Episode 6 of Only Murders In The Building almost feels like a detour from the main plot because it gives us a lot of insight into Oliver’s upbringing and his struggle to feel “at home.” I feel like this is the first time we get to see so much about Oliver, and it makes a little more sense why he’s so caught up in showbiz. On the other hand, Loretta’s back in the house, and she’s an absolute stunner as always. She’s honestly shaping up to be one of my favorite characters (for obvious reasons), despite the limited screen time. Love the little Oliver-Loretta moments this episode, and I’m reminded that they’re actually in love with each other. On the other hand, Charles’ sexual escapades might’ve gotten him in a little bit of trouble, but hey, at least by the end of the episode, he seems to be doing okay, well, relatively. With that said, though, let’s jump straight into episode 6 of season 5 and figure out what is in the plaid bag.
Spoiler Alert
What Does Loretta Find Out About Lorraine?
Only Murders In The Building episode 6 begins with Loretta’s home catching fire because of faulty electrical wiring. Her precious home, with everything in it, was destroyed just like that. The worst part is, she wasn’t even around to try to save anything. But if we look at the bright side, it gives her and Ollie the opportunity to try and build a new home together, but we’ll get into that later. Loretta makes it to the house all sad and frazzled until she hears about a new murder and the case of the “black widows,” whom she is very eager to interact with. Man, imagine losing an apartment you lived in for 47 years, yikes. Anyway, Loretta decides to help the gang by disguising herself as a character she had hoped would be her breakout role a long time ago. While she was scrapped, and the episode never made it to the screen, Emily Lawler still remains with Loretta to this day. So while Charles has got his phone back from Sofia and is immediately using the apps again, Loretta and Oliver are off to Brooklyn to try to understand what is in the infamous plaid bag. Also, it’s very clear that Mabel’s feeling a little bit lonely in the middle of all of this, ironic because she’s literally the “youngster” here, which means she should be social butterflying right this second.
On the other hand, Donna comes to the Arconia for the finger, but it looks like the finger has disappeared from the Stanley cup in Charles’ freezer. While they don’t find any evidence of forced entry or anything that could prove that someone broke into the house and took the finger, it’s also been one week since they had it, so they’re honestly in quite a soup right now. But Charles is so distracted because he’s met someone new named Priscilla on “Last Gasp,” a dating app for oldies such as himself, and they’re exchanging body part images (wowza).
In the meantime, Loretta and Oliver make it to the other side of New York, where Loretta dishes out some Oliver lore. Turns out he lived there from 9 to 12 with his second set of foster parents, Sue and Al, a mom with 8 cats and a dad with a potential drinking problem. It almost looks like Charles feels a little bit sad thinking back to this time, like he didn’t love it, going back to the themes of finding a home. Back at the Arconia, the trio meet The in the elevator, and Donna and Charles sing along to her song until The realizes they might be looking for evidence about a murder. She gives them a breakthrough when she tells them a story about her celebrity friends from the previous night. Mabel’s immediately annoyed because she doesn’t really think The has anything real to offer, but the other two listen very keenly. She tells them that she was doing shrooms with Seth Rogen in her penthouse and stumbled across flat 14C (Charles’ flat), where she noticed a flashlight. This means someone broke into Charles’ house, but we don’t have any actual evidence, and Mabel genuinely believes Althea (The) is making it all up. She even makes a scene about it when the 4 of them try to find evidence on the new machine, LESTER, who now just goes by LESTR. At first, it looks like there’s nothing at the time that The mentions, and she walks away because of Mabel’s tantrum, but soon Donna realizes that there’s a glitch in the recording, which means someone erased the footage at that time stamp.
Meanwhile, Loretta makes it into Rainey and Lester’s apartment, where she finds a room that is closed shut. She decides to sneak in, and Rainey shows up, ready to hunt her for trespassing. However, the conversation quickly turns into a sob story about dead husbands when Loretta talks about how she recognized the music playing in the room. It’s pretty clear that Lorraine had nothing to do with Lester’s murder, but more importantly, she doesn’t even seem to know that it was a murder. She talks about how he used to give her a kiss every night before bed, and one day, there was no kiss anymore. Soon after getting out, Loretta tells Ollie that she’s grateful to have him, and they kiss in the middle of the street until Sofia shows up and the plaid bag makes another appearance. Loretta feels like she’s been played by Rainey, and they quickly go after the widows.
What’s In The Plaid Bag?
Loretta and Ollie are distracted by a random man on the street and lose the widows, before they end up at a theater, the first place Oliver Putnam realized he was interested in the arts. Oliver becomes reminiscent of the past and tells Loretta about how he got a role in a play with energetic child actors, but when he invited his foster parents, they weren’t happy about it. While he quit the play, he snuck into the theater on the night of the show, hoping they might need him after all that time, but he watched another boy play his part. Loretta tells Oliver that she wants him to do the line right then and there so that he can get closure from that experience and so that he can remember how much he loves theater. She encourages him by doing her Emily monologue. Oliver’s line is literally a couple of words, but it genuinely brings a smile to his face before the widows show up.
Sofia wonders if they’ve been following her since her date with Charles, though he’s nowhere to be found. Anyway, yes, Sofia was giving Rainey money, but it was Lester’s cut for the work he did for her husband back at the Arconia. The same job Lester was desperate to back out of but never got the chance to. Turns out, Lester had told Rainey he wouldn’t work for Nicky on the night of Ollie and Loretta’s wedding because he wanted to attend it, but there happened to be a card game that night.
Rainey’s been trying to keep that very same theatre alive for the kids in the area because she’s getting them to put on a play, and that’s where the money was going. However, Lester had been working for Nicky so that he and Rainey could eventually move into the Arconia, their dream home, because it was the place they met and got married in. The kids show up then to practice for the production of “Newsies,” and the bag is now revealed to contain toy guns and other props for the show. Finally, Rainey gives Ollie one of Lester’s wooden bird whistles, which was on his body the night he was found. Hmm, I wonder if he used it to call for help during his last moments. Back in the Arconia, Mabel and The finally have their face-off, a shoe fight in The’s massive pink closet. It looks like they’ve both been misunderstanding each other because they thought the other had left them for a better life. Mabel learned how to make friends thanks to Althea back in the day, and Althea always thought Mabel was super cool. She hadn’t known about her friend’s death. They finally make up, and it’s adorable—a pop star-podcaster duo.
At the end of episode 6 of season 5 of Only Murders In The Building, Ollie tells Mabel that he’s definitely going to move out of the Arconia, but hey, at least Mabel’s rekindled her old friendship with The, and she won’t be as lonely anymore, despite the changes. But, more importantly, it looks like Priscilla is just a catfish, and the person who is catfishing Charles is Bash Steed, the digital mogul. You know what else is interesting? The CCTV cameras at the Arconia are from his company, too, which makes it clear that he had something to do with the missing finger.
On the other hand, Ollie seems to be ready to start a new life with Loretta, and this time, he might actually end up feeling at home with someone else. I do think the OMITB podcast is home for him, too, but you know what I mean. Also, clearly, Bash is working with the other two billionaires, and they’re all hiding a big secret. One of them had to have killed Nicky, right?
