Only Murders in the Building is typically a fun, cozy show, which makes the opening of this week’s episode so jarring. “Gates of Heaven” starts off with a shell-shocked Charles (Steve Martin) staring at his hands, which are covered with the ashes of his long-time friend, Sazz (Jane Lynch).
He doesn’t know how to respectfully clean the dust off his hands, so after some frantic deliberating, he decides to wash the dust off into a bowl and let the water evaporate. It’s an irrational plan that Charles performs with questionable competence, and the scene straddles the line between sort of funny and deeply sad. We’ve never seen Charles deal with a loss this heavy, even if the Season 1 betrayal of Jan (Amy Ryan) was probably still devastating for him. (More on her soon.)
Charles’ grief leads to the introduction of Ghost Sazz, a figment of Charles’ imagination who follows him around throughout the episode. I personally despise this trope—not only is it overdone on TV, but it always leads to sappy, unsubtle monologues mixed in with cloying attempts at self-aware humor. That said, I understand the appeal of it: It compensates for visual media’s weakness at conveying a character’s inner monologue (something books can do easily) and it gives audiences another chance to hang out with the deceased character before they’re gone forever.
