Review: Only Murders in the Building, “Cuckoo Chicks” | Season 5, Episode 8

It’s only fitting that a guest list factors into the main plot of this week’s Only Murders in the Building. “Cuckoo Chicks” is all about its guest stars and recurring players: the Meryl Streep-Renée Zellweger two-hander in The Velvet Room, Da’Vine Joy Randolph getting to play a different side of Lieutenant Williams, and Dianne Wiest getting the space to spread her wings as Rainey. The episode makes time for three appearances from Vince Fish, and although each of them is a knockout for Richard Kind, they also account for some issues of overcrowding and wonky pacing that emerge as the end credits approach. Nonetheless, the “women downstairs/men upstairs” plot to keep Camila from taking control of the Arconia helps “Cuckoo Chicks” build the victory of last week’s episode into a winning streak.

I’m not sure if multiple actors on the same show can submit the same episode for Emmy consideration (or, if that’s allowed, whether or not it’d be a sound strategy), but award winners Streep, Zellweger, Wiest, and Randolph are all giving their most award-worthy performances of season five in “Cuckoo Chicks.” They each get their individual moments to shine, but I’m especially fond of the time they spend around the blackjack table with Selena Gomez, with Mabel and Williams attempting to tie down a pair of loose cannons before they both unload on Camila and ruin the entire scheme. Hand after hand, the editing, the score, and the daggers stared across the felt all ratchet the suspense.

I run hot and cold on Wiest [Sounds like an infection - Ed.], particularly when she’s in the willowy, flighty mode exemplified by Rainey’s grieving. So I was pleased with the way the character comes to life in these scenes. At the blackjack table, Wiest finds this remarkable bite, channeling a vengefulness that makes Lester’s widow look far more dangerous than any of the potential killers we’ve met in season five. She shows tremendous range in “Cuckoo Chicks,” culminating in the tender monologue about perceived control that Rainey delivers to Mabel while lounging on her spiraling, kinda-sorta surrogate daughter’s windowsill—a longing in her eyes and a joint in her left hand. And that’s after she gets a laugh with some sensible advice regarding Jay: “If he murdered my husband, I say don’t date him.”

There’s a lot of meaningful conversation this week, with the writers seemingly emptying full notebooks of therapy material into the script. This benefits “Cuckoo Chicks” as a whole, but it especially pays off for Williams: Early on in the episode, her observation about Charles’ “‘addiction to sexy villains’ origin story” slyly connects her powers of deduction to an ability to read people. That’ll come in handy once she assumes the role of blackjack dealer, and it also foreshadows her participation in the impromptu group-therapy session that springs from Charles and Oliver pressuring Dr. Grover Stanley (Russell G. Jones) not to sell his apartment.

Randolph gets a chance to stretch here, too, throttling down from her character’s delight at digging through Charles and Oliver’s baggage into a more placid gear that suggests an alternate career path for Williams. Amid all the role-reversing that gets Charles to admit his jealousy of Oliver and Loretta’s relationship and Oliver to confront the way he masks his insecurities—a snappy parallel to the table talk at Camilla’s Velvet Room ladies’ night—I could picture her retiring from the force and going into private practice. (Not that it’d suit Only Murders in the Building to relieve the trio of their main ally at the NYPD). More editing props to the cuts to Jones while Williams rattles off therapyspeak—a splendid “game recognizes game” set up for when Williams later guides Grover into his own emotional breakthrough. 

I’m not entirely sure what we gain from shrinking Charles’ head, though. Maybe that’s because the latest “dangerous woman” he’s attracted to is referenced, but not seen, in “Cuckoo Chicks”—though it’s Jan, not Sofia, who comes up during the session with Grover. It’s runway, however, for a more fruitful callback to his down-and-out days as depicted in “After You”: The approval he earned from his mom during those card games leading to the gambling problem that left him without cab fare way back when. I think that’s why the psychoanalysis rings false and unnecessary to me—it’s much more interesting (and better writing) when Charles follows Williams’ lead and spouts card-sharp lingo during the planning scene earlier in the episode.

Plus, the deeper we get into season five, the more it feels like the writers just aren’t sure what to do with Charles. After having the deepest personal ties to last season’s case, he’s in the backseat for this season, his ill-advised courtship of Sofia being his most prominent contribution to (and/or detraction from) the investigation. It’d be a waste of Steve Martin if he weren’t still getting a few good lines per episode, like Charles’ response to Mabel’s facetious suggestion of a party favor for ladies’ night, tampons: “Mabel, please don’t swear.” His recollection of the only other time he’s seen a therapist—“He said, ‘You only hear things you want,’ and then he told me a bunch of stuff I didn’t even want to hear”—works, too.

Such attention being paid to the main characters can’t be taken for granted at this point in the show’s run. But it’s also somewhat extraneous in an episode that’s speedily tying up loose ends in anticipation of season five’s final episodes. “Cuckoo Chicks” makes the first mention of Lester’s elevator crank in weeks, and voila: Loretta finds the elevator crank. The bird whistle returns to the picture, and it reveals an alternate, un-scrubbed view of the courtyard on the night of the murders. And Loretta’s heretofore unmentioned sixth sense gives us all we need to know about the sordid history between Camila White and Nicky Caccimelio. Throw in the reveal of Randall recovering the crank, and it can all come across as too much for a single episode to handle.

I can also see the “Cuckoo Chicks” scenes between Meryl Streep, Renée Zellweger, and Bobby Cannavale causing some level of confusion among anyone watching Only Murders while they fold laundry or scroll through their phone. The Ghost of Christmas Past framing of these flashbacks—with Streep and Zellweger watching Zellweger and Cannavale from the sidelines—is left up to interpretation: Is this confirmation of Loretta’s clairvoyance, or a creative way of depicting Camila unburdening herself to a stranger? Not clarifying feels a little sloppy; either way, it’s an effective shortcut for giving Loretta all of the information she unloads on the trio and Williams at the end of the episode.

And as over-the-top as these sequences are, I do find Streep and Zellweger’s energy in them endearing. Streep’s all-purpose Eastern European accent and Zellweger’s lemon-face pucker are doing the sweatiest work in “Cuckoo Chicks,” but it’s enjoyable to watch a couple of actors with multiple Oscars to their name—whose previous onscreen pairing was a late-’90s weepie that earned Streep her ninth Best Actress nomination—cut so loose. (Loretta’s impression of Camila at the end of the episode is also very funny.) As much as Only Murders in the Building has leaned on its mega-wattage guest stars in recent seasons, it’s great to see that it can still balance meaty material for the guests while serving the regulars (even if some of what they’re getting is scraps) and advancing the whodunit. On that score, Camila’s ladies’ night is a success.

Stray observations

• Even with everything we learned this week, we’re still no closer to learning how Nicky and Lester actually died. We also don’t know who the finger belonged to yet. And while we’ve been given every indication that it’s a man’s finger, this was the first episode where it occurred to me that Camila’s gloves—which “Cuckoo Chicks” identify as the signature accessory of the great-grandmother she thinks she’s the reincarnation of—could be hiding a prosthetic digit.