Spoilers ahead.
The second season finale of Only Murders within the Constructing takes us back to the start—not of the season, but of your entire series. To wrap up the mystery of Bunny Folger’s death, we have now to go all the way in which back to All Is Not OK in Oklahoma, the Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) podcast that first brought Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles (Steve Martin), and Oliver (Martin Short) together. You see, the topic of that podcast, the missing Chickasha, Oklahoma woman Becky Butler, is definitely not missing in any respect; she’s Poppy White (Adina Verson), Cinda’s mousy assistant, as we learned within the previous episode. Within the season 2 finale, we learn how she came.
Becky’s life back in Chickasha wasn’t great. She lived along with her dad, who didn’t appreciate her, and worked for the creepy mayor, who sexually harassed her on the office. She found some solace in listening to Cinda Canning’s podcasts, but she was ready to begin anew. With the assistance of a DIY makeover and a fast Google search, Becky fakes her own disappearance and seeks out Cinda for a job. Now working under the alias Poppy White, she pitches Cinda a recent podcast idea: a woman named Becky Butler’s disappearance in a small Oklahoma town. Cinda bites, unaware that Poppy is Becky herself.
Sure enough, it takes off. All Is Not OK in Oklahoma is successful, but Cinda is already anxious about her next pod. She doesn’t need to be a one-hit wonder; she’s going to not be “podcast Nickelback” God forbid. (Come on, Cinda, that they had a minimum of three hits.) Plus, these Only Murders within the Constructing newbies are threatening to steal her thunder with their amateur charm. Poppy suggests a podcast on the missing artist Rose Cooper (you already know, the painter who made that erotic portrait of Charles’ father and who posed as Bunny’s mother in past episodes?) Cinda scoffs. Art? She wants something juicier than that. “I would like murder!” And she or he’s uninterested in waiting for one to fall into her lap.
Poppy (Adina Verson) asks Cinda (Tina Fey) for a job.
Patrick Harbron/Hulu
Cut to present day, Mabel, Charles, Oliver—who know that Poppy is Becky—imagine Cinda orchestrated Bunny’s murder in her desperation for a meaty recent podcast subject. Now they simply need her to admit. They meet Poppy and her lovely fall coat on the diner to determine easy methods to make Cinda spill, but all they learn is that Cinda is afraid of tomatoes and slow motion, and that Poppy’s go-to order is a liverwurst and marmalade sandwich. (The waiter says that even Bunny thought it was gross.) Mabel gets a call from Detective Williams and figures out the killer’s identity, and the meaning of Bunny’s last words “14” and “Savage.” But she doesn’t explain yet.
At Bunny’s old apartment, Charles, Mabel, and Oliver gather their friends on the Arconia to stage a “killer reveal party” that they’ll livestream to their OMitB podcast fans, in hopes of getting Cinda to admit to Bunny’s murder on camera. When Cinda and Poppy arrive, all goes in response to plan as they lay out their accusations—they even freak her out with a pantomimed slo-mo act and sliced tomato—but they’ll’t get her to admit. That’s because Cinda isn’t guilty, Mabel says, Alice (Cara Delevingne), her art collector fling, is. I assumed Alice was out of the image by now, but Mabel’s finger-pointing is purposely out of left-field. Hang with us here.
Mabel alleges that Alice master-minded Bunny’s murder and framed Mabel, the topic of Alice’s art installation, to extend the worth of her artwork. She also accuses her of wanting Bunny’s Rose Cooper painting but it surely cost $14 million, well out of her price range. Enraged at Mabel’s claims, Alice grabs a knife from the table behind her and turns to stab Mabel, but Charles steps in and the blade goes right in his stomach. He collapses to the bottom. Oh no, is he dead?!!?!?
