[timer beeping] - [screams]
- How come we never catch killers
in someplace pretty,
like a rustic apple orchard
or the butterfly exhibit at the arboretum?
- Summers, please.
This isn't the time for mindless chitchat.
Save it for the office party tonight.
You are coming, right?
- I can't wait!
Some say office parties are where
many an office romance is born.
- Could you talk about this later?
- Wuh-uh...
Summers, do you have a work crush?
Okay, okay, let me guess. Uh, the chief.
The maintenance lady who changes our water cooler.
Kang?
- That's okay, Summers. Happens all the time.
Men, women, Siri... - I didn't get that.
Would you mind repeating, perhaps over dinner?
- No, I meant Wynona!
I talk about her all the time.
- I've never heard you say one word about her to me.
- He actually mentioned her when you guys first came in,
when you promised to get me out of here alive.
- Okay, okay, I get it. You like living.
You two are coming, right?
- Why? It's always the same.
You get drunk, you try to make out with the keg tap,
and then you AirDrop your dude nudes
to the entire office.
Last time, you ended up arresting yourself
for indecent exposure.
- Well, sounds like I caught the guy
and won the party,
just like I do every year,
because that's what the big dogs do.
We...
win.
[timer continues beeping]
- [sighs]
- Win.
What's everyone wearing tonight?
- Um, could someone please get me out of here?
- Please tell me she's not invited.
[all laugh]
[sighing] Oh...
[timer beeps]
[adventurous jazz music]
♪
[mysterious music]
[gates creak ominously]
- This is so awesome, Mr. Flesh.
My dad's bringing me to hang out
with his work friends.
- Yep, this is how it starts!
Respect, hugs with both arms, your first beer,
then the cover of "Good Dad-Having" magazine!
- I guess he finally doesn't see me as a baby anymore.
- Sorry, couldn't get a babysitter for Stan,
my baby who needs a babysitter 'cause he's a baby.
- [sighs]
- Great. We're all here.
Now we can get started.
- Wow, looks like Wayne Manor threw up.
- Hello, Kang. You look... puffy, as always.
- I've never understood why we work
with a convicted criminal.
- Allegedly.
- Not allegedly. You were convicted.
- So they say.
- That's the same thing as "allegedly."
- Presumably.
Oh, scoops!
- So whose mansion is this, anyway?
- It's mine.
And it's not just a mansion.
It's also a train.
Welcome to... my train-sion.
[dramatic music]
[all gasp]
♪
[train whistle blows]
♪ ♪
- I'm Alistair Chudwell.
You may know me as the Sultan of Splurt,
and I-- [clock chimes]
Ah, the top of the hour.
You see, I became chemically dependent
on my energy drinks
after giving up water in the '90s.
My doctor says I now need one an hour,
or I'll die. [chuckles]
Which is how we can legally say Splurt is doctor-recommended.
[gulps]
- I can't stand that guy.
My cousin got addicted to Splurt,
and his heart exploded,
along with the rest of his body.
He... tried to tackle a FedEx truck.
- I heard he has a secret tank
where he keeps his own "Shape of Water" sexy fish-guy,
and he won't let me see it!
- Now, contrary to what the poor
would like you to believe, money can buy happiness.
It's allowed me the chance to live out
all of my wildest fantasies.
Just last week, I paid a hefty sum
to have a three-panel "Garfield" cartoon
reenacted for me.
My scientists engineered a talking cat,
and I was able to get Paul Giamatti
to play Jon Arbuckle.
He was fair.
I think he may have been doing it for the money.
[yelps]
[laughs] You never get used to it.
But a few bumps are a small price to pay
to drive your choo-choo house around town.
- Alistair crafted a murder mystery party
so challenging that if we solve it,
he'll give the department a million dollars,
and that's one of my favorite numbers of dollars.
- I'm Howard... LaHubastank.
devoted husband to Ruth LaHubastank.
- Oh, that's me. I'm Ruth. - Mm...
- I'm in a marriage of practical convenience
and nothing more.
Whatever tiny spark was once there
died many years ago.
- Well, still your husband.
[mysterious music]
♪ ♪
- Aren't you gonna be a character, too,
Mr. Chudwell?
- Oh, I am. I'm Oliver Bricklet,
a poor millionaire for whom money is still an object.
I only have a private jet
because I can't afford to fly to space.
[laughs] Can you imagine?
[laughs]
And you are...
- I'm the detective!
- Okay, nobody's gonna believe you as a detective.
We should switch. You can be Curd,
a newsie with aggressive scoliosis.
- Ah-ah, you must play the card you were dealt.
- [New York accent] Fine. I sell my papes,
but I ain't gonna like it, mister.
