Beginning an episode of television with an appearance by Becky Ann Baker is a powerful move. It garnered a ten-minute standing ovation in my living room. And then to see her be joined by her real-life husband, Dylan Baker? What a gift! Not to mention that these are quite literally Karen Cartwright’s parents on Smash. This is history. But this quick glimpse of them at the episode’s start is just a tease.

Before we find out what brings the royal couple of character acting to our screens, we flashback to the trio preparing for their interview with Mayor Tillman. This Call Her Daddy-esque pivot to becoming an interview podcast comes thanks to their contractual obligations (and limitations) with Wondify. Those limitations are so firm that when the mayor tries to bring up their murder case, they have to shut him down and explain that they can no longer cover it because their suspects bought Wondify to keep them quiet. At first Mayor Tillman seems shocked to discover that Bash is on their suspect list, but after sending his aide out of the room for a coffee, he turns to them and tells them, “Bash Steed is your murderer.”

As it turns out, that aide is Bash’s niece, put there to be his eyes and ears in the mayor’s office. While Tillman doesn’t have any concrete proof of Bash’s guilt, he’s known him long enough to know that he would do anything to get ahead, including murder. Knowing what it’s like to be under the control of Bash’s money, he encourages them to keep investigating him anyway and gives them a lead: he conveniently overheard his aide mention that Bash is hosting a fancy billionaire function at his country estate.

If you could believe it, Oliver is reluctant to embark on what already sounds like the premise of a murder mystery, but gets talked into it when Mabel and Charles tell him that a trip to the country is a good excuse to wear the cowboy boots Linda Lavin gave him. I love that this show never runs out of theater references for Oliver to make just to woo me specifically. But upon arrival, it’s clear that Oliver was right to be trepidatious. It looks like the manor from The Traitors, but if Alan Cumming really was going to kill you. And perhaps most hauntingly, they spot a creepy little boy in a suit sharpening a shiv, who we find out is Bash’s son. Give this ominous little child an Emmy, or at least a Julio Torres-written starring vehicle.

After sneaking into the estate, they spot our three billionaires — who, from behind, look just like Kendall, Shiv, and Roman Roy — playing Operation. No, they aren’t doing mad science experiments on a body like you might expect (or like our trio did with Nicky’s autopsy) — they’re playing the board game Operation. It’s just a regular game night, they insist, but Mabel tries to call their bluff by insisting they stay and watch. But sure enough, a regular game night in which they compete for a little plastic trophy is exactly what plays out. Maybe they’ll have better luck splitting them up again?

So that’s exactly what they do, all getting some solo time with each of their respective emotional-support billionaires. Camila asks Oliver about his apartment, and slowly becomes furious that she never got a thank you from him for her complete redesign of the space. Naturally, her threat to cut off his balls for his lack of gratitude and appreciation for her interior design acumen is enough to spook Oliver into abandoning any investigating work altogether.

Charles has better luck outside, where he confronts Bash for catfishing him, and, secondarily, doing a murder. But he denies killing anyone, pointing to his hatred of death. As it turns out his obsession with youth isn’t vanity based, but rather because he never wants his creepy little son to lose him the way he lost his own father. That’s all good and well, but he doesn’t give any explanation for the catfishing.

Meanwhile, Mabel is confronting her former crush for buying Wondify to muzzle them. But Logan Lerman’s Jay is so damn charming that even this confrontation turns into further flirtation almost instantly. He’s so good at downplaying his shady connections and reputation that even a jaded pro like Mabel can’t help but fall for it. He assures her that they’re just bored eccentrics trying to hash out a bet, but then he says too much (unless he meant to), by adding, “The same one we were trying to settle the last time we were in that gaming parlor.” Finally, a tidbit of new information about that night.

So Mabel strikes a deal that speaks their language: she proposes they go head-to-head in a game, trio vs. trio, and if they win, they have to answer their questions. However, if the billionaires win, they promise to drop the entire case and halt the investigation. I will say, if these billionaires killed someone, I’m not so sure their moral compass will force them to hold their end of a bargain, but it’s worth a shot.

