STRAWT media. There's a closet in
the in Oliver's front hall. There are

five doors. There's seven doors of
twelve doors or however many doors that work,

and as a tiny little closet door
here and like of course this is

where all the dogs costumes and leashes
and bags go. So there's like a

three Amigos dog costume, there's like
a wild and crazy guy dog costume and

there's an Arrow through the head costume
for a dog scale. So there's this

is there's a whole closet full of
Stephen Marty's old shows in dog for a

doggy dress up down dog dress up
room. That never would seen and should

giggled the bell and I'm like yeah, it's there. If you want to

open the door, you can open
it. Welcome to another very special bonus

episode of only murders in the pod, the show where we look behind the

scenes and mine for clues as we
meet the cast and creators at the Hulu

original series only murders in the building. I'm your host Elizabeth Keener, and

I'm your host Kevin Laughan, and
today on the show producer Maggie Bulls is

back. Hi, Maggie, yeah, she recently sat down with Kurt beach

and rich Murray. Hi, hi, how's it going good? Can you

hear me? Okay, I am
I here. Yes, I talked to

Kurt and rich. I really wanted
to know how much more I could get

to know the characters by looking at
the world that they live in, you

know, which is basically about by
the art department in the production to sign

apartment. You know, there's artist, there's painters, designers, carpenters,

all kinds of things and obviously a
production designer and a set there. My

name's Kirk Beach. I'm the production
designer of season one, of only murders

in the building, and I'm rich
for you to set a criture four seasons

one two, of only murders in
the building. For the record, I

wanted to do season two but I
was working on a movie and the dates

didn't line up and it just was
just sucks. But they're in good hands.

They yeah, and going well,
but it's not like I'm like I'm

a coming back one members of a
building those yeah, there's the way it's

all. I think. I love
for these people. It was fantastic.

So I, for one, wasn't
really a hundred percent sure what production design

includes. Home does I know?
I know, I should know what I

don't really know. So I asked
Kurt for his take on what. You

know, good production designed, really
good production design sits in the middle of

a cute little ven diagram where authenticity, story and visual content converge. That's

where you want to get. What
does that mean? Back to school,

I know. If sounds like it
sounds like kind of COMPLICI right. So

we figured we would draw over and
diagram and look at it. We would

have three circles authenticity, story and
visual content, and then right here,

this little center part. That's production
design. Oh well, all overlap to

this center of everything that is helped. Yes, that is the umble.

Like I think you can have authenticity
in a space film, if you're doing,

you know, science fiction. You
can have story, you know,

in a romantic comedy and even in
farce, and you can have visual content

in any in all of the above. And you know, comedies a little

bit more elusive. It's a little
harder to pull it off, but what

I'm always after is something completely authentic. It has to be believable where the

audience is going to tune out immediately. So we're just trying to create spaces

where the actors can do their best
work and spaces that make sense for the

characters and are rerealistic in the world
that the writers have created. And what

about how production design and set decoration
come together? How are they different and

how do they how do they work
together? Well, to me it's it

all comes about from the same a
task of serving the script and serving the

characters. In that the decoration is
one part of the design world, but

in a way it's it's the minutia
of the design world that often is either

noticed or unnoticed or, you know, it all depends on what the camera

wants to see. So we provide
a world of big, splashy pictured down

to the minutia of grains of sand
or salt or whatever, and we give

that all over to the camera,
the team and to the director, and

I think that's the way I like
to think of it as as being related,

all in one world. It's just
different branches of the different teams that

pull off that vision. For the
designer. Yeah, I like to say

that story is built from detail.
We sometimes will have a detail that we

really like and that becomes the basis
of an entire room or a set,

and then sometimes we'll have a set
and then we will add details to it.

But all of this comes about from
text and story and backstory and everything

we're doing we're trying to imbue with
a history and a backstory, and that's

why this project special and that's why
there's gold in them our hills, because

what John and the writers have created
is so rich with detail that we don't

have to look too far for it, and then when we want to add

to it, it's very easy to
find because the characters are so richly developed

and described. That's the true collaboration
between a show runner, creator and the

art compartments. Can I just comment
on how rich and deep rich is voices?

Okay, I just want to it's
yeah, it's amazing. Yet okay,

continue, definitely. Yeah, and
rich said that, even though they

have a new production designer for a
season to the rest of the team has

basically stayed the same, and so
they've developed a really cool, trusting relationship

with John Hoffman, the showrunner.
He's so comfortable with us in terms of

running with the story or running with
those ideas visually and then telling that story

visually for these characters that he is. He often just giggles with us.

Since I trust you go with it
and it's really kind of funny to have

that sort of collaborative freedom in a
way with the showrunner that you know,

oftentimes doesn't happen, and certainly not
this early in the relationship. It's been

a really great trip. Okay,
I would like to know how. I

know it's a collaboration, but how
do they make all of this happen?

