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Jan Bellows is the secondary antagonist of the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, serving as the main antagonist of season one and a supporting character in season two and season four.
She was portrayed by Amy Ryan.
Biography[]
Jan is a bassoon player who lives in the New York City high-rise apartment building the Arcadia, where the Series' leads Charles-Haden Savage, Oliver Putnam, and Mabel Mora live. She is also the murderer of former resident Tim Kono.
Having had a short-lived romance with the much younger Tim, Jan poisons him when she believes he's going to end things and then stages his suicide, later implying she's done the same to other men before him too.
After attempting to do the same to Charles, Jan then tries to cover her tracks by sending gas through the apartment building's ventilation system to kill everyone there, and then holds Charles, Oliver and Mabel at gunpoint shortly after, only to be stopped by Oliver and Mabel and then arrested.
History[]
Early Life[]
Jan describes herself as having had "two childhoods" - the first where she was an only child in a happy family, and the second where her parents got divorced, her father barely paid attention to her and she had a new half-sister. Jan used to play the flute, but switched to the bassoon after her half-sister started playing it.
Dating and Murdering Tim[]
At some point, Jan met Tim and they started dating. Eventually, Tim broke things off, which Jan believed was due to him finding someone else. Unable to cope with being second yet again, Jan invited him over under them use of him needing to pick up his things and offered him a drink for old time's sake. She had poisoned the drink and after Tim left, she played a recording of herself playing the bassoon and went to his place, where she watched him die from the poison and then used his gun to shoot him to make it look like a suicide.
Meeting Charles[]
Jan met Charles when she entered an elevator he was on. He deduced based on the case she was carrying that she was a musician and she confirmed that she was the first chair bassoonist for the City Symphony. Charles realized she was the source of the bassoon he could hear from across the courtyard, a sound he liked.
They met again on another elevator. Jan noticed that Charles was dressed up and asked if he was going to see a woman. He said that he was, but Oliver clarified that it was a business meeting. Things then turned awkward for the rest of the ride. Later that day, Jan was playing her bassoon when Charles joined her on his accordion. They played a few different songs and then Jan slipped a note under Charles's door asking him to have dinner with her.
At dinner, Jan told Charles she had two childhoods: one in which she was an only child with married parents and another with an absent father and a half-sister who took her father and her flute, leaving her with the bassoon. When Charles failed to reciprocate her storytelling, she called him out on it. He tried to explain, but stumbled over his words and Jan ended up leaving.
Later that night, Charles went to Jan's place and told her that he dated a woman, Emma, who had a daughter named Lucy. Though he and Emma had little in common, he and Lucy got really close. For their anniversary, Charles booked them a cruise. Emma thought it would be romantic, but he'd booked a family fun cruise. On day three, Emma took Lucy off the ship on an island tour and never came back. He spent the next five days on the cruise alone. Emma said a clean break was best, so he never spoke to her again and it had been haunting him ever since. Then he said he was telling her all that because he liked her and wanted to go on a second date with her. Jan agreed to go on that second date with him.
Second Date[]
Jan came over to Charles's place for their second date. Charles put on an Ella Fitzgerald record and they danced together. Then they played a game of Scrabble, which quickly turned flirtatious until they ended up sleeping together.
Joining the Investigation[]
Jan answered the door while Charles was out getting bagels to find Mabel and Oliver. When Charles got back, they told him about Theo Dimas kidnapping them and Teddy threatening them to release one final episode declaring Tim's death a suicide. Jan said that she and Charles had spent the morning going through Tim's phone and learned a lot from that. When they laid out everything, Jan said she wasn't sure that Teddy killed Tim, to the annoyance of Mabel and Oliver.
Jan later returned to the apartment with homemade pizza rolls. Oscar came in and told them he'd talked to Tim's jewelry connection and Tim got the ring the day before he died. Mabel wondered where it was, because she had all the jewelry from his place. Oliver said the killer must had taken it and that convinced Mabel that Teddy and Theo were the killers, as no one else would care to take the ring. Jan still didn't believe it and said it was all circumstantial without the ring.
When Oliver recruited some podcast superfans to help them, Jan introduced herself to them. As they started to talk over the events of the night Tim died, Jan asked about the cat and suggested they focus more on Howard. Oliver and Mabel didn't like that, though Charles reminded them they looked into Howard at one point. Oliver then directed the superfans through reenacting the night. When they finished, they wanted to start recording right away because they only had an hour and a half left. Jane said it felt too easy and tried to get them to look at Howard again. Charles told Jan that the three of them had worked on it as a team and wanted to keep it the three of them. Jan got upset that she wasn't one of the team and left.
When Jan got home, she found a note taped to her door saying that someone was watching her. Charles later found her on her floor bleeding from a stab wound.
