Let's Unpack That *Other* Mysterious Death On Only Murders In The Building
We need to talk about Zoe.
Like any good podcast, when Only Murders In the Building begins, it starts with a murder. Building resident Tim Kono was dead, and although the NYPD claims his death was a suicide, his neighbors have listened to enough podcasts to know when murder is afoot. With a plethora of characters who inhabit the building, there were plenty of suspects to go around to fill out the audio drama’s episodes. But what two of the podcast hosts did not know is that they were asking the wrong question. To find who killed Tim Kono, first, they should uncover who killed Zoe on Only Murders In The Building.
Warning: Spoilers for Only Murders In The Building Episodes 1 through 3 follow. When Tim Kono turned up dead in his apartment, it seems like no one really knew the guy. He was just the jerk of a neighbor who made everyone stop using their fireplaces because of his asthma, the one who doesn’t like cats, the rude guy who lectures the smokers on the stoop. Even Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, the three who start the podcast to solve his murder, seemed not to know much about him. (Even though Charles and Oliver lived in the building since the 1990s, when Tim was a small child.) But Mabel had a secret. Not only were she and Tim best friends once upon a time, but they were also part of a friendship foursome that included two other kids in the building, rich-girl Zoe and her boyfriend, the super’s son, Oscar. They were BFFs until the end, or at least until their group was shattered when Zoe was murdered and Oscar was convicted for killing her.
Mabel’s investigation into Tim isn’t just for her own benefit of starring in a podcast. She wants to know what happened because she believes these deaths are related. Zoe was killed years ago, on New Year’s Eve, while Tim was randomly offed during a fire alarm on a weekday night. But there’s a connection: Oscar was just released from prison a few days before Tim’s death, having served out his sentence. And his father is still the building superintendent, thus giving him access and insider knowledge that Tim still lived there.
But is Oscar really the killer? It’s not even clear he killed Zoe. Oscar might have been Zoe’s boyfriend, but she wasn’t unaware of the fact that he dated her because he was dazzled by her money and devil-may-care lifestyle. His true feelings, it seemed, were for Mabel, and Mabel’s continued loyalty to Oscar suggests she returned those feelings. Could the two of them have conspired to kill Zoe for her money? Could they be taking out Tim now for not joining them in the conspiracy and putting Oscar away?
However, Tim knows Oscar wasn’t the one with Zoe when she fell to her death on the sidewalk. He saw her go off with someone else, but who it was, he wouldn’t say. Whoever it was, Tim was afraid enough to keep his mouth shut for years and insist he and Mabel stay far away from each other. So who was Zoe’s mystery person? And could they have offed Tim for knowing the truth?
Until fans know more about Zoe’s murder, the questions about Tim’s fate will swirl. Perhaps, the podcast will have to expand to cover things that aren’t only murders in the building to solve this crime.
Only Murders in the Building streams new episodes every Tuesday on Hulu.