You do you give the actors,
you have the costumes, you have the

different departments. I want to know
how the costumes and the set kind of

interact together. How do they make
that happen? Yeah, yeah, so,

you know, we talked a little
bit about that, I feel like,

with with Dana last time and she
talked about, you know, the

way they interact. But what I
thought was really interesting talking to Kurt was

that he pointed out how important the
timing is in the decisions that they make,

you know, for what they're wearing
and where they live and what their

house looks like. So I thought
that was pretty cool. You mean the

timing of episodes or the timing of
before they start? Like is that that

what exactly the timing? Is he
going to tell us the timing of when

they make their choices? You know? So you know they they're dressing a

character, let's say for episode.
They're shooting episode three and they haven't chosen

their drapes yet in the place.
So what do they choose first? You

know what's more important? Who are
they matching too? And you know that

kind of studying has listen to him. Yeah, I mean we get to

a point where we have to start
selecting fabrics and wall coverings and paint colors,

and then rich, well, I'm
thinking about the walls in the and

the room. Rich is thinking about, you know, what the decor is

going to be, what that means
to the characters. And you know,

we get to a point where we're
like, oh my gosh, if we

do like up Plaid Sofa and she's
got him in a plaid shirt, it's

either going to look amazing or we're
going to look like idiots. So we

have to have that conversation about you
know, we lay out a board and

we're like this is what we're thinking
about. These the colors that we really

like for this character. Where are
you in your process? And we just

have to try and bounce off of
each other and make sure that we're not

conflicting too much, because it could
get ugly if we do. If we

do, if we miss. Yeah, Oh, I would love to know.

I mean, I think we'd all
like to know. What does it

Miss Look like? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, could it be like the

cat guy, but then he has
this super slick apartment because they didn't realize?

Oh, yeah, you would be
like or the dogs would have mesh

cat the cat stuff. Don't I
more? No, yeah, I don't

know. I was thinking maybe if, like, you had horizontal stripes on

like a Vertical Stripe Sofa, maybe
that would look bad. That would look

that. I would that would look
like a tic tick to kind of thing,

right. Yeah, it's a mix
as a nose. Throw them in

there. No, it was terrible, terrible. See, I missed.

That was a miss. That was
a miss. Okay, here we go.

Think about it in a in a
close up, right, like a

sofa is a pretty big thing when
you have a body and a big piece

of fabric. So you have to
think, you know, what is that

going to be in in a tighter
shot, and and how are those two

things going to relate and then what's
right behind it. You know, a

wall paper could be contrasting and could
really mass with that that dialog between these

fabrics and ideas and shapes and and
all this stuff. So yeah, we

had a lot of conversations about how
to make sure that we were both on

the room same pay age and then
we're complimenting each other and really expanding on

the character together. Yeah, I
think, and actually I was thinking of

an instance in which it works almost
in a collaboratively the opposite, where the

backwards way of that, especially because
of this show, we know who the

characters are up front in a way
like in the first few episodes we sort

of figured out who everybody was,
but we never saw bunnies of our you

know. So in that way we
knew who bunny was based on the works

that Dana had done all last season. So what we do bunnies apartment this

season. That's it's it's much more
informed by Dana's work already. She's already

done all the homework for bunny and
for us. It made it very easy

to know, Oh, yes,
this is bunny, this is not fun,

this is bunny whom this is not
and it was kind of great that

way, and so when we showed
her the boards of Football Paper Ferns,

I ever saw that such. So
I get this perfect don't a better.

Yeah, it's great, you know, because it all of her work had

already been done and so we were
just taking her league. It was great.

The details, right. I just
is so amazing to me when they

have everything thought out the next season
and probably the next season if it's still

going, and it's very specific.
It's very specific and it the way he

was talking about how that's the team
work, when there's layers and it's just

like it's the exterior of the of
the actor, like it's so it's kind

of everything else around. Think about
where we are right now and things that

surround us, you know, that's
part of who we are. Yeah,

when we're in our own space.
And No, I want to hear about

everyone's apartment. What does the production
designed to tell us about our main characters?

Oh, yeah, but I also, you know, we I want

to get inside Bunny's apartment. I
mean, they're answers about the mysterious circumstances

surrounding her death. Are we aware
of this? Remember Ken? Yeah,

I mean so they said that we
get to see inside of Bunny's apartment in

season two, which is, I
don't know, pretty exciting, nervous,

an excited. So yeah, we, I mean, unfortunately we don't know

a whole lot about bunny's apartment,
but we will get to learn about the

other characters, like you wanted cake. Yeah, so we'll go through each

of them one by one, but
first let's take a quick break. Welcome

back. Before the break we talked
about how the art department collaborates with the

other parts of the production team,
and now we're going to dive into our

main characters to see what secrets about
their lives were hidden inside their apartments at

the Arconia like a frozen cat leg. Yes, exactly, behind the couch,

yummy. Yeah, so the first
when I asked about was Charles.

We had an initial version of Charles. It was like straight out of the

nights that we had done and it
was like like a groovy Bachelory, very

architectural, digest New York City Bachelor's
apartment and it just felt a little bit

too dated and out of touch for
this man. So we looked at this

first version and then we change some
things and in changing it we actually addressed

a lot of the things about the
character that we did not know when we're

having this meeting about and once we
had thrown this idea on the wall and

Henry crumpled it up and threw it
away, and that is that. You

know, he's a smart investor.
So he made his money and saved wisely,

spent wisely. He's a shrewd art
collector. There's some really nice pieces

of art and his apartment. Nothing
extravagant, nothing that he can retire with,

but some pieces that are worth quite
a bit. Wait, did you

guys notice that he was a wise
investor of art, like capital a Ar?

