Only Murders in the Building – Season 4 Episode 4 Recap & Review

The Stunt Man

Episode 4 of Only Murders in the Building Season 4 begins with a dream sequence wherein Charles is following Sazz through a gloomy forest. He awakens with a jolt when a bullet hole appears on Sazz’s body just after she mentions the word “paradise.”

Later that morning, Charles, Oliver and Mabel come together to discuss the murder of Sazz. Oliver is tired because he had a late-night conversation with Loretta. When the call ended, he checked her Instagram and noticed a picture of her with another man. He is now worried that she might be seeing somebody else. 

Their conversation takes a turn away from Oliver’s love life when Mabel notices Sazz is one of Loretta’s followers on Instagram. The late stuntwoman posted from a bar named ‘Concussions’ on the day she died. The bar, a hangout for stunt professionals, is to be the trio’s next destination.

Before the trip to the bar, Mabel visits the Dudenoff apartment at the West Tower. As you’ll remember, this is where she is squatting in the hopes of luring Dudenoff to the location. Howard is in the apartment with the pig from a previous episode. He is looking after the apartment while she is busy with her investigations with Oliver and Charles.

Following a conversation with Howard, Mabel joins her podcasting partners on a trip to ‘Concussions.’ The three talk to the barman and enquire about Sazz. The guy is unwilling to speak about her, so Charles tries to bribe him with cash. This doesn’t get the barman to talk but when three stuntmen approach with complaints about Charles profiting from Sazz’s death with the podcast, he opens up about his disappointment that a funeral for Sazz can’t be held due to a lack of a physical body. 

The door to the bar opens and a drunken man stumbles in. It’s seemingly Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd), the actor killed in the last season. But it turns out that the man is called Glen Stubbins, Ben Glenroy’s stunt double. After ranting about Glenroy’s death, he follows the podcasters outside and asks Charles if he can become his stunt double. That isn’t a possibility but Mabel tells him they’ll get him a job on the movie being made about them.

Mabel has one condition, however. She wants to know what Sazz was doing in the backroom of the bar on the day she was murdered. Glen suggests she was meeting with Dr. Maggie, a chiropractor, who was relieving Sazz of the pain she experienced while doubling for Charles.

Charles wants to go to the backroom alone so tells the others he will meet them back at the Arconia. Over at the West Tower, Howard hears somebody outside of the apartment. A leaflet is then passed under the door. Howard takes a look and discovers it is an audition notice for the upcoming movie about the podcasters. He knows he shouldn’t leave the apartment but the temptation to leave for the audition is too much for him. 

Howard attends the audition and discovers from Bev Melon that Josh Gadd is to play him in the movie. As such, he won’t be able to act as himself, much to his disappointment. Meanwhile, Charles meets with Dr. Maggie at the bar. She tells him she will talk about Sazz but not before he agrees to treatment on his table. 

Back at the Arconia, Oliver tells Mabel he almost proposed to Loretta but decided not to, just in case his proposal failed. Just then, Howard turns up and tells Mabel that he’s no longer interested in helping her. This a shock for Mabel, who realizes the apartment is vacant and not being watched for signs of Dudenoff. 

At the bar, Charles receives bone-crunching treatment from Dr. Maggie. She tells him Sazz was in a relationship with somebody that she didn’t know how to get away from. He asks if she ever mentioned “paradise” but Dr. Maggie can’t recall her ever doing so. 

When Charles is rendered unconscious by Dr. Maggie’s treatment on his back, he experiences another dream about Sazz. She tells him she is trying to get to “paradise” and invites him along. He wakes up and tells Dr. Maggie that he is afraid the “relationship” Sazz had mentioned was with him.

We cut to the Dudenoff apartment where Mabel meets with Vince, Rudy, and the other familiar residents from the West Tower.  Vince tells her they’re illegally subletting rent-controlled apartments and shows her the documents to prove this. According to Rudy, Professor Dudenoff owns the apartments. He sends them ham while they send him a reduced rent. 

During the conversation, Rudy tells Mabel that the voice on the ham radio belonged to Helga, his ex-girlfriend. She is paranoid apparently, and not to be trusted. 

Later, Charles returns to the bar to offer himself up as a body double for Sazz’s funeral. He lies on a table while the patrons of the bar give their tributes. After each tribute, a fake glass bottle is smashed over Charle’s head, much to his displeasure. Thankfully, they don’t hurt him. Well, until Glen gives his tribute that is. He accidentally hits Charles with a real bottle and knocks him out.

As a fight breaks out in the bar – “just like Sazz would have wanted” – Charles heads back to Slumberland where he has a conversation with Sazz. They are both dressed as Brazzos, Charles’s TV character. In the dream, she tells him something that clues him into the location of her “paradise” – a former trampolining park that was her real-life dream.

When the podcasters visit the park at the end of the episode, they enter a disused building. Here, they are surprised to see Bev Melon with a gun in her hand. She points the weapon at the trio and threatens to blow their brains out!

The Episode Review

Does Bev Melon have something to do with Sazz’s death? We don’t know but considering she seemingly lured Howard away from the Dudenoff apartment with an audition, and her scene at the end of the episode, it would appear that she is up to no good. Perhaps we’ll discover a little more about her character and motivations next episode – we hope so, anyway.

Episode 4’s biggest surprise was the return of Paul Rudd. As the Irish stunt double, he provides most of the episode’s laughs, especially during a scene where he tries to prove his worth as a stuntman to Charles. We don’t know if we’ll see the character again – we think not – but his inclusion in this episode was a welcome one. 

After all the talk of stuntmen being given their own Academy Award category, it was nice to see their profession being given recognition in this chapter of the comedy mystery. It was also good to see Charles doubling for Sazz, in a neatly scripted role-reversal scene. Such moments elevated an otherwise average episode of Only Murders.