Only Murders In The Building season 4 | Episode 8 review

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This week’s episode brings a lot of clarity to what’s going on with the Westies. Here’s our review of Only Murders In The Building episode 8.


This week’s Only Murders In The Building episode begins with Alfred Hitchcock’s lesser known 1944 film Lifeboat. As the voiceover tells us, it’s a film about a group of people coming together to survive, which not-so-subtly hints at this week’s themes. 

That voiceover belongs to Professor Milton Dudenoff (Griffin Dunne), who is the main focus of this week’s episode. He’s been a mysterious figure since the beginning of the season, when we found out the bullet that killed Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch) came from his apartment in the West Tower of Arconia. Episode 6 also gave us a bit of background to Dudenoff, explaining that he was a film professor. 

At the end of last week’s excellent episode, we found out that the Westies have been cashing Dudenoff’s social security checks. After a clip of Lifeboat, we also get very wholesome flashbacks of Dudenoff and the rest of the Westies spending time together, playing cards. Surely these lovely, but highly suspicious people couldn’t have killed Dudenoff?

In case your head is struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the story, Mabel provides a very thorough recap of everything early on in the episode. Our podcasters are convinced the Westies are responsible for Sazz’s death and together with their Hollywood counterparts, devise a plan to invite the Westies to a party where they intend to get a confession out of them. 

The episode, titled simply ‘Lifeboat’, brings a lot of much-needed clarity to the season. The Westies have been an aloof presence, coming and going as potential suspects so it’s finally nice to hear their side of the story. Their characters still feel a little thin and not particularly interesting, but the episode does a wonderful job at making them all a little more human. 

Episode 8 also manages to bring a bit more emotion to the plot. If last week was all about easy laughs, this week has a bit more going on under the hood. ‘Lifeboat’ is a very contained episode; we spend most of the episode in the West Tower with a lot of flashbacks but the episode’s end really focuses on a core theme in Only Murders In The Building: loneliness. Just like the Westies, Charles, Mabel and Oliver have found family and companionship with each other, against all odds. 

With only two more episodes to go, I’m glad that this week’s episode focused so strongly on the Westies and brought a lot of clarity to the case. I’m still really missing Jane Lynch and wish we got more of Sazz this season. Sazz seems almost like an afterthought this season as do Charles, Mabel and Oliver. There have been a lot of hints for deeper storylines for each character, mostly to do with loneliness, but these haven’t really gone anywhere. 

Season 4 of Only Murders In The Building has been a particularly packed one, with lots of new characters and a lot going on in terms of plot. It’s not bad in any way, but I’m starting to lose patience with this case. 

Join us again next week to dissect the penultimate episode of Only Murders In The Building!

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