[normally] Ugh, you know what?
I'm not gonna physically hunch over.
That might be in poor taste,
but I will let my weird back inform my performance.
- Did someone say "performance"?
That's my speciality.
I'm Gerta Gibbly, stunning film starlet
known for her romantic talkies
and her birdlike wrists.
- I'm Kitty von Killedherhusband.
- Tiny Timmy Oversocks.
- And I am Baroness Anna Dijonaise,
the first opera singer and...
♪ Astronaut ♪
- Well, now that we're all-- ring, ring.
Ring, ring? The telephone, at this hour?
I guess I'll go answer it,
in the parlor,
alone.
[clock chiming] - Ugh. Let me guess.
Lights go off, we hear a scream from the other room,
lights back on, there's been a murder.
- [screams]
[dramatic music]
- That was easy.
[train whistle blows]
- [screams]
Oh, wait, it's a game.
- Okay, fellow party guests...
slash suspects. [laughs]
I hope you each have a good alibi
as we embark on a long, twisty night--
- Already got it.
Couldn't be Gerta, with her birdlike wrists,
or Kitty, who was being hawkishly watched
by the baby detective.
Meanwhile, Ruth LaHubastank was too concerned
with her boring love life with Howard,
a man who we all know has the sexual power of an ottoman,
and last I checked, outside the empire,
ottomans can't kill.
- We're still talking about the character, right?
- Which leaves Tiny Timmy Oversocks,
whose little sailor fancy bow had me wondering
how a child could be this fancy
unless he was the bastard child of a poor millionaire
and here to take his revenge on Daddy.
Show me Tiny Timmy Oversocks!
- You are... [buzzer sounds]
Incorrect. - What?
- This is it, Stanatha Christie.
Time to give your father something he can brag about
other than your incredibly low birth weight.
- Um, I might have a guess.
- Stan, please.
Now, I think it might be a misprint and--
- I think it's Baroness Anna Dijonaise.
Her initials are B-A-D,
so maybe she's the bad guy?
- [accented] Extry, extry.
Baby detective whiffs it big-time!
[normally] You know, I decided to go with the hunch.
I think it's just who Curd is.
- The detective is...
[chime sounds] Correct.
[fanfare plays]
- [gasps]
- Wait, he was right?
Okay, is this a murder mystery
or a murder prank show? Because--
well, actually, that's a pretty good idea.
Is it a fake detective, or are the bodies made of cake?
- Okay, Alistair, love the commitment,
but you can get up now and give us our cool million.
[dramatic music]
[all gasp]
- Huh.
- Dad, what do we do?
- I'll tell you exactly what we're going to do.
We're gonna stop playing fake games
and start solving real murders,
because what you did was a fluke,
and now it's time for a Flute.
Wait, is this a prank show?
Is this a camera knife?
Nope. That's a murder knife.
[train whistle blows]
- Nice job, everybody. He's dead.
Now we're out a million bucks
and we gotta catch the killer for free.
- Let's split into pairs and find who did this.
I'll go with Pentos.
- I'll go with Wynona--
because my character is your husband,
not because I love you in real life.
[laughs nervously] Whew, that was close.
- And I'll take Stan to show him
how a real detective does it
and also because he's my son.
[suspenseful music]
- Well, Chief, I guess that leaves you and me
to actually find the killer.
- No, we're gonna find something
worth the million bucks he promised us
in this train-sion.
- Okay, but I'm not sure
I'm comfortable with stealing,
or how everyone's acting
like "train-sion" is a word all of a sudden.
- Pentos, you're a rotten psychopath.
Where would you be hiding?
- Are we really doing this?
Yes, I'm a criminal,
but I've helped Flute catch other criminals,
and frankly, after working with him,
I deserve a statue.
- [laughs] Flute's not the easiest guy to work with.
- Right? I mean, he's always asking
to borrow a pen.
It's like, here's a thought.
What if you just had a pen?
- And he's always like,
"I solved it with my crime mind."
Oh, you mean you thought about clues with your brain?
That's called being a detective.
- [laughs] I know! He's so proud of it.
- [laughs] Uh, we should, uh, probably get back to it.
- Or...
[intriguing music]
♪ ♪
- Hey, maybe there's a secret door
behind this painting of a door.
- [laughs] Son, if being a detective was that easy,
I'd be out of a jo-- [door creaks]
[mysterious music]
- It's locked. There's a keypad,
but we don't know the code.
- Well, what your soft child brain
hasn't yet comprehended
is that the clock on the mantel is set to 10:51.
That's the same year they invented the chandelier,
and that chandelier has nine light bulbs,
all 60-watt.
So if we do the math,
9 times 60 plus 1051--
- One, two, three.
