TV Recap: “Only Murders in the Building” – The Trio Escape to Long Island in Season 4, Episode 7

The trio runs away from The Arconia in the seventh episode of Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building. Fleeing a killer who seems to be targeting the podcast hosts, a sojourn from the hustle and bustle of New York City may give them just enough clarity to make a big breakthrough in the case. But it just so happens that Long Island isn’t far enough to escape all of their problems.

Episode 7: “Valley of the Dolls” – Written by Rob Turbovsky & Matteo Borghese

This week’s narrator is a voice we haven’t met yet, and we learn the most about him through exposition – Big Mike (Jason Kravits). He talks about how much he despises New York City, just as we see Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) driving out of it in Oliver’s car, Aphrodite. They don’t yet know where they’re going, but it’s a road that will lead them to Big Mike.

As Charles drives, Oliver composes a breakup text message to his girlfriend, Loretta. He can’t get over how she seemingly said “ugh” when he professed his love for her over the phone. As he sends it off, Charles and Mabel discuss safe house options, ultimately landing on Charles’ sister Doreen’s house in Suffolk County, largely because her husband is a cop. Mabel calls Howard Morris (Michael Cyril Creighton), telling him where they’re going and asking him to keep it a secret. She also tasks him with visiting the bodega to find out who has been cashing Dudenoff’s checks. After hanging up, Charles suggests they all turn their phones off in case the killer can track their devices.

A boat is parked in Doreen’s driveway (“Master Boater”), and the deck is littered with pizza boxes. Charles rings the doorbell, which plays “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel. “Well, look who finally decided to show up for Thanksgiving,” Doreen (Melissa McCarthy) says as she greets her brother and his companions. “Too bad it’s April.”

Doreen’s living room is full of dolls. In fact, the whole house is. She talks about how she began collecting them as each of her four daughters moved out. Oliver points out that she’s replacing her daughters with dolls, and this seems like a major epiphany for Doreen. She is instantly smitten with Oliver, talking about how much she enjoys his voice on the podcast. Charles asks where her husband is – Big Mike – and she tells him she kicked him out for spending too many nights at Can Cans (“Hooters for butts”). He’s living in the boat in the driveway.

The guest rooms are also covered with dolls. The room Charles and Oliver share has a doll that reminds Oliver of Loretta, and he’s sad about her. Charles tells Oliver and Mabel that part of the reason he and his sister are estranged stems from an incident when she was young that resulted in her spleen being removed because of an accidental injury that was Charles’ fault. Doreen always brings it up when they see each other.

The next morning, Charles goes out to the boat to grab a toolbox off the deck, shocked when a familiar face turns up in the driveway – movie producer Bev Melon (Molly Shannon). Howard told her where they were. The studio is considering shutting the movie down if the Brothers sisters are murderers. Charles tells her he doesn’t think they are, which seems good enough for Bev but not for the studio.

Oliver looks through Doreen’s kitchen for his favorite brand of scotch (Johnnie Walker), quickly discovering a full bar in the living room. Doreen sneaks up behind him, making them each her signature drink, a “Sweaty Betty,” which is just vodka and Crystal Light. Oliver can’t stomach the drink as Loretta asks him about his breakup, coming on stronger than the cocktail.

The doorbell rings, with Howard having given up their location to even more people – actors Zach Galifianakis (Himself), Eugene Levy (Himself), and Eva Longoria (Herself). They tell Mabel that, per the life rights contracts they signed, the trio is responsible for their safety. Since a killer is after the real podcasters, and they’re running around The Arconia dressed as them for the film, they want to stay close. Mabel collects their phones, turning them off.

Doreen cuddles with Oliver on the couch. He talks to her about Loretta, and she talks to him about Big Mike. She’s tipsy, and a bit frustrated when the doorbell rings again. She gets up to get the door, but Oliver’s hand is caught in her macrame sweater. She falls down on the couch, and he falls down on top of her. The door opens to catch them in this uncompromising position. The person standing there is Oliver’s girlfriend, Loretta Durkin (Meryl Streep). Loretta tried to contact Oliver by phone, calling Howard when she couldn’t reach him. She flew all this way to find out why he broke up with her over text. He brings up the phone call yesterday, and she knows nothing about it. When he tells her what time he called, she realizes what happened. She and her stand-in were on set bandaged up, and a PA gave the stand-in Loretta’s phone by mistake. She didn’t hear him at all. They rekindle their love on Doreen’s couch, much to the host’s dismay. Doreen goes upstairs to check on Charles. Loretta asks Oliver if she should be worried about him and Doreen. “Everyone should be worried about Doreen,” he replies.

Charles is busy nailing the windows shut upstairs when Doreen finds him. She guilts him about losing her spleen as a child, and he gets frustrated, calling her crazy. She backs off, saying she doesn’t even remember it happening and is just teasing him. She brings up an anecdote from when she was five years old, attending one of Charles’ first plays with their mother. She doesn’t finish the story because her emotions overwhelm her. She says feeling strong emotions and reacting to them doesn’t make someone crazy. In fact, she thinks Charles robotically withholds his emotions from her.

In the kitchen, Mabel sorts through a box of items from the murder board, working on the case. But the kitchen is also occupied by the actors, who are lounging around snacking. Loretta comes into the kitchen for sustenance, complimenting Zach’s work on the FX series Baskets and reminding Eugene that they worked together in a Canadian summer stock stage adaptation of Moonraker, which he doesn’t recall. Mabel pulls Loretta aside, begging her to keep the actors occupied so she can work on the case. Instead, Loretta encourages Mabel to let the actors help, saying that actors are natural investigators of the human condition. When they return to the kitchen, they find Bev Melon, drunk as a skunk, taking out all her frustration on the actors. After belittling them, she says she quits and walks out. Mabel takes Loretta’s advice, pitching the case to the actors, even though she doesn’t have any faith in them.

