Steve Martin (Charles-Haden Savage), Martin Short (Oliver Putnam), Selena Gomez (Mabel Mora), Michael Cyril Creighton (Howard Morris), Meryl Streep (Loretta Durkin), Beanie Feldstein (Althea), Téa Leoni (Sofia Caccimelio), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Detective Donna Williams), Christoph Waltz (Bash Steed), Dianne Wiest (Lorraine Coluca), Andrea Bianchi (Sue), Elizabeth D’Onofrio (Nonna), Joshua Iverson (Young Artful Dodger), Camden Everett Kwok (Young Oliver Twist), John Leone (Realtor), Hayes McCracken (Young Oliver), Judah Horenfeldt (Young Pickpocket #1), Oliver Logue (Young Pickpocket #2), Avion Burrell (Young Pickpocket #3), Nico Calero (Young Pickpocket #4), Jim O’Hare (Al), Ivy Schur (Tween Girl), Rigby Sheehan (Pat Rafferty), Ian Unterman (Fagin)

It took half the season, but Meryl Streep is finally back. Loretta and her Wednesday Addams braids make their grand return to the Arconia for the first time since her wedding, but sadly it’s for an unfortunate reason. Her apartment of 47 years burned down, and she lost everything in the fire. “But let’s put aside the gloom and doom; let’s talk murder,” she says, which is a phenomenal line. As we saw at the end of last week’s episode, Sofia and Rainey appear to be up to no good, which means the trio finally has two suspects that their Wondify contract doesn’t stop them from podcasting about. And in even more good news, Sofia returned Charles’s phone without issue, and he’s put that relationship behind him – so he’s back to the dating apps to satiate his testosterone-fueled appetite. Although he now has his phone, it turns out something else is missing. When Detective Williams arrives to collect the severed finger for testing, they discover that the cup holding it is empty. Based on the mysterious scuff marks near Charles’s freezer, it looks like someone with sticky fingers of their own broke in to steal it. So he and Mabel decide to take on that side mission, sending Oliver and Loretta to check out what the widows are up to. As they head out to Oliver’s old stomping grounds in Flatbush, the rest of the gang bumps into Thē in the elevator, where Charles lets it slip that they’re investigating a potential break-in. As it turns out, the previous night, Thē spotted a suspicious light coming from one of the apartments on the 14th floor while doing ’shrooms with Seth Rogen (likely), and sure enough, it was Charles’s unit. The last thing Mabel wants is Thē encroaching on her turf even further, but Detective Williams (who can read their entire dynamic right off the bat) tells her she has to essentially grow up and work with her to get more information.

Mabel doesn’t exactly follow that advice, though, at least not at first. When they all track down the replacement LESTR to watch the security-camera footage of Charles’s door, there’s no sign of anyone, even though Thē claims she was there. Was she really, though, Mabel asks her, or was she just lying for attention? Naturally, Thē takes offense and storms out, just before they catch a glitch in the video that proves she was, in fact, there and that the footage had been tampered with. This, of course, creates a nightmare scenario for Mabel, in which she now has to go apologize to her nemesis. When she tries to do just that, she’s met with a shoe being hurled at her across Thē’s apartment … which, fair. The pair’s cold war finally comes to a head, and we get to hear Thē’s perspective on the end of their childhood friendship. Mabel was depressed after losing her friend, but since Thē didn’t know that, she just thought she was being ghosted, which in turn made her depressed – a classic Three’s Company–esque misunderstanding when you think about it. She even confesses that she’s always wanted to be like Mabel, even moving into the Arconia to emulate her. After talking this all through, they come to a truce, and Mabel now has a new old friend in the building with her. Beanie Feldstein masterfully changes this character from the almost caricature-like narcissist we first meet into one that’s much more dimensional, grounded, and pleasant, without it ever feeling like a jarring switch. It’ll be interesting to see how she continues to walk that line, what role this friendship plays moving forward, and most importantly, if the show releases Thē’s pop song on Spotify. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Oliver and Loretta (clad in sunglasses, a hat, and a long trench coat to avoid suspicion) arrive at Rainey’s home to discover that she’s conveniently having an open house, meaning they can waltz right in. They split up to investigate, and Loretta finds herself in a room with an “off-limits” sign on the door, because that might as well be a flashing neon arrow that says “Evidence This Way!” But as she begins to poke around the memento-filled room, Rainey bursts in, wielding a dagger. Dianne Wiest should get to hold weapons more often.

