Dead men tell no tales, but neither do men who are in comas. Despite their new prime suspect being famously unconscious, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel head to the hospital to investigate Glen Stubbins — hoping to rouse the Irish stunt double with beer and corned beef. That is until the hospital’s (also Irish) nurse stops this near hate crime dead in its tracks, refusing to let them into his room. But just when they think they’ve hit a dead end, the bartender from Concussions shows up, and he — being conscious — is able to answer their questions much better than Glen could have.
As it turns out, Glen wasn’t Sazz’s suspicious protégé who worked on Project Ronkonkoma — rather, Glen was that stunt person’s replacement. “The guy fucked up so bad, Sazz had to blackball him,†the bartender tells them. Sazz ended his career, then Glen replaced him — and both ended up shot. But the only one who can really talk about what went down was that movie’s director. Who is … pause for dramatic effect … Ron Howard. “Finally, a celebrity this season,†Oliver says. “A Ron Howard movie going wrong? Who could ever imagine that?,†I say to myself as I turn off CNN.
How does one track down Ron Howard? Sure, you could check every baseball-hat store in the country, but there’s got to be a more efficient way. Oliver thinks he’s got an in, referring back to a wild night back in 1988 when the pair ran into each other at a Chinese restaurant … allegedly. Rather than stake out the restaurant, Mabel thinks she’ll have more luck seeing if Bev Melon has any leads (after all, Molly Shannon worked with him on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and that must count for something). “Of course I know where that fucker is … you’re nobody in this town if you’re not keeping track of Ron Howard,†Bev tells Mabel while making a Red Bull and Slim Jim smoothie. He’s conveniently shooting a movie in New York, and Bev brokers a deal with Mabel — giving her Ron Howard’s address if she promises to work on their movie’s crumbling script to make it sound more authentic.
So off they go to Ron Howard’s film set, where he’s shooting a movie called Escape From Planet Klongo. I’ll suspend my disbelief here because everybody knows the only projects that still shoot in New York are Elsbeth, Law & Order, and Sabrina Brier’s TikToks. Oh, and I guess Only Murders in the Building … but let’s not get too meta. They sneak in by pretending to be background actors, but their mission to contact Ron Howard goes off the rails. After seeing Oliver change his emergency contact to his wife-to-be Loretta, Charles begins to spiral a bit, confronted with how this new chapter for Oliver could impact their friendship. This is exacerbated by the fact that his ideas for Oliver’s bachelor party continued to be shot down for not being extravagant enough — but kudos to the show for not shoehorning Zach Galifianakis into this story line for a Hangover reference. This all comes to a head during their scene when Charles has an outburst in which he calls Oliver insufferable — and the pair promptly get kicked off the set.
Mabel isn’t there to witness or attempt to resolve this dispute because she ditched the set upon getting word from the hospital that Glen Stubbins woke up from his coma. Unfortunately, before Mabel can make it there, somebody else arrives and suffocates Glen with a pillow — because, at its core, this is a television show about killing Paul Rudd. As the nurse breaks this news to Mabel, the camera also gives us a close-up of a news report in the background about the disappearance of Nicky “The Neck†Caccimelio, the dry-cleaning king of Brooklyn who has ties to the Caputo crime family. This is clearly relevant … but nothing about it rings a bell. Has my brain just finally hit maximum capacity on Only Murders characters, or is this the first we’re hearing about this? In any case, flagging that very deliberate inclusion for later. In the midst of that news report, the Irish nurse (who I assume is named Shannon) tells Mabel that the only other person she called was Glen’s emergency contact, Sazz. But as we know, the killer has Sazz’s phone.
Back on set and unaware that the killer has struck again, Charles and Oliver make up, and Charles explains how he’s worried about awkwardly becoming a third wheel. To combat this fear and celebrate their friendship, the pair decide to grab a bite at Oliver’s favorite Chinese restaurant. The lunch turns out to be his ideal bachelor party, minus his request for an A-list celebrity. That is until we hear a voice from across the restaurant that makes me think I accidentally switched over to Arrested Development. It’s Ron Howard, back at the same spot that Oliver alleged they met, but not only that — the director immediately recognizes him. The warm reception is an incredible payoff, where after four seasons of Oliver’s over-the-top celebrity tall tales, one actually turns out to be true. “I love that in Mayberry when you’d go down by the fishing hole,†an excited Charles blurts out — a gorgeous poem of a sentence when you think about it. And despite saying that, Ron still joins them at their table for lunch.
And when Project Ronkonkoma comes up, he tells them the whole story — much of which we saw via flashbacks from Sazz’s POV throughout the episode. Luckily, like all good witnesses in crime shows, Ron Howard remembers every detail about it. Everything seemed to go smoothly with the big fire stunt, but after our mystery stuntman was extinguished, he didn’t wait long enough and resparked in front of Howard, causing him to lose his eyebrows. He also says that the stuntman stole his shoes, and we can see via Ron Howard’s replacement pair that they match the footprint left at the crime scene. That detail is a little shoehorned, pun intended, but it is a quick way for the show to tie up that loose end, pun intended. We find out the stuntman’s name is Rex Bailey, which doesn’t ring a bell, but when Ron shows a photo, it all comes together. Though tough to tell, thanks to his more recent disguise, our culprit is, in fact, the film’s screenwriter, Marshall. My instinctive distrust of people with perfect eyesight has paid off.
The problem now is that Mabel is alone with Marshall, the murderer, at that very moment. But she thinks she’s just with Marshall the screenwriter, which is arguably just as frightening. She found him panicking outside her apartment, desperate for her help to improve the screenplay so he doesn’t lose his job. But when Mabel goes to grab a beer from the case Sazz brought the night of her murder, she discovers a new piece of evidence that’s been under their noses this whole time. A script for their Only Murders movie, but written by Sazz. Right as she confronts him, he sees a text on Mabel’s phone exposing him as the killer. Worst of all, he’s sitting on the bed, and we just saw him kill someone with a pillow. Run, Mabel, run!
Everything has seemingly clicked into place, but there’s still one episode left, and now Mabel is alone in an apartment with the killer. They’ve identified the culprit, but they might still need to catch him and potentially save Mabel. And with one whole episode left, there’s still time for new revelations to come about regarding the details of Marshall’s crimes. Was he really working alone? How did he gain access to the Dudenoff apartment? As an aspiring filmmaker, he easily could’ve known Professor Dudenoff. And what’s the deal with the dry-cleaning king of Brooklyn? And those invisible rats Glen keeps seeing? In any case, I hope Marshall pays for his crimes — the most grievous of which was cutting his long blond hair to disguise himself with that bowl cut.