Spoilers

“Thirty”

Happy birthday, Mabel!

Oh, and this dream sequence where Mabel gives birth to triples, one that looked like Charles, one that looked like Oliver and a microphone was trippy as hell. Funny too in an episode that had some things that just did not work.

Charles, Oliver and Mabel went through their clues, planning out a timeline (thanks to the recordings they had made of the interrogations) and eliminated suspects. The did a cool technique where they went through flashbacks to the opening night of the Broadway play and the three of them watched as it developed.

Everything lined up nicely and the suspect that they wound up determining was our killer, who poisoned Ben with a rat poisoned cookie and it was the person who I thought it was going to be, Donna DeMeo, the producer of Death Rattle. Apparently the shredded letter was a review panning Ben’s performance and Donna was afraid that the bad review would destroy her son’s career.

I thought it was Donna, but I also think we may have a bit of a twist coming. Could it be someone else who shoved Ben down the elevator shaft? I feel as if that is still a potential story beat for next week.

The episode ended with the three of them rushing to Loretta’s court appearance with Mabel dressed in a wedding dress. That did not really make much sense to me, but whatever.

I did like how they laid out this episode and how we learned about the events of the night of the poisoning. We also got a bit of a new look at Ben, who seems to not be as much of a jerk as we were led to believe.

However, I have a huge issue to speak about. The eight episode ended with Oliver in a dramatic heart attack as Loretta was taken away by the police. They had brought up the heart issues early in the season and I thought they were going to drop it. Yet, it came back at the end of the episode and it felt amazingly tense and frightening.

Then this episode opens up with Oliver fine. They put in a stint and he got right out of bed and never brought it back up again. The whole heart attack/heart issues was nothing but a waste of time and, if they were not going to treat this seriously, it should have been left out of the series.

Next week is the finale for season three and everything is set up for a big final episode.

Spoilers

E9: Omelette

E10: The Bear

Season two of The Bear wrapped up with episodes 9 and 10 where the restaurant is nearly ready to go and they were planning a “friends and family” night to do a run through of the way to run The Bear.

Things did not go very smoothly to say the least.

Both Carmy and Sydney were going through their own crises as the opening and the night of the opening approached. Carmy was trying to wrap his head around the fact that he had been distracted by Claire and that his attention was divided. Sydney was struggling with her own self-doubt and her questions on if she is up to this job.

They are both getting in their own way and, because of that, are causing issues among the staff.

Still, the group really knock it out of the park at the opening, except for Carmy, who gets trapped in the walk in refrigerator because he had forgotten to call the “fridge guy,” and Sydney, who had made a problem with Marcus and shied away from the stress-spotlight. Richie was definitely the MVP of the night, showing how much he learned during episode 7. Fak is dressed in a suit and showing that he is more than just a handyman even if still carries a screwdriver in his suit coat pocket.

Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Donna, Carmy and Nat’s mother. She had been invited to come to the opening, but she could not bring herself to come inside, despite the sweetness from Pete toward her. You could tell that she was very proud of her kids, but that she was afraid that she would not be able to handle it and would ruin it for them. When Pete let slip about Nat’s pregnancy, it was clear that there were borders between them. Jamie Lee Curtis is tremendous once again. I really was not sure if the mother was still alive, but I am glad that she is still living since that means there is more drama from her.

This final two episodes were tremendous and brought a ton of drama to the front while setting up the questions for the series moving forward. The relationship between Carmy & Claire being one of the top ones. Can Carmy and Sydney overcome their own self-image issues? When will we see Jamie Lee Curtis again?

This was a great second season and the performances were off the charts.

Spoilers

“Sitzprobe”

I’m not sure why I ever doubt this show.

Episode eight of the third season of Only Murders in the Building was sensational and they hit a ton of things that I thought they weren’t going to touch on again.

Specifically, the minor heart attack Oliver had early in the season. I felt as if this show was going to brush that under the rug and never bring it up again. How wrong I was as this episode ended with Loretta being taken away after a confession of murder and Oliver collapsing from the strain, clutching his arm and clearly having another attack.

