Season 1
Season 2
Wow, they’re quite subtle. I just dance along to the cool music.
I only realized this week that maybe there’s something different in the openings and was coming here to ask about it. The Easter eggs are really subtle.
I loved Matthew Broderick playing himself. One of my complaints about him in [strikethrough]Dopesick[/strikethrough] Painkillers was every time he was on the screen, I’d think to myself “That’s Matthew Broderick, he’s can’t be a bad character.” I thought his gay character on Modern Family was the highlight of that show.
I’m totally spitballing here. A lot of bloody maybes. Stream of consciousness. See if you can follow all of my red strings of craziness connecting everything.
At Ben’s wake, Mabel watches KT wiping away tears with the opening night gift hankie and KT says “Didn’t think I’d need it so soon.” Maybe she says that because she is trying to kill him slowly (undetectedly? like say with a poison), so she honestly didn’t expect him to die that soon. Or maybe she’s just trying to make him really sick and didn’t expect him to die at all. As she walks away, we see her put the hankie back in her pocket, which means it can wind up in Ben’s hand when she really kills him dead. In the scene in her office (which she says is never locked but was on opening night), Oliver notices and picks up a box of rat poison, which is probably a normal thing for a stage manager to have in her office in an old city theater. Oliver is later freaked out by the giant rat in squatter Jerry’s lair. You could say That’s why she has rat poison, or you could turn it around and say Why is there still a rat if she is using the rat poison? Maybe she was using the poison up on Ben. So why would she do that?
We know she always wanted to be a director, but settled for being a stage manager, so maybe she is sabotaging the production in order to take over as director. Jerry, we learn, was the original director and was fired by Donna, the producer. Maybe KT set him up to get fired so she could get the directors job. (I don’t think Jerry says why exactly he was fired though.) So now that Oliver is director, she has to get rid of him too and fucking the whole production up with a sick/dead leading man is a way to go. (I’d say she somehow gave Oliver his heart attack, but I’m not seeing how.)
Plus, normally, she seems to be a pretty low-key if mean person (granted, she hasn’t had a lot of screen time), but she becomes a little maniacal over the whole Gideon thing. That “GIDEON IS WITH US!” scream on stage as the ghost light reignites is pretty over the top. Howard’s VO to open the episode fairly neatly describes KT’s situation of lamenting that she never became a director — “What do you do when your future starts haunting you? The choices you’ll never make. The lives you’ll never lead. What’s more dangerous than someone whose dreams have died?” And his VO to close the episode is “Sometimes all you need to banish your ghosts is for someone to see you,” as KT, delighted at the performance she has coaxed out of Howard, is standing right next to the ghost light which glows brighter illuminating her as we zoom in on her.
I only brought up KT as the killer because of the shredded script page closeup. You generally don’t show something like that unless it’s important, but sure, it could be a red herring. I think Howard’s reaction to it makes it less likely to be misdirection, but I also admit his reaction was very subtle and fleeting.
So now I’m thinking the cookies Ben was taped talking to in his dressing room were poisoned by KT. KT knew Ben couldn’t say no to the cookies. Once that causes the production to fall into disarray, she takes over as director accomplishing her dream. But I hope that isn’t what happened, because I still want a twist to that scenario (see post 167).
Some stuff that points away from poisoning is the fact that they’ve mentioned poisoning a lot. They’ve pretty much all been working on the assumption since the beginning that it was a botched poisoning, and thematically it might be better if that in itself was a red herring. Also, rat poison is (I am assuming) probably easy to see in an autopsy. But then again, Ben apparently was on a cocktail of drugs that included meth and meth was not reported in the autopsy. So maybe the autopsy report was hinky. Or maybe he wasn’t actually taking the cocktail.
Whatever. Too many rabbit holes. Having typed all this shit, obviously this is not how it’s going to go down. That’s enough from me.
Penelope your sphincter is making quite a stink,
Is she trying to throw me off her scent?
Though she bats her little eyes is she a killer in disguise
With a diaper full of criminal intent?
So Meryl confessed because Paul Rudd’s brother is her birth son and she thinks he did it so she’s sacrificing herself for him? He was my suspect all along so I don’t know if this makes it more or less likely he really did it.
Well done.
Some good, dramatic acting by Martin Short in the episode.
Several episodes ago my daughter and I independently concluded that one of the DeMayo producers did it because they knew the show would bomb, but they could cash in on the insurance for the leading man (The Producers anyone?) My daughter thinks the killer was Cliff and I think it was Donna…
Agreed. And with Steve showing off his musical chops, it was a showcase episode for both of them. Plus another luminious performance from Meryl Streep.
Martin Short is my favorite part of this show. He’s playing Martin Short, and it’s hilarious. I didn’t like his Jiminy Glick character but all his other stuff has been good fun. Uhm, yes, he plays over-the-top annoying characters. HAVE YOU MET ED GRIMLEY?!
Anyway, this last episode was fun. Steve Martin is having a blast with the “patter song.”
I love all the big names they are able to snag as guest stars!
It sounded like a confession to the murder, but not to the attempted murder that occurred first.
He’s already don a putter song.
That was my guess too.
Most overt in-joke ever.
Until episode 9.
Father of the Bride? We laughed. My kid was excited because we watched it a few months ago (also on Hulu, I believe)
Your daughter deserves tickets to Steve Martin and Martin Short’s stage show.
Yes to that … but neither of them is the killer. She apparently attempted. And failed. Someone else pushed him down the elevator shaft and killed him. Which could still be the brother but more likely is whoever we have the current least reason to suspect. Which I’d think of as Tobert.
Um. It seems like you haven’t watched the final episode yet. Which is out today.