But Oliver has seen enough; he’s ready to leave, no matter how desperately his friends try to guilt him into staying “for Lester.” He adds that, unlike the two of them, he actually has someone to lose in Loretta — storming out on that particularly cutting remark and leaving Mabel and Charles left to fend for themselves.

Worst of all, the game they’re playing is Celebrity, and the category they draw is “Broadway,” which Oliver would have demolished. Fittingly, at that moment, he’s outside roaming to freedom while singing Sondheim. They especially could have used that leg up from him after the billionaires did well with “historical figures” by using personal anecdotes about their dictator friends. But while Mabel struggles to give hints at first, it suddenly clicks, and she’s able to place these stage stars by using various eccentric Oliver Putnam anecdotes about each one. He ends up carrying them to victory in absentia, which means the billionaires have to tell them what was going on in the Arconia’s gaming parlor that night.

The billionaires were (fittingly) gambling to decide which of them would score a major development contract: New York City’s first casino. This explains why the show has been leaning so hard into calling the Arconia’s casino a “gaming parlor.” It’s also a timely plotline for the show — just last month, a bid to put the city’s first casino in Times Square was fortunately shot down, and it’s clear that such a development would be equally detrimental to the city in the world of Only Murders.

So as it turns out, all of this was just about this casino deal and a stupid little trophy … but when Mabel picks up said little trophy, she sees the billionaires all on edge. Rather than putting it down like they instruct, she shatters it, revealing that inside was the missing finger stolen from Charles’s apartment. This thing really gets around, huh? At this point, I’m shocked she couldn’t smell it in there.

While Jay tries to corner them to keep them from leaving with the finger that they all apparently want so badly, he warns Mabel that they’re in danger if they keep it. “You have no idea how much they paid to get that,” he tells her, but who did they pay? And why? Is fingerprint recognition software involved? And how’d they get it from Charles’s apartment? It’s in this moment that Jay has a choice: either trap them there to steal back the finger, or let her go, and he chooses the latter. I’ve been wary of Jay’s charms since the podcast deal, but this at least is some indication that there’s a real person in there.

Out in the wilderness of Connecticut, Oliver is still trying to walk toward civilization, or at least cell service. When he finally achieves the latter, he sees that a panicked Loretta has reported him missing. Right on queue, he finds Becky Ann and Dylan Baker on their farm just as they get the Silver Alert. Sure enough, every detail of his life that Oliver shares with them sounds more and more like he’s wandered off from a memory care facility, but as he’s trying to explain his bizarre situation with them, he realizes that he’s left his dearest friends alone with a group of potentially murderous billionaires. So it’s back to the manor he goes to save them from their clutches, rolling up on a tractor to collect his pals for a not-so-speedy getaway.

Back at the Arconia, finger in tow, you’d imagine they’re safe from the billionaires, but sure enough in walks Camila to settle their “little tiff.” Does this building not have a buzzer? She explains that, somehow, the finger decides who gets the contract for the city’s first casino. I’m eager to eventually find out how a rogue finger could influence that decision (or put a finger on the scale, so to speak), but for now I’ll just accept that somehow it does. She details all of their respective casino plans: Jay wants to open his at the 92Y in a move that would surely make Fran Lebowitz homicidal, Bash wants to open his in a space ship over Times Square, but Camila says hers will be so chic that “Gwyneth Paltrow will be shitting her capris” — a line harkening back to Renée as Roxie Hart singing, “Sophie Tucker will shit I know, to see her name get billed below…”

But chic or not, they deny her demands for the finger … at least until she pulls out a gun on them, at which point they have no choice but to turn it over. Digit in hand, it looks like Camila’s casino will be a go, but the real gag is where she’s planning on opening it. It turns out that the mysterious offer on Oliver’s apartment was just the beginning of her plan to buy up the Arconia and turn it into a casino. “Hopefully they’ll have murders in your next building too,” she tells them.

 The Arconia crew gets some answers out of the billionaires holding up their investigation, but knowing what they’re up to only leads to more danger.