The latest episode of Only Murders in the Building throws us completely off track as it begins with Theo Dimas and continues in fashion with almost no dialogues and no sound.
We last left off with Charles, Mabel, and Oliver adding Teddy Dimas (a producer, deli-chain owner, and the podcast’s exclusive sponsor) to the suspect list on Tim Kono’s murder case.
As such, we expected Episode 7 to show us whether the trio’s latest hunch about Dimas is correct or not.
What we don’t expect is to experience the whole episode from his deaf son Theo’s perspective. We begin with a childhood memory of young Theo and Teddy, the latter trying hopelessly to find a way for his son to enjoy music.
Now, like Theo, the music sounds muffled to us as well—and slowly, the episode proceeds with a mulled muteness and no dialogues, occasionally serenaded by the show’s theme track.
Through a series of overtures, we realize that not only is Theo spying on the podcast squad, but he and his father may indeed be responsible for at least one death that took place in the Arconia.
In order to perfect the (almost) no-dialogue episode, scenes and events were carefully chosen: A few like Charles and Mabel sneaking around the Dimas residence or Oliver and Mabel investigating a funeral home naturally call for quiet, no-dialogue scenes.
Others, like Charles’ date night, have been smartly enhanced by the lack of sound.
Co-creator John Hoffman had earlier explained (via The Wrap), that originally, the episode had a lot more spoken dialogues (other than the one at the very beginning and the very end.)
But through the editing process, they cut out all the unnecessary dialogues in the middle to achieve an episode that spoke aloud emotionally even in its quietest moments.
Previous episodes have shown that Oliver, Charles, and Mabel may not always pin down the right suspects (See: Sting), but they have come ways unraveling a motive for killing Kono that is deeper than him just being an unlikeable neighbor.
Now that the trio is on the right trail (and with only three more episodes to go), we might finally be close to unmasking our murderer. That is, of course, once Mabel and Oliver escape the latest mess they got themselves into in Episode 7.
Only Murders in the Building (which I must emphasize has a 100% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes) has been recently renewed for a second season.
Even if the podcast squad does manage to catch Tim Kono’s murderer by the finale, we still have to solve the mystery of Mabel hunched over a dead body in Episode 1… or, did you forget about that?
About Only Murders in the Building
Only Murders in the Building is an American crime-comedy television series created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman. Season 1 of the series premiered in August 2021, and season 2 was released on 28th June 2022.
The series follows Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, a trio of true-crime-obsessed strangers and wannabe investigators who are brought together when they are framed for a murder that takes place in their building.
The series stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as the main cast. The Hulu original has been renewed for Season 3.
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