Only Murders in the Building Review: Twist (Season 1 Episode 5)
Only Murders in the Building Season 1 Episode 5, “Twist,” focuses more on character development than moving the mystery along, which isn’t a bad thing. Charles and Oliver need time to catch up to us since we’ve known about Mabel’s connection to Tim Kono for a few episodes now.
Piling on new information would’ve been too overwhelming and deprived us of getting to watch Charles and Oliver process the Mabel news. Admittedly, Oliver doesn’t need much time to process — he’s thinking about how her being guilty is great for the podcast — but Charles does struggle with this new development.
You can see how much Mabel means to him, and how much it hurts to even think about how she betrayed them. It’s a great glimpse into their unexpected friendship, and we see that Charles genuinely cares about her.
And then, with Mabel, we’re able to see her a bit more relaxed and lighthearted when she’s with Oscar.
Aside from flashbacks and the tense conversation with Tim before he died, we haven’t seen her around someone her own age. Mabel gives off a bit of a loner vibe, so we needed to see her with a friend in the present day. It’s a different side of her; one that we would have never been able to see if she only spent time with Charles and Oliver.
It’s unexpected that we would pop into Oscar’s head for a bit of narration. It doesn’t happen for long enough that it is an issue, but it’s an interesting choice by Only Murders in the Building. Perhaps this is the series’ way of telling us that he’ll be around a bit more.
While it’s clear Oscar isn’t the killer — far too obvious — he is the perfect suspect for Oliver and Charles to see Mabel get into a car with. I mean, he’s Charles’ tie-dye guy!!
Oscar’s not totally in the clear yet, at least not in my books, because he lies to Mabel and is stalking her before she tries to stab him with her knitting needle. He’s acting a little suspicious, but perhaps I’m simply paranoid. Are you suspicious of Oscar too?
Every time an episode ends, I’m impressed by how it’s captured that feeling where you have to see what happens next.
And it’s not that we are dying to get to the moments that led to Mabel bending over a dead body, as revealed on the flash-forward on Only Muders in the Building Season 1 Episode 1, “True Crime,” or what led to Cinda Canning developing her a podcast on the three of them, we want to see what immediately happens after the episode ends.
Only Murders in the Building knows when to wrap things up, making us curious as to where it all goes from there. I want to untangle this new mystery of Tim Kono, lonely banker and jewelry investigator.
What did you think of this episode of Only Murders in the Building? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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New episodes of Only Murders in the Building premiere on Tuesdays on Hulu.
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Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).