Only Murders in the Building (S2)
Friday, 10 January 2025 02:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queer_scribblingSeason 2 is here [on tv]. It's another round of dropping several episodes at once.
Oliver, Charles, and Mabel are interviewed after the dramatic ending of S1 where they're being led away in handcuffs, but they're released and explicitly warned that they're persons of interest who the police are looking for more evidence for. Mabel wants to try living a boring life, but after the S1 rival (more famous) podcaster releases an episode about them (as the Only Murderers in the Building), they quickly band back together to solve Bunny's murder in an effort to clear their own names. I'm not a bird person, but I think the actor who played Bunny is voicing the bird for a particularly surprising soundalike moment for the three.
When it comes to a season two of the podcast, they're all looking to benefit outside of just not being sent off to prison: Oliver runs into Amy Schumer (who's taking over the penthouse from S1 resident, Sting) who wants to talk about turning their podcast into a tv series, Charles is informed that there's interest in a Brazzos reboot (he was previously assumed dead until he appeared in the papers) with him as Uncle Brazzos, and the attention is briefly helping Mabel get recognized as an artist. Alice is in charge of some collective or something and invites her to the gallery with an offering to have her join.
To go back a smidge, two other Arconia characters in E1 enter Bunny's apartment to try to take a porn-y painting that's supposedly worth a million dollars, which is how Mabel, Charles, and Oliver find the hidden lift in Bunny's closet. The painting unexpectedly shows up in Charles' apartment at the very end of the episode, and E2 gets back to that. The naked man in the painting is Charles' father, and there's some talk of balls before the three get around to trying to sneak the painting back into Bunny's apartment. (Don't worry, there's a convenient wake happening there that Howard just happened to stop by to invite them to, which will excuse their presence. His black eye may or may not be relevant later.) The door to the secret lift apparently locks automatically and Charles finds out by locking them out of the building, they panic and leave the covered painting in between the dumpsters, and Charles will find out that the painting is missing later.
Bunny's mother, Leonora, shows up at the wake and insists that the painting belongs to her. She does this weird sniffing thing that proves to her that Mabel, Charles, and Oliver aren't the killers, but I have no idea what's going on with that. She's very aware that the man in the painting is Charles' father, which seems to explain why she's so tolerant of a seeming stranger asking so many questions. It turns out that his father was having an affair with her and the painter, Something Rose (?), back then; we get some flashbacks to Young!Charles having to wait outside the building during one of his father's "auditions" which may or may not have been sex and/or nude painting sessions. (It feels like this was a somewhat paid endeavor with the painter, but later information about the father may contradict this.) When Oliver stops by the penthouse to talk to Amy Schumer about this series idea, he finds out that she was the one who found the painting. Leonora, Charles, and Mabel appear, and Leonora reveals that it's a replica. It's possible that Bunny's killer was someone who wanted the original (and is still trying to frame M/C/O for the murder).
(Amy Schumer has this idea for making the tv series adaption all about Jan, who will be played by herself, so she gets 'into character' by pretending to have a childhood crush on Charles and tries to insist on keeping the painting because it looks like Charles. It's supposed to come across as uncomfortably intense, and... It succeeds.)
Also: Alice invites Mabel to the studio part of the gallery, or wherever it is, and she presents a kind of abstract sculpture that represents her. She offers Mabel an axe and will record her destroying the sculpture (and if Mabel wants, she can have a copy of the video). It's presented as this type of art therapy that she's done with others, so even though it kind of comes across as personally odd to have someone you've barely been introduced to for like 24 hours do this, Mabel takes part. [I'm not an art person, but it initially looks like freshly sculpted clay until Mabel takes the axe to it, and it's like ceramic-ish white inside. It seems like something that Alice had to have had done and waiting for a bit.] Mabel does feel better afterwards, and she kisses Alice. (It's not un-reciprocated, but personally, it comes across as fast. I'm not really the best person to ask about 'how soon is too soon to kiss someone' here, though.) And Mrs Gambolini, the pet bird, is left to Oliver in Bunny's will.
As much as the narrative presents our podcast trio as the focal characters with a sympathetic view of their events of the day, I liked getting a break from them. Bunny is a bit foul-mouthed at times, but she's unlikable for being a stickler for the rules as Board President in a way that also reveals her more positive aspect of noticing details about people. She tips the waiter at Pickle Jar Diner with enough extra for him to the DJ equipment he must have brought up to her over the years, she mentions the doorman's wife's knee while grumbling about him not picking up a littered plastic plate, and she seems to enjoy the walk with Nina about preparing to take over as Board President (though Nina is very pregnant and Bunny's not 100% sold on the idea of moving to Boca Raton, Florida). She really seems to enjoy Charles' offhanded comment 'what would we do without you' when she knows the trick to getting the lift started again, and she seemed to want to use her last board meeting to announce that she didn't want to actually leave. Nina does not take this well, and Howard takes down the insult trading in the meeting minutes [our trio found while initially snooping inside Bunny's apartment]. There's a scene where she maybe wanted to join the trio on celebrating their success with Jan/podcast ending that sets off the second-hand embarrassment, but we get to see a bit of work shoes and long trousers from the killer appearing at her apartment. (I can never remember where most characters live, but Bunny is a few doors down from Mabel, which might explain how she managed to get there before finally dying.)
