A fun fifth season with gangsters and doormen.
When we last saw Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), Oliver has been married, the doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca) is found dead in the fountain, Tea Leoni comes in as Sofia Caccimelio, whose mobster husband Nicky has gone missing.
That’s the set-up for season 5 of “Only Murders in the Building,” the whodunit podcast comedy series on Hulu, which still has a lot of charm and passion for murder mysteries. In fact, I was just mentioning this show in my review of the Netflix movie “The Thursday Murder Club.”
At this point, Lester’s death is being marked as “accidental,” but does Charles, Oliver, and Mabel really believe that? Or was this doorman part of something big and dangerous? That’s for show to know and for them and us to find out.
The new cast in this season includes Bobby Cannavale as Nicky, Keegan-Michael Key as the mayor, Jermaine Fowler as the new doorman, Dianne Wiest as Lester’s wife, Beanie Feldstein as Mabel’s old friend, Christoph Waltz as tech billionaire Sebastian “Bash” Steed, Logan Lerman as an heir of a pharmaceutical magnate named Jay Pflug, and Renee Zellweger as the entrepreneurial designer and hotel magnate Camila White. At this point, since we’re given three episodes, Waltz, Lerman, and Zellwegger only appear at the end of the third episode, but they do tell us who they are and what they may be apart of. We’ll find out in later episodes.
We get an episode where we see a much younger Lester (Emory Cohen) working at the apartment as the new doorman, although he would like to become an actor. But we also see how he crosses paths with the wrong people. I do get confused about the age difference, because we do see baby Mabel, and the doorman looks young. And I’m not convinced that Nicky is older than the doorman.
We have another whodunit sequel coming out in some theaters and on Netflix this Fall called: “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” So, I’ll definitely be comparing and contrasting “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Thursday Murder Club.”
While “Poker Face” on Peacock still loves the howcatchthem genre, “Only Murders in the Building” still loves whodunits. In Season 5, I admire its passion for the gangster world without going full “Goodfellas” on us, and Martin, Short, and Gomez continue to delight us with their wily and comedic energy. And I like how each season has a different set of guest stars and even returning ones like Nathan Lane and Jane Lynch.
I still have some questions about the second episode, but I think this show likes to have fun with that side. And I think this show still has a lot of life and death in it.
First 3 Episodes Now Streaming on Hulu