After six episodes of mounting insanity, “Valley of the Dolls” offers its characters a much-needed reprieve. There are no gunshots or death threats here; there’s just the trio hanging out in the doll-infested home of Charles’ sister Doreen (Melissa McCarthy). Granted, this is arguably even scarier.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Like a lot of McCarthy’s comedic characters, Doreen is unhinged. She veers wildly from one emotion to another, is quick to resort to violence, and her horniness for Oliver manages to nearly ruin (and then save?) his relationship with Loretta (Meryl Streep). She’s a fun character, and her final heart-to-heart with Charles provides some heartwrenching insight to both of their dysfunctional childhoods. Still, it’s hard to get too invested, because she feels like a filler character. We’ve got a big murder to solve, so why are we spending so much time on a character who’s clearly not a suspect?
But although nobody in the main trio does much to solve the mystery this week, Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) and the Hollywood actors (Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Zach Galifianakis) are luckily starting to pull their weight.
Melissa McCarthy
HuluLet’s start with Howard, whose obsession with his nonexistent Animal Jobs podcast finally comes in handy. When he’s tasked to figure out who’s been cashing the deceased Dudenoff’s checks at a 125th Street bodega, Howard is only able to convince the owner to help him out by promising him a podcast episode dedicated to his cat. The stars have aligned for Howard, allowing him to combine his two passions (cats and bad podcast ideas) to save the day.
The episode ends with the reveal of Howard’s discovery: It’s not one person stealing Dudenoff’s social security checks, but five of them. Every single one of the Westies we’ve met so far has been stopping by to cash his checks, all clearly doing so with each other’s knowledge. This sure explains why Vince (Richard Kind) and Rudy (Kumail Nanjiani) had such an explosive reaction last week when Charles told them that Dudenoff was back in town. (I was so focused on their weird feud with the Brothers that their very suspicious reaction to the Dudenoff news breezed right past me.)
Does this mean they are the season’s killers? I’m not convinced yet, if only because there’s still three episodes left, and because five killers veers too far into screw-the-audience territory. Howard’s discovery is still bad news for the Westies though, because even if they didn’t kill Dudenoff they almost certainly knew about his death. They are, at best, choosing not to report someone’s death to the police for the sake of stealing the dead man’s money. It’s the sort of crime the Westies might do anything to keep hidden.
With this information, it’s almost easy to make the case for them murdering Sazz (Jane Lynch). The Westies must’ve killed Dudenoff, then Sazz found out about it, so they chose to kill her off before she could tell Charles or anyone else about the scheme. The only issue is, what does this have to do with the Only Murders movie adaptation? Sazz had called Bev Melon (Molly Shannon) right before she died, telling her there was “a big problem” with the production, something so sensitive it couldn’t be discussed over the phone.
Dudenoff may have been the Brothers’ film professor, but why would the Westies’ actions towards Dudenoff mean anything for the movie? Last episode made it clear that the Brothers had no knowledge of any sort of scheme to kill Dudenoff; they found out about his death at the same time the trio did. With the Westies and the Brothers no longer on speaking terms, it seems odd that Sazz would connect the two subjects at all.
The case against the Westies gets stranger when you consider the killer’s actions in the past two episodes. If this was just about a welfare scheme, why try to shoot Oliver/Galifianakis/Ben Stubbins? (We’re still not sure which one the killer was aiming for.) Why send the trio those ominous text messages, along with the footage from inside their apartment?
It’s complicated even more by the revelations from the trio’s doppelgangers. Galifianakis, Longoria, and Levy each seemingly confirm a theory I’ve been raising for weeks now, that the killer is someone who’s been around the building since Season 1.
My suspicion from back in the premiere is confirmed: The “sick pup” note on Sazz’s desk refers to Oliver’s forgotten dog Winnie, who was poisoned under unknown circumstances. Also acknowledged is the long-running fan confusion over who put that ominous note on Jan’s door right before she stabbed herself in Season 1. I’d always assumed the note on Jan’s door was just sloppy writing: I figured Jan had put the note there herself to make her fake attack look believable, and she was only acting confused by the note for the audience’s sake. Instead, it seems like the writers have really been playing the long game all along.
One meta issue with the Hollywood trio’s theory is that, if the killer’s someone who’s been around since Season 1, that basically only leaves Howard as a satisfying reveal. There are other long-established Arconian residents, but pretty much all of them have been sidelined since Season 2. This is a development I’d previously made peace with, under the assumption that the show was shifting focus away from the building, but it does put this season’s mystery in a tricky spot.
The only way a Moriarty-esque reveal could make sense in this season is if it’s Howard, but although I’ve previously made the case against him, the subsequent increase in scenes of him existing outside the trio’s view have eased my suspicion. This man acts no different away from the trio than he does when they’re in the room with him; if he has been the killer this whole time, the show’ll have a lot of explaining to do.
