The Murderer
We’re back with the fourth and final season of Room 104. Say what you will about this anthology, The Duplass Brothers have undoubtedly created something weird and wonderful that’s as unpredictable as it is watchable. While not all the episodes hit the right notes, on the whole this show has done well to keep a consistent flow of creativity oozing through every aspect of its production. Episode 1 of Room 104 Season 4 begins with a boy named Logan gathering his friends excitedly in our familiar motel room. With a keg of beer beside them, Logan speaks. “I found Graham Husker,” He proclaims proudly as the others look at him shocked. As we soon learn, it turns out Graham went missing 20 years prior and even more bizarrely, had a mix-tape titled “The Murderer.” Following the release of this LP, in 1996 his car was found smashed to bits and Graham nowhere to be found. The only clue came in the form of a note inside reading “I am not a musician.” The reason for this gathering comes from a chance encounter Logan had with Graham. Now going by the alias Gary Horton, Logan invites him along to perform for them. With a golfing shirt, long, greasy hair and a broken guitar, Grahm is anything but a rock star. He immediately heads across the room and starts drinking thirstily from the keg. After handing over their phones, he begins playing. Only, midway through he feels sick and hurries into the bathroom. It’s just the opportunity Logan needs to grab his phone and record in private when Graham returns. Sensing Logan is recording, Graham takes his phone and destroys it in the microwave. In the wake of this, he takes Katherine into the bathroom and talks to her about his career and how the boys are vultures. As he continues to perform, he admits to Katherine that he killed his Mother. It’s just the release he needs and on the back of this, decides to perform a new song that confirms he’s a murderer. The boys finally understand and turn on Graham, beating him down to the ground and bolting from the room. Katherine stays behind though and tries to comfort Graham, who clearly isn’t in the right frame of mind. As he begins sobbing uncontrollably, she instead decides to put on the persona of his Mother. As she sings him to sleep, Katherine smiles and says good night, which is where the episode ends. On the surface, Room 104 delivers a pretty formulaic episode with just the right amount of mystery and uneasiness. What helps this stand out however, comes from the importance of music and the overall commentary toward the music industry and consumerism. While Graham’s lyrics are incredibly on-the-nose and easy to decipher, seeing Logan and the others completely miss the point hammers home the current issue plaguing the music industry. No one cares about lyrical content anymore as long as the song is catchy. The clever idea of playing these songs in major key is a wonderful juxtaposition against those aforementioned lyrics and it helps make the episode feel that much darker. If this is a sign of things to come, it looks like we could be in for a real treat with Room 104’s final season. For now though, this is definitely one of the stronger episodes of the entire four season run.
