We Have A Theory About The Latest Clue From Only Murders In The Building
This post contains spoilers for the third episode of season 3's "Only Murders In The Building."
"Only Murders In The Building" has always been more about the hangouts than the mysteries. It's something Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles (Steve Martin), and Oliver (Martin Short) more or less admit to each other in the show's latest season, when they note that without a murder to investigate, the trio hasn't been able to spend much quality time together lately. Of course, all of that changes when a-hole superstar Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd) drops dead on stage, only to be revived at the hospital and drop dead again in an elevator shaft in the Arconia apartments.
Despite the gruesome, strange mystery at the center of this season, it's more clear than ever that "Only Murders In The Building" is built to entertain us more than stump us. Its three amateur sleuths seem distracted, and though the premiere introduced Meryl Streep's underappreciated actor Loretta as the prime suspect, none of the investigators have so much as blinked a wary eye in her direction yet. What's more, the most recent episode seems to have just dropped a major clue in plain sight — and Mabel and her new investigative ally Tobert (Jesse Williams) have completely failed to pick it up.
It's the cookies, right?
The major breakthrough comes towards the end of episode 3, when Mabel and documentarian Tobert finally dig into the camera footage from backstage the night Ben died. After watching a short clip of him speaking — seemingly in an argumentative way — with someone off-screen, the pair decide to focus their efforts on figuring out who could've been in the room. Their main suspect is Kimber (Ashley Park), a cast member in Oliver's play who may or may not have had a relationship with Ben offstage, and who's missing a hankie like the one found at the crime scene. There's only one problem with this theory: I'm pretty sure Ben was talking to a plate of cookies.
Hear me out here. In Ben's introduction scene in the premiere, he makes a big production out of making his brother and manager Dickie (Jeremy Shamos) deal with a plate of Schmackary's cookies that has been left at the "Death Rattle" table read. When he sees the plate piled high with sweets, he starts cursing almost reflexively, and Dickie explains that he's on a strict diet for the "CoBro" franchise and cookies in particular are "a weakness" for him. Ben, who clearly has a loaded relationship with food, acts more erratically around the cookies than at any other point in the episode up until his death scene, calling them sexy, yelling at Dickie to leave them, and sneaking one the second the table read starts.
You're not supposed to be here!
By episode 3, we still don't officially know the circumstances of Ben's death, but Mabel speculates that he was likely poisoned. It's a cause of death that would account for both the blood around his mouth and the way he nearly died once, only to succumb to his fate later in the night after ignoring doctors' orders to stay in the hospital for examination. And what better way to poison the actor than with a plate of cookies that everyone at the table read knows he can't take his eyes off? They're a sugary Chekov's gun, hiding in plain sight.
This isn't just pure speculation; when Mabel and Tobert look at the footage, the dialogue Rudd utters matches up just as well as if he were personifying a tempting dessert as if he were talking to an actual person. "You're not supposed to be here," he declares, adding, "Go! No, you're not gonna go, are you? You're just gonna sit there acting all sweet. We both know you're bad." On the surface, this might sound like some type of lover's spat, but it makes much more sense if Ben is throwing a fit about a dessert that he seems to have some intense self-control issues around. Cookies are sweet, and if he sees them as an infuriating temptation, it makes sense that he would call them bad (for him) and make a fuss about how Dickie isn't there to take them away. Plus, we know from episode 2 that Ben struggles with some secret self-loathing, meaning it might not be unusual for him to essentially have a fight with himself.
This might narrow down the suspect list
Most importantly, though, Ben says that the off-screen subject, which could be cookies, isn't supposed to be in his dressing room. That means someone snuck them in just before showtime, perhaps in hopes that he'd chow down before going on stage. Was his first "death" the result of sneaking just one cookie before the show? Does that mean his real death came after he binged more of them at home? It seems pretty likely, but Mabel wasn't at that table read, Tobert doesn't seem to put two and two together, and, honestly, no one else is questioning suspects all that hard.
If Ben really is having a one-sided chat with a pile of desserts, that could narrow the suspect pool down to whomever knows about his weakness, can bake, and had access to his dressing room and reason to strike him down with a move designed around his own self-indulgence. Arconia resident Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) seems like a good bet since he knew where the first plate of cookies came from and has access to both Ben's dressing room and his apartment, but he has no motive. Streep's character, an older, eccentric single woman, feels like the type who could get away with dropping off a plate of cookies no questions asked. Meanwhile, underappreciated brother Dickie, who knew all of Ben's weaknesses, could have a strong motive.
Though it's exciting to feel one step ahead of the characters, this theory ultimately may not tell us much, because as far as we know, the whole ensemble has access to Schmackary's Bakery.
If you want to help identify the cookie plate killer, you can catch new episodes of "Only Murders in the Building" streaming Tuesdays on Hulu.