‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 4: Who Killed Jane Lynch?
[This story contains spoilers from the OMITB season four premiere.]
Another season, another murder — but as always, same building.
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Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building returned for its fourth iteration with a brand new body on the scene. Except this time, there isn’t a body — not anymore. The third season of the whodunnit ended with the apparent execution of Jane Lynch’s Sazz Pataki, stunt double and lifelong friend of Charles-Hayden Savage (Steve Martin). Except when season four begins, Sazz’s body is nowhere to be found. Someone has cleared up the crime scene in Charles’ apartment, going so far as to speak with Charles through Sazz’s own phone.
It takes the entire Hollywood-based premiere episode for Charles and colleagues Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) to realize something horrible has happened to Sazz, as they discover the remains of her shoulder replacement in the Arconia’s basement furnace. The episode ends with a harrowing text exchange between Charles and “Sazz”:
Charles: “Who are you?”
“Sazz”: “Not your fucking friend.”
So, who killed Sazz? Is it the same person who took her phone and cleaned up the crime scene? Is Sazz actually even dead? There are lots of questions coming out of the premiere, and we’ll do our best to answer them now and all season long as we attempt to solve this season’s mystery. For now, let’s establish some suspects early on. (This story will be updated throughout the season.)
The Hollywood Elite
Specifically, the folks who are turning Charles, Oliver and Mabel’s lives into a feature film. Most of our new major cast additions come from the show’s foray into L.A., so let’s assess some of these culprits.
Molly Shannon represents the producers of the movie, while the big three are played by Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria as fictional versions of themselves. Last season, Oliver’s producers were the killers, so it’s hard to imagine the same occupation pulling off the same crime this year. But, how about the cast?
Previous seasons have seen Sting and Amy Schumer as themselves, at least briefly serving as murder suspects. Could one or all of Levy, Galifianakis and/or Longoria be behind the killing in order to achieve a big pay day, or perhaps even Scott Bakula, also playing himself, with a prior connection to Sazz? If so, it gives an all-new meaning to an actor’s strike.
The Original Killer
It’s been a full season since we last saw Amy Ryan’s Jan, the killer in season one, locked away in prison ever since. If anyone has a grudge to settle with Charles, it’s her.
What’s more, Jan is at the intersection of both Charles and Sazz, having previously dated the pair. As a sociopath who gets off on the pain of her lovers, Jan somehow engineering the death of Sazz, as a literal and figurative warning shot at Charles, lines up with everything we know about the character.
A Third Possibility
Here’s a big one: What if Sazz isn’t dead at all? It’s a cardinal rule in whodunnit set-ups: if you don’t see the body, the victim’s still alive. The discovery of Sazz’s bone replacement seemingly confirms her death, but someone who knows Sazz well enough to rattle Charles could have planted a replica.
Why would someone shoot Sazz and clean up every trace of the incident? Don’t ask me! All I know is this: Sazz is a stunt double, it’s her entire life’s work to take bullets for others, and she’s bounced back from it every time. There’s a world where she’s still alive, for sure … and perhaps the scariest version of that world is the one in which Sazz is in on it, faking her own death for some nefarious purpose.
Given the season’s Hollywood theme and setting, some form of shark jump would fit in nicely with what Only Murders is currently working with. What’s a bigger shark jump than a beloved character not only getting “killed,” but outright faking their death for an unexpected heel turn?
Stay with us all season long as we continue to track the possible OMITB killer theories. (New episodes release on Hulu Tuesdays.)
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