‘Only Murders In The Building’ Season 5 Reveals Killer In Shockingly Bad Finale

Only Murders In The Building

Credit: Hulu

The mystery has been solved and the killer brought to justice in Season 5 of Only Murders In The Building. This was a bad season with a lame mystery and the revelations in its finale were neither surprising nor satisfying. This has been far and away the worst season of Hulu’s cozy mystery, and it’s a real shame. I still love these characters, but the writing has fallen off a cliff.

There’s a great deal wrong with the entire season and it all comes to a head in Episode 10, as our heroes – Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) stumble on Lester’s killer in one of the most hamfisted ways possible. Gone are the clever clues, the more intricate sleuthing, the sly misdirects. This season even traded the show’s main gimmick – the podcast itself – for yet more focus on celebrity guest stars. What a mess.

Spoilers ahead.

Only Murders In The Building Season 5 Killer Revealed

All season long, there have been three primary questions facing our trio of amateur detectives as well as audiences:

• Who killed Lester (Teddy Coluca)?
• Who killed Nicky (Bobby Cannavale)?
• Who does this finger belong to?

There are a few secondary questions as well, including:

• Why are the cops apparently not investigating any of this at all?
• Why do the billionaires want the Arconia for their casino? (Not only would it violate zoning laws, it’s now the site of a recent double-homicide and requires buying out a bunch of residents who almost certainly would not go as easily as this show makes it seem).
• What was the point of the robot other than to give us a crucial clue at the right time instead of making the trio work for it?

The first three questions are answered in the Only Murders In The Building finale. Upset over his wife’s affair, Nicky chops off Mayor Beau Tillman’s (Keegan-Michael Key) finger in the casino below the Arconia. The ensuing argument is brought to a halt when Lester attacks Nicky with the elevator crank. Nicky and Lester struggle, falling to the floor where the meat cleaver Nicky used to lop of Tillman’s finger accidentally kills him (Lester wasn’t a murderer, after all).

Here’s where things get very strange. Tillman wants the finger back, which is understandable, but apparently he wants it back because people will realize he’s corrupt if he’s missing a finger. Why? I don’t follow the show’s logic here at all. Tillman is an expert liar. Surely he could A) hide it with a prosthetic like he ends up doing or B) make up a lie that would garner sympathy from voters. Instead, he chases Lester, who we know has sent the finger with the shrimp up to Oliver. Lester tries to escape the mayor and tries texting “It’s Beau Tillman” but autocorrect changes this to “It’s beautiful.”

They struggle at the fountain and Tillman kills Lester, though it’s clear he didn’t actually mean to kill him. Lester uses his dying breath to blow his bird whistle and activate the one camera that Bash Steed (Christoph Waltz) doesn’t control.

The texts are what finally clue Mabel in to the murderer’s identity. Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) texts her that Beaut Tillman is headed down to the casino and it autocorrects to “beautiful.”

This was all a fan theory weeks ago and I’m honestly shocked it ended up being the decisive clue. It’s perhaps the silliest clue this show has used so far and this, and the entire murder investigation, are a massive step down from previous seasons, which actually involved some detective work rather than a series of lucky breaks and happy (and not so happy) accidents. If Lester simply hadn’t messed up the text, there wouldn’t have been a plot at all.

Other Problems With The Only Murders In The Building Season 5 Finale

There are plenty of other problems with this entire season and the season finale, though the uninteresting mystery and the boring way it was solved are the biggest. Still, others include:

• The celebrity guest stars were totally wasted. This is a problem of quantity over quality. There was no need to have a trio of billionaires at all. You have Christoph Waltz in your cast. Have him be the sole billionaire and give him more screen-time. Flesh out his character, make him a real suspect, have him behind all the shenanigans. I don’t mind Key as Mayor Tillman, though I think it would have probably been better to have an even less-known character actor in the role since it was pretty obvious that he was at least involved in the murders. This show has leaned too heavily on celebrities in recent seasons, and it needs to get back to its roots (though this seems ever more unlikely as apparently we’re off to London for Season 6). When they were all cuffed and taken out of the casino, it just felt very humdrum, no big deal. A little joke about Bash’s immortality but mostly very flat.
• Teddy’s return was also wasted. Nathan Lane was one of the best things about Season 1 and it was so fun to have him return this season. But he just didn’t do much of anything. You could pretty much cut his character entirely and it wouldn’t matter. He’s just one of the boys now rather than an antagonistic figure. If you’re going to bring Lane/Teddy back to the show, give him something to do.
• Althea’s (Beanie Feldstein) plan to get past the cops was weird. They just transport the entire crowd down into the casino basement offscreen? And the cops just . . . stop guarding the place because of that?
• How does getting Camilla (Renee Zellweger) arrested actually save the Arconia? She hasn’t been convicted of anything. The plans don’t just miraculously come to a halt because of any of this. They would need a court injunction of some kind. I disliked the entire “save the Arconia” subplot to begin with, of course, so whatever.
• Sofia (Tea Leoni) gets a brief coda at the end. She’s in Italy and tells her dying mother off over the phone. It’s very odd and unnecessary.

Of course, there are other issues that have me worried about Season 6.

Only Murders Outside The Building

A bigger problem is the show moving farther and farther away from the building these murders are only supposed to take place in. The new victim is Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) the podcaster who brought our heroes together in the first place. You might call this coming full circle, and it is kind of poetic. But not only did she die outside the building, even further outside than Lester, it appears Charles, Oliver and Mabel are off to London next season to investigate. That could be fun, but it reminds me of heading to LA. The charm of this show is the intimacy of the building and its residents. That’s the whole point.

I’m also worried that even as more and more superfluous characters are added to the show, Only Murders In The Building is losing the side characters at the heart of the story. We lost Sazz (Jane Lynch) at the end of Season 3, though she showed up as an imaginary friend for Charles at least in Season 4. We’ve lost Lester now as well. I do think that in order to keep murders in the building, you have to have some residents and beloved characters be the victims, but this show is killing off some of the best characters while also drifting outside the Arconia and relegating the actual podcast to the background. It’s a recipe for disaster, or at least for another incredibly generic season.

That’s what Season 5 was like: generic, going through the motions. All the humor felt off, like a weird facsimile of the humor in previous seasons. A weak mystery with lame clues that culminated in an unsurprising and uninspired ending all make this the worst season of the show by a long mile. I really hope they can tighten things up in Season 6, but at this point I’m afraid the writers have simply run out of good ideas.

Because if you think having Charles shimmy up a fire-pole to get a clothes hanger to pick a lock is a good idea, you’ve run out of good ideas. Why not give the rescue to Howard? Or have Jay (Logan Lerman) make his moral turn earlier, and have him and Howard team up to rescue the trio? Jay’s ultimate “good guy” moment would have never happened had they never escaped. One moment he was willing to let all three of them die, the next he had a change of heart. Mabel should have slapped him across the face.

I did like Charles’s line to Sofia: “For once in my life I’m going to say ‘no’ to a dangerous woman.” Good man, Charles. But for the most part, this finale left me cold. We knew the Arconia wasn’t being destroyed; the question is, will it even matter?

What did you think of Season 5 of Only Murders In The Building? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.