The 10th and final episode of Only Murders in the Building 4, the fourth season of the comedy-crime TV series, was released on Disney+ on Tuesday 29 October with Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short as three tenants of a New York building where they verify murders that the three solve through their podcast.
But if you are here you know very well what we are talking about, and indeed you will have seen the season finale and have some doubts left, or you come from the future and before watching season 5 you want to review how the previous one ended. In any case, here is the explanation of the ending of Only Murders in the Building 4: who killed Sazz, why, what happened to him and, obviously, who is the person who dies in the ending and whose murder Mabel, Charles and Oliver will investigate in the next (already confirmed) season.
Who killed Sazz?
Why did Rex/Marshall kill Sazz (and Glen)?
Who dies at the end of Only Murders in the Building 4?
Who killed Sazz?
This was understood, even if it was still not certain, already in episode 9. The killer of Charles’ stuntman friend is Sazz’s former protégé, Rex Bailey, who was supposed to debut in the famous film Ron Howard’s Project Ronkonkoma but – as the same director explained to Oliver and Charles when they met by chance in a Chinese restaurant after several vain attempts to intercept him – he had been fired after accidentally burning his eyebrows with his costume still on fire.
After the dismissal, Rex had been replaced by Glen Stubbins, who therefore knew who he had replaced, and for this reason Rex killed him in hospital as soon as he found out, having Sazz’s cell phone chosen as an emergency contact by Glen, who had regained consciousness and that therefore he could remember at any moment where he had already seen him.
When Oliver and Charles see Rex’s photo they realize that he is the one they know as Marshall P. Pope, the screenwriter of the movie based on their podcast. They then warn Mabel with a message, which however is seen by Rex-Marshall himself, who is in the Dudenoff apartment occupied by Mabel, who in turn has just noticed that in the crate of beer bottles that Sazz had brought that evening to celebrate there is a screenplay for a film called Only Murders in the Building signed by Sazz Pataki. And so…
Why did Rex/Marshall kill Sazz (and Glen)?
And so Rex/Marshall knows he is trapped and takes Mabel hostage, warning Oliver and Charles not to call the police otherwise he will kill the girl.
Charles then decides to try to reach the apartment where Mabel and the killer are from the ledge, and with the collaboration of his new friends from the West Tower, and thanks to the merengue lessons that Oliver took for his wedding with Loretta, the two succeed somehow to break in and disarm the man, who confesses why he killed the person who had treated him so well.
After his stunt career ended, Rex returned to trying to become a screenwriter. He then gave his script to Sazz, who was so inspired that she decided to write a screenplay herself, which she gave to Rex for his opinion.
And Rex had found it so good that, ashamed of being clearly outclassed by someone on the first try, he had told her that he found it mediocre and had to rewrite it from scratch, and then not show up with his friend. On the other hand, he sent Pataki’s screenplay around, and shortly after he was contacted by Paramount to produce the film.
When Sazz found out about it, he called his former pupil for a discussion. An argument had broken out, with the usually kind Sazz ordering Rex to tell the truth if he didn’t want him to tell everyone, starting with Charles.
So, knowing the story of Dudenoff that Sazz had put in the script, he had entered the empty apartment and waited for Sazz to arrive at the Arconia to compliment Charles and the others to kill her with a rifle, taking advantage of his father’s obsession with the teach them to hunt. Initially he had stopped out of guilt, but when he saw her enter Charles’ apartment alone he shot and hit her.
But without killing her, and so while Sazz wrote “tap in” with his blood to give a clue (thus indicating that he had been a stuntman) Rex reached the house from the ledge and killed poor Sazz and then cremated her in the incinerator.
What happens to Sazz’s killer?
After the confession Rex manages to get the gun back and then threatens to kill our three heroes, but just at that moment he is hit from behind by a bullet fired from Charles’ house. From Jan (the assassin of the first season and Charles’ ex-girlfriend), who when the police arrive to take her confesses to Charles that she has always remained hidden there, in the meanders of the building that we discovered in recent seasons.
Who dies at the end of Only Murders in the Building 4?
Happy ending, therefore, especially for Oliver and Loretta who manage to get married in the end, even if he feared that she would be the next victim to investigate. Instead the wedding is celebrated and now Loretta leaves for New Zealand, where the production of the TV series in which she participates has been transferred, and where in theory her new husband should follow her shortly.
But as always in OMitB, the season finale already projects us towards the next one. And in fact, first the three are approached by a woman named Sofia Caccimelio who asks them to investigate the death of her husband, ensuring its connection with the palace, but the proposal is rejected.
And in the last scene, when Charlez Mabel and Oliver think they have finally celebrated a moment of bloodless celebration in the palace, they discover the bloody corpse of Lester, the doorman, in the garden fountain (before, Sofia Caccimelio had in fact said that she had entered without meeting the goalkeeper). And therefore the murder of poor Lester will be the case to be solved in Only Murders in the Building 5.