You've see stuff. I remember his
music and he had all a bunch

of wreckers and you know all that. But I didn't really notice. Did

you guys notice? I can't see. I know it's the art specifically.

I always liked his apartment the best. Is kind of clean and modern but

so compautiful, but I can't say
I really noticed the art. Yeah,

yeah, I definitely didn't notice either, or not that I know very much

about our you know, it wouldn't
necessarily be the first thing I would notice,

but if you think about it,
you know Charles definitely isn't very concerned

with my me right in the show, not like Oliver is, at least.

And you know, his house is
very put together. It's always clean

and it has sort of a class. He sends to it like he spent

some money on the things in there, and when I was doing research for

this interview I learned a lot about
the art on his walls and we'll talk

about that more in a minute with
curtain rich. But one thing that Kurt

said is that we definitely know that
Charles has good taste in furniture. Who

this comes from discussion, an early
discussion with with Steve. So some of

the beasts are very specific specific manufacturers
that he thought would be good for the

character. And then overall there's a
playfulness to the apartment in the colors,

in the materials and all over it
is is just a is a lightness.

There's a lightness to it and a
playfulness and we all agreed that that was

really important and we had a couple
of key images that we really liked that

we were working off of and trying
to to get a certain vibe from.

So are there any things inside of
Charles's apartment that you remember? I mean

KK you said it was your favorite, but is there anything like any furniture,

art or specific I do remember there
was a sign in the kitchen and

it was it's a nice hot vegetable
way that way. I think I I

talked about them. Did talk about
it? Because we thought it was a

clue, like we thought everything was
a click. But yes, and we

thought, and I love the it
is playfulness, like I think it feels

like maybe a little bit of Steve
Martin Per Sauna in there in the sense

of his playfulness, and he's really
his yeah, his thought of beauty I

made really is. I loved his
apartment, I really did. I just

didn't pay attention to the artwork except
for the Nice hot bitched and that's a

good reminder to eat your vegetables.
Yes, and remember Brady Bunch. Do

you remember the Brady Bunch Hook?
They had it. What was it?

It was a pork chop and apple
sauce, wasn't they had a little chosen

shock. That was not high art. No, but this is. Well,

actually it is and well, we'll
talk about that in a minute.

But there was some other kind of
cool stuff that Kurt pointed out too.

There's is a collection of for album
covers on his wall in the kitchen that

are from some s era percussion records, and these record covers are designed by

Joseph Albert's, the artist who did
homage to the square, like the square

and the square blocks that everyone's familiar
with. Are you guys familiar with Joseph

Albers and Oh wash to the square? I was not familiar with it.

Yeah, did you look it up? I mean like, yes, I

looked it up. You've fantastic.
Seen them in the museum. Apparently he

did hundreds of thees, like it's
a study on yeah, and it because

about the colors and I just love
it. It almost has like a s

or a s kind of look to
it. Yeah, definitely, yeah,

yeah, Palm Springs kind of vibe. UHHAH, for sure. Yeah.

So I looked it up and when
I saw it I was like, Oh,

yeah, that's that's right. See, we're learning things. MMMM.

So that's just like a little you
know, it's a Nice Pere Nice pieces.

They're thoughtfully chosen for him and they
come out of the knowledge of art

and music. We have a list
of like Easter eggy stuff that we've thrown

in there. That's you know,
that's that's fun to think about. With

him. A couple of things,
like a character based that we looked at

wanted to sort of play with a
bit a that first. He was like

very meticulous and very much about things
being in order and place, and it's

funny because they sort of picked up
on that as the season went on.

So everything about his space has its
own place for it, and this is

this is really useful because there's so
much contrast between the two characters and you

know, basically everything that rich to
was talking about now is the opposite explers.

So it's, you know, it's
it's an Oscar and Felix situation exactly.

And it was funny because, like, one of the things that we

talked about first and one of the
things that really launched the look and feel

of his apartment for us was the
striped fabric on the Sofa in the living

room and pretty much everything like,
because those toy is a rather arbitrary in

that design world, you know,
and I mean they they feel the emotionally.

No design choices arbitrary or of course
not. But what you know,

because there is not one arbitrary choice
in any of the apartment. This has

been a lovely eggs you're breaking up. We're not. No. What I

meant was like the the arbitrary,
in that there could have been any number

of choices made to sort of be
the launching point for Charles's character, that

this is such a rigid, sort
of exciting, colorful and something very sophisticated

for him. was what I thought
was, oh, this is great in

this says this character. You Kurt
already mentioned. The name is the you

know, the pieces of furniture,
of that stuff, like everything in there

is essentially a not a catalog.
It's a custom piece or it was a

showroom peace. That we tried to
pull him and that was important to him,

because everything has significance for Charles.
And then, in that same way,

all of the art in his apartment
and the curtain, Steve were very

great about like leading this to make
sure that all of the art meant something

in his place. So, like
we have the main portrait of the woman

walking away in the living room.
Obviously you know it's very much a part

of WHO this character is. There's
a big piece of art in the Hallway.

