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Swimming in mystery and against the tide

Publicado por Ana Claudia Paixão em

If we consume too much mystery content, it is natural that at some point everything seems either obvious or meaningless. Only Murders in the Building and The AfterParty are cousins who face the same challenge, which is to entertain and still surprise. In both, we are almost halfway through the season, but without any suggestion of who is to blame. Even worse, it indicates a possible repetition of what we have already seen. Let’s review, but first, the crime that happens in Arconia, and then we’ll go to the Apple TV Plus series in another post.

In the Only Murders in the Building episode The White Room, there is apparently a skid and not-so-subtle turn in the change of suspect. In this third season, Charles (Steve Martin), Mabel (Selena Gomez), and Oliver (Martin Short) are more educated after solving two murders in a row, and the chemistry between them only improves, but the personal problems of each one continue to interfere with the podcast. Each has a different priority. For example, it wasn’t clear if they changed the production line because, without Oliver’s direction, I don’t see them either recording or organizing. One of the problems lies in the fact that as the director of the musical where the crime took place, this time it is not in Oliver’s best interest for the suspects to disrupt rehearsals. It was clear with Kimber (Ashley Park), who so far is the number 1 suspect of the trio, but because she sings well, Oliver is not very interested in finding out the truth. He prefers that they elect someone else. Meanwhile, the obvious Loretta (Meryl Streep) still hasn’t entered their radar!

Speaking of which, last week I mentioned that the possibility that Loretta is the killer still exists, even to ‘justify’ someone as heavy as Meryl in the cast. It’s just that the formula of “the girlfriend was to blame” was used in the first season, just as the alternative of being “a person from the past” was the answer in the second. That’s why I wasn’t even shaken when they put the invasive Joy (Andrea Martin) so shamelessly as a suspect. We don’t even need to waste time. Joy is not the killer. The main hint is in the video in which Ben (Paul Rudd) talks to the culprit and mentions that the person “seems” so sweet, but that he is not. Joy is not sweet. (Yes, there is a theory floating around that he was talking to himself about the cookie, but for now, the hint is that someone is not who they appears to be) and as he warned, he was tough on Ben to protect Charles. It would be unlikely.

Given this scenario, the return of Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) brings the old suspect to a new crime. The podcaster is repositioning herself as self-help to survive the cancellation of the second season, but everyone knows that there is nothing sweet about her. Even more, Cinda confesses to Mabel that she’s been yearning for a new crime and to get back to what she loves to do most: true crime podcasting. It would be a little lazy to put her in the suspect position again, but so is ending up with Joy who looks like the killer. Therefore, Cinda would have reason to kill Ben.

So we don’t move forward. The difference with Only Murders In The Building is that it is ALWAYS sensational, with everyone flying in their interpretations. I still fear for Oliver’s heart and the secret he’s keeping from everyone about his heart attack and how that will play into the narrative, but Martin Short is setting the perfect tone of worry in an Oliver tense, focused, and aware of his own mortality.

A complaint about the drama class we took. The way the writers manage to make everything seem natural, even when they have to explain the jargon to us at every point, does not add to the series and makes it seem that the fun is clearly between the actors. Lots of inside jokes that we don’t catch. I trust them because when I complained in the past, I apologized. Therefore, for those who go to see the episode, The White Room is the theatrical term for when an actor has a blank on stage – he forgets the text or gets too involved in the plot – and in the improvisation, some kind of madness comes out. Anyone who has worked in live TV or any artistic production knows it’s terrifying, but unless Charles could have been among the suspects at a time of outbreak or was a witness at the time of an outbreak, it was – for now – free. I enjoyed learning about “Tatler” (when the supporting actor is responsible for sharing important information with the audience) and “the white room”, but… so what? I still don’t include Joy as ‘who killed’. Who do you think is the murderer?

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