[gasps] Being a detective is so easy!
- Uh, actually, it's not easy.
Otherwise, why would they pay me a decent salary
to do it? Way more than you make.
Wait, you don't get paid to go to school, right?
[dramatic music]
- All he had in there was this vase
and a hard drive full of NFTs.
I ain't got time for fake nerd money.
Hey, have you noticed these rooms are getting...
very weird?
[mysterious music]
- Wait a minute.
Can it be?
♪ ♪
- [honks]
♪
- Oh, he's beautiful!
- Because of all the money
we're gonna make when we sell him?
- Something like that.
- [gurgling]
- I cannot believe we have
the same favorite constellation!
Zeus' inseam.
- I know, right? Favorite type of music?
both: Progressive ska.
- Favorite character actress.
both: Dianne Wiest.
- Oh, oh, favorite YouTube category.
both: Trucks going under bridges that are too small.
[tender music]
Ah.
- You see anything?
- Nope, no killers in here.
[model train whistles]
You know, we actually make pretty good partners.
[laughs] Flute better watch out.
[train chuffs] Whoa!
[romantic music]
I've never noticed your eyes before.
- Overheated. Fan activated.
- Oh, it just does that.
You know, like on your laptop
when you run too many apps at once
while a lifelong dream is coming true.
- It's so nice to just get out of that morgue.
I've been in there so much lately,
I was ready to kill somebody.
- "Kill somebody," you say?
The idea of digging around in dead bodies
has to get to you.
- Eh, dead bodies don't bother me.
It's the alive people who come in
because they just "have to identify them."
Ugh, sometimes I wish they were all dead.
[sinister music]
- Now activating pants cleanup.
[vacuum whirring]
- Look how proud your pops is.
He can't take his eyes off you.
- You know who did it, don't you?
- I mean... - Well, you know what?
That's great.
You're my son, so I'm not jealous.
I'm proud. You've eclipsed me.
It happens with all the great father-son duos.
Martin and Charlie Sheen,
Dale and Dale Jr.,
Tom and Chet Hanks.
So... so...
so, so proud.
[quiet dramatic music]
- We didn't find anybody.
- Yeah, we didn't see anything weird or disturbing.
At all. - I know who the killer is.
It was actually quite simple.
You just needed to attend to the more subtle clues.
Because I can now tell you without a doubt
that Alistair Chudwell's murderer is...
no, where is it?
Where's the--oh. Come on. Come on.
- Dad? Is that my notebook?
- You stole your son's notebook?
- Well, yes, but only because I thought
he had the answer and I didn't.
And all I see is random observations
and manga drawings of me.
Wow, you know, I look pretty cool
with big eyes and cat ears.
- How could you do that, Dad?
[tense music]
- Well, I don't think this train-sion
is big enough to unpack all that,
so let's return our attention to the murder.
If none of us found the killer,
then that means...
- The killer is one of us!
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, let's-- let's back it up.
- Yeah, yeah. - That was close, yeah.
[mysterious music]
- The big dog is upstaged and unwanted.
What am I, the DC Comics Universe?
- One of us is a killer,
and we can't go home until we figure out who.
- Oh, and I'm also a sack of crap.
A big one too: Sam's size.
I won't do Costco 'cause I've been burned too many times,
which is probably why they told me not
to cook my own samples.
- I find it very hard to believe
that anyone in my department could kill someone,
so I'd say Wynona probably did it.
She spends all day hanging out with dead bodies.
I once walked in on her braiding a corpse's hair.
- That only sounds weird
when you take it out of context.
We were having a sleepover.
Pretend husband, defend me.
- Absolutely. Uh, I would like to, uh,
defend my pretend wife by saying, uh,
Pentos, you served time.
- And he's a changed man from it.
But if you wanna talk motive,
Martinez's cousin was killed by Alistair's Splurt.
- You think I need another cousin?
Besides, if anyone wanted Alistair dead, it's Chief!
She probably arranged this whole night
just to steal his fish-guy!
- [gurgling]
[all gasp] - What the...
- Look at him. Those beautiful abs,
supple pectorals, the fins.
Screw the money.
I finally know what the shape of water is.
It's love! The shape of water is love.
- [gurgling]
- Anyweird,
I still want to accuse someone!
Who hasn't been accused yet?
- I guess there's Stan. - Yes!
Kids are capable of anything.
A student once put a sign on my back
that said "I eat farts," which is impossible!
Though I suppose you could cool one into solid form,
put it on a stick, and create some sort
of a makeshift fart-sicle.
- Really? Accusing a kid?
You're as cruel as Dianne's character
in "Bullets Over Broadway."
- And you are acting like Hannah,
even though D-Dubs was one of her sisters.