While the panicked Arconians wait for the ambulance to reach, Cinda approaches Mabel and congratulates her on solving the case. She even offers her a job on her staff and her very own podcast—but this ticks Poppy off. In any case the dry cleansing she’s picked up, all of the mail she’s fetched, and the lunches she’s made, Cinda won’t give her a podcast, but she’ll offer one to Mabel? As Poppy unravels, so does the remaining of the mystery. She starts sneezing, like Lucy caught the killer doing within the partitions of the Arconia the night Bunny was killed. She admits to her knowledge of the Rose Cooper painting. Cinda reveals that she knows Poppy is de facto Becky Butler. Charles (who’s alive! the stabbing was faked with props), Oliver, and Mabel told her earlier that day. Mabel reveals that on the phone, Detective Williams confirmed the DNA on the murder weapon matched with a “dead girl” from Oklahoma. (Becky Butler.) And Mabel figures out that Bunny’s “14 savage” phrase was actually the #14 sandwich within the diner menu: liverwurst and marmalade, Poppy’s favorite.
Charles (Steve Martin) confronts Poppy.
Patrick Harbron/Hulu
The NYPD enter and arrest Poppy/Becky (or as Oliver suggested, Boppy). Officer Kreps (Michael Rappaport) is within the hall, already in cuffs. The foul-mouthed cop, it seems, is dating Poppy, not Cinda. After meeting her in Chickasha in the course of the Becky investigation, the 2 fell in love and he helped her along with her ambitious scheme, hoping that solving the case would result in his promotion. Clearly, that plan exploded like a glitter bomb.
The episode ends with Charles, Mabel, and Oliver closing one other season of their podcast. With one other murder solved, perhaps they’ll finally live glad lives and have a standard friendship. Charles returns to the set of Brazzos to seek out his character will not must use a wheelchair or have dementia; his screen test scores are so good that the TV network won’t must worry about killing off his role. He also lands a hot date along with his makeup artist, Joy. Mabel is finally renovating her aunt’s apartment with Alice’s help. And Oliver decides to return clean to his son, Will, about his real father, but Will already knows and loves him regardless. “For those who’re not my father then I don’t know what a father is,” he says. Their heartwarming moment is interrupted by a phone call: Oliver receives a proposal to direct a Broadway play!
Which leads us to the epilogue…
A one-year time jump takes us backstage on the opening night of Oliver’s play. Paul Rudd (!!!) makes a cameo as one in every of the actors within the production, Ben Glenroy. As Oliver escorts him to the stage, something already feels off. Ben is irritable, as if fresh out of an argument, but he insists “the opposite guy” is the one Oliver ought to be apprehensive about. He’s talking about his unnamed co-star, with whom he seems to have beef. Oliver tries to calm him down, urging him to channel these feelings into his performance. Still, Ben says he’s going to kill his co-star or break his legs—but he’s just saying that in frustration, right?
As he gets in position behind the curtains, coughing, Ben is approached by Charles, who’s wearing an identical costume. They share a chilly exchange, but Charles says they simply must make it through the two-hour show together. Now it’s clear: Charles is the co-star Ben was talking about. But what went down between them?
Charles warns Ben, “Be smart. Steer clear of her.” (Who’s her?!)
“Why? What are you gonna do?” Ben asks.
“I do know what you probably did,” Charles threatens, then walks away. (What did he do???)
Oliver (Martin Short), Mabel, and Lucy (Zoe Colletti) are seated for Oliver’s play.
Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu
Within the audience, Mabel takes a seat with Oliver, Lucy, and Joy right before showtime. Mabel seems glad; the past yr has been freed from murders, she mentions. But not so fast. When Oliver’s show begins, Ben gets two lines in before he collapses onstage, sending the audience into confusion. Charles is the primary to rush out to Ben. “He’s not moving!” he yells to Oliver. Two stagehands attend to Ben as he lies on the ground unconscious, blood dripping from his mouth. Yup, looks like he’s dead.
And so we have now our premise for season 3 of OMitB. From the looks of it, Charles, Mabel, and Oliver will now be coping with a murder outside the constructing—beyond the majestic stone partitions of the Arconia—however the theater setting is a delicious yet fitting twist. And if this implies we’ll be seeing more of Paul Rudd next season, I’ll be throughout it like a Dimas dip on pita.
Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There may be a 75 percent likelihood she’s listening to Lorde without delay.
