Only Murders EP Talks Episode 9 Sazz Twist, Ron Howard Cameo

Note: The following story spoilers from Only Murders in the Building Season 4 Episode 9.

Tuesday's episode of “Only Murders in the Building” seems to have finally answered the question that has been lingering all season: Who killed Sazz Pataki?

After learning about Project Ronkonkoma in last week's episode, Charles (Steve Martin), Mabel (Selena Gomez) and Oliver (Martin Short) visited the hospital to talk to Glen Stubbins (Paul Rudd) about what's going on in the film happened and whether he killed Sazz, but are dismissed by his nurse, who said she would call them when he woke up. While sitting in the waiting room, the trio met the Concussions bartender, who revealed that Glenn was brought in to replace the stunt double on Project Ronkonkoma after they screwed up so badly that Sazz had to cut them out. He added that the only people who knew what happened were Sazz, Glenn and the director – who is Ron Howard (or Ron Ron as Oliver affectionately calls him) – who remember their wild relationship night in a Chinese restaurant in 1988).

To track down Ron Howard, Mabel went to Bev Mellon (Molly Shannon), who told her that Howard was working on a film in New York and that no one knew who was in it or what it was about, but that it was “very autobiographical” and personally.” She agreed to give her Howard's address in exchange for helping Marshall Pope (Jin Ha) refine the script for the film “Only Murders in the Building.”

When the trio arrived on the set of Howard's film, they were stopped by security, who refused them entry. However, they were able to get to the set along with a group of background actors and join the cast of Escape to Planet Congo.”

Meanwhile, Glen Stubbins finally came out of a coma following the on-set shooting earlier in the season. Shortly afterwards, when Mabel dressed up as extras – Charles and Oliver were hilariously squeezed into motion capture suits – she received a text message telling her that Stubbins was awake and went to visit him in the hospital. But Stubbins was smothered by a figure dressed all in black before Mabel could make it.

Back on set, Charles and Oliver got into a loud argument over his bachelor party in preparation for his wedding to Loretta (Meryl Steep) – which resulted in the two being kicked off the set just before Ron Howard was supposed to thank all the extras for their participation. The two were able to reconcile and decided to eat at the aforementioned Chinese restaurant, where Howard showed up and immediately remembered Oliver.

Throughout the episode, we also got flashbacks of Sazz on the set of Project Ronkonkoma, where we learn that the stunt double protégé – who she met after hitting him with her car – had a fire disaster on set that resulted in this that Howard's eyebrows were burned out.

Howard revealed that the stunt double protege is none other than Marshall Pope/Rex Bailey, who went over the script with Mabel at Arconia. At the same time as this revelation, Mabel learned that Marshall Sazz had stolen the film's script, which was hidden in the cold beer crate she had been carrying. The episode ended with Mabel asking him why Sazz's name was in the script and him staring at her before fading to black.

While Marshall/Rex is in the hot seat, a few questions remain unanswered, most notably how did he carry out the murder of Sazz in 12 minutes? Did he act alone or is there a second murderer? And how did he get her script? We'll find out in next week's season four finale.

Read on for more insight from showrunner John Hoffman on this week's episode:

We learn that Ron Howard is the director of Project Ronkonkoma. How did he end up making a cameo in this week's episode?

It's a miracle, and I've read some people this season who are upset about how many guest stars and such. But I would just say that this is a season where we're in the theater making a movie, so the people around should be people who do these things. That was a concern in some ways, that I thought, “Oh, are we going too far with all this?” But once you get to the heart of it, you think, “Okay, the story has to make sense to this narrative And it's not just that move, it's also “Escape From Planet Kongo” and they may not see the light of day. That was certainly not the case with Project Ronkonkoma.

Where does “Escape from Planet Congo” come from?

I saw that title come through. The writers were working on this script and we were already in production. So I thought, “Wait a minute. What is this title? “Escape from Planet Klongo is a Ron Howard movie?” At one point they put in this line about Steve Martin where he says, “What kind of thing is that anyway?” Are you witnessing the end of Ron Howard's career?” I thought, “Okay, now we can do it.”

Once in this country, building something special for a director who had a traumatic and unforgettable experience with a stunt person, it was crucial for our trio. Then the question was, “Who was the director then?” Ron obviously knows Marty and Steve well, and I was working with Ron and his partner Brian Grazer at Imagine on a project for Apple and talked to him a little bit about the show and how much he loves her the show which is very sweet. But to be able to call him and say, “Can you come? We could do one day, right now it's two days.” But he was in deep, he had so much to do and no time in his schedule. And he said, “I really want to try to make this happen.” I really want to do this.” And I said, “Ron, don't do that. We would be happy, but don't worry if you just want to give us one day.” And he said, “No, no, if you need the two days, let me give you the two days.” I would Liked.” So there he was, and it was all because of everyone involved in the show he loved.

Whose idea was it to have Steve Martin and Martin Short fight each other in mocap suits?

I love them together in this story written by Ben Smith and Alex Bigelow, who we call Biggs and is our writer's assistant. It was the first time their names were in a script and they both did a great job in this episode.

One of the things that I found really touching was when we talked about the Oliver and Charles friendship story that we were telling and watching it be tested in that way. The reveal where Charles says, “I love Loretta, but now I'm the awkward third wheel and I'm just getting used to it,” and he admits that he now has a friendship with this guy he hated in the beginning Series.

Steve has been remarkable this season. I think they all were, but Steve, because of that story with Sazz and that episode with Oliver, his performance just touched me. Steve brings a much more fragile, emotional and open quality to Charles. During that scene between him and Oliver, there were moments where we all watched the monitor in confusion. We have variations in performance levels. But there were times when it was a beautiful fight.

Paul Rudd has now died three times on Only Murders in the Building.” How did he react when he found out he would be killed again?

That was a welcome thing. If you know Paul Rudd, he likes his repetitions. So it's a sort of homage to Paul Rudd, just like his running gag where Conan O'Brien has played the same clip from his film over and over again for the past decade.

How far into the process did you come to the conclusion that Marshall Pope/Rex Bailey would be the season four killer? And Steal Sazz's script for the movie “Only Murders in the Building”?

Day one. This has evolved because this wasn't the case in Season 1. We had several options for the killer in Season 1 when we started the writers' room. But since then we have to work backwards or just find out the ending and everything that really happened surrounding the incident that caused the murder. Therefore, we can't really move forward with writing until we have that, and then start moving towards it. So that was clear right from the start.

When we were filming Season 3, we deliberately included the moment in Episode 5 where she's talking to Charles on her ham radio and says there's some chatter: “I'm overhearing people saying they want to be you.” , so when what what happens at the end of the third season, we would have made a connection.

When she brings her cold case at the end of season three, it feels like it's one of those wonderful things that happens in the writers' room when you realize, “What does she have in this cold case that they don't have?” ?” “Do you know that this has been sitting in Oliver's fridge all season and is really the key clue to everything Sazz started and she had to talk to him about for months that now needed to be done quickly?” For me it was all an exciting clue that could end up making you do what the hell, and then do the dance of trying to hide it as best you can.

The emotional relationship we explore and reveal between Sazz and Rex in Episode 10 is profound and largely consistent with exactly all of the clues we've laid out throughout the season about how and why this all happened.

The Season 4 finale of Only Murders in the Building will be released on Hulu on Tuesday, October 29th.