Only Murders In The Building “Lifeboat”

The mysterious Professor Dudenoff finally takes center stage!

Yes, I know he’s dead.  He’s still taking center stage.  You shouldn’t hire Griffin Dunne to not give him one episode where he takes center stage.

Alright, our heroes (and their actor counterparts) seem to have zeroed in on the West Tower Weirdos as the killers, and invite the lot of them over for a card game to figure out who the killer is, but AH HA!, they show up armed with a knife to take the trio (and their actor counterparts) hostage in order to explain their side of the story.

Did we need Eva Longoria, Zach Galifianakis, and Eugene Levy here for this episode?  Eh, maybe not.  But there is a reoccurring bit about Eugene trying to get Charles to actually express some anger.  That was nice.  Also, Zach is trying to help Oliver come up with a romantic wedding idea.  I don’t know what Eva brings to the table anyway.  Regardless, those three are, like, co-investigating now.  Some actors might call that “research.”

And no, the Westies didn’t kill anybody.  Not even Dudenoff.  Dudenoff was really just a very nice man who brought lonely people together to form an impromptu family, and that included the mysterious, but as she keeps reminding us, hot, Helga.  Yes, Helga arrives, the one who thinks the others are dangerous.  They aren’t.  Not in the slightest.  The weird family ran a restaurant that Dudenoff liked before it went under.  Vince was a lonely widower who took one of Dudenoff’s classes and didn’t get the vibe of the younger students.  Rudy wanted to be an actor, and Dudenoff was the only guy to believe in him.  And Helga?  She just kept coming over to repair the locks, and after losing her father, Dudenoff didn’t want her to go through his own death when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and took his own life, letting the others keep their apartments and his Social Security checks.  Helga was told he moved to Portugal and never believed otherwise.

Wow.  That’s, you know, kinda sweet.  And hot if you believe Helga when she keeps pointing out she’s hot.  OK, she is hot.  Helga is many things, but she’s not lying in her own self-appraisal.

Oddly enough, that does mean they are something of a mirror image of the series’s central trio as Charles, Mabel, and Oliver were lonely and isolated when they first met.  They just had a common connection with a true crime podcast instead of a friendly film professor.

That does mean there’s no crime here, and no episode for the podcast because to reveal what happened here would ruin the Westies’s lives.  Besides, I wouldn’t want the series to deprive us of fun reoccurring characters like them.  I mean, the show even found a way to bring Paul Rudd back.  Sure, his Glen Stubbins has a terrible Irish accent, but he’s still on the show.

Oh wait, Glen’s now the top suspect.