#sazz told me herself

[anonymous-tals]

I was a little surprised by how Charles acted in the scene where he truly got in touch with his emotions, but only because he described his expression of anger as worse and more socially unacceptable than yelling or violence, and then just kinda had a panic attack meltdown thing.

Without the warning, I would've been 0% surprised.

[aardvaark]

only murders in the building s3e9 spoilers below the cut! thoughts & theories

so. all my thoughts from last week proved eerily correct (poisoned cookies, donna as murderer, paper being review, etc), which makes me think that i’m very, very wrong in some important way lol.

considering donna said that one line from the review word-for-word stop sitzprobe, it seems like she did read the review. however, now i’m guessing one of 3 things: 1. she read it and disliked it but didn’t do much about it, 2. she read it and disliked it and destroyed it in KT’s office shredder that night but didn’t kill ben, or 3. she read it, disliked it, destroyed it, and poisoned ben, but didn’t push him down the elevator shaft. ie, she’s the perpetrator of the first murder, but not the second.

so why don’t i just immediately assume that the third is true? because of oliver’s dip-cake. charles says that the only dip he has in the fridge is norwegian red herring. yk, like the trope of a red herring… a clue that is an intentional misdirect in a story. i think that the dip flavour is not at all a random choice. and since the only major clue we get in that scene is the review, then that review is probably a red herring (trope, not dip).

another thought about donna: last episode, we saw her throwing up in the bathrooms (which she blames on stress) and adjusting her hair. someone on one of my posts told me that she appeared to be wearing a wig (/edit/ thank you to @kimbearablykute for that comment!). obviously, wearing a wig could be because of a massive number of things, from having alopecia, to being a married orthodox jewish woman, to simply liking wigs. however, for the purposes of this theory, im gonna assume that it’s another symptom alongside the vomiting… and hair loss + vomiting makes me think chemotherapy. the reason she was "in and out of the party all night" as our podcasters say, could be because she was throwing up or otherwise feeling tired and ill all night.

i honestly don’t know yet what her possible chemo (and therefore, cancer) will have to do with everything else. just a musing at this point. maybe it will be a driving reason as to why she would commit murder for her son’s sake? cause she’s already dying so she can sacrifice herself, plus she has little time left to get him his success? or perhaps it will be the reason she’s innocent? maybe being sick from chemo is why she was frequently absent from the party, and surveillance footage can prove she was just going to the bathrooms to throw up? maybe it will prove that she wouldn’t have the strength to fight ben and push him down the elevator? although, with the element of surprise on your side, i don’t think it would be too hard to push someone down the elevator shaft.

perhaps she is the poisoner, and the review is just a red herring because that’s not her real motive. her real motive… is… um… okay im stuck.

tobert was conveniently right outside ben’s dressing room, just after the cookie had been delivered. if donna didn’t do that part, then it’s possible that he did. he’s also still on the possible suspects list for the second murder, and that list is getting increasingly narrower. he now has a motive for the second murder at least - being fired by ben on opening night. he got fired too late to have poisoned the cookies of course, so i think he might be in the clear for the first one.

i’ll be annoyed if it’s someone obscure, like bobo. or some already very established background character, like howard or uma or sazz pitazz. that would make it feel like the writers have just pulled it out their asses. like "deus ex machina" meets "the butler did it". is there a word for that?

anyway, moving on.

i think it’s very possible that cliff had something to do with the first or second (or both) murder attempts. same motive as donna, really: upset that the play wasn’t going to plan, not wanting to let it ruin his reputation before it had even begun, and therefore killing the lead (shitty) actor to prevent the play from ever being seen. donna might give herself in for him, much like meryl streep has confessed for dickie’s sake. i feel that cliff could definitely have been the second murderer, either wanting to protect his mother if she committed the first attempt on ben’s life, or simply fighting/assaulting him near the elevators and possibly accidentally pushing him over the ledge. something like that. or maybe for the same reasons we suspect donna, or maybe because he realised how much better off he was when ben was believed to be dead.

lowkey what if cinda actually did do this one? i mean, she’s always put forth as a possible suspect and is always the wrong choice, so it’s unlikely. but maybe she really wants to get back to podcasting, so she killed a famous guy. idk.

who else can i even suspect… maxine (the reviewer)? well she’s only been around a little bit, and if the review is a red herring, then that seems to count her out. the guy who lives in the attic at the theatre? seems like he was introduced too late and too briefly.

the doctor feeding ben drugs? actually i guess that’s possible, and he may even be the attic guy since they dress the same… i think the killer had to have been behind some of the sandbag and light shenanigans in Ghost Light (s3e6), and attic guy would have had access. doctor would have motive if he was trying to prevent ben from exposing the fact that he’s just giving out drugs.

speaking of people with access to the sandbags and lights: the paper shredder was in KT’s office… is she too obscure to have been the murderer? we don’t see much of her though. but she has been noted to have some anger issues in this latest ep, her office was suspiciously locked on opening night, and actually she could have the same motive of donna or cliff, to keep the shitty show from premiering.

just to keep track, i think that joy, kimber, ty, loretta, dickie and jonathan have been clearly discounted as suspects.

uh so yeah i’m super tired and that’s all my thoughts for tonight! thanks folks! i might update this when i get up, but it’s 2am and i have stuff to do tomorrow so i need some sleep now lol.