This ending scene was as dramatic as you are going to get.

I also realized, happily, that Loretta is not our killer. I wondered if they were going to do the girlfriend killer again, but clearly that she confessed because she thought Ben’s brother Dickie was about to be arrested (and she may believe that he actually killed his brother). It was revealed this episode that Loretta was Dickie’s birth mother who had gotten pregnant when she was young and gave up the baby to pursue her career in acting.

Shocking! Did not see that twist coming. It also now made sense why she had a book with clips of ben, the one that Oliver had found. It wasn’t clips of Ben, but of Dickie.

I do think that means that both Loretta and Dickie are clear, even though Dickie certainly spoke to his mother (whom he does not know is his mother) in a way that sounded as if he were guilty.

The return of Detective Williams was very welcome as well. She burst into this sitzprobe rehearsal (he first time they rehearse with a full orchestra) with all kinds of venom and curse words. I loved how Charles and Oliver showed their intelligence and planning by playing the fools. Their plan to get recording of the interrogations performed by Williams was complicated, but worked like a charm. I like when they are shown as capable and not just jokes.

Charles made it through his patter song too for the first time without going into the white room. It was a cool thing to hear Steve Martin knock this out.

It was great to see Oliver, Charles and Mabel back on the same page, even if it was short lived with Oliver’s heart attack.

I thought this was a great episode with everything that makes this show stand out.

Spoilers

“Bolognese”

The restaurant takes a huge step forward as it overcomes a big hurdle. Ten days from opening.

We find out that the restaurant really could not afford to not hit its opening, but they had failed the fire suppression test and they had one more chance at it, but something just would not be right.

Amazingly enough, Richie, a character that I have not been a fan of even a little bit, has suddenly become a favorite. His Richie-centric episode last week went a long way to rehabilitating this character. Then, with his awesome suit, Richie went on his apology tour, showing the new Richie to everyone. This was so great.

So was Fak finding the clue about why the fire suppression test was consistently failing and having Richie tell him good job. These two characters had been going at it all of the time, but this is the new version of them. And I loved it.

I also loved how Carmy has finally accepted that Claire is his girlfriend. This running story beat worked well as everyone else seemed to understand that she was already his girlfriend, except Carmy.

However, I have that sinking feeling that something horrible is about to happen. I have no reason to believe this. I have not seen any hints dropped by the show, but it just feels like everything is heading to a good result and I am afraid everything is too good.

There are only 2 more episodes to go this season and I am very nervous.

Spoilers

“Forks”

Episode seven of the second season focuses in on Richie and his ‘punishment’ from Carmy, who got him to work/observe at one of the best restaurants in Chicago for one week. Richie saw it as a punishment, but as he kept going, things began to shine brighter for him.

Olivia Colman made a cameo appearance here as the owner of the restaurant and I love her so much. She was easily the best part of the Secret Invasion series and she brings a natural energy and charisma to whatever she is working on. This is no exception as Colman just filled up the one scene she had with Richie.

Watching this episode, I felt more connected to Richie than I have in this entire series. He was not just a loud, blowhard like he is portrayed as, but he was shown as someone who was capable of great thing. The whole ‘respect’ speech given to Richie when he was questioning some of the minute details that made the restaurant such a success was fantastic and you could see it get through the stubbornness that Richie has always shown.

The whole deep dish pizza bit was awesome as well. I kept waiting for Richie to screw it up, because he is someone who has shown us before that his attitude or his stubbornness would get in his way, but he did not. He was successful, even going as far as winning over the staff of the restaurant who were in charge of helping him during this mini-internship.

Watching the way the staff carried out their orders and going above board to ‘make someone’s day.’ was astounding. I wonder if this is the way a real three-star restaurant would execute their service. It was an amazing scene.

We still see the sadness of Richie’s world as Tiffany called him to let him know that she had received a marriage proposal. Richie’s pain was real and popped off the screen.

This whole episode was dedicated to Richie, without much else (just a few moments) from any of the other cast mates. It was really solid of an episode and I am excited to see where Richie’s character goes from here.