Only Murders in the Building
Tuesday, 16 January 2024 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queer_scribblingS1E7: The Boy from 6B
Interesting thing that I don't see often in shows: A Deaf character's perspective that doesn't still have sounds for the audience, which can contribute to the Deaf character seeming oblivious instead of actually touching on their lack of whatever type of hearing. We got varying degrees of music and occasional noises - like 'Pss!' to get Oliver's attention - outside of Theo's perspective, so there wasn't as much direct dialogue in this episode overall. (It's likely that Theo's ability to read lips was enhanced, but I appreciated that we got subtitles.)
Not a personally interesting thing, which is slowly appearing in more shows: Certain information is communicated only via texting. I couldn't read the particular font on the transparent white background of the messages, so I didn't get anything revealed in a text in this episode.
Information revealed: Theo was sort of seeing Zoe on the side, back before she died. He gave her the green ring that she was photographed wearing, and Tim has been trying to find. Teddy Dimas is very much engaging in black market stuff, and he has Theo help with this. (It looked like Theo worked at a funeral home and he was stealing jewelry after funerals but before burials. I'm unclear if the Dimas' were involved in the funeral home in a larger way or not.) There's a flashback that reveals that Theo was the one who argued with Zoe on the roof, and when she lashed out in an ableist way, he pushed her, you know, accidentally hard enough to fall off the roof. His father helped to threaten Tim into silence on what he saw, and this is why Tim was trying to bring the Dimas jewelry operation down.
Also: Charles had a stay-at-home date with Jan that involved a Scrabble game. She put down 'sexy', he put down 'hard', she put down 'wet', and then I think he realized what was going on (since there were some other words in there). I'm not sure what his last word was, but her last word was 'you'. The next episode includes multiple references to them having sex, but this episode has more of a fade to black. He does get a text afterwards from Mabel or Oliver that the passcode on Tim's phone might be 'Theo', which does work.
Theo also caught Oliver and Mabel spying on him stealing jewelry from someone's casket, and he ties them up and puts them in the back of a van. They don't get hurt, but Teddy does meet them to take a nicer car back to the Arconia while he threatens them to not reveal any information they've found out. He specifically takes a seat with his back towards the rear-view mirror, so Theo can't read his lips. He talks about how he initially was ashamed to have a deaf son, but he learned ASL (did you know that most parents with deaf children don't learn ASL?) and he learned the value in silence (and having people be quiet about what they know). Oliver and Mabel are dropped off at the Arconia with the instructions to put out a final episode of their podcast with their finding that Tim committed suicide.
S1E8: Fan Fiction
It's been a week since the last Only Murders in the Building podcast episode, and four fans have camped out in seats outside the Arconia. [Technically, three seats and a wheelchair user.] There's the unsurprising 'get a life/job/hobby' sort of comments at more than one point (and a "do I wish our fans were a little better about hygiene?" comment), but "the Arconiacs" do help with bouncing some ideas around later in the episode.
Detective Williams wants an episode with evidence that could push the department to reopen Tim's case, and none of the podcast group want to actually follow Teddy Dimas' suggestion to lie and say it was all a suicide. However, they have one night to get out some sort of episode, and they try to pin Tim's murder on Teddy and Theo. (Detective Williams reveals at the end of the episode that the toxicology report came back that Tim was poisoned before he was shot, and there's Ring footage of both Dimas' outside of the building when the fire alarm was pulled.)
The stress gets to Oliver a bit, and he's very harsh about Jan involving herself in the case with Charles. (She wants to return to Howard, the Cat Guy, as a suspect.) She's upset enough to leave before the episode is recorded and uploaded, which is when she finds a note on her door that reads 'I'm watching you'. Charles takes a bouquet of flowers over to her during the post-upload celebration [when Oliver gets the call from Detective Williams that the Dimas' aren't the killers], and he finds Jan on the floor of her apartment bleeding.
