The best episode of the season so far, 'The Last Day of Bunny Folger' accomplishes a lot in its thirty-one minute of running time. For one, it reminds the viewers of the days when the main trio - Mabel, Charles, and Oliver - were relative strangers to us and each other. Back then, Oliver came across as a washed-up producer with a tendency to overshare, Charles could barely hold a meaningful conversation with anyone, and Mabel would be carelessly rude and judgemental. Of course, all of that still applies but, somewhere along the way, we saw that there was more to those characters and began to care for them. Bunny Folger never got that expanded treatment - until now.
Jayne Houdyshell plays the part of the cantankerous, caring, opinionated, resourceful, pedantic, hard-working, blunt, and unexpectedly generous character beautifully. We get to spend a day in Bunny's world, and much of it centres on the Arconia and, by extension, New York. Bunny had a closer relationship with the staff at her local diner than she had with her family, and her only truly intimate engagement seems to have been with the Arconia herself. Neither fact is presented as tragic - but the latter could have contributed to Bunny's untimely demise.
As far as the crime investigation goes, the episode proposes two obvious suspects: Nina, the new chair of the board, and the mysterious caller, who contacted Bunny on her mobile and was unceremoniously told off for that. Given that the first series gradually revealed the Dimas and Jan as criminals with entirely unconnected motives and modi operandi, it is possible more than one person is involved this time around, too.
Emotionally, this is a bitter-sweet segment: while Bunny's character is shown to have more depth, there is no reward for her. 'We at Only Murders did not kill Bunny Folger. But there's a chance we could have saved her life with a simple act of kindness.'