S2E1: Persons of Interest
Recap.Oliver, Charles, and Mabel are interviewed after the dramatic ending of S1 where they're being led away in handcuffs, but they're released and explicitly warned that they're persons of interest who the police are looking for more evidence for. Mabel wants to try living a boring life, but after the S1 rival (more famous) podcaster releases an episode about them (as the Only Murderers in the Building), they quickly band back together to solve Bunny's murder in an effort to clear their own names. I'm not a bird person, but I think the actor who played Bunny is voicing the bird for a particularly surprising soundalike moment for the three.
When it comes to a season two of the podcast, they're all looking to benefit outside of just not being sent off to prison: Oliver runs into Amy Schumer (who's taking over the penthouse from S1 resident, Sting) who wants to talk about turning their podcast into a tv series, Charles is informed that there's interest in a Brazzos reboot (he was previously assumed dead until he appeared in the papers) with him as Uncle Brazzos, and the attention is briefly helping Mabel get recognized as an artist. Alice is in charge of some collective or something and invites her to the gallery with an offering to have her join.
S2E2: Framed
Recap.To go back a smidge, two other Arconia characters in E1 enter Bunny's apartment to try to take a porn-y painting that's supposedly worth a million dollars, which is how Mabel, Charles, and Oliver find the hidden lift in Bunny's closet. The painting unexpectedly shows up in Charles' apartment at the very end of the episode, and E2 gets back to that. The naked man in the painting is Charles' father, and there's some talk of balls before the three get around to trying to sneak the painting back into Bunny's apartment. (Don't worry, there's a convenient wake happening there that Howard just happened to stop by to invite them to, which will excuse their presence. His black eye may or may not be relevant later.) The door to the secret lift apparently locks automatically and Charles finds out by locking them out of the building, they panic and leave the covered painting in between the dumpsters, and Charles will find out that the painting is missing later.
Bunny's mother, Leonora, shows up at the wake and insists that the painting belongs to her. She does this weird sniffing thing that proves to her that Mabel, Charles, and Oliver aren't the killers, but I have no idea what's going on with that. She's very aware that the man in the painting is Charles' father, which seems to explain why she's so tolerant of a seeming stranger asking so many questions. It turns out that his father was having an affair with her and the painter, Something Rose (?), back then; we get some flashbacks to Young!Charles having to wait outside the building during one of his father's "auditions" which may or may not have been sex and/or nude painting sessions. (It feels like this was a somewhat paid endeavor with the painter, but later information about the father may contradict this.) When Oliver stops by the penthouse to talk to Amy Schumer about this series idea, he finds out that she was the one who found the painting. Leonora, Charles, and Mabel appear, and Leonora reveals that it's a replica. It's possible that Bunny's killer was someone who wanted the original (and is still trying to frame M/C/O for the murder).
(Amy Schumer has this idea for making the tv series adaption all about Jan, who will be played by herself, so she gets 'into character' by pretending to have a childhood crush on Charles and tries to insist on keeping the painting because it looks like Charles. It's supposed to come across as uncomfortably intense, and... It succeeds.)
Also: Alice invites Mabel to the studio part of the gallery, or wherever it is, and she presents a kind of abstract sculpture that represents her. She offers Mabel an axe and will record her destroying the sculpture (and if Mabel wants, she can have a copy of the video). It's presented as this type of art therapy that she's done with others, so even though it kind of comes across as personally odd to have someone you've barely been introduced to for like 24 hours do this, Mabel takes part. [I'm not an art person, but it initially looks like freshly sculpted clay until Mabel takes the axe to it, and it's like ceramic-ish white inside. It seems like something that Alice had to have had done and waiting for a bit.] Mabel does feel better afterwards, and she kisses Alice. (It's not un-reciprocated, but personally, it comes across as fast. I'm not really the best person to ask about 'how soon is too soon to kiss someone' here, though.) And Mrs Gambolini, the pet bird, is left to Oliver in Bunny's will.
S2E3: The Last Day of Bunny Folger
Recap. There's a little bit at the beginning where the Mabel, Charles, and Oliver trio are trying to think out loud about what info they have (the police can't find the knife, Bunny received a threatening note about the painting, Mabel heard her last words), but it's mostly Bunny's perspective on her last day.As much as the narrative presents our podcast trio as the focal characters with a sympathetic view of their events of the day, I liked getting a break from them. Bunny is a bit foul-mouthed at times, but she's unlikable for being a stickler for the rules as Board President in a way that also reveals her more positive aspect of noticing details about people. She tips the waiter at Pickle Jar Diner with enough extra for him to the DJ equipment he must have brought up to her over the years, she mentions the doorman's wife's knee while grumbling about him not picking up a littered plastic plate, and she seems to enjoy the walk with Nina about preparing to take over as Board President (though Nina is very pregnant and Bunny's not 100% sold on the idea of moving to Boca Raton, Florida). She really seems to enjoy Charles' offhanded comment 'what would we do without you' when she knows the trick to getting the lift started again, and she seemed to want to use her last board meeting to announce that she didn't want to actually leave. Nina does not take this well, and Howard takes down the insult trading in the meeting minutes [our trio found while initially snooping inside Bunny's apartment]. There's a scene where she maybe wanted to join the trio on celebrating their success with Jan/podcast ending that sets off the second-hand embarrassment, but we get to see a bit of work shoes and long trousers from the killer appearing at her apartment. (I can never remember where most characters live, but Bunny is a few doors down from Mabel, which might explain how she managed to get there before finally dying.)
