The following contains spoilers for Only Murders in the Building season 4, episode 10.Only Murders in the Buildingshowrunner breaks down Marshall’s (Jin Ha) backstory and how he becomes the first murderer to be killed off in the show. Marshall was unveiled as Sazz’s murderer in season 4, episode 9. Theseason finale dives into his entangled past with Sazzand how he eventually finds himself in the position of a murderer. AtOnly Murders in the Buildingseason 4 finale’s climax, Jan shows up and shoots Marshall the same way he killed Sazz, shaving Mabel, Oliver, and Charles' lives.
In an interview withTheWrap, John Hoffman sheds some light on how they came up with Marshall’s departure, admitting that watching the character clicking into the very thing “he’s tortured by is brutal.” However,“Rex earned it” by betraying and killing the one person who offered him a chance in the industry and tried to help in every way possible. Hoffman also believed that there was no better person other than Jan who should do the honor, given that she had been waiting to avenge Sazz this entire season. Check out what he said below:
It’s really important to me to humanize everyone’s story, as egregious and wrong as his is. He’s damaged goods in many ways. You understand a little bit of that when he talks about his origin story, and we talked in depth about that in the writers’ room. This wild card who she hits with her car one day and recognizes, “God that was a good flip” as a stunt person and is saying “Hey what are you doing? Because I could use someone like you.” But also she might be able to give him a helping hand. And then of course it all blows up on Project Ronkonkoma. But then it’s very Sazz to say, “Hey, maybe this isn’t what you should be doing. Let me encourage you in every way I can to do the thing you really want to be doing,” which is write, even despite all the mess. She could feel his dysfunction but she was trying.
What I found very moving is that Sazz has watched and known Charles for 30 years and he’s just reinvented himself as a podcaster who’s solving crimes. So she has a real moment that what he’s done is incredible and it’s inspired her to change her life. Ultimately, she thinks that script she’s written is a bit of a folly. She doesn’t know if it’s any good, but it’s informed by her love of him and what she’s seen him do. So there’s way more depth to that script and more accuracy and that’s what Rex sees when he’s reading it. He makes that decision in that moment to side with himself in the moment he’s reading it. He sees “I can’t do anything like this” and he’s under pressure with his father, so he makes an awful, awful decision in that moment to steal that script.
To watch him click into that thing that his father raised him to be the marksman and “I’m a writer, not a killer,” that thing he’s tortured by, is brutal. But Jin is beautiful in that whole trajectory. What an actor. There was one take where he was at the window and I was going to give a note on something. But I was like “God, he’s f—ng good,” and I just said it out loud and was like, “Oh, I’m sorry, did you hear that?” And he said, “I did hear that.” I mean, he’s just so good.
Despite the understanding of all of the backstory and everything else, to me Jan is insane and deluded and all of those things as we’ve proven in a previous season, Poppy is a tortured soul, for sure, and messed up, and there are certainly similarly tortured storylines last year with our producers and Ben Glenroy. But if we’re going to kill any of them, Rex earned it. And who could do it other than the woman who’s been hiding in the passageways the entire season waiting for her moment to avenge the woman she loved?
It’s sad because I love Jin Ha and I would love to bring him back in some way. And you never know, someone can be a ghost in our show pretty easily. But character-wise it was like, “No, he’s too egregious in this way for me.”
What This Means For Only Murders Season 4 Finale
Marshall Is Different From All Previous Killers
Hoffman’s comment gives deep insight into Marshall’s relationship with Sazz and what makes him an irredeemablecharacter inOnly Murders in the Buildingseason 4. The showrunner also highlights Ha’s performance andhow the actor made the worst villain in the show so far both relatable and despicable.While Marshall’s struggles in the industry are relatable, as breaking as a movie writer is tough, it’s also no excuse to steal someone’s own script and kill them to cover those tracks. In other words, his ambitions became too self-absorbed, which is clear when he took advantage of Sazz’s kindness.
Should Only Murders in The Building End With Season 5?
Only Murders in The Building has officially been renewed for season 5 by Hulu, but should it be the show’s last?
In particular, Marshall is very different from many other murderers, as he continued to kill those who would impact his future in the movie industry. This was the case when he murdered Glen Stubbins (Paul Rudd) since he knew what happened in the filming of the shelved movieProject Ronkonkoma.At this point, he became a more dangerous character, even to the point of wanting to eliminate the main trio at the finale’s ending. Thus, unlike the other murderers who were caught alive,Marshall breaks this streak on the show due to the dire situation.
Our Take on Only Murders Season 4 Finale
Jan Is Brilliant
Unlike past murderers, it’s understandable how Marshall reached this point, but I also find him to be irredeemable due to his heinous crimes. He clearly has no limits to his actions, as he only cares about his future rather than accepting that the movie industry may not be his path. Past murderers in the show rarely ever went to that extreme. Thus, Jen getting her revenge makes sense, especially since it reverses her character from season 1 as an unusual anti-hero. As theOnly Murders in the Buildingshowrunner explained, Jan was not well and Poppy was a tortured soul, but Marshall was something else.
