We had seen in the very first episode of Only Murders In The Building that, after miraculously coming back from the dead, Ben had died once again under mysterious circumstances. Mabel was probably the most shaken up as compared to all the people who were a part of the group. Mabel didn’t know Ben personally, but his show helped her cope with a very difficult period in her life. After her father passed away, her mother suffered from acute depression, and for months she didn’t come out of the bedroom.

Ben’s show was the only time laughter could be heard in their house. The show might have been lame for people, but it gave Mabel hope that the hard times would pass. Mabel had a special place for Ben in her heart and that is why she was genuinely affected by what had happened. Currently Mabel was going through an existential crisis and time and again, felt that her life had become directionless and that she wasn’t doing anything productive with her time. So, let’s find out how Mabel copes with everything and if Oliver is able to convince the producers to not shut down his show.

Spoiler Alert 

Why Did Ben Hate Charles?

In the second episode of Only Murders In The Building Season 3, when Charles and Mabel were chained together, the former revealed why Ben hated him so much. Charles told Mabel that Ben was not a bad guy and that he was acting so rudely because something had happened between them back in the day. Ben was 8 years old when he got one of his first acting jobs, and at that time, Charles was an established actor and was doing quite well for himself.

During the table read, Charles told the director that Ben was not a good choice for the role, and that he wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Ben was probably the sole earner in the house at that time, and he needed the money to support his mother and brother. Ben was fired, and since then, he has lived with the insecurity of not being good enough. The fear of not being able to prove his own worth in front of the world haunted him throughout his life, and years later, when he saw Charles once again during the table read of Death Rattle, he got triggered. He wanted Charles to feel the same way he felt years ago. Charles didn’t even remember that he had said something to the little boy that had marred him for life.

Words have great power, and that is probably why it is often said that we should use them very wisely. We never know what kind of impact they end up having on a person. We might think that it means nothing, but the one on the receiving end might take it very differently. Charles wanted to make things right, but Ben could never forgive him for what he had done to him. To date, Ben had low self-esteem issues, and he didn’t have any confidence in his abilities. He felt that people liked him only because he played characters on screen, and the day they learned about his real self, they wouldn’t have such a high opinion of him. Charles told Mabel that she had every reason to like the guy because, genuinely, Ben was a good human being.

Why Did Gregg Kidnap Charles And Mabel?

Mabel met Gregg at Ben’s funeral, and he told her that he had some evidence that could lead them to the murderer of Ben. Gregg told Mabel that he worked for the late actor as his security personnel, and that is why he knew about a lot of things that others didn’t have any idea about. Mabel asked Charles if he would like to accompany her since she had hoped that she would be able to start the true-crime podcast. Charles and Mabel went to Gregg’s house, and they saw that he had a lot of souvenirs from various films that Ben was a part of.

Things grew a bit suspicious when Charles and Mabel saw that the photos that he had put up in his house, together with Ben, were all photoshopped. Charles felt that there was something horribly wrong with the guy, and he told Mabel that he was leaving. Before he could leave the house, he heard a loud sound, and he went inside to find that Mabel was lying on the floor as Gregg had knocked her unconscious. Before Charles could do anything, Gregg gagged him too and took them both to a room, where he chained them to a pole. Gregg was a stalker, and he was obsessed with Ben. He worked as a chef, and he was not in charge of Ben’s security, as he had earlier told Mabel. Gregg used to steal things from Ben’s set, and that is how he had a huge collection of objects used in Ben’s film at his place. Gregg was going to hurt Charles and Mabel, but before he could do that, police officers arrived at the scene and took him under arrest, ending the nightmare for Mabel and Charles.

What Idea Did Oliver Come Up With?

Oliver, since the time he began his journey as an artist, knew that one not only needs to have talent but also needs to move around with the right people. He always wanted to be a part of the elite gathering and be known in that circle. Maybe that’s why he was disheartened when he was not made to sit with the elite group during the funeral. He was taken to another room where the funeral was being telecasted on a television live. Oliver desperately wanted to go into the main room, as he knew that he might bump into the producers and get a chance to convince them not to close the play. The set was being taken down, and neither Donna nor Cliff were picking up his call.

Oliver met Maxine, who was a very renowned critic, and he told her to write about the play since he had heard from his sources that she had liked it. He told Maxine that his informant had seen that she had stopped taking notes after the first few minutes, which she only did when she loved what was happening on stage. But Maxine, in Only Murders In The Building, Episode 2, cleared his doubts and told him that the ink of her pen had finished, and she despised the play and believed that it was Oliver’s worst work. Oliver once again felt shattered, and he suffered a minor heart attack. He was advised to rest and not take on any kind of stress. Oliver got an epiphany of sorts at the end of the second episode, and he told Charles and Mabel that he was going to completely revamp the play and make it into a musical.

Oliver was excited, as he had found some hope to cling on to. Mabel also told Oliver that they were going to start the podcast and their investigation too. Mabel had taken pictures of Ben, and she had noticed that he clutched a handkerchief, which she believed could belong to the killer who had pushed him from there. Only Murders In The Building, episode 2, confirmed the return of the amateur sleuths, and in the subsequent episodes, we would see Oliver working on his revamped version of the Death Rattle while solving the murder mystery together with Charles and Mabel.