Only Murders in the Building Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Jan sends Charles and Oliver on a wild goose chase

3.5/5

Story: Charles’ (Steve Martin) ex-flame Jan (Amy Ryan) has a theory about the murder of Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell) – the murderer staged the scene, which means that he/she has some artistic flair and is someone who has been getting close to someone among the podcast trio in recent times. Going by that description, the finger of suspicion points squarely at Mabel’s (Selena Gomez) new date, Alice (Cara Delevingne). So, he and Oliver decide to try and figure out if she’s hiding something after all.

Review: Midway into season two of Only Murders in the Building and a consecutive second episode that brought us no closer to solving the mystery of Bunny Folger’s murder. What is going on guys? As of last week, we know how the murderer has been able to effortlessly move from one apartment to another without detection and plant evidence in the homes of our sleuthing podcast trio. But what did we get this time around? A murder mystery party!

Well, apparently one of Oliver’s strong suits is that he can read people well and pays attention to detail, which has been working wonders for him for many years when he conducts a murder mystery game at home with near-and-dear ones. Every person has a ‘tell’ he says, by which he has almost always figured out who the ‘killer’ is. Naturally, that’s Oliver’s go-to game when confronted with the possibility that Mabel’s new friend Alice could be the murderer they are after. He does prove she’s been lying, but her admission of guilt is not about murder, but her background – she’s not daughter of artists or Oxford educated. Those were fibs she told to prop up her career as an artist. So much for Jan’s artist theory.

Then Oliver finds out that on the day her favourite café waiter Ivan was off, Bunny had a mystery visitor during her coffee run. Her ‘friend’ though, had his/her back to the camera, so he got no visual, but sees that the person picks up a matchbook on his/her way out – the same kind that they found at Mabel’s apartment, albeit with what appears to be a blood or ketchup stain.

The final plot point of the episode revolved around Oliver’s son, Will (Ryan Brussard), who has been doing a family ancestry school project with his son, for which he did a DNA test. Turns out Will is half Greek and not Irish as he should be. Huhm! Now, who is the Greek man that we do know on the show?

Verdict: When will the sleuthing trio get their act together? The last two episodes just feel like a royal waste of time, even though the cast is top-notch as always.