Humphrey Bogart’s last line of Casablanca is iconic, saying “Here’s looking at you, kid” to Ingrid Bergman as he puts her in a plane and sends her away from danger. The fourth episode of Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building borrows the line for its title, amending it to simply “Here’s Looking at You…” And at the end of this recap, you’ll understand why.
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This episode's intro and outro are from the point of view of Lucy (Zoe Margaret Colletti), a once-lost daughter-figure in Charles’ life. She starts by recording a handheld vlog from a dark and dusty place. In a flashback, we see young Lucy (Francesca Rain) singing along to “Angel in Flipflops” with Charles, a song he recorded. We are reminded that Charles reached out to Lucy during the finale of Season 1 and we are enlightened to some of their back and forth: Lucy showing off that she still has a key to Charles’ apartment, a bridesmaid’s dress ruined by a spilled frappuccino, the fact that the dress was for yet another one of her mother’s marriages.
Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) arrives on the set of the “Brazzos” reboot expecting some level of fanfare, but there’s none. In fact, he finds out then and there that his character has been rewritten into a wheelchair and given “A touch of dementia” as a precaution in case Charles is arrested so the network can easily write him off. He is mad, needing time to cool off in his trailer. Inside, he is surprised by a familiar face – Lucy.
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Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) enters the lobby of The Arconia while talking to his son Will on the phone about the school play he’s directing. Hanging up, Oliver calls for the elevator to be held, but pauses when he realizes it’s occupied by Teddy Dimas (Nathan Lane), who insists that Oliver join him. On the ride up to the 6th floor, Teddy reveals that he just returned from prison and is home for a few months awaiting trial. On the ride, he warns Oliver that he is planning to ruin his life in a way that he won’t see coming.
In Charles’ apartment, Lucy reveals that her mom is already remarried and the wedding was two weeks ago. She uses a lot of hip lingo that confuses Charles, so when Oliver and Mabel (Selena Gomez) arrive, he is extra relieved to have a younger person to talk to Lucy. Mabel tries, but Lucy talks so fast and uses phrases she’s unfamiliar with and ultimately doesn’t get anywhere. Oliver finds the record of “Angel in Flipflops” which not only reignites Lucy’s memories of the song, but also reveals that Charles recorded it, it was a hit in Germany, and it is now sampled in rap songs and he makes around $200,000 a year off the royalties. As Lucy prepares to help Charles chop vegetables, she pulls a knife out of his block and says “God, do you not wash these?” The trio looks over and are stunned to see Lucy holding a bloody knife… the missing one used to kill Bunny! Oliver uses a cloth to take it from Lucy and recognizes it as one of his own knives. Charles freaks out that Lucy is present for this and tells her he wants her to not be involved in this. Mabel gets excited because having the murder weapon without her fingerprints on it should remove her as a suspect. Charles is frantic to put the knife somewhere and Oliver tells him he doesn’t believe they’re being set up but rather toyed with. However, a knock at the door makes him freak out that it could be the police and he throws the knife in the air. It pierces the ceiling and gets stuck there.
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The knock came from Howard Morris (Michael Cyril Creighton), who had previously texted Mabel that he has “Hot goss” to talk about. He comes clean, saying that the black eye he received the night Bunny died was not an accident from playing with his new cat, but an intentional wound inflicted by Nina Lin, who punched him. He believes she also killed Bunny and is shocked that the trio is stonefaced (he’s standing underneath the knife in the ceiling and they don’t want him to see it). They quickly get rid of Howard but hear a crash from the bathroom. Lucy is inside and the door is locked. But after a moment, she opens the door and let’s them in. “I think I know how people are getting into your apartment,” she says, revealing that a shelf in the bathroom slides away to reveal a large crawlspace.
It turns out that Lucy knew about the crawlspace from when she was a child in The Arconia and would play hide and seek with a neighbor. Charles notes that these passageways aren’t on the building plans and as they walk, he is adamant that Lucy leave, but she’s the only one who knows how to navigate the passageways. She also reveals that she didn’t attend her mother’s most recent wedding because they had a fight. Oliver asks for directions to the 6th floor and Lucy tells him how to get to a ladder on the side of a secret elevator (Bunny’s). As Oliver goes off, Lucy takes Charles and Mabel to spy on Nina Lin (Christine Ko) through an air vent. We see her with another man named Jared McGregor (David T. Patterson) in an office and she tells him she can’t stop thinking about Bunny. Motioning to an easel, Jared says “You know as well as I do, she had to go.” The easel contains a mockup of The Arconia with a very modern attachment on the roof that looks spaceship-esque. Mabel and Charles assume this is the motive Nina may have had for killing Bunny. We see Nina and Jared get romantic in the office. Feeling like they’re intruding, Charles, Mabel, and Lucy exit the scene, with Lucy noticing that Charles has a bloody nose.
