Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Episode 8: Recap & Ending Explained – What happens to Oliver?
Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Episode 8: Mabel moved out of her aunt’s flat at The Arconia. She even dropped the teaser of the latest ‘Only Murders In The Building’ podcast season, showing that she was indeed going alone. This episode was supposed to let Loretta be investigated. Dickie also seemed to be a tad suspicious, especially after Mabel, Tobert, and Theo’s discovery. Oliver and Charles don’t know about that, though. Neither does Mabel know about the missing handkerchief solution and Loretta’s scrapbook.
What all three do not know is that Detective Biswas got a call from someone after he heard Mabel’s teaser release. Those events prompted him to re-open the case, which the police had shut after arresting Gregg in The Beat Goes On. Arconia characters returned in CoBro, but characters from Death Rattle Dazzle (including Meryl Streep) remained absent. It’s about time that they return. Did Sitzprobe give audiences the returns that they craved and allowed the show to pick up steam ahead of the last two episodes? It did, indeed, with the cast members returning for the Sitzprobe in Sitzprobe.
Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Episode 8 ‘Sitzprobe’ Recap:
Loretta is back. Audiences see her in her apartment, where she gives a monologue about choices and the theater. She looks back at her first play, which motivated her to earn a living on the stage. She reveals that her dreams of Broadway took a back step due to her pregnancy. Loretta gave her baby to a childless couple, which the edits connect to the book Oliver had discovered in Ah, Love!. Loretta is Dickie’s biological mother!
That lends some weight to where she tapped into the emotion for her lullaby in Grab Your Hankies. This is the reason she auditioned for the play in The Show Must… Now, ahead of the sitzprobe for Death Rattle Dazzle, she wants to make things right. Oliver prepares the group for sitzprobe and Mabel walks in from a backstage door, prompting Oliver to call for two. Mabel spills that she is crashing with Theo, and everything is fine with her and Tobert (Charles calls him “Toblerone”). During rehearsal, the group gets alerts informing them that Gregg is released. As they look distracted, a loud noise alerts them to Detective Williams’ arrival. Oliver tries to divert suspicion from his cast, but Williams backs her point of view that the killer is someone currently in the Goosebury Theater.
Williams’s presence disrupts rehearsals, and Donna is upset with the cops’ presence. Seeing theater critic Maxine Spear at sitzprobe annoys her even further, but Oliver justifies it as something he did to drum up interest in the show. Oliver catches up with Williams, Charles, and Mabel backstage. When the detective decides to find a room for interrogations, Mabel is of the belief that she, Oliver, and Charles need to get in somehow. Oliver tells her his show is hanging by a thread, but she counters with the fact that he will only have an opening night if the killer is discovered. This gets Oliver on board.
Mabel meets Howard and sees that he has a potential clue, but to understand it, he will have to put together shredded paper. Their research comes to naught, but Mabel finds rat poison and believes the killer stood in that very room. She motivates Howard to keep searching. Charles offers his dressing room for the interrogation and tries his best to be part of the process. Williams keeps ordering him out. He puts on noise-canceling headphones and sleeps on the couch, but the detective firmly ejects him. Loretta knows Oliver took her scrapbook from her apartment. He returns it, but she does not explain the content within the pages. Oliver lets slip that Dickie is a person of interest in the investigation.
After leaving Loretta’s room, Oliver tries to sit in on the interrogation. He begins by apologizing to Charles and trying to come up with an example to explain the anxiety attacks. The director tries to buy time and sit in while he hunts for the perfect explanation but is dismissed immediately. Loretta tries to get intel out of Mabel by positioning herself as an interested party. She talks about her late Broadway debut being a reason for her concern. Loretta tries to take the spotlight away from Dickie and points to Bobo. She refuses to believe Dickie is a murderer and tells Mabel she cannot picture it. Charles heads to the stage for the Pickwick Triplets song. He performs it without visiting the White Room!
A still from Only Murders In The Building Season 3 Episode 8When Mabel leaves Howard, she runs into Oliver and Charles and learns that they captured all the interrogations on camera. They had planted a pattern song in Detective Williams’s head and painted a picture that would compel her to watch Charles embarrass himself on stage. When Williams headed to watch Charles sing, Oliver planted the camera in the room. Mabel is impressed after hearing this and invites the septuagenarians back to the podcast. Maxine Spear likes Death Rattle Dazzle and giggles when Oliver asks her if it “sings.” Loretta and Donna run into each other at the restroom, where the latter discusses her son and says mothers will do anything to protect their children. Something hits Loretta, and she heads down the stairs, running into Dickie. He talks about the opening night and reveals what Ben told him. Ben Glenroy’s manager says he was free when Ben went away for those few moments and felt trapped when Glenroy returned in episode 1. Loretta tells him he doesn’t deserve this, and he tells her she is the best thing to happen to him. She then hugs him. Oliver apologizes to Loretta and professes his love for her before she takes to the stage for her song.
Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Episode 8 ‘Sitzprobe’ Ending Explained:
What do Charles and Mabel see during Loretta’s performance?
Mabel and Charles see Loretta’s book and flick it. They find an envelope titled Dickie and read the letter within it. Charles keeps doing things to block the removal of the book from the bag, and Mabel’s holding the letter from Loretta’s line of vision.
What does Mabel realize?
Mabel and Charles finally learn that Loretta isn’t after Ben. She is focusing on Dickie in the scrapbook. This is something Oliver did not tell Mabel. Charles knew of it from the ending of CoBro.
What is the confession?
During Loretta’s performance, Detective Williams and a few policemen come in and take Dickie. Loretta sees this and cannot continue with her rehearsal. She comes forward and makes the confession, revealing she put poison in Ben Glenroy’s drink and then pushed him down the elevator. Williams accepts her story without question and takes her away.
What happens to Oliver?
Following the shock of seeing Loretta arrested, Oliver protests. Once his play’s nanny is taken, the director feels dizzy and sits down. The stress of seeing his show fizzle out yet again seems to have taken a toll on him. Given all the effort behind the scenes, Oliver has reached his breaking point, especially after his Broadway return finally appealed to a theater critic. His heart monitor starts beeping. He collapses, and Mabel and Charles rush to his side. Charles screams out for help.
Is Loretta really the killer? Is she protecting Dickie just because the clues point to him? Will Oliver get through his heart attack? Find out next week in Only Murders In The Building Season 3, Episode 9: Thirty.
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Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Episode 8 Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia
Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Episode 8 Cast: Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Michael Cyril Creighton
Only Murders In The Building (Season 3) Genre: Mystery Comedy-Drama, Runtime: 26–38 minutes
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