Alice Banks

**Alice Banks** is a main character in Season 2 of *Only Murders in the Building*. She is sophisticated artist and gallerist, and former love interest of Mabel Mora.

She is portrayed by Cara Delevingne.

## History

### Early Life

Little is known about Alice Banks' background. She is an artist originally from London, United Kingdom. Her parents are not into arts, and one of them is a plumber from Essex.

### Gallery Opening

At some point, Alice moved to New York City and opened Third Arm Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Alice contacted Mabel Mora through direct messages on Instagram. She showed interest in Mabel's mural posted on her account and that went viral after Mabel and her podcast mates got arrested for the murder of Bunny Folger. Alice also invited Mabel to the gallery's opening, which Mabel attended. At the gallery opening, Alice took Mabel to see a three-dimensional painting of Frida Kahlo and Mabel told her about her childhood and a puzzle her father gave her when she was four. Alice asked Mabel to join their art collective. Mabel asked if it was a cult. Alice didn't answer, but told Mabel come back with her paints.

### Sculpture of Mabel

When Mabel returned to the studio, Alice showed her that she'd sculpted Mabel, after being blocked for months. She gave Mabel an ax and set up cameras to record Mabel destroying it, saying it could be therapeutic for her. When Mabel had finished destroying it, Alice returned. Mabel said she felt better and kissed Alice.

### Collective Party

Alice was planning a full collective get-together at the gallery, but on the day of the party, there was a leak at the gallery, so she asked if Mabel would be willing to host the party at her apartment instead. Mabel agreed and Alice told her she wouldn't have to do anything, that Alice would take care of everything.

At the party, Oliver started a game of Son of Sam Killer, a game in which the group tries to figure out who among them is the killer. The game went for several rounds until the final three players remaining were Oliver, Alice, and Mabel. Oliver was convinced that Alice was the Son of Sam, as well as Bunny's killer, so he interrogated her until she admitted that she had lied to Mabel about her history because she knew she wouldn't make it in the art world as the child of a plumber. She then told him the game was over and handed him her card, showing that she wasn't the killer.

Mabel found Alice in the bathroom, where Alice apologized for lying. Mabel said that everyone lies a little and cited a few examples from her own life. Then she made Alice promise not to tell anymore half-truths and they shared a kiss and a hug. It was later revealed that Alice was the Son of Sam in the game after all, as the card was hidden in her bag.

### Recreating the Crime

The next morning, while Mabel was making them breakfast, Alice took pictures of the stain on Mabel's floor. When Mabel returned to the room, Alice turned the camera on her. As they sat down to eat, Alice asked about Mabel's father, but Mabel said she kind of like that Alice didn't know much about her and wanted to keep it that way because other people were obsessed with her past while Alice made her feel new, a feeling she liked.

Later that day, Mabel went to the gallery to find Mabel and found her using actors to recreate Bunny's murder. Mabel was horrified and went to leave, even though Alice insisted she was trying to help Mabel process her trauma.

### Visiting Mabel

Alice came to Mabel's apartment with a gift for her. Mabel opened it to find a puzzle, which Alice said she'd made by hand with an x-acto knife during the blackout. Mabel said Alice made her realize she didn't want her life to be all about the worst parts of it. She said she liked Alice, but she couldn't trust her and couldn't be with someone she didn't trust, officially ending their relationship. Alice said she understood and was around if Mabel needed anything.

### Killer Reveal Party

When Mabel, Charles, and Oliver solved Bunny's murder, Mabel invited Alice to come to Bunny's apartment to be part of the livestreamed killer reveal party. Shortly before she arrived, Cinda and Poppy arrived, prepared to record their own podcast because Cinda believed they'd been invited to Mabel's confession. Charles explained that they'd be revealing Bunny's real killer and pointed the finger at Cinda. He declared that she'd killed Bunny and hid her tracks with the help of a crooked cop. She asked how he knew about Kreps. Charles then laid out how instead of solving crimes for her podcast, she made them up. Cinda asked why she'd want to kill a woman she never met. Lester interjected that he had the logs that showed several visits to the Arconia, meaning she did meet Bunny. Cinda said she was just keeping tabs on the Kono investigation. The trio tried more things to unsettle Cinda, but she still couldn't confess. Mabel said that was because she didn't do it and pointed the finger at Alice, saying she wanted the painting and when Bunny asked for too much money for it, Alice killed her to get it. Alice flew into a rage and grabbed a nearby knife, intending to stab Mabel, but hitting Charles instead when he pushed Mabel out of the way. Charles collapsed to the floor while Uma called the police and the others restrained Alice. Oliver and Mabel cried and held Charles's hand as he bled to death.