Meanwhile, Oliver has gone to spy on Teddy Dimas, who he hears arguing with his deaf son Theo (James Caverly). Oliver pulls out his phone and records their argument, inferring that Teddy is upset that Theo has decided to seek his own legal counsel. Teddy says he was only trying to protect his son and Oliver finds himself getting emotional watching the two fight as Theo storms out.
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Reunited in Charles’ apartment, Oliver tells the group what he witnessed at the Dimas’ and they fill him in on what they saw in Nina’s office. As they debate how best to approach Nina, Lucy suggests that since she’s hormonal from the pregnancy, they simply give her a push to get her to open up. Cut to the group arriving at Nina’s apartment uninvited with an impromptu gift basket made of junk they had lying around. Mabel asks how Nina is feeling after losing her mentor and Nina’s response is “Oh God.” Feeling like she’s about to confess, Oliver starts recording and Nina rambles about needing Jared. Oliver tries to get her to admit to something, saying “Spill it!” Nina’s water breaks. Mabel calls 9-1-1. Charles helps her to a chair and gets her to calm down, leaning on his experience playing a doctor in a pilot for a show called “The Deliverer.” Nina gets somber as she says “I wish Bunny were here, she was so excited to meet this kid.” She begs Charles to find the murderer and give her some alone time with them just as the paramedics arrive to help her.
Out in the hallway, Lucy and Mabel observe the scene and Lucy fantasizes about an alternate reality where she got to remain in The Arconia and where Charles was still her dad. Mabel shares that she lost her dad when she was young and that Charles sometimes reminds her of him. She recognizes that Lucy has something she needs to tell Charles and encourages her to do so.
Sitting around Charles’ table, the group is reminded of the knife when it falls out of the ceiling. Oliver grabs a plastic bag and picks it up and Mabel follows him as he leaves. Now alone, Lucy tells Charles that she was worried about him when she and her mother left, but she was happy to hear on the podcast that he met Jan. She thought she was a good match for him too and tells him not to feel embarrassed about falling for a murderer. She reveals that the reason she skipped her mom’s wedding is that they had had a fight. “It wasn’t easy with her without you,” she breaks down. “It was really really nice to finally get a text from you. But 8 years, that’s like a really long time.” Charles says her mom told him he wasn’t allowed to contact her. They both cry as Lucy tells him he’s allowed to. “This is why out of the 5 dads I’ve had, you are by far my favorite.” They hug and Lucy begins to sing a lyric from “Angel in Flipflops”
We find Will Putnam (Ryan Broussard) in the midst of a chaotic rehearsal for The Wizard of Oz, saved when Oliver arrives to help him. He brought a bag of Skittles and bribes the kids to pay attention and get on their mark. Oliver thanks Will for not giving up on him, this moment seemingly inspired by what he witnessed at the Dimas’ apartment.
Charles has arranged for a car to drive Lucy back to Connecticut, the two standing on the sidewalk with umbrellas as they prepare to part. Lucy shares some more details with Charles. The night of her mother’s wedding was the same night Charles was arrested. She tried to come to see him instead of going to the church. He tells her he’s glad she didn’t because The Arconia was no place to be that night.
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In a flashback, we see Lucy in the lobby of The Arconia texting Charles to say she’s in town and would like to meet. She’s in the corner watching him as he exits the elevator with Mabel on their way to get things for their celebration, texting her that he can’t tonight. Instead of leaving, she gets in the elevator and goes upstairs. We see her enter Charles’ apartment and proceed to the secret crawlspace. She makes herself comfortable and pulls out her phone to record a video, the same one from the episode’s introduction. As she talks about how weird it is to return to a place you knew as a child after a long time, she stops when she hears a scream – Bunny. And then a door opens. A shadowy figure appears carrying a flashlight. It looks like they’re wearing a ski mask. Lucy hides behind some boxes and narrowly avoids being seen. Lucy’s phone was recording the whole time.
Back on the rainy sidewalk in the present, Lucy tells Charles that she’s worried about him, that it seems like someone is trying to set him up. “This is the second time I’ve put someone in a car recently feeling like they know more than I do,” he says, referring to Leonora Folger. Lucy doesn’t understand, but tells Charles he should do something about that feeling. She gets in the car and Charles tells the driver not to make any detours. As the car pulls away, Charles looks at his phone and sees an endless string of missed calls from an unknown number.
Cut to Charles sitting in a glass booth at a prison, picking up a phone to speak to the inmate on the other side of the glass. “Well, unknown caller, I need your help with something,” he says. The camera pans around. It’s Jan (Amy Ryan). “Hello Charles,” she smiles. “I’ve missed you.”
Only Murders in the Building will return on Tuesday, July 19th, on Hulu with the fifth episode of Season 2, titled “The Tell.
Mabel hosts a party for an eclectic art crowd which also serves a double purpose for smoking out a liar in the trio’s midst. Oliver relies on a party game and an era which he feels brings the best out in him to uncover the truth and any potential psycho killer.