Meanwhile, loose-lipped Howard visits the bodega where the Dudenoff rent checks are cashed, begging the clerk (Alberto Bonilla) to let him see the ledger. He refuses, but when Oliver sees the store’s guard cat, he gets an idea. He invites the clerk to be a guest on his new podcast, Animal Jobs. The clerk quickly opens up the ledger and Howard begins turning pages, gasping as he sees each of the logs for Dudenoff’s checks. No two signatures are alike. He calls Mabel, but the call goes straight to voicemail.

Doreen’s attempts to seduce Oliver have escalated to the point where she has clipped on braided pigtails like Loretta’s. Loretta comes in, and Oliver tries to get Doreen to give them some privacy. Doreen is hurt and feels rejected by everyone.

Alone, Loretta asks Oliver to repeat the phone conversation he missed. He shares that he almost proposed to her in L.A. But before she can respond, he brings up the “Finsta” he created to stay close to her, Ronnie. Loretta is upset. She felt she had a real connection with the catfish, even saving Ronnie’s memes on her phone. She starts to cry, stepping away. Oliver is mad at himself.

Loretta deletes all of Ronnie’s memes from her phone as Doreen finds her, apologizing. Loretta is so angry with Oliver that she calls him crazy. The word triggers Doreen, who defends Oliver for being emotional. They start to fight, and it quickly becomes physical. Oliver and Charles rush downstairs to break it up.

Charles bandages Doreen’s scratches in the kitchen, telling his sister that he’s worried about her. He tells her the incident involving her spleen was really scary for him, and it’s something their mother remained mad at him for the rest of her life. Doreen brings up why going to see Charles’ play was such a big deal to her. It’s the only time she ever remembers their emotionally distant mother holding her hand as a child. And then she was gone, and so was Charles. She feels like he’s never there for her, and listening to his podcast only made those feelings worse because he seems like he’s having fun with his friends. He reminds her that the podcast is about murders in their apartment building, but she says they make it sound cozy, which makes her feel lonely. “I’m a needy mess,” she cries. “I’m an uptight mess,” Charles replies. He tells his sister that he thinks about her a lot, and that he will try to be better about keeping in touch. Bev interrupts, having taken a nap and feeling much better. She remembers why she got into the movie business, sharing that she yelled at the studio head for 2 hours and the movie is back on without delay. Bev leaves.

Loretta’s car is coming soon to take her back to the airport. She and Oliver spend a few quiet moments alone in the guest room. Oliver apologizes for overreacting, saying it’s been a while since he’s had a real relationship and he lost his cool. She tells him she knew he was a lunatic the moment they met, standing up and taking something off one of the dolls. Loretta vows never to go anywhere, signing up for a lifetime of Oliver’s craziness. She gives him a bracelet from a doll, about the size of a ring, proposing to Oliver. He accepts.

The house is awoken the next morning by Doreen banging pots and pans. The trio comes down to the living room to discover that the actors have taken Mabel’s banker box and created a murder wall. They agree that whoever is cashing the checks is after them, but they say that this crime didn’t begin with Sazz’s murder, it began in Season 1 of the podcast. They point out some plot holes. Who poisoned Oliver’s dog, Winnie? It wasn’t Sting or Jan. And someone wrote a not and put it on Jan’s door, the handwriting of a left-handed person. Who did that? That note read “I’m watching you,” the same message the killer texted to the trio. It must be the same person. The killer has been watching them since the first season of their podcast.

Charles processes this information, realizing Sazz knew all of this. That’s what the note about a “Sick pup” meant on her desk. The same applies to “door note,” meaning Jan’s door. Mabel apologizes for not bringing the actors in sooner. Oliver, however, is out of it, smiling. Charles asks why, and he reveals that he’s engaged to Loretta.

The trio lounge on the deck of Big Mike’s boat with Doreen. We finally meet Big Mike himself, who returns with a box of donuts. He tells Doreen he only goes to Can Cans because they give cops the dinner menu at lunch menu prices. He says he’s only into her, and they kiss and makeup. And then Big Mike delivers a message to the trio. Someone named Howard has been trying to reach them. He pulls out the note he wrote. “It wasn’t just one person cashing his checks,” Big Mike reads, “he found five signatures with one phone number.”

We see Howard with the clerk, reviewing security camera footage from the bodega at the timestamps for each check being cashed. He is shocked as he starts to recognize the faces. Inez (Daphne Rubin-Vega)… Ana (Lilian Rebelo)… Rudy Thurber (Kumail Nanjiani)… Howard pulls out his phone and calls the number in the log next to each different Dudenoff signature. “This is Milton Dudenoff,” the voice on the other end says, the unmistakable voice of Vince Fish (Richard Kind). When there’s silence on the other end, Vince tells his Oh Hell partners that they know. Alfonso (Desmin Borges) pounds his fist in frustration.

Big Mike finishes delivering the message: “Whatever a Westie is, Howard says it was all of them.”

Only Murders in the Building returns next Tuesday, October 15th, with the eighth episode of Season 4, titled “Lifeboat.”

Charles, Oliver & Mabel combine forces with the film actors in an epic showdown against the Westies. You can’t handle the truth.