Oliver uses a rag to smear the lipstick message on the mirror, trying to wipe it clean. She asks what he’s doing. He tells her that rehearsals start tomorrow and it needs to be clean. Charles enters, and Oliver is angry at him for not sharing that he punched Ben on opening night. Charles accuses Oliver of creating a combative work environment for his actors. In his anger, he quits the show. Mabel tells Charles that she’s also angry that he didn’t tell them about the punch. Oliver snaps at Mabel, saying that she keeps looking for a killer even though Gregg was already arrested for Ben’s murder. In his rant, he tells Mabel that she’s never had a grown-up job, insinuating that all she does is play detective. “Cinda was right,” she says, telling them about Cinda Canning’s offer to have her own true-crime podcast without them, an offer she refused out of loyalty. “All I do is put up with your self-involved insanity,” she adds, sharing that Ben Glenroy meant something to her, and she won’t leave his death an unsolved mystery.
“Sometimes, all you need to banish your ghosts is for someone to see you and understand your dreams,” Howard’s narration concludes. “It’s only when you’re alone that the real haunting begins.” And that’s when we see our three protagonists apart again. Mabel is in her aunt’s apartment with Tobert. They take Jonathan off the suspect board together. Charles gets home and puts President McKinley back in his small fish tank. Oliver lingers in Ben’s dressing room, trying to recognize himself through the smeared lipstick on the glass.
Only Murders in the Building returns on Tuesday, September 12th, with the 7th episode of Season 3, “CoBro,” written by Ben Philippe and Jake Schnesel.
Charles finds an unexpected source for a major clue. A Broadway icon comes knocking at Oliver’s door. And Mabel forms an alternate trio to pursue a lead that sheds light on Ben’s bro and CoBro history.