S1E9: Double Time
While there are plenty of other crimes that the Dimas' are being charged with (and Oscar can maybe get cleared of Zoe's death), the episode opens with a redaction on the podcast. The perils of live updates and not solving this murder before recording anything.
Jan survives. There's this whole thing with Charles' former stunt double on Brazzos stopping by during a stunt double convention, which brings up insecurity. Sazz Pataki - played by Jane Lynch - was better than Charles at a lot of things on Brazzos, and this supposedly extended to sex scenes. She also 'stole' his girlfriend Cookie, and Sazz later reveals that Cookie left her after about 20 years in a surprisingly motivating speech to get him to go see Jan's bassoon solo.
A building meeting is called for the residents of Arconia, since Tim's death has now been officially ruled a homicide. There have supposedly been enough complaints about Oliver (and to a lesser extent, Charles and Mabel) that they can start the eviction process? Oliver crashes on Mabel's couch, but there's just enough of a gap in this process for Mabel and Charles to consider that they could find a way to stay. (Well, Mabel and Oliver are convinced they can stay if they solve Tim's murder, but Charles is insisting that he's out of the podcast. There's a whole blowing up in the elevator scene about it.)
Oliver and Mabel go back through that box of sex toys from Tim's apartment, and I'm personally tired of speculating about this. (This is the second time we've poked around in this box.) They interview the next door neighbor, and apparently, even though she hated Tim personally, he had a visitor that was loud enough that 'he knew how to treat a lady right'. [After the last episode where we kept returning to how Jan and Charles had sex and Charles was made out to be inadequate sexually in this episode, I was feeling very sex-repusled at this point.]
Anyways, the ending: Charles is in the audience at the performance and realizes that Jan isn't the first chair bassoon like she initially said. Mabel and Oliver figure out that one thing they've been trying to identify in the sex toy box is actually an object for a musical instrument, specifically a bassoon cleaner. Charles' stress reaction [nosebleed] starts, and Jan is probably the secret girlfriend that Oliver and Mabel have been trying to identify. Cue a cliffhanger for next week.
Interesting thing that I don't see often in shows: A Deaf character's perspective that doesn't still have sounds for the audience, which can contribute to the Deaf character seeming oblivious instead of actually touching on their lack of whatever type of hearing. We got varying degrees of music and occasional noises - like 'Pss!' to get Oliver's attention - outside of Theo's perspective, so there wasn't as much direct dialogue in this episode overall. (It's likely that Theo's ability to read lips was enhanced, but I appreciated that we got subtitles.)
Not a personally interesting thing, which is slowly appearing in more shows: Certain information is communicated only via texting. I couldn't read the particular font on the transparent white background of the messages, so I didn't get anything revealed in a text in this episode.
Information revealed: Theo was sort of seeing Zoe on the side, back before she died. He gave her the green ring that she was photographed wearing, and Tim has been trying to find. Teddy Dimas is very much engaging in black market stuff, and he has Theo help with this. (It looked like Theo worked at a funeral home and he was stealing jewelry after funerals but before burials. I'm unclear if the Dimas' were involved in the funeral home in a larger way or not.) There's a flashback that reveals that Theo was the one who argued with Zoe on the roof, and when she lashed out in an ableist way, he pushed her, you know, accidentally hard enough to fall off the roof. His father helped to threaten Tim into silence on what he saw, and this is why Tim was trying to bring the Dimas jewelry operation down.
Also: Charles had a stay-at-home date with Jan that involved a Scrabble game. She put down 'sexy', he put down 'hard', she put down 'wet', and then I think he realized what was going on (since there were some other words in there). I'm not sure what his last word was, but her last word was 'you'. The next episode includes multiple references to them having sex, but this episode has more of a fade to black. He does get a text afterwards from Mabel or Oliver that the passcode on Tim's phone might be 'Theo', which does work.