As Howard comforted Mrs. Gambolini, Uma told them police and the ambulance were three minutes away. Cinda said that she was sorry for Charles's death, but said Mabel was incredible and offered her a job, saying she could even have her own podcast. This upset Poppy, who said there was nothing tying Alice to the murder and her confessing was just pure luck. Meanwhile, Poppy does everything for Cinda. As she talked, Poppy started sneezing. She said she was the one to tell Cinda about the art in the first place. Mabel questioned why and Poppy said it was for a podcast, but Cinda wasn't interested. Poppy continued to sneeze as she talked, prompting Oliver to ask if she had some kind of allergy, perhaps to Mrs. Gambolini. Mabel said the killer sneezed while leaving the crime scene. Poppy challenged that it wasn't uncommon to be allergic to birds and asked if they were going to believe some young girl hiding in the walls. Oliver said that only the killer could know about Lucy. Cinda then revealed that she knew that Poppy was really Becky Butler, the woman whose "murder" was the subject of Cinda's podcast, *All Is Not OK in Oklahoma*. When Poppy asked who told her that, Charles popped out from under the sheet and said it was them. The whole night was staged, including the two false accusations. Poppy said she just wanted to make a good podcast. She wanted Cinda to notice her, but things went wrong. While she talked about why she did it, Williams came in to arrest her while Kreps waited outside, already in handcuffs of his own. As they cleaned up Bunny's apartment, Mabel returned Alice's props to her.

With the murder solved, Mabel decided she'd start actually renovating her aunt's apartment. Alice saw the mural Mabel had painted and asked if it would be integrated into the new design or if Alice herself would. Mabel said no, but let Alice help her paint over the mural.

## Personality

When she first appeared, Alice seemed like a friendly, if not eccentric, visionary and romantic, using art to express her thoughts and feelings. She befriended Mabel and created an art piece for her to destroy, a form of destructive therapy to help the young podcaster with her issues.

However, while she comes off as a somewhat self-involved braggart, it was revealed in The Tell that Alice is insecure and gets incredibly defensive when people pry into her life, having come from a working-class family and not from aristocracy in London (a fact that she is ashamed of being). In the later episode, her egotism is further explored in the next episode where she secretly converted her own apartment into the Arconia and creates a play based on Mabel's traumatic experience, even using hired actors to dress up and recreate Zoe Cassidy, Tim Kono, and Bunny Folger's deaths, fully aware of how painful it was for her. When a frantic Mabel stumbled upon her project, Alice, though surprised, tried making an excuse and didn't seem shameful when caught. This form of deception and manipulation shows Alice's true colors as a mendacious, callous, and opportunistic fraud who will use anything to make a name for herself (a trait shared with Cindy Canning), having only dated Mabel just to use her as inspiration for her next art show.

## Relationships

### Mabel Mora

Alice first contacted Mabel on March 20, 2021, asking her to her art show. Mabel came to the show and Alice invited her to join the collective. She later invited Mabel to destroy a piece of artwork she had created, as a type of therapy. Mabel destroyed the piece, and after Alice re-entered the room, she kissed her. The two began a relationship, with Mabel telling Charles and Oliver they had been on "a couple of dates" in the episode The Tell. In the next episode, "Performance Review," it's revealed that Alice never truly cared for Mabel and only dated her for inspiration, using her traumatic experiences as a muse for her next project.

## Notes and Trivia

* In the episode "Performance Review", Alice goes into Mabel's apartment when Mabel is not there and re-creates Bunny's death scene, Alice even dressing like "Bloody Mabel" herself. It is currently unknown why she did this.

## Gallery

### Episode Stills

Photography by Craig Blankenhorn"Framed" (S02E02)"The Tell" (S02E05)"Performance Review" (S02E06)"I Know Who Did It" (S02E10)

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "The Tell" (2022). Season 2, episode 5.
2. ↑ "Persons of Interest" (2022). Season 2, episode 1.
3. ↑ "Framed" (2022). Season 2, episode 2.
4. ↑ "Performance Review" (2022). Season 2, episode 6.
5. ↑ "Sparring Partners" (2022). Season 2, episode 9.
6. ↑ "I Know Who Did It" (2022). Season 2, episode 10.