It is close to impossible to know a person inside out, yet what we can do best is to give it a try. However, who has that kind of time in this busy modern world to sit with a person, or talk with them to know their story? What we know most about a person is how they look, or act, or react, but there is always so much more than what meets the eye. Even our protagonists, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, had some preconceived notions about Bunny Folger, the board president of the Arconia. She acted like a tough lady, but no one ever bothered to look beyond that hard shell she had created around her in order to protect herself from feeling a little less lonely in this harsh world. However, after Bunny was murdered at the end of “Only Murders In The Building” Season 1, the rookie investigators and aspiring podcasters, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, decide to look deeper into the mystery because they have to clear up their names as they are the prime suspects in Bunny’s murder.
Episode 3 of “Only Murders In The Building” Season 2 gave us some interesting insights about Bunny’s life, which completely changed the perception we had about her. Along with that, the episode also depicted her vulnerable side, which made her more humane than most of the residents of Arconia. On the other hand, Episode 4 took the investigation further, and one more suspect was crossed off the list as the podcasters failed to find any evidence against their prime suspect.
Spoilers Ahead
Bunny Folger: A Soul, Misunderstood
Bunny died on March 12th. It was the same day on which she was going to resign from the prestigious post of the President of Arconia. Charles, Oliver, and Mabel had picked up some receipts from Bunny’s room in previous episodes, and so they scrutinized those receipts in order to re-imagine what Bunny’s last day on earth was like. Bunny acted like a stern president of the board; it was her job that demanded a strict demeanor. But deep inside, she was just an emotionally vulnerable woman with the soul of a kid who was lonely and thus yearned for some love, affection, and attention. She used to notice minute details about the residents of Arconia and knew everything about them. However, it was quite ironic that even though Bunny knew the residents inside out, no one really knew who the real Bunny was except for one person, Uma Heller.
Bunny had found her existence in being the president of Arconia and thus built her entire life around it. But then came a time when she had to step down, and though Bunny never publicly expressed it, from the inside, her world was crumbling down. Her generous nature could be perceived from the fact that she gifted a sum of money to a waiter named Ivan so that he would be able to buy expensive DJ equipment and finally realize his dreams. It was at this moment when Bunny told Ivan that a person should love more than one thing because if they only have one thing and if it fades away, then they are left with nothing, and apparently, it was the same thing happening with Bunny.
To deal with her misery, Bunny told herself a lie. She told herself that she would move to Florida and be happy there, but deep down, she knew the fact that she wouldn’t be able to survive a day without Arconia. She quickly realized the truth, and as soon as she arrived at her apartment, where her close friends from Arconia had arranged a farewell party, Bunny, without wasting any moment, declared that she wasn’t stepping down. She told them that Arconia needed her, but the fact was that Bunny needed Arconia more than that. It was at this moment when Nina Lin, whom Bunny believed would become a worthy successor, raised her concerns and called Bunny a stubborn, narcissistic woman who was as good as a relic. Nina had made some grand plans for her new post, and Bunny’s sudden declaration ruined them all, so she was evidently upset about it. Charles, Oliver, and Mabel got hold of Howard Morris’ minutes of the meeting, which made them believe that Nina had motives to kill Bunny, and thus they included her in their list of prime suspects.
But there was something else that disturbed the trio further, a pang of guilt that they would never be able to get rid of. Bunny knew that Charles, Oliver, and Mabel were celebrating their little victory as they had successfully caught the murderer of Tim Kono, i.e., Jan Bellows. A lonely Bunny wanted to be a part of their little celebration, but the trio didn’t want her to join them. They always knew Bunny as a stubborn woman, and as per the presumption, Bunny would have ruined their party, and thus, they didn’t let her in. When they closed the door on Bunny’s face, her cries were heard loud and clear. An old woman living away from her family needed someone to let her know that her world hadn’t come to an end, but unfortunately, she had no such person around. A simple act of kindness could have saved Bunny’s life that day, but evidently, there was no kind soul in the whole building to understand the pain she was going through. The trio did realize their mistake, but it was too late. Bunny was gone, gone forever.