Theo also caught Oliver and Mabel spying on him stealing jewelry from someone's casket, and he ties them up and puts them in the back of a van. They don't get hurt, but Teddy does meet them to take a nicer car back to the Arconia while he threatens them to not reveal any information they've found out. He specifically takes a seat with his back towards the rear-view mirror, so Theo can't read his lips. He talks about how he initially was ashamed to have a deaf son, but he learned ASL (did you know that most parents with deaf children don't learn ASL?) and he learned the value in silence (and having people be quiet about what they know). Oliver and Mabel are dropped off at the Arconia with the instructions to put out a final episode of their podcast with their finding that Tim committed suicide.
S1E8: Fan Fiction
It's been a week since the last Only Murders in the Building podcast episode, and four fans have camped out in seats outside the Arconia. [Technically, three seats and a wheelchair user.] There's the unsurprising 'get a life/job/hobby' sort of comments at more than one point (and a "do I wish our fans were a little better about hygiene?" comment), but "the Arconiacs" do help with bouncing some ideas around later in the episode.
Detective Williams wants an episode with evidence that could push the department to reopen Tim's case, and none of the podcast group want to actually follow Teddy Dimas' suggestion to lie and say it was all a suicide. However, they have one night to get out some sort of episode, and they try to pin Tim's murder on Teddy and Theo. (Detective Williams reveals at the end of the episode that the toxicology report came back that Tim was poisoned before he was shot, and there's Ring footage of both Dimas' outside of the building when the fire alarm was pulled.)
The stress gets to Oliver a bit, and he's very harsh about Jan involving herself in the case with Charles. (She wants to return to Howard, the Cat Guy, as a suspect.) She's upset enough to leave before the episode is recorded and uploaded, which is when she finds a note on her door that reads 'I'm watching you'. Charles takes a bouquet of flowers over to her during the post-upload celebration [when Oliver gets the call from Detective Williams that the Dimas' aren't the killers], and he finds Jan on the floor of her apartment bleeding.
S1E9: Double Time
While there are plenty of other crimes that the Dimas' are being charged with (and Oscar can maybe get cleared of Zoe's death), the episode opens with a redaction on the podcast. The perils of live updates and not solving this murder before recording anything.
Jan survives. There's this whole thing with Charles' former stunt double on Brazzos stopping by during a stunt double convention, which brings up insecurity. Sazz Pataki - played by Jane Lynch - was better than Charles at a lot of things on Brazzos, and this supposedly extended to sex scenes. She also 'stole' his girlfriend Cookie, and Sazz later reveals that Cookie left her after about 20 years in a surprisingly motivating speech to get him to go see Jan's bassoon solo.
A building meeting is called for the residents of Arconia, since Tim's death has now been officially ruled a homicide. There have supposedly been enough complaints about Oliver (and to a lesser extent, Charles and Mabel) that they can start the eviction process? Oliver crashes on Mabel's couch, but there's just enough of a gap in this process for Mabel and Charles to consider that they could find a way to stay. (Well, Mabel and Oliver are convinced they can stay if they solve Tim's murder, but Charles is insisting that he's out of the podcast. There's a whole blowing up in the elevator scene about it.)
Oliver and Mabel go back through that box of sex toys from Tim's apartment, and I'm personally tired of speculating about this. (This is the second time we've poked around in this box.) They interview the next door neighbor, and apparently, even though she hated Tim personally, he had a visitor that was loud enough that 'he knew how to treat a lady right'. [After the last episode where we kept returning to how Jan and Charles had sex and Charles was made out to be inadequate sexually in this episode, I was feeling very sex-repusled at this point.]
Anyways, the ending: Charles is in the audience at the performance and realizes that Jan isn't the first chair bassoon like she initially said. Mabel and Oliver figure out that one thing they've been trying to identify in the sex toy box is actually an object for a musical instrument, specifically a bassoon cleaner. Charles' stress reaction [nosebleed] starts, and Jan is probably the secret girlfriend that Oliver and Mabel have been trying to identify. Cue a cliffhanger for next week.
