Only Murders in the Building spoilers follow.
For Only Murders in the Building armchair detectives who have been piecing together the haphazard clues and glut of red herrings to narrow down who killed Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd), the eighth episode provides not only a meaningful suspect but also an admission of guilt.
The closing moments see Loretta (Meryl Streep) twice confess to offing Ben, to divert the handcuffs descending on her long-lost son Dickie (Jeremy Shamos) after all the evidence started to cohere like a lurid neon finger pointing in his direction.
Yet, given that it's crucially the eighth episode in our ten-part season, we're not believing a word of it.
If we assume Dickie wasn't the one to send Ben on that quick descent toward sea level, who else should we eye among the cast of characters shifting through the scenery of the Goosebury Theatre? Let's put our #BloodyMabel bonnet on and examine the facts.
Tobert (Jesse Williams) has certainly been high up on the suspect list, but whether Only Murders would want to take the unimaginative route and once again place a love interest in the line of fire is doubtful.
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Other, more intriguing prospects are the 'Death Razzle Dazzle' producers Donna (Linda Emond) and Clifford (Wesley Taylor).
When CoBro star Ben miraculously revived from the first attempt on his life and did a round robin of the cast and crew at Oliver's Arconia flat, he apologised to the producing pair for his various complaints about the size, shape and colour palette of his "unnecessarily shitty" dressing room, unconvincingly insisting he took it all back.
Is this motive? Not really. (If the difficult behaviour of Hollywood stars were a murder-worthy offence, Los Angeles would have long descended into a bloodbath.)
But Ben's poor performance in the production just might have been. The incest-lite mother-and-son double act have been bankrolling Oliver's somewhat calamitous return to Broadway — an enterprise likened to "literally lighting cash on fire" — so we would assume they would want the murder-mystery-turned-musical to be a hit.
When the possibility that it might not be reared its head (thanks to Ben's lacklustre acting chops), perhaps they decided to do away with those mouthy chops.
What triggers outright angst from the pair isn't Detective Williams (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) pitching up in the middle of their sitzprobe, but rather, the appearance of theatre critic Maxine (Noma Dumezweni).
If we cast our minds back to Oliver's first "minor" cardiac event (sending thoughts and prayers his way at this moment), it was news of Maxine's scathing, unpublished review of the production that sent him into that ticker spiral.
It's conceivable that Donna and/or Clifford had similarly gleaned the gist of Maxine's write-up and not been pleased with what they heard, just as Oliver wasn't.
Yet, their decision of what to do off the back of that information might have been deadlier (for Ben). They were certainly not happy when Maxine pitched up in the latest episode, perhaps anticipating another hatchet job.
The idea of the protective mother has lately been rammed into our consciousness along with Charles's earworm patter song. (All together now: Which of the Pickwick triplets did it?)
Before we get to Loretta metaphorically throwing herself in the path of the oncoming police car, there's Donna's moment with her in the toilet. Donna is throwing up, which she chalks up to "nerves", explaining that despite having 40 years in showbiz under her belt, she's still prone to them. Fishy.
A more likely explanation for the stress might be the sudden presence of the cops and a critic at the theatre investigating a murder you're guilty of. Does this vomit have a whiff of misgivings? We'd have to ask Loretta.
The scene's emphasis is firmly on her — she's played by Meryl Streep, after all, so it's hard for her not to pull focus — and her motherhood woes.
Yet, amongst this heartache, Donna says: "I don't know if I would have hung on if it weren't for Cliff. His first show. As a mother, you can't help it.
"You spend your whole life looking out for your child. It never stops. And you'll do anything to make sure they're okay."
It's worth reading the whole thing because the word 'MOTIVE' begins to float up in the surrounding margins. A protective mother resorts to extreme means to protect her son: It's essentially what Loretta did in this episode.
We can certainly still look at Dickie for one of the two murders because he seems at least a little guilty about something. Since he was responsible for Ben's food, it's conceivable he poisoned his brother and then had a bout of poisoner's remorse once he realised Ben might be dead.
That leaves the albatross of the actual murder wide open for someone else: either Donna or Donna and Cliff.
Another tongue-in-cheek clue can be found in the previous seventh episode of the Disney+ show, in which Matthew Broderick appeared as Matthew Broderick. While there were Ferris Bueller references aplenty, there was also much ado about his Broadway production The Producers, with the writer and director Mel Brooks even making a FaceTime cameo.
Get it? The Producers. It's the producers, folks. Round of applause. Case closed. They should get us on the podcast to explain how we put it all together before they had the chance. That is unless we get to the tenth episode, and this is all proved wrong. In which case, we will quietly shelve the theory and pretend we never voiced it.
But if Donna and/or Cliff is who did at least one of the murders, prepare for gloating forever more.
Only Murders in the Building season 3 streams on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