But fear not, we find out that she’s simply an opera fanatic and it was a prop used by Maria Callas in her final performance of Tosca at the Met. But now she’s selling it, along with her home and many of her other belongings from her life with Lester, which is something that Loretta, who is still grieving the loss of everything she owns, can’t wrap her head around. But Rainey tells her that it’s Lester she wants, not the stuff. Isn’t it nice when suspects can offer wisdom that’s so perfectly applicable to whatever struggle the characters investigating them are going through? Ultimately, Rainey wins over Loretta, who buys the dagger just so Rainey can keep it as a memory of Lester. But just as she’s telling Oliver that she believes Rainey is innocent, the pair spot her with Sofia making yet another suspicious handoff and decide to trail them. Unfortunately, they almost immediately get distracted and lose them, but Oliver finds himself outside of the old theater that made him fall in love with the medium when he was a kid. In fact, this whole jaunt to Flatbush has been a somewhat haunting trip down memory lane for Oliver, who has been having flashbacks of being bullied and judged for his little purple scarf and penchant for the arts. This all just further supports what we already know: Martin Short is the most culturally gay straight man we have. He and Loretta go inside and recite some of the lines they never got to deliver from their old respective projects, but as they finish, there’s clapping from the audience. Sofia and Rainey are sitting in the balcony, like a gender-bent Statler and Waldorf. Despite how sinister that reveal was, and how suspicious they’ve been acting, it turns out they’ve got a pretty good story. They say that the handoff the previous night was just Sofia giving Rainey the money Nicky owed Lester from their business dealings, and today Sofia was lending Rainey a prop gun for a production of Newsies she’s directing at that theater. But wait a minute … is there a gun in Newsies? I have no memory of there being a gun in Newsies, but Loretta and Oliver seem to just accept this explanation. If you or a loved one were in a production of Newsies that required a gun, please comment below to clear Rainey’s name.

It’s during this exchange that Rainey informs us that Lester wasn’t even supposed to be working the casino the night he died, and that he had taken off to attend Oliver’s wedding. She also hands over a bird-shaped bird whistle that he had on him when he died to aid the investigation, so at least Oliver and Loretta are walking away with something. When they return to the Arconia, Oliver pulls Mabel aside to tell her that he will, in fact, be moving from the building. I feel like we’ve seen this kind of story line play out before, so it feels a little “Boy Who Cried Wolf,” but Oliver says he won’t be leaving the Upper West Side, so we shouldn’t be too impacted by this move in any case. And speaking of stories that we’ve seen play out before, Charles is flirting away with someone he shouldn’t be. This time, it’s the mystery woman from his dating app, and he’s being a little too forthcoming about the case to keep the conversation going. Not only that, but as Detective Williams shows them the footage of Lester’s death, which has also clearly been tampered with, Charles realizes there’s a familiar logo in the corner. The dating app he’s using and the security-camera system are owned by the same company, and they quickly find out that that company is owned by … drumroll … Bash. The billionaire played by Christoph Waltz not only has been able to watch them this whole time, but he’s also been able to edit the security footage to have it show whatever he wants. And, if Charles’s online prospect is in fact a catfish like the others suspect, Bash could be the person he’s chatting to. Right on cue, he gets a haunting message, supposedly from Bash posing as “Priscilla,” that reads, “You’re such a smarty pants, now I need to come hunt you down.” I know they’re all assuming it’s Bash, but I’m still holding out hope that it’s a real lady who just happens to be flirting very ominously.