The see from the kitchen that looks
like nothing but like window mullions.

So it's like looking out windows and
peeping into other people's lives through these windows.

There's like a starts being a hutch, sort of like car that feels

very much like a police car from
the s in the family room and with

thought. That was sort of like
a wrap gift or something from one of

his past seasons on Rosums. And
then there the ED Roche, which there's

a there's an addroche that says nice
hot rastables. Yeah, in the kitchen,

in the kitchen, in the kitchen. We made up a whole story

for that. So there it is, the Nice hot vegetables Edryche. It's

actually a famous artist and fame's famous
painting. Do you guys, or I'm

curious, what you think Charles's backstory
would be for having a painting like that?

Well, we know it's not a
clue. It definitely not a clue.

I don't what's a good backstory Nice? Well, now he's, Oh,

you know, he's doing his he's
cooking himself and he's putting a lot

of vegetables in his omelet. But
I feel like now he's cooking for himself.

Like I said, he's not really
nobody's cooking with him for him.

Right. Well, see, well, what I was thinking, since we

know it's not a clue, maybe
it had something to do with Lucy,

Charles's girlfriend's daughter, and maybe that
was something they would cook together and that's

a sign they found it. That's
fleet Martyn. It is on a Sunday

legeables in the maybe it's side to
that. I think we're right. Yeah,

yeah, well, I mean it's
definitely not, not an art piece.

You would find it a fleet market. I think it's an expensive art

piece. But yeah, I've said
I think that you guys will like like

the story that the art department came
up with. Why? Why Charles has

it? So it's very expensive like
now. But we meet up a story

that while he was shooting Brazos,
in whatever year he was in La at

some point working on the show,
he went to a party, he met

Ed Rouche, went to the studio, they became pals. He bought a

piece and it's in his kitchen now. It's now worth, you know,

several hundred thousand dollars, but back
then it wasn't uh Huh. But he's

smart and he's shrewd and you know, he got the piece for a Lark

from someone he had met in La
Party. That's a better story. Devil

is better than the ALMAS story.
A G I like that they bring brothers

back into roses. You know,
I was going to say, what did

you do with his residual chicks?
Yeah, not the ones today that are

penny, but I'm talking about the
ones back then that were a few Hundi's.

Apparently bought some art. He did
buy smart and he shrewd and he

did good investment for him. You
know, there are only so many spots

in the apartment to put art,
so each one is an opportunity to tell

something else about the character and we
take full advantage of it every single time.

Something else about Steve's and maybe this
is a little sort of tidbit on

Easter eggs and the first episode.
I think there's a flashback this year of

Charles Hayden and his father in the
s out in the street across the street

from the Arconia, and there's a
it's a wintry thing and there's a vegetable

of fruit seller vender on the street
and we handpainted a science saying nice cold

vegetables for that street vendor. And
it's, you know, it's deep background

all the way down the block.
You never know if you're ever going to

see it. But funny because we
painted it with like the same oranges and

Greens and, you know, in
the same but it was all and it

but feels part of that fruit vendor
in that everything else there was wrange and

green and Brown as well. Is
that the sound of Kurt laughing in the

background? Are we getting rooked again? SIS, not real. No,

no, Kurt is laughing because he
actually thought that was hilarious and it was

the first time you heard about it, since he's not on season two.

So he thought that was very funny. Buddy did go on to add this.

I like to say that scenery is
not funny. It shouldn't be funny,

but there can be humor in the
work and and you can hide some

things that that are funny, but
you want to be careful that it does

and take the audience out of the
reality of what the characters ating. So

it has to be done with a
very light dotch. I could even see

working that into his backstory. Maybe
that's why he was drawn to that image

in the studio when he met him
the first time. We're in that.

See, you just you just made
that. I just draw just made that

up with exactly. That's exactly where
Fu's eventually, it feeds itself, you

know, in the decisions become very
easy to make because they make sense,

because you get to know the characters
well enough, and and then you're creating

all these stories around them. It
sounds like every piece has a story and

it was very specific and we're learning
all of these things that we never would

have put together. That's what we're
just talking about a little while. Yeah,

it's just so amazing. I think
we were so fixed, fixated on

trying to find clue. But instead
of that, just enjoy the you know

what we're to do this season?
We are going to look at things in

a different light, but we're going
to still look for the clues, but

we're going to see them in a
different way in the details and in the

beauty of each character. We should
write this down. Oh, you're writing

it down. I don't write anything
down. Sounds like a new year's resolution.

It does, see, but I
also wonder what all that's working there

that we just don't know yet.
Yes, this is so exciting. Yeah,

well, and you know who knows. Maybe that is, you know,

relevant to the way that Charles Acts. You know, I don't know.

I don't know either, but I
act like I know, but I

can that's too the so that's it
for Charles. Let's take another quick break

and then when we get back we'll
go into all of her's, maximal's apartment

and find out what that tells us
about his paths. Welcome back. So

we just spent some time learning about
Charles and how his past is reflected in

his living space, and now I
think let's talk about the one and only

Oliver Patinum Oh pe. There's nothing
really in Oliver's we yeah, it's very

minimalist. First, yeah, first, you know, there's not much,

just a house and the housekeeper.
He does not have a housekeeper yet rum,

which was the decision we made,
right, you know. You Know

Charles, Sayden has a housekeeper and
yes, they're twice a week care.

