Spoilers

“Ghost Light”

If I am being honest, I have found season three of Only Murders in the Building to be lackluster. They have focused less on the case and the investigation than I would have liked. However, after episode six, “Ghost Light,” I see why they have been making the choices that they have made.

This is the best episode of this entire season.

The previous episodes focusing on their individual lives and the play have beautifully circled back into this wonderful episode, which encapsulates the entire season into that final throw down with our three main characters.

Even in this episode, Charles, Oliver and Mabel are focused on individually, each having to deal with an uncomfortable situation or a truth. Charles, unable to accept how much Joy’s departure has hit him, Mabel, afraid to move forward in fear of what she would leave behind, and Oliver, who suspects his new love has secrets to hide that would leave him alone.

The investigation went to the theater and moved into high gear. It was cute to see how Charles and Oliver felt threatened and jealous of Mabel’s new relationship with Tobert, again, probably built out of fear of being left.

The whole Gideon Goosebury ghost twist in this episode really worked well, as Howard is clearly a true believer. His whole arc within the episode centered around his ‘protecting’ the play from this killer ghost. The addition of Jerry, a former friend and colleague of Oliver who was down on his luck and squatting in the theater brought a new witness to the case that only played on Oliver’s fears of failure and loss. Jerry was truly a sad story. He did tell Oliver about Charles’ punch to Ben that we learned about last week.

Jerry helped Oliver make a decision about his life, which was to protect Loretta under all circumstances, that his love for the actress was greater than the chance that she was a killer. This lead him to erase the lipstick message on the mirror in the dressing room which triggered the meltdown among the threesome.

I have pretty much decided that Loretta is not the killer, but it seems apparent that she wrote that message on Ben’s mirror.

Ben’s understudy, Jonathan seemed to be cleared of suspicion this week as he revealed to Mabel and Tobert that he did not want to be the lead of this play, that the stress of carrying a Broadway play was overwhelming, thus taking away his motive. He also revealed that Ben had been taking some concoction of medications from his doctor, which feels like an important clue for down the road. My guess is that this mixture of drugs played a part in Ben’s first ‘death’ on stage.

I loved this episode and it helped frame what the season had been about up to this point. I am sorry that I even entertained the idea that the season was lackluster. I do not think this episode hits as well without the set-up prior. Four more episodes to go and I am invested.