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Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building S02E07 “Flipping the Pieces” is truly a unique episode that takes on the intricacies of trauma and memory. There was a lot of focus on Mabel’s (Selena Gomez) drive for answers and how it turns into a self-discovery of coping mechanisms and their significance, along with some help from an unusual source.
Only Murders in the Building connects Mabel’s present situation with her experience and memories with her father, as both a very difficult and important time in her life. Her monologue about the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle was striking. Solving puzzles became a way for her and her father to distract themselves from the lessened amount of time spent together and the eventual illness he’d succumb to.
Hiding the image side of puzzle pieces from her trauma, Mabel realizes she’s only making it harder for herself to deal with it all, from her father’s death to her scary blackouts. Her brain simply is trying to help her in the only way it knows how by sheltering her from the overwhelming complexities of what she faces internally at this point. By accepting the assistance her memories can provide, the brain reveals important information that may just help point toward the killer in this season of Hulu’s hit streaming series.
With Theo’s (James Caverly) help, Mabel searches for answers related to Bunny’s murder and the particulars surrounding the incident on the subway. And once again, Only Murders in the Building does an excellent job with its use of perspective. For Mabel, it’s not simple or without repercussions when she flips back over the puzzle pieces of her memory from that night. When one trauma was settled, another arrived in the form of witnessing Bunny’s life slip away in her arms. While we may have previously gotten annoyed or impatient with her character for not remembering or having any clear and present thought on the past events, the reasons are so much clearer now.
Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building brings so much raw emotion to the reality of repressed memories, trauma, and the powers within the mind that take over in attempts to save us from inner turmoil. Even in the midst of a large mystery for Mabel, Oliver, and Charles, the series reminds us of the real terror that can sometimes be too much to handle, and it often comes from within. Sometimes the hardest work comes from flipping those puzzle pieces over in order to truly put things together in order to heal and find answers, Mabel’s story taught us that.
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