Reel Review: Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short Return to Solve Their Juiciest Mystery Yet in Only Murders In The Building Season 5
My favorite podcasters are back! Only Murders in the Building is the epitome of a cozy fall mystery, and season 5 just hit Hulu, which means it’s officially time for pumpkin spice and everything crime! Season 4 ended with the shocking, and utterly unexpected murder of Lester Coluca (Teddy Coluca), the beloved longtime doorman of The Arconia. Oh, and by the way, it turns out he was involved with the mob. No pressure, Mabel (Selena Gomez), Oliver (Martin Short), and Charles (Steve Martin), but your enemies just got a lot bigger.
Season 5 fed fans with three episodes released on September 9, and each episode revealed a new layer —more like a secret underground casino—of The Arconia that we’d never seen before. Let’s break down everything that happened in the first three episodes of Only Murders in the Building season 5. Spoilers ahead!
Only Murders in the Building Season 5, Episode 1 "Nail in the Coffin" Recap
The podcasting trio discovered Lester’s lifeless body in a fountain of The Arconia in the final scene of season 4. Season 5 picks up right where we left off with The Arconia tenants reeling from their loyal doorman’s death.
Mabel, Oliver, and Charles refuse to admit it was an accidental death, as the cops have already ruled it so. The mystery lands in their hands (pun intended) when they discover a severed finger in the leftovers of Oliver’s wedding food, which occurred the same day and in the same courtyard where Lester was killed.
What was supposed to be a day of mourning turns into a day of sluething as the gang attends Lester’s funeral to find out if Lester still has all his fingers, which he does. They also discover that Lester is connected to the missing mobster, Nicky Caccimelio (Bobby Cannavale). This leads to the trio heading to Staten Island, where they discover that the Caccimelio family ironically lives in the actual house from The Godfather.
Nicky’s wife, Sofia Caccimelio (Téa Leoni), reveals that their family runs the dry cleaners in The Arconia. She also gives Charles a deck of cards Nicky left behind the day he went missing, which he usually kept with him. Charles and Mabel discover that a card in the deck has a hidden map that leads to a secret casino room underneath The Arconia. Oliver also finds the dead body of Nicky hanging on the clothing conveyor belt in his own dry cleaners. The plot thickens!
Only Murders in the Building Season 5, Episode 2 "After You" Recap
Episode 2 dives into Lester’s decades-long career at The Arconia. We watch as Lester begins his job as a young aspiring actor, hoping to make some quick cash as a doorman. However, Lester falls in love with the building and its residents. We watch Lester meet a young Mabel, chat with Oliver and Charles at different points in their lives, comfort Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) after the death of his mother, and even chat with Tim Kono (Julian Cihi), the original murder victim of season 1.
The Arconia and its tenants relied on Lester not only to open the door for them, but to also be a shoulder to cry on, and a trusted confidant. However, he was the confidant of some shifty crowds. We learn that Nicky Caccimelio pays Lester to let in some shady characters after hours to go to the secret velvet room. Nicky blackmails Lester into staying at The Arconia forever since he’s bankrolled Lester’s children’s futures. While Lester deserves a hard-earned retirement, he accepts that his fate is to work at The Arconia until he dies.
Only Murders in the Building Season 5, Episode 3 "Rigor" Recap
In a classic Oliver-freakout, Oliver rushes the body out of the dry cleaners in a laundry hamper and right into Charles’ apartment. With Oliver’s fingerprints all over Nicky’s corpse, the gang needs to clean any evidence of Oliver off of him. However, Mabel decides this is the perfect opportunity to perform an autopsy in Charles’s kitchen— you know, as you do.
They discover Nicky could’ve been dead for days, but was only just placed on the conveyor belt. Signs point to the body having been frozen and now thawed. The body also has all its fingers, so the question of whose finger that was still remains.
The trio brings the body back to the cleaners the next morning, with a few bumps along the way. Mabel runs into her old friend, Althea, who is now an influencer who goes by Thé (Beanie Feldstein). Oliver ditches the plan to steal Lester’s old resident ledger from the new doorman in hopes of finding clues. Charles delivers the body, but naturally, he starts to hallucinate that Nicky’s corpse is taunting him.
Oliver discovers that Lester was secretly using his ledger to keep notes of poker logs going on in the velvet room, and great news, it seems the murderers might return to play poker that night! Mabel, Oliver, and Charles sneak into the velvet room to discover New York’s new form of mobsters: billionaires. We meet Jay Pflug (Logan Lerman), Camila White (Renée Zellweger), and Sebastian Steed (Christoph Waltz). Also, total plot twist! It was Jay’s finger that fell into the podcaster's lap.
Is the gang about to tussle with the mob? What do these billionaires have to do with Lester’s death? Why was Jay’s finger cut off? Tune into Only Murders in the Building every Tuesday on Hulu for answers.