He's there twice a week. Oliver
doesn't have a housekeeper. We are flashing

back to Oliver in the nine S, where he does have a housekeeper in

the second season, which is kind
of funny because it's completely throwing our minds.

Exactly in the wrong way. For
Oliver Right, honestly got clean uplivers.

Who is this guy when he looks
like turtles? But all her everything

there was like right, Curtian was
all about the theatricality of it. It

was his careers. Why? Yeah, that, I mean that was actually

the word that we used in choosing
everything. For Oliver's it wasn't theatrical.

It didn't stay. It was gone
immediately. He's got a stage and in

his in his living room. Right, he's got a stage in the side

of draft. So that was one
of the things we did in the design.

was proposed that there would be a
stage and there a place for,

you know, late night salons with
actors and directors and other artists to come

and hang out at the house.
And you can just imagine these, you

know, booze and fused parties that
and there's grand piano and inevitably someone's going

to wind up on the stage singing
some show tunes and and that's going to

go on pretty late at night.
He's not going to make a lot of

friends on that floor, which is
probably another problem that's been feeling with their

building. It's probably why bunny had
it in for him so the stage was

important. That was the first thing
that came up with and then everything else

sort of came out from there in
the ground plan and then we just decorated

the well, we, I say
we, but it's rich in his career,

just decorated the crap out of it
and every time I walked in there

it was there was more and more
and more and and I started looking at

the books and like where did all
these books come from? And Rich is

like other mine we talking about?
He's like, Oh no, their mine

run from my storage and it's all
my theater books from theater school. I

was like no, I got out
of graduate school around the same time and

he still had all of these models
from sets that he built in Grad School.

So he shipped those in. Oh
Wow, and we put those models

into the a study area. So
it was a very easy sort of collaborative

I'm like, Oh God, I
don't many models left. I threw them

all out when I was kid,
but I but I haven't and kept mine

and sitting in storage and I'm so
happy that they're gone for my life and

now they're part of television history,
another part of television history, like Oh,

you know, I lost my Riverside
Shakespeare. Oh well, you know,

never going to read that again.
This is so funny because, given,

and I was just talking about,
I had probably, I finally cleared

out a closet night, about a
hundred and fifty plays from Samuel said French,

which is us all right. As
to a hundred fifty plays, whether

they were it was amazing and I
literally just gave him. I tried to

get them back to Samuel French and
then a school or anything, and nobody

and I gave them to goodwill,
but I really tried to stall. It's

so funny that we're time about.
I purged and it feels good. Yeah,

it's only there had been a show
with like a play right that you

could stock, because stocked and given, I think it would be easier to

do some spring cleaning if you are
giving your stuff to a TV show where

you can kind of visit it again, because you could just put on Hulu

and see all your stuff and you
don't have to pay for a storage unit.

Yeah, send years later. Yeah, I think also, if you

have, you know, really cool
stuff that would lend itself really well to

somebody really theatrical, like like Oliver. I don't know. Do you guys

remember? When I talk to Jess
Rosenthal, the producer during season one,

he told us about Oliver's dining room
that looked like an Italian opera house.

Yeah, that really paints a picture. You get it, get, you

get it, and then you know
and all the world of stage. You

put a little stage. It's literally
I think you can see the stage from

his table. Yeah, so you
can do anything with any of that stuff.

So it, yeah, like painted
a picture for yeah, so,

because just brought it up by Astrich
and Kurt about it and they had another

really cool backstory for that one.
This was once again another story that we

invented ourselves and took to John and
it became a backstory that, you know,

just had life. So the story
of the wallpaper is that we imagine

that Oliver's father might have been an
opera director and that Oliver was the black

sheep of the family going into theater. Oh No, so he went into

musical theater and Broadway and that was
looked down upon, but he still loved

the opera. So let me pull
up, let me pull up this dining

room to refresh your memory. Oliver's
dining room. Yes, I made it's

pretty beautiful. I mean there's a
lot of them. It's very ornate,

it's very or I think that he
is. Gosh, it looks like when

you are going on a tour of
like an opera us in Europe. And

this is Exi. This is exactly
what you would imagine. That's his homage

to his daddy and this is his
dining room and this is yeah, and

it's also you remember where he pitches
splash the musical? Yes, yes,

the ill faded everything, just flashy, just the ill face, very theatrical.

Yes, definitely. And they actually
painted each of those scenes like one

by one. Curt says, they
had the art department make the wallpaper from

scenes of the opera so that when
he was pitching, like we saw him

pitch watch the musical, it was
like he was on a stage performing.

