What happened to Mabel’s friend/boyfriend that nobody remembers now?
Spoilers for ‘Only Murders in the Building’ below.
The second season of ‘Only murders in the building’ is here with Mabel, Oliver and Charles fighting for their freedom when they realize that they are being set up to hold them responsible for a new murder.
While Bunny Folger wasn’t exactly sweetness personified at the Arconia, there’s very little reason anyone would want her dead…or so they would have you believe. But even though the series begins literally seconds after the cliffhanger from the first season, with Mabel found on Bunny’s corpse and covered in her blood, it seems that somehow she has lost an ally on that short road: her boyfriend (or something like that) Oscar.
Oscar was a childhood friend of Mabel, whose father was the superintendent of the Arconia building. The two played detective together as ‘The Hardy Boys’ when they were little, but their friendship was derailed when Oscar was falsely accused of killing another of his friends, Zoe. By the end of the first season, their relationship had turned into something morewith Oscar’s name cleared of guilt and his romance with Mabel seemingly on a pretty promising trajectory.
But in the first two episodes of the second season it has completely disappeared, apparently without a trace. What happened?
In fact, despite sharing a long-standing friendship and having a developing romantic relationship, It seems like Mabel really wouldn’t mind not seeing him again in her life, which is a bit of a weird change of tone in their relationship..
It takes an episode and a half for the poor guy to be mentioned, and only because Oliver jokes about it when he sees Mabel laughing at her cell phone while they’re in an elevator together. Asking if it was Oscar who “has her smiling like that”, Mabel hides her developing romance with artist Alice (Cara Delevingne) and instead tells her that she has screwed things up with her former best friend.. But when has this happened?
“The traumatic bond is strong, but I think both Oscar and I are waiting for the ‘let’s just be friends’ message,” he says. “When things settle down, it’s hard to know what comes next”Oliver replies to reassure her, without asking any more about what exactly went wrong or where Oscar is now.
But considering the lengths Mabel went to to clear her name in the first season, it seems strange that Oscar doesn’t return the favor (or at least tries to) in season twowhere she’s being framed for a murder she didn’t commit, and he probably knows she wasn’t capable of doing it.
Even a little comment about Oscar needing to lay low because he just got out of prison for murder (another wrongful indictment) would provide a little more justification for his absence. But disappear completely despite his connection to the Arconia building and Mabel? Weird. very very rare.
It’s all made even more bizarre by the idea that every cast member seemed to suggest that Oscar would return this season when discussing upcoming episodes in interviews. In October 2021, series co-creator John Hoffman even suggested that he would become even more involved in Mabel’s story as the pair try to navigate this new stage of their lifelong connection..
“I love Aaron Dominguez and we’ve talked a lot about his character,” the creator said in dead line. “I think it’s a really complicated relationship that he and Mabel have and it’s going to be interesting to see where it goes. There are certain dreams that they both have where they recognize who they are together, but I think they have work to do to understand exactly who they are and if they are meant to be together.“.
However, it seems that there was a change of plans, as the trailer for the second season was released on March 26, 2022 and revealed that Dominguez and Amy Ryan (who plays Jan) had stepped down as series regulars.
That’s not so surprising as far as Jan is concerned; after all, as the killer in the first season, we knew that she was headed straight to jail and that she would be there most of the time. But Oscar losing his position as a central character? That was an unexpected twist.
This seems to have surprised the actor and fans alike, as the actor posted a screenshot on Instagram from Brad Pitt’s ‘Fight Club’ movie, with the quote: “Only after you have lost everything are you free to do anything”. The message, posted the same day the trailer was released, offered no further context, with fans demanding in the comments if he would return in ‘Only Murders in the Building’, but got no response.
Until that moment, the actor had expressed his pride in being involved in the series, sharing images of him with his co-star Selena Gomez during the filming of the scenes between Mabel and Oscar. Just three weeks earlier, he had shared snapshots of him at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where he was representing ‘Only Murders in the Building’ while they waited to find out if they had won any of the three awards to which they aspired.
He later released a lengthy statement calling the evening “an honor and a privilege” and acknowledging that he rubbed elbows with “those who inspired him to pursue the art of performance.” “Thanks to all the team at [‘Solo asesinatos’] Y [Hulu] 💚”, he added. “To my producers and writers Jess Rosenthal, Dan Fogelman, [Johnny Hoffman] and all the other creators, thank you, thank you. For my wonderful cast, this dream was made possible by all the hard work we put in day in and day out. This is for all of us.”
It’s not yet known if we can expect an appearance from Oscar in the future of the series, but the sudden absence and excuses in these early episodes are not promising at all. However, again, we still have another eight episodes to go before the killer is revealed.
Who knows? Maybe there’s a reason she dropped out of the series’ narrative so quickly…and there’s a reason Mabel doesn’t seem as bothered by her sudden absence. Either way, we hope there is some justice for a character who still had a lot to offer.
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
