At long last, the mystery of Mabel Mora’s wedding dress has been solved. In the penultimate episode of “Only Murders in the Building” season three, fans finally learn why Selena Gomez’s character wears a bridal-white gown outside of the Arconia — a moment that was teased months ago, thanks to the paparazzi. It turns out, Mabel doesn’t tie the knot with another character; she wears the wedding dress as part of the hunt for Ben Glenroy’s killer, naturally.
Toward the end of episode nine, Mabel, Oliver, and Charles partially crack their latest murder case: “Death Rattle” producer Donna is the one who poisoned Ben on opening night, though they’ve yet to figure out who later pushed him down the elevator shaft. In an effort to exonerate Meryl Streep’s Loretta, who falsely fessed up to killing Ben, the trio must race to her arraignment at a courthouse downtown. Mabel volunteers to wear what would have been Joy’s wedding dress had she married Charles, because “nobody stops a bride.”
Although the fairytale wedding dress — a piece the costume designers sourced from David’s Bridal — isn’t quite Mabel’s style, she gives the embellished tulle number her own spin with white chunky-soled Dr. Martens boots. Her sidekicks don their own wedding-ready attire to usher Mabel into a yellow cab and race to save Loretta. Upon arriving to their destination, Oliver and Charles quip about being Mabel’s dads — a cute nod to Steve Martin and Martin Short’s 1991 film “Father of the Bride” — before busting into the courtroom to reunite with Loretta.
Fans caught a glimpse at Mabel in bridal mode long before episode nine hit Hulu on Sept. 26. Back in March, photographers captured Gomez filming in the same wedding dress on the Upper West Side, and viewers have been theorizing ever since. Many thought she’d wind up marrying Jesse Williams’s character Tobert after they bonded over solving Ben’s murder, while skeptics believed the dress could be a red herring to throw off fans. Others hypothesized Oliver hallucinating about Mabel getting married after his heart attack at the end of episode eight. In retrospect, it’s hardly surprising the wedding dress factored into the trio’s murder-solving pursuits.
While we wait to see how the season three finale shakes out, join us in admiring photos of Mabel’s staged bridal moment ahead.
Getty | Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin
Getty | Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin