Only Murders in The Building (Season 2), Episode 8 Recap & Ending Explained: Welcome back to The Arconia. Last week’s episode of Only Murders in The Building focused on Glitter Guy, Coney Island, and Mabel finally remembering that a masked intruder sprinted out of her apartment through the Arcatacombs. The trio also learned that Lucy was alone in Charles’ apartment and a blackout hit the city.

The episode began with OMITB super fan Marv serving as the narrator. Along with his group of podcast junkies at a restaurant, they begin discussing the need to switch to a new show. However, Marv claims to be an OMITB loyalist over a fair weather fan. They watch Mabel enter the diner, embrace the old men, and then the blackout sees Oliver say he knows what’s happening.

Charles Haden Savage informs Oliver and Mabel that Lucy is alone and asks if anyone has network on their phones. They learn that the entire Tri-state area is without power. Meanwhile, Oliver is also troubled as he has just received his DNA test result but can’t access it because of the lack of power.

Marv wants to tell the trio his theory about the uncaught Sixth Avenue Slasher and Oliver is keen on taking home some dips from the diner. As always, Mabel comes in as the sensible one and reminds them that now is not the time. This is because they must reach The Arconia before “anyone else does.” Oliver asks for a bag for the dips before the end credits play. The big clue in the theme here is that The Arconia is in darkness. 

Lucy is alone in the apartment and realizes that her messages aren’t going through to Charles. She is frightened and at that moment, the director plays on the audience’s knowledge of classic horror tropes and has a phone ring.

This is from the lobby where most of the residents have gathered. Ursula has cartons of gut milk and is manning the phones alongside Lester, who has to take a package for Nina up the stairs. She implies that a doorman with an automated door is an unnecessary expense and forces him to use the stairs. However, the new Board President permits him to sit at her house to recover from his grueling ascent. When they discuss the murder, the duo reminisces about Bunny’s good points. Lester reveals he may have let the killer in as he works as a doorman. Meanwhile, Nina hopes it isn’t someone who has a thing against board Presidents.

The septuagenarians get into another spirited exchange about knees on their way up to Charles’ Apartment, before Mabel intervenes again.  As they climb, the killer enters Charles’ apartment. Lucy hears someone trying to break open a door and through a third-person point of view, we see a sinister frame of a silhouette with the man in a jumpsuit welding a knife. He crawls into the tunnels after Lucy. Minutes later, Oliver, Mabel, and Charles follow suit.

In another thread, Jonathan knocks on Howard’s door and they seem paly. Later, they are all set to kiss, but Jonathan sneezes and asks Howard if he has a pet. Upon learning that he does, he informs the assistant director of collection development at the Central Manhattan Public Library that pet smells are bad for him. They even engage in a rendition of Sound of Silence that has the residents and the trio within the Arcatacombs join in.

Lucy has a narrow brush with the killer who is just feet away. Within the Arcatacombs, the podcast trio lose their way in their “own building” and join in on the “Sound of Silence” song. Eventually, Lucy finds them and in her relief at escaping the killer again, she blabs about her presence at The Arconia on ‘The Last Day of Bunny Folger.’ Charles is shocked at the news and informs her that she needs a new method to hang out with him. The killer’s light appears, and he chases them through the passageway and down numerous flights of stairs.

A big question here is through whose apartment they came out? They clearly went a few floors down to find Lucy. 

When running down the stairs, Mabel located Oliver’s bag of dips and smacked the pursuer right in the face as the lights came back on.  Marv was the one chasing the quartet, but Lucy says that he wasn’t the one after her. His explanation was that he wanted to protect Lucy from the Sixth Avenue Slasher and entered the Arcatacombs from the back entrance. There’s clearly too many people that know about it and Oliver wonders if there’s a convention within the tunnels. 

Marv did this to attain fame and change his daughter’s perspective of him. It’s looking likely that it is Alice. In the lobby, Lucy vanishes and reappears with Detective Kreps. How is he around?

He has a chat with Mabel but winces in pain when he gets bumped into. Mabel looks curious, as it is exactly where she stabbed Glitter Guy. As Kreps turns, he has red glitter on the back of his neck. 

The sneeze proves Jonathan was involved. Bunny had met Howard on the night she died. Hence, Bunny would have had some cat smell on her after ‘Jonathan’ stabbed her. Once he fled through the Arcatacombs, he sneezed in a delayed reaction to the allergy.

But he wasn’t the one within the Arcatacombs tonight, as he was with Howard. Or did he finish chasing Lucy, and then head down to Howard’s house? It seems likely as none of the chase scenes overlapped with Howard and Jonathan’s scenes.

He is not a red herring. Jonathan is involved in some way, if we consider that there are two sets of culprits. One to frame Mabel, the other to steal that painting. He could be the one after the painting that has gone under the radar since episode two.

It could be Kreps as he is the one trying to get rid of the amateur detective podcasts that impede actual police work. However, if that is the case, it would be a thick move on his part.  What’s likely is that he is the Glitter Guy (it’s proved with the red glitter on his neck), who tries to steal the evidence from the OMITB podcast hosts and solve the case himself without doing the legwork. 

His random appearances at Mabel’s apartment in episode six, and The Arconia in ‘Hello Darkness’ put him across as a prime suspect. Someone who is near the scene of their work and observing it closely.

I’ll place him as the red herring if one is to think about the killer. However, he totally is Glitter Guy, i.e. the evidence thief. But why did he need to be at The Arconia? Was he trying to get back the evidence? Or was he using/working with Lucy to get Mabel to take the fall?

The episode featured a motley of characters, including Howard, Nina, Ursula, and Lester; but Teddy and Theo Dimas were absent. Now, this doesn’t mean that they are the suspects, but it places them under suspicion as, unlike the many other Arconia residents, they don’t have an alibi.

They weren’t down in the lobby, which is fine as Nina also wasn’t present there. However, the director’s choice to not feature them in ‘ Hello Darkness’ is a telling sign that they aren’t in the clear yet. Or did Teddy Dimas appear? The one who chased Lucy had the same boots as the one who got off the elevator and stabbed Bunny Folger.

This is the smokescreen, as it wouldn’t be hard to forget that Theo and Teddy were in jail for the jewelry thefts and only re-appeared midway through this season.

That’s all we have. Episode 9 will most likely feature the trio looking to investigate Kreps. However, based on the theory above and the way season two mirrors season one, they will learn that he didn’t put the knitting needles through Bunny Folger. The real killer’s identity will emerge only midway through the finale episode…Lucy. Jan also put a warning note on her own door… Lucy could have had someone click that picture and made someone don a mask and chase her. 

What did you make of Episode 8 of Season 2?

Well, it would be stating the obvious if someone proclaimed their love for films here. Why else would they be here? What would be useful, is knowing that I adore Hitchcock, Tarantino, and Nolan. I'm not averse to any type of film though as each cinematic work of art assists me in growing as a person and a cinema lover and a writer.

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