Charles called for help for Jan and stayed with her. When she was released from the hospital, he brought her back to his place to take care of her. She insisted she was fine and would be able to play in her concert the next night. He was upset that she'd been stabbed and said he wanted to kill whoever had done it. Charles declared that he would be quitting the podcast, as he blamed that for her getting stabbed. Jan was supportive, but reminded him how much the podcast and Oliver and Mabel meant to him. He said they did, but she meant more. As he said that he wanted to take Jan somewhere sunny, Charles got a phone call informing him that he had a visitor. It was Sazz Pataki, his stunt double from Brazzos. Sazz sat with hem and told stories, then left to take a phone call in the other room. Jan said she liked Sazz, which Charles said was always the case. His ex-girlfriend even left him for her. When Oliver and Mabel joined them, Sazz said she had some thoughts after looking at the evidence board. She believed it was a crime of passion. When Jan pointed out that they hadn't listened to her theories, Oliver said that Sazz is a stunt double and knows what she's talking about. When Oliver, Mabel, and Charles had to leave to defend themselves at a meeting because Bunny wanted to evict them, Sazz offered to stay with Jan.
While they were gone, Sazz helped Jan removed her shirt to change her bandages only to have Charles walk in on them and assume Jan was cheating. Jan assured Charles she wasn't cheating and didn't want to look elsewhere for anything because she liked him. But she packed up her things to go home anyway because she wanted to be well-rested for her solo the next day. She told Charles she didn't want him to come and see her not at her best.
The next day, as Jan sat on the stage waiting for the performance to start, she saw Charles in the audience with a nosebleed just as the conductor introduced the first chair bassoonist, a prodigy.
Arrest[]
After watching Charles leave, Jan waited for intermission and rushed home, telling Charles they wouldn't miss her, which upset her a little. She apologized for lying to him about being first chair. When she saw that he'd had a nosebleed, she got him a handkerchief and a drink for each of them. Jan noticed a bassoon cleaner on the coffee table, which Charles told her was at Tim's place. Jan worried that the killer was targeting bassoonists, but then realized Charles believed she was the murderer. Charles said he didn't, but Mabel and Oliver did. He told her he was falling in love with her and she said she was falling in love with him, too. He said he could probably still love her even if she did kill Tim. Jan noticed that Charles wasn't drinking much and he told her he actually wasn't drinking at all, but taking stage sips because he knew the drink was poisoned as that's what she'd done to Tim. Despite this, Charles quickly started to feel the effects of poison and realized she'd put it in the handkerchief instead. Jan admitted to killing Tim because she thought he was seeing someone else and didn't take being second very well. When Charles collapsed, she put his head on a pillow and said she had to think bigger because so many people knew because of the podcast.
Jan went down to the boiler room, where she intentionally leaked gas into the apartments above. Mabel and Oliver arrived and fixed it, but Jan found them and pointed a gun at them. Oliver pushed the dog stroller they had Charles in at Jan and then Mabel got the gun from her and punched her. Jan was then arrested and taken away in a police car.
Helping Charles[]
While investigating the murder of Bunny Folger, Charles got stuck and visited Jan in prison to ask for her help. Jan was happy to see Charles and asked if they were okay, which threw him. He told her what he knew about the case and she said they were looking for an artist and the artist would stick to a project until the end. She asked if anyone new was getting close to him, because that was the killer. Later, on the phone, Charles told Jan that Mabel had been getting close with Alice, an artist. The two of them then reminisced about the bagels they had the morning after they slept together. He later visited her in person again and she thanked him for the bagels.
At another visit, Jan expressed that they'd never broken up, which Charles thought was implied when she attempted to kill him and then was arrested for another murder. Unable to break up with her himself, Charles sent Sazz Pataki to do it for him. Jan was surprised, but found Sazz's scripted break-up arousing. Sazz later explained to Charles that she and Jan had began dating.
Escape From Prison[]
While dating Sazz, she broke out of prison using parkour and seduction, killing at least one prison guard in the process, which left part of their brains on her clothing. She snuck into the Arconia through the secret tunnels and into Charles' closet. She reveals that she had broken out of prison due to not hearing from Sazz and being concerned about her. Charles reveals that Sazz had been murdered, deeply saddening Jan, who tell Charles that the killer must have been after him and wishes him a quick death before departing.
While Charles, Oliver, and Mabel investigated Sazz's murder, Jan stayed hidden in the Arconia inside of the secret tunnels and Charles' closet, waiting for Sazz's killer to be found out so that she can take revenge. When Charles and Oliver learn that Rex Bailey had murdered Sazz and is holding Mabel hostage, they rush to rescue her, walking across the ledge to get into the apartment where he is. They manage to disarm Rex and get him at gunpoint, making him reveal his motive. However, Rex gets the upper hand and retrieves his pistol, preparing to Charles, Oliver, and Mabel. Before he is able to, Jan shoots him in the back with a sniper rife from the apartment across, killing him and avenging Sazz. She gleefully smiles at the trio when they look out at the window and see her. The police arrive and recapture Jan, who talks with Charles, stating how she never left into the building and stayed so that she could avenge Sazz remarking how she and Charles had done it together for Sazz. She explains how she would have preferred killing Rex up close and would have stabbed him in the eye with a buck knife. Charles says goodbye to Jan, but she claims that it is never goodbye with them, before she is taken away by the police to be brought back to prison.
 Villains
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