The Return Of Lucy
In Season 1, Episode 4, Charles-Haden Savage told his love interest, Jan Bellows, about his last relationship, which lasted for about six years. He dated a woman named Emma, whom he met in Iceland, on a trip on which Charles’ sister took him. Emma thought that Charles was an adventurous actor kind of guy and so she quickly moved in and brought her 7-year-old daughter, Lucy, along with her. Charles tried his best to be a good father and hence brought some discipline and routine into Lucy’s life. He used to cook for her the “omelet,” which was famous in all of Arconia, but Emma wasn’t looking for a father for Lucy; she was looking for an adventurous guy for herself. Once, for their anniversary, Charles booked a Caribbean cruise, and during the trip, Emma disappeared with Lucy. She went back to her home and asked Charles never to contact her or Lucy again.
In “Only Murders In The Building,” Season 2, Episode 4, Lucy ran away from her mother’s house and came to Manhattan to meet her father again and spend some time with him. On texts, she told Charles that Emma was getting married again, and finally showed up in Charles’ vanity van while he was filming for the reboot of his own show, “Brazzos.” When Charles brought Lucy to his apartment and introduced her to his new friends, Oliver and Mabel, at that moment, Lucy found the murder weapon in Charles’ kitchen that, horrified everyone around. It was probably the same knife with which Bunny Folger was stabbed to death. But how did the murder weapon turn up in Charles’ flat?
Another Secret Passageway In Arconia
According to Mabel, evidence kept showing up in their apartment since Bunny’s death, and someone was trying to frame them for her murder. At that moment, Lucy revealed that there was a secret passageway in Charles’ apartment from which people were sneaking into the apartment. Archibald Carter apparently built another secret passageway to spy on the residents of the buildings.
Through this passageway, Charles and Mabel spied upon Nina Lin and discovered that she was planning to cut a deal with some builder, who had proposed to construct a giant space-pod-like rooftop on Arconia. Everyone knew that Bunny wouldn’t have let anyone change Arconia in that manner, as it was no less than a heritage building for her. Mabel surmised that Bunny might have rejected Nina’s proposed design, and thus she and her business-minded husband decided to get rid of Bunny so that they could take their plan forward. The trio and Lucy decided to record Nina’s confession to frame her for the murder, but as they visited her apartment, she went into labor and told Charles that she was going to give birth anytime now. While going through the pain, an emotionally vulnerable Nina requested Charles to find Bunny’s murderer at all costs, and looking at her state, the trio became certain that she wasn’t the one who killed Bunny, but then who did, and how?
Season 2, Episode 4: Ending Explained
After Nina’s name was crossed off from the suspect list and she went to the hospital for her delivery, the entire investigation went back to square one. However, at that moment, they had the murder weapon, the knife with which Bunny was killed, and Oliver took it to get a fingerprint report on the same. Soon, Oliver and Mabel left the apartment, and now it was time for Lucy to leave as well. Charles didn’t want his daughter to get involved in a murder investigation, and to protect her, he decided to send her back to her mother in Connecticut. However, before leaving, Lucy told Charles that the time he was arrested or Bunny was murdered was the same night on which her mother got married. Lucy decided to run away from her mother’s wedding and came to Arconia to surprise her dad. While she was in the lobby, she texted Charles, but at that moment, he was going to celebrate with Oliver and Mabel, and thus asked Lucy to meet him later. Lucy was hurt, but she didn’t want to trouble Charles, and so she opened his apartment with the spare key he had given her eight years ago. She hid herself in the secret passageway inside Charles’ apartment.
Charles believed that Lucy hadn’t come to Arconia that night, and Lucy didn’t want to reveal the truth. Her father was happy with the fact she didn’t get herself involved in the murder investigation, but apparently, she did. While Lucy was hiding in the passageway, she heard Bunny’s screams, and suddenly she saw a masked killer escaping the building through the secret passage. It might be the same killer who killed Bunny, but Lucy hid the entire incident from Charles. Instead, she asked Charles to find the killer before they would find him or his friends, and it was the second time when Charles felt that someone knew more about the murder than him. She purposely asked Charles to dig deeper into the mystery and be cautious of things happening in Arconia, as Bunny’s killer was trying to frame them for her murder and would do anything to get rid of them.
Lucy left Charles with an unsettling feeling, and hence he decided not to leave any loose ends this time. He went to meet an unknown caller who had been calling Charles quite often, but Charles never picked up her call. At the end of Episode 4, Charles finally sat in front of the unknown caller, who was none other than his love interest, Jan Bellows. Charles sought help from Jan as she would be able to solve the murder mystery more than anyone else in the building, as only one criminal mastermind could understand another. The upcoming episode of “Only Murders In The Building” Season 2 will shed more light on how Bellows helps Charles and his friends to catch Bunny’s killer and reveal his/her motives behind the murder.
