(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
One of the more exciting twists a whodunnit can pull off is the two-killer reveal. From Agatha Christie novels to the Scream franchise, two killers is exciting because it raises the stakes and expands what the writer can get away with. Usually a suspect’s deemed innocent if they have an alibi, but when there’s two killers, all bets are off.
Much rarer is when a whodunnit explicitly raises the possibility of two killers before revealing there’s only one. There’s a good reason for this: It’s disappointing. Such is the case with “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” an Only Murders finale that doesn’t add any extra twist to last week’s reveal that Marshall (Jin Ha) is a killer. His motivations and methods are exactly what most fans assumed they were last week, with most of this week’s flashbacks only serving to flesh out the finer details.
Most disappointing of all is that I must once again apologize to Eugene Levy, who I have repeatedly accused of being a killer since the season premiere. It turns out that the Hollywood trio (Levy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria) really are the silly celebrity guest stars they’ve been presented as. Their two main plot contributions this season are their apparent discovery of a Moriarty-esque figure in the Arconia, and of course the introduction of Eva Longoria’s 19-in-1 multi-tool that Charles uses in the finale to threaten Marshall.
Still, there’s plenty to love in this finale. Although Sazz’s flashback in the cold open doesn’t tell us a lot of new information, it’s still worth noting that Jane Lynch is adorable here as someone excitedly getting into writing for the first time. There’s an earnestness to the way she goes about it that tugs at the heartstrings, that only emphasizes just how cruel it was for Marshall to take this dream away from her.
After that opening flashback, Charles and Oliver discover in the present day that Mabel’s been taken hostage by Marshall in her new Westie apartment. After some brief brainstorming and bickering, the elderly duo decide to run over to the apartment of Vince Fish (Richard Kind) and walk on the ledge to Mabel’s window from there.
On the way over to Fish’s, they bump into the doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca). Oliver talks to him a bit about the wedding planning and Charles rebuffs his attempts at small talk. It’s kind of odd that Lester’s suddenly getting screentime after being absent most of the season; I sure hope that’s not a bad omen of some sort.
While Charles and Oliver work on saving Mabel, Mabel gets Marshall to spare her life for a few extra minutes by agreeing to help him tidy up his screenplay. This gambit works because Marshall is still terrible at writing; his jokes are hacky and he doesn’t understand the dynamic between the trio at all.
Even outside his writing skills, everything about Marshall is depressingly mediocre. It turns out that he didn’t just steal Sazz’s screenplay, but lied to her face about her script being terrible. A person honestly interested in the craft of writing would’ve taken this as an opportunity to learn from Sazz, to ask her to explain her process and give him any advice she might have. This could’ve been Marshall’s big chance to improve as a writer, but he’d rather take the easy shortcut to success regardless of who he hurts in the process.
Most damning of all is that Marshall wants to be praised as a good writer, but has no interest in the amount of work it takes to write something good. His dream is not to write, but to have written. When Sazz confronts him about his plagiarism and promises to expose him, he complains that she’s killing his “dream,” never stopping to think that his dream might be hollow. Perhaps he was blinded by his mean father, who’d told him (correctly it seems) that he’d never make it as a writer.
The funniest revelation about Marshall is that, even though he admits Sazz wrote a script that was leagues better than his own, he still felt confident in making changes to it. He complains about a subplot involving the Westies in Sazz’s first draft, describing it as, “Extraneous, if you ask me. It’s the first thing I cut.” At first this seems like a fun meta joke about the apparent narrative dead end that was the ongoing Westie storyline of Season 4, which has been a common fan complaint, but then it turns out to be Marshall’s undoing: Vince Fish and Rudy (Kumail Nanjiani) are vital allies in the trio’s time of need, distracting Marshall so that Charles and Oliver can sneak through the window.
But the trio’s most vital ally is Jan (Amy Ryan), who snipes Marshall from Charles’ apartment just in the nick of time. As she’s being arrested again, Jan reveals that she never left the Arconia after her appearance earlier in the season, that she’s been hiding in the long-established tunnels and eavesdropping on the trio’s progress, waiting until they figured out the killer’s identity so she could avenge her beloved Sazz on her own. It’s a tidy resolution, one that allows Charles the vindication of taking down Sazz’s killer without all the guilt that comes with him being the one to pull the trigger.
Still, Charles does pull a trigger in this sequence—Eva Longoria’s 19-in-1 nailgun multi-tool. It doesn’t work as intended, but it’s notable that Charles was willing to kill. Steve Martin gives a remarkably intense, angry performance here, and gives us our first real sign that there’s a bit more of Detective Brazzos in Charles than we might’ve guessed.
So, with the killer dead and the mystery solved, there’s little else for the finale to do except establish the next season’s main victim. Because this has been the pattern for three seasons already, poor Oliver is particularly stressed out, worried that his bride Loretta (Meryl Streep) will be murdered at any moment. Alas, it’s not Loretta who’s the next victim but the kindhearted doorman Lester, whose bloody corpse the trio stumbles upon in the episode’s final moments. Back in Season 2 Lester had been worried about losing his job, and now we can’t help but wonder if he’d have been better off without it.
On the bright side, there’s a good chance Season 5 will be the return to the show’s roots fans have been waiting for. After a Season 3 focused on Broadway and a season 4 focused on Hollywood, next year the trio should be back in their main building, interacting with all the colorful Arconian residents the show’s been so long neglecting.
Clues from the Crime Scene:
- It’s far too soon to guess Lester’s killer, but it seems clear this all has something to do with the mysterious woman Charles and Mabel meet by the elevator shortly beforehand. “My husband is Nicky Caccimelio. Or was, if you believe the news,” she tells them, adding, “What happened to Nicky has everything to do with this building.”
- Her name is Sofia Caccimelio, played by Téa Leoni, and it sure seems like she’s associated with the mafia.
- Nicky Caccimelio’s disappearance was actually mentioned in a TV news report playing in the background last week. I didn’t make much note of it at the time because it seemed so disconnected with Sazz’s murder, but it sure seems relevant now. The report established that Nicky was the “Dry-Cleaning King of Brooklyn,” nicknamed “The Neck,” and that the NYPD didn’t suspect foul play. (But as Sofia implies, it doesn’t seem like the authorities are being fully honest.)
- Some fans may be disappointed that this season never resolved the questions around Winnie’s poisoning or the notes on Jan’s door, nor did it explain who was watching the trio through those cameras planted in their apartments. The good news is that season 5, with its implied Arconia-centric mystery, might finally answer all of this. It might take an extra year, but I’m sure we’ll bring Winnie’s almost-killer to justice soon.