And it was actual met opera painters
who painted the drapery in the center of

the of the room too, because
apparently the opera was not happening because it's

covid. It was covid there wasn't
have anything happening. So they they basically

created their own wallpaper. Yeah,
the whole I mean they did that a

lot in a lot of the place, but that specifically I thought was p

details, KK details, and none
of them were clues. I mean yeah,

not yet, not maybe, not
for the murder. And then rich

found a little what was the little
thing at the end of the room that

you was tenzero pounds of marble?
Was So funny about the whole series as

you don't see it, I don't
think, at all in the entire first

season. And it is just the
most gloriously European car marble mantelpiece that is

like ten feet wide, tenzero pounds, and was just stupid and it and

I looked at him like of course
this is the answer. Yeah, it's

the answer, until you bring it
on the set and we have to reinforce

the stage underneath. Try storing it
over a summer and reinstalling it. So

okay, so they had to put
tenzero pounds of marble away for the summer

and take it back out again for
season two. I mean it's not like

a public storage kind of thing where
it's not like no, it's gonna put

it in. They literally I don't
know what if they use a crane,

I don't really know what tenzero pounds
feels like get that you haul just throw

a top over it. But for
the vest. Yeah, yes, is

amazing how this is now the second
I'm sure there's many, many more,

but the second one they were talking
that. They were talking about with the

Doggie, all the doggy closet thing
that wasn't seen in the season two.

All the thought processes that we're going
to hopefully see in the second larking still

lurking now. Well, apparently you
get to see the marble of it in

season two and rich also says now
by thinking about making like a vacuum form

or plastic sculpted version of it to
make it easier to move on the crew.

Finally they listened to me. But
it's not just in the dining room

that that opera theme is present.
It's actually kind of throughout the entire apartment.

There's a chair that I founded an
auction that was from the original Metropolitan

Opera House from s and that sits
right next to the piano in the living

room. There's a scrap of architectural
salvage that hangs above his bar that was

from the original Opera House and then
just every thing we did was about the

show. Oh, in there I'm
including even like the sheet music on the

piano, is often the Duke Ellington
version of solitude. Yeah, so it's

all about the character. I mean
it's really sort of staff Oliver is responsible

for so much comedic relief it's easy
to forget about his loneliness and solitude.

And he's probably eating lean cuisines for
one. Yeah, but do you remember?

I mean listen, it's all about
like, you know, like a

clown's laughing on the inside, you
know the kind of stuff. It's all.

I mean, there really is.
Comedy comes from tragedy through a lot

of times, and that's the truth
of it, though. That's why it's

really hard to do comedy at time. Really is dying's easy, comedies hard.

Yeah, they's a big time.
Yeah, I think it's cool kind

of that, you know, all
of his triumphs and his failures are on

display and his apartment with all the
show posters and that that sort of thing.

And Kurt says that they had a
lot of fun coming up with the

titles and the posters for those.
This is a parlor game between rich and

John Coming up with names for these
ridiculous plays that went up on the walls

the list was little and it kept
going back and forth between the two of

them and eventually group whittling it down. What were some of your favorites?

Rich? You remember new work.
Newark, I think, was the favorite.

That's why we did that one really
big Newark, nework with I think

I actually remember seeing that one.
I definitely remember that one too. Yeah,

I remember that one. And then
you know, because there's somebody new

work, new work. Yeah,
it was the other but obviously the main

one. Splash, the music,
Blat, are SPLAT was it's flat.

It was splash, but they,
the critics, called it splash, like

Wa wait, wait a minute,
where was I? Yeah, yes,

I saw that. They they put
a couple of them onto the only murders

instagram that I can show you.
They've got this one. Splash, the

music all splash, and that's a
big one too. So good. This

one. Everyone can whistle in the
rain. That seems like a knockoff of

something I remember. Yeah, I
don't know what that is, but I

remember the visual of that. There's
new work, new work. Yes,

remember that one. And then this
one. I didn't even see that.

That's a dolls house and you know
it's a woman in a very small house.

Yeah, I actually don't get the
reference on that one. Do you

guys get the reference? The A
dolls house? Yeah, just a big

person in a little house. I
don't know Itsen. Yeah. Well,

yeah, there. I mean,
Oh, I see, I see.

So he did Ibsen, but he
made this really sight. Yeah, all

high. Yes, yes, exactly, got Yah, that makes sense.

Yeah, the woman is a very
small doll house. Literally, they missed

the point. I got scart.
I did read that play. So he's

place and full of all those little
inside jokes and like the rest of the

art and the all in his face
is all stuff he's told from a set,

stuff that is wife liked and he
still you know, when they were

still married, and he just stole
from a set, you know, and

it none of its any significance really. It's all the other little stuff around

the house that Urs. You know. He also one of the little things

that we have there in all of
hers is that he sort of scattered and

he sort of impulsive. So like
on every table or every little legend the

house there's like three or four or
five empty teacups because he drops, he

drops his team to go answer the
door, you know, and he drops

his team to go, you know, but I just thought of something.

He runs to the camp, you
know, and so there's all those little

bits of things where it's just a
mass in his house, but if you

look at it even closer, it's
really just a dirty tea bag sitting in

the different teacups and that and that. I walked onto the this set is,

you know, in the hours before
we are going to shoot it,

and I'm walking around like what is
up with all the tea cups, to

like what's going on with the teacups, and he's like, well, here's

the story with the teacups. I'm
was like makes all this party walked in

it, like my God, I
can't believe this. You know, when

you have that sort of freedom to
collaborate and play like this, it's just

magic. What's the most fun ever, you know. I mean, and

we're doing it this season too.
Who Kurty sound sadly, I see the

tears, but we're, you know, we're doing this. It's the same

thing this season as well. We're
having a blast and like when you think

of Bunnies, what a bunny's doing
everything. That's you know, that's where

we're going with Bunny's apartment. Who
Was Bunny? Who is this character?