- Don't worry. They're just arguing
using the movies of Dianne Wiest.
It's very specific, and there are very few people
who can follow it.
It's okay you don't get it.
This is appealing to a different audience.
- Wynona did it! All she talks about
is murdering this and strangling that
and "burning a body produces
between three and nine pounds of cremated remains."
I'm not programmed to make that kind of small talk!
- Well, you're certainly programmed
to stab people in the back.
- And we're back to Wynona,
so the circle is complete.
Flute, you've somehow remained unscathed.
Who did it? - Just say it.
- I don't know who did it, okay?
I'm just as obsolete as Curd's newspapers
and just as crooked as his back.
If you want answers, ask Detective Flute.
Detective Stan Flute.
[crying]
- Dad!
- I can't believe you thought I could kill someone.
I'll kill you! - [screams]
[all yelling]
- Dad! Dad!
- Let him go. - I can't.
Did you see the way he ran out of the room?
- Already working on the meme.
[laughs]
- No, he needs my help.
- Did you forget what he did to you?
- No, I didn't forget,
but I don't keep grudges.
Those are for babies.
[cries]
[tinny record playing]
[orchestral music playing]
♪
[screams]
Dad, I found you!
Wait.
Why aren't you eating the lasagna?
- Once again, Detective Stan notices everything.
Since you beat your old man, take this.
Here, you deserve it.
Safety's on. Or off.
I never could figure that out.
- No, Dad, I don't want your job.
I just wanted you to be proud of me
because you're the greatest detective
who ever lived!
And the greatest dad.
- Huh, you really are pretty observant.
I guess seeing how much you've grown up
made me realize that if you're getting older,
I must be too.
- Or maybe we're both getting better.
- Excuse me.
- Paul Giamatti?
- Please, get me outta here.
I took this gig 'cause I thought it was Cameo.
- Jon, the only thing I hate more than Mondays
are people who break contracts.
- The point is, you really impressed me out there, son.
- Really? [laughs]
Well, I'm sorry someone had to die,
but at least we got closer.
- Yeah, I guess it was just a--whoa!
both: Happy accident.
♪ ♪
- [growls] - [quavering]
[crashes and screams]
[dramatic music]
- [grunting] - [gurgling]
- Get back here!
♪ ♪
- Everyone, stop the medieval melee!
I figured-- we figured it out.
You saw I made that change, right?
I made a conscious choice to include him.
- I noticed it.
- Stan, wanna give your old man a hand?
We gotta "Weekend at Bernie's" this guy.
Wow, what did they call it before that movie?
"Carrying around a dead guy" doesn't sound as hilarious.
- Alistair excused himself into this room.
Then we heard the clock chime 9:00.
That meant he had to shotgun a Splurt
to stay alive-- doctor's orders--
so he grabbed a knife.
- Unfortunately, at that moment,
the train-sion lurched, and he fell,
stabbing himself in the chest
and dying in a pool of his own Splurt,
which means this wasn't a murder.
both: It was an accident.
- Well, this still went better than last year's party.
- Yeah, at least Flute didn't send out
any pics of his-- [phones chime]
Never mind, there they are.
- [laughs] You're just getting those now?
Maybe we were in a tunnel.
- So can we put him down now?
I think he's starting to leak.
- Oh, God, yeah. Put him down. Gross.
[train horn blaring]
[serene music]
♪ ♪
- So I guess we both got a little crazy before.
- Nothing crazy about that.
In fact, I've never been saner in my life.
He's moving in with me, and we're going to get married!
- Uh, yeah, about that.
- You speak English?
- I mean, uh...
[gurgling]
Bye!
♪ ♪
- Damn, I really thought that was gonna be something.
Well, that's dating in your 40s.
- Sorry I thought you were a murderer.
- Thanks, fake husband.
- You're welcome, future wife.
I mean, fake wife.
[quietly] Phew, that was close.
- You realize, once we step off this train,
we'll go back to who we were.
- But we will always have train-sion.
[train horn blaring]
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ We'll always have the train-sion ♪
♪ No matter what they say
♪ The memories and friendship ♪
♪ ♪
- You know, I'm actually glad
I completely neglected to call the babysitter.
Sorry. Mansitter.
- "Mansitter."
I wonder what happens when you Google that.
♪ ♪
- ♪ We'll always have the train-sion ♪
- We didn't know Alistair long--hell,
we barely knew him at all-- but he gave us something
even more valuable than a train-sion,
and that is a bond that will last a lifetime.
To Alistair!
all: To Alistair!
[all screaming]
- I can do the fandango!
- [grunting]
- [yelping]
- Mm, delicious.
Great memorial, everyone.
Well, back to work.
- Bento.