Steve Martin
Patrick Harbron/HuluThe other issue with the Hollywood trio’s theory is that, if the Westies are responsible for those Season 1 loose ends, a lot of their actions still don’t make sense. Why would any of the Westies poison Oliver’s dog? Why are any of them leaving notes on Jan’s door? Perhaps it’s because they worried the podcast would bring too much attention to the neighborhood, raising the risk of someone finding out about their rent control scheme. But then why fire a sniper rifle into the Only Murders photo shoot?
My prediction is that we’re dealing with two separate villains here: There’s the killer(s) who killed Sazz, and the killer who’s been scheming against the trio since Season 1. Despite the Hollywood trio’s self-congratulation at figuring so much out, there’s a good chance that none of what they’ve uncovered will help much with finding out who killed Sazz. Rather, their discoveries may be integral to the recently confirmed Season 5, assuming it returns its focus to the Arconia residents. For the purposes of this season’s mystery, meanwhile, it’s Howard who’s proven himself most useful.
We’ll have to wait until next week to make any strong predictions about which of the Westies is the most likely killer, if any of them; my wild guess right now is that it has to either be Ana (Lilian Rebelo), Inez (Daphne Rubin-Vega), or Alfonso (Desmin Borges). This family in the middle apartment has received suspiciously little screen time so far, making me think the show’s saving their big backstory reveal for the season’s final act.
But because this is almost certainly another two-killer season, my guess is that there’ll be one Hollywood character who’s working alongside one of the Westies. “Valley of the Dolls” gives us a lot of potential clues in this regard: The big one is that we never get explicit confirmation that Howard gave the trio’s location away. While it’s unlikely all three of the trio’s doppelganger were lying, it is possible that Bev Melon was lying when she told them how she figured out how to find them.
This is another suspicious week for Melon, who gets very drunk and emotional during her stay at Doreen’s. Is this unhinged behavior a sign of the same recklessness that would lead her to kill Sazz, or could all of this be a front so she can keep a subtle eye on the trio’s progress on the case? There is at least one clue that seemingly vindicates Melon, however: She’s made it clear that all this murder business is harming her financially, not helping her. For fans who theorized that she’s committing murder to bring more audience hype to the movie, this episode only complicates things.
Then there’s the Hollywood trio; although their enthusiasm towards solving the case sure seems like a contradiction to my theory that Eugene Levy’s the killer, the fact that they almost solely focus on the Season 1 loose ends indicate that at least one of them’s up to something. Perhaps Eugene is purposely sending the trio down an investigative rabbit hole he knows is real but has nothing to do with him.
On the opposite end, if Howard is a Moriarty-esque villain, maybe the reason he’s been so helpful solving the Dudenoff mystery is because he knows it’s got nothing to do with him. Perhaps Season 4 is a story about the trio being played around with by two separate killers, each subtly directing the trio towards figuring out the other.
Perhaps this confusion is what kickstarted the whole season: maybe Sazz started off by investigating those Season 1 loose ends, but then stumbled onto a conspiracy specific to Season 4, and that’s what got her killed. Even if the trio finds Sazz’s killer by the end of the season, they might have plenty of more sleuthing left to do.
Clues From the Crime Scene:
- After plenty of ups and downs, Oliver and Loretta are engaged! It’s a fun storyline, even if it feels disconnected from anything else going on this season. It tragically also confirms that the stunning Jack Jonk probably won’t be making an appearance. That’s just mean; why hint at someone so handsome but not let the audience see him?
- Someone on the Only Murders subreddit earlier this week pointed out that Sazz’s silhouette in the Season 3 finale doesn’t actually look much like Jane Lynch. Rather, that shadow looks like it belongs to Eugene Levy. Could this be looking into things too deeply, or is my suspicion of Levy more justified than ever?
- More evidence against Eugene: There’s an awkward scene here where he doesn’t remember Loretta, even though they worked together on a “stage adaptation of James Bond’s Moonraker” in 1982. It’s an odd moment that doesn’t fully work comedically, but it does establish that Eugene’s got stronger ties to New York than we might’ve assumed. Perhaps Loretta isn’t the only New York actor Eugene’s worked alongside on an unsuccessful project.
- Given what we know about the Westies this week, it’s worth remembering what the mysterious Helga said back in the third episode. She says that the last person asking questions about Dudenoff ended up dead. Rudy and the other Westies dismiss her as a crazy ex; it was a suspicious explanation then, and it’s a suspicious explanation now. Helga is the only note left on Sazz’s desk that still hasn’t been properly explained, so I think we can expect to see the real Helga any moment now.
- The screenwriter Marshall (Jin Ha) is absent this episode, but the “Previously On” segment still lingers on that weird moment where he cheers during Bev’s announcement that the “show will go on.” Much like the reminder about Vince Fish’s pink eye in last week’s “Previously On” segment, it seems odd to call attention to these insignificant moments, unless they’re not so insignificant after all.
- Look at the Westies’ reaction to being found out at the end: which of them has the strangest reaction? Inez, Alonso, and Ana each have a straightforward anxious response. Inez looks around nervously, Alonso throws his cards down, and Ana puts her hand on Inez’s shoulder. Meanwhile, Rudy’s reaction is understated, withdrawn. If only one of these guys is a killer, unbeknownst to the others, maybe Rudy’s the best bet after all.