And that's the enough enough. Oh
No, come on, what do you

bunnys do? What a bunnies do? Well, jumping and sex. Yes,

sex. Yeah, I couldn't tell
I couldn't tell it. He said

that if he was giving away a
clue and he was trying to shut him

where and he was trying to shush
him, or if he was like clutching

his pearls and going like, you
know, sex thing. Yeah, I

don't know. Think it was a
oh, yeah, I don't know.

I choose to believe there's a clue
in there, but he didn't give it

to us. So I don't know. But are you guys ready to learn

about Mabel and what her apartment tells
us about her? Now? Definitely.

I'm very curious about Maple's apartment.
What do you think? You know about

maple based on where she lives?
You mean blame, I think. Well,

it's well, first of all,
it's her aunt's aparts. Are Ont

apartment's very industrial, let's put it
that way. She made a choice.

He made a choice to not do
a thing. So I don't know,

it's so, but being renovated Righto. They but it's a bit you know,

she seems to me like she covers
her loneliness to and I see it

in there. If she does,
she doesn't want anything done to it.

You know, maybe she acts like
she's got it all together, but then

maybe she feels like she doesn't deserve
to fix it up. I don't know.

It's I think she's got some depth
to her and a very slow renovator.

Yeah, here's what here's what Kurt
said about it. I mean the

most basic way to think of Mabel's
is that it is what she is,

which is work in progress, simply, and this renovation project that was stopped

at some point. You know,
she hasn't done anything since she's walked in

and we just wanted it to be
beautiful in a ruinous kind of way,

and I think it is. And
we just we found this piece of reference

with this wall that had been removed
down to the studs and it's great.

It gives instant depth from every angle
and it really worked out nicely. So

there are some details in her place
that you have to look a little bit

harder for. That Joe a little
bit of history and that apartment that,

if there's an s layer, s
s layer to it. There's the mural

work that she's doing, which is
really important. There's a lot of like

trash and stuff from the renovation project
that people kept cleaning up. Drove me

in the same it's all dressing and
everyone's like, oh my, guess we

need to move this stuff. We
got to get this sail belongs right there.

I put it there, kept the
movie that same place. Why do

people and why are you putting trash
in the dumpster? For cleaning trash on

the dumpster? You think it's a
dumpster. It's not. It's set decoration

for that was a challenge and then
we finally shot it. I was like,

what is that roll of paper doing
there? And someone had this same

thing. The opposite thing happened where
people were putting down construction things to do

projects in there, getting in the
days leading up, but then no one

cleaned it up because I was being
such specific about not cleaning up in there.

So there's some things in there that
don't really belong there, but they

became a fact once it had been
shot. You know, careful what you

w but that's funny that people were
actually leaving extra stuff. They're like who

left tenzero pounds of marble on Naples
couch. What's happening here? I mean

you definitely notice if there is tenzero
pounds of marble and maple's apartments, because

you know there's just not a lot
of stuff in there. You know she

hasn't lived there nearly as long as
Oliver and Charles and you know, as

you said, it's not even really
her apartment. It belongs to her aunt.

And I think, think, you
know, when I think about Mabel's

apartment, I think the most prominent
piece of furniture I think of is that

Really Old Sofa, if you know. Right, HMM, the Sofa was

just a and that was one of
the first pieces of research that John Sent

Us was the Sofa for Maples.
He just wanted a really cool, classy,

vintage old thing that to anyone else
looks like it just came out of

a dumpster, out of an alley, and to us was the most important

or most expensive piece of furniture we
bought last season, which is we are

right. Yeah, that's happy.
So maybe, yes, is like thousand

dollars. So it's real, it's
real. It's an excellent condition. It's

forty five years old. It's glorious. Yeah, it never lived in a

fraternity house, which is good.
Wait, how many thousand dollars for the

couch? Yeah, we couldn't make
it out in his audio when we were

listening back, so we emailed him
and asked him and he said Fourteen Thousand

Dollars for that Sofa. That's all
my furniture. Does Mabel even have a

job? Like, have we established
how she makes money? It was it?

Is it her couch or was it
her yeah, I mean, is

everything else in storage? These are
all really good question, I think,

based on what? First of all, does she have a job? I

have no idea. I would love
to know, but based on what rich

said, I think it's safe to
say that the sofa bow long to her

aunt. That makes sense. Look
back at it down and I'm like,

Oh yeah, you know, I
see the world where that Sofa and those

chandeliers and those curtains live, and
then her aunt, I don't think,

is as run a bit recently and
it's sort of run down, although she

has the money in the wherewith all
do to Reto it. That's why Maples,

that's why she's there. So it's
so it's a perfect sort of like

blank slate for Mabel, and yet
all of this rich texture and interesting intricative

detail all at once. It's a
very good expression of the original world of

the Arconia architecture. To where Steve's
has been heavily renovated, Marty's has been

done in a gentleman's lounge style,
this one is probably the closest to the

original layout and style of the architecture
of the Arconia. I say it like

it's a real place. I might
as well be at this point. It

exists now on Google maps. Have
you seen that? You can search for

the Arconia on Google maps and it
comes up. I did not know that.

