Only Murders in the Building Season 5 Review: It's Getting Crowded

In a Crowded Season 5, Only Murders in the Building Risks Its Case Going Cold

Only Murders in the Building is a show about tenets as much as it is about tenants. Yes, the Emmy-nominated Hulu comedy follows an eccentric group of characters who live in an apartment complex called the Arconia, a building that itself is a monument to old New York. But the show’s tenet is that it is about the importance of community and a chosen family. Premiering in summer 2021 when the divide between masks-on and masks-not was rapidly growing, it’s a story of three neighbors who unite to solve not just any murder, but the murder of someone with specific ties to their lives because they are people who died in their building.

With Murders’ fifth season, which premieres its first three episodes on Sept. 9 on Hulu, it’s pretty shocking that the Arconia has any tenants left, given its uptick in homicides in recent years. But it’s nice to know that the tenets of the series remain. One of the victims this season is Teddy Coluca’s Lester, the building’s doorman who—even if they didn’t always acknowledge him—was a constant presence in the lives of the show’s three leads: Selena Gomez’s suspicious Mabel, Steve Martin’s anxious Charles, and Martin Short’s exuberant Oliver.

Lester, in turn, is an embodiment of this season of Murders and maybe also for society. The season’s best episode of the nine released to the press is, by far, its second. Written by Ben Smith and Ella Robinson Brooks and directed by series showrunner John Hoffman, it’s mostly told in flashbacks and shares the life of the humble old doorman when he thought this gig was going to be a waylay before he made it big as an actor. Smash and The OA actor Emory Cohen gives us a Lester with his own career trajectory and love life outside of just opening doors for rich people and maybe the occasional pig. Everyone deserves a chance to tell their backstories, even if most people won’t notice them.

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But, as it is wont to do, this season of Murders is full of enough guest stars to break Vulture’s Telematrix. Renee Zellweger as Camila White, a Martha Stewart-like billionaire with a penchant for camel tones! Logan Lerman continuing his fight against “nice guy” typecasting as Jay Pflug, a nepo baby with potentially ulterior motives! Christoph Waltz as the steel-jawed Sebastian Steed, a tech titan with an obsession with longevity! Bobby Cannavale as (this is a stretch) Nicky Caccimelio, a shady guy with probable mob ties! Beanie Feldstein as The, a pop star who is both the latest celebrity to move into the doomed penthouse apartment and a childhood frenemy of Mabel’s! Oh, and Keegan-Michael Key’s there too, playing the mayor of New York City who can also do a frighteningly accurate Michael Barbaro impression.

And this doesn’t even factor in returning characters. Meryl Streep’s Loretta, Oliver’s new bride, returns and gets involved with the case (she even gets to speak with a Cajun accent). Richard Kind is back as the pink eye-plagued Vince Fish. His tangential storyline increases this season when he gets a Peloton and joins the Boo Crew. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is also back as the exasperated Detective Donna Williams, whose task of keeping Arconia residents alive is always a spinning plate trick. So are my favorite curmudgeonly Arconia residents played by Jackie Hoffman and Michael Cyril Creighton.

With all of these characters and talent to cover, Lester’s story—the very reason why our trio of amateur sleuths decided to take on this case in the first place—is often forgotten in the name of the plot’s hijinks. These side stories give you too much time to think, which means you spend more sussing out potential red herrings than paying attention to the action (Lester’s widow is played by Dianne Wiest, and heaven knows that nobody with a voice like that can be trusted in a murder comedy).

And maybe this is all the point.

A major theme for this season of Murders is gentrification. New York, like so many other cities, is changing as the wealth gap expands. The Italian American mafia heavies of old are now an offensive stereotype. Billionaires, as Short’s Oliver puts it, are “the new mob of New York.” So many of the people who made the city run are being forced out. On the show, Lester himself is partially replaced by a robot named LESTR. Meanwhile, Martin’s Charles ponders what his purpose is now that Oliver’s married and Mabel’s getting her own life together. Is Only Murders in the Building distracting us with really shiny people to prove just how easily the media can distract us with really shiny people? What will it take for all of us to stop our second-screen IMDb scrolling and remember that the entire purpose of this show is that they are there to avenge the friends whom the law has failed?

I don’t know. But I do like that Gomez’s Mabel and Feldstein’s The reconnected over their shared love of Lexapro.

The first three episodes of Only Murders in the Building season 5 premiere Sept. 9 on Hulu.

Whitney Friedlander is an entertainment journalist with, what some may argue, an unhealthy love affair with her TV. A former staff writer at both Los Angeles Times and Variety, her writing has also appeared in Cosmopolitan, Vulture, The Washington Post and others. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, daughter, and cats.

In a Crowded Season 5, Only Murders in the Building Risks Its Case Going Cold