We should go look it up right
now, shall yes, it's right

next door to a CBS pharmacy and
actually, if you look at the street

for you, that's definitely Oh,
that's definitely it, because at the courtyard

and the art. Yeah, look
at that. So this is the exterior

of the Arconia. You know,
they said they shot some of the lobby

scenes there and also you know the
the episode where the hardy boys break into

one of the apartments. Right,
apparently that apartment is in the real is

real building and then I think they
probably did the apartments on a stage where

they could just the rest of the
yeah, well, access all the time

doing the exteriors in the heartibores thing. It's great. Yeah, so,

I mean I think it's really cool
to learn, you know, all kinds

of how all this information is hidden
inside of the production design for Charles and

Oliver and Mabel. So obviously that
begs the question. You know, what

about Jan Oh? She's just oh, the sexy bassoonist. That one had

to be done pretty much down the
middle in order to keep it as a

as a secret. So initially her
foy a is kind of hiding what's within.

So we tried to make that look
kind of safe and pretty and nothing

like the horror that she is.
We had to try to trick the audience

with that one. But this is
this tericle because we when we get to

the end, when Oliver and Mabel
break into her apartment and into her bathroom

and they find her kit full of
poisons. We found a wall paper that

was called nightshade and it's all poisonous
plants and it's all like Alice in Wonderland,

and that was her bathroom wall paper. It was this like poison potion

plant growing vye craziness, and then
it also had like alarm clocks and Andy

Kaines and stuff in it was totally
whacked out. Alice in wonderment poison world,

and we're like this is, of
course, her path. I want

to go back and watch that episode
now because I want to get a better

look at this. But don't you
think that would be fun to have that

wallpaper in your bathroom? Yeah,
see if people start commenting on it,

I wcause then you have a whole
story. Yeah, I don't know if

I would, if I would recognize
poisonous plants on a wall paper, you

know, and if I did,
that would say something kind of heard about

it. Probably would. So I
did try to get some information about season

two out of them. Good try, Maggie. God, how did this

go? Do you want to hear
what rich said? Yes, okay,

last thing is, I know,
Kurt, you're not on season two,

but rich, maybe you can tell
us anything you can tell us about about

season two. I guess we've learned
that we're going to see bunny's apartment.

That's pretty exciting. Yeah, Bunny's
dead, Um, so we get to

see her space and of course,
like Tim Kno's last season, it plays

in this featured pretty heavily and that
was such a joy to do because,

like you'd think, you know who
bunny is and until you sit down and

try to pick her wallpapers again,
she's also the sort of meticulous detail focus

bill. She always holds the grudge
and she always remembers every little note.

So we had to work all of
that into bunnies this season. So,

you know, big takeaway here is
I think that bunny is a lot more

complex than we ever may have realized
string season one. Okay, Maggie,

that's reaching, but yes, I
mean it. Yes, absolutely, but

are you trying to see buy's apartment? Wow, how do you picture her

apartment? I see a couch that
has those plastic covers on it. Oh

yeah, I see a Glass Crystal
Candy dish with hard candies that are still

like stuck together. You are reminding
me of the seven ties. So you're

really you really see bunny as an
old lady, like a classical. That's

how I picture her apartment. So
did you? Guys? Do you feel

like you learned anything new about Charles
or Oliver Mabele based on, you know

what, curtain rich told us.
Really, if I look at them now,

I really can see the frenetic of
the one and the calm of the

other, the way this actor was
more, you know, serene and in

when hit in his television and he
was all out there with his State.

It just really shows the differences of
the two. And at Oliver's he had

so much stuff, like the teacups
and the dog closet and everything else,

that it's there's so much stuff that
you almost don't notice the loneliness and it

getting back to it again, it's
almost like he's surrounding himself with things so

he's not so alone, right,
he's around like his friends. Yeah,

he finds comfort in that, finds
coover. And you look at that table.

That was a big table, right. So he used to have big

dinner parties and now he's just taping
cuisine for one, for one. Yeah,

that's true. I also feel like
we still really don't know very much

about me bowl, except you know
that she's a work in progress, and

I wonder, like does that make
her suspicious? Yes, yeah, well,

we don't know what she does.
What does she do for? Where

she goes? She was left money. Even that wait her an still still

around right, but given her by, maybe she has some sort of you

know, she is. Yeah,
you don't, yeah, and I don't

know. I still she's I mean, I'm still going to call her blame.

So let's start on there. Thanks
for listening to this very special bonus

episode of only murders in the pod. Keep sending your thoughts and theories to

us. That only murders at Straw
hut Mediacom. As we continue waiting for

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The show only murders in the pod

is a production of Straw hut media, hosted by me, Elizabeth Keener and

Kevin Lawn me, produced by Ryan
Tillotson, Maggie Bowls and William Sterling.

Associate producer is Stephen Markley. Original
Music by Kyle Merritt. Only murders in

the building original score music by Sadartha
Cozla, and big, big thanks to

Jon Hoffman, Ari Abashet and the
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