In September 2024, Hulu greenlit Only Murders in the Building for a fifth season. Filming took place from March to June 2025. The season will consist of ten episodes.
On the day of Lester's funeral, the trio finds a severed finger, confirming their suspicions that Lester's death was not accidental as the police claimed. After Charles checks Lester's body in the coffin and sees that none of his fingers are missing, Oliver learns from his wedding photos that Lester was talking to a man identified as mobster Nicky Caccimelio. They go to Staten Island and meet Nicky's sons and his wife, Sofia, who previously wanted to hire them to investigate Nicky's disappearance. She explains that their family has a dry cleaning business, owning the dry cleaner in the Arconia as well, and tells them about Nicky's gambling addiction. She gives them Nicky's favorite deck of cards as a clue, and Charles discovers that one of the cards is magnetic and contains a hidden map. He and Mabel follow the map, which leads them to a secret casino room underneath the Arconia. At the same time, Oliver finds Nicky's dead body at the Caccimelios's dry cleaner.
42
2
"After You"
John Hoffman
Ben Smith & Ella Robinson Brooks
September9,2025(2025-09-09)
5DWB01
Before his death, Lester participated in an interview for a study about New York City doormen. He told how he started his job in 1993, mentored by his colleague George. On his first day, he met Charles, Oliver, baby Mabel, and his future wife, Lorraine. Over the years, he assisted the trio through various points in their lives and discovered that George received extra money from Nicky Caccimelio for letting certain people in at his request. After George retired, he introduced Lester to Nicky, who gave Lester the same task. For years, he earned a good income from the commission, although Nicky refused to let him quit when he wanted to. As the number of murders in the building increased recently, Lester hired another doorman, Randall, who started his first shift on Oliver's wedding day. A flash-forward depicts Lester that night fleeing from someone who eventually murders him in the Arconia's fountain with an elevator crank.
Oliver takes Nicky's body to Charles's apartment after accidentally leaving his DNA on it. Not wanting to involve the police, who might link them to the murder, the trio performs an autopsy themselves. They figure out that Nicky died around the same time as Lester but was frozen, preventing decomposition. They also find a piece of paper in his mouth from Lester's ledger. While Oliver borrows the ledger from Randall, Mabel runs into her former friend, Althea, who is now a famous pop singer and moving into the Arconia penthouse. Charles secretly takes Nicky's body back to the dry cleaner, where it is later found by corrupt police officers who cover up the incident. The trio learns from Lester's ledger the date of an upcoming poker game in the secret casino room, so they decide to attend. There, they see three of New York's richest people arrive, and that one of them, pharmaceutical tycoon heir Jay Pflug, is missing a finger.
44
4
"Dirty Birds"
Chris Koch
Kristin Newman
September16,2025(2025-09-16)
5DWB04
Assuming Jay's involvement in Nicky's and Lester's murder due to his missing finger, the trio tricks him into coming over for an interrogation. They record the podcast's season five teaser, hinting that Jay and his billionaire friends might be murderers, which prompts Jay to agree to meet them to clear his name. He arrives along with tech mogul Bash Steed and hotelier Camila White, who all threaten to sue the trio for libel. The trio talks with each of the billionaires privately to make them confess; Charles and Oliver bond with Bash and Camila over their common views on life, while Mabel and Jay discuss their trust issues, with Mabel explaining how her friendship with Althea strained after the latter became famous. The billionaires then reveal that a drugged Nicky chopped off Jay's finger with a cleaver. The trio receives a podcast publishing deal from Wondify.[b] Just as they sign the contract, they realize that Jay's missing finger and the one they found are not the same, but legally they cannot accuse the billionaires of lying due to them being the new majority ownership of Wondify. They are shocked to learn that they have been set up.
Oliver and Mabel try to obtain information about a person known as "Tommy the Tongue" after learning he used to cover up all illegal activities in the casino room. During their investigation, they discover that the Arconia's new robot doorman named L.E.S.T.R. (Logic Engineered Secure Tenant Robot) disturbs the staff about their jobs becoming redundant, so they hold a building meeting to settle things down. The meeting turns into a riot, ending with the staff destroying L.E.S.T.R. who incidentally contained digital copies of Lester's paperwork. Meanwhile, Charles meets Sofia to find out what she knows about the casino room, but she seduces him and they sleep together. The next morning, he realizes he lost his phone in Sofia's car. Using a tracking app, the trio follows the route of the car, while receiving a call from Detective Williams who reveals that "Tommy the Tongue" is actually a shell company that handles Nicky's gambling money. As Williams tells them that all the money was drawn from the company recently, the trio sees Sofia arriving to a secret meeting with Lorraine.
46
6
"Flatbush"
Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
John Enbom & Jake Schnesel
September30,2025(2025-09-30)
5DWB06
Loretta comes back to New York after her apartment burns down, and helps the investigation. She and Oliver go to Flatbush in disguise and follow Sofia and Lorraine to an old theater. Oliver recalls his childhood there and how the theater meant an escape to him from his emotionally unavailable foster parents. They confront Sofia and Lorraine, but they turn out to be innocent, planning to donate Nicky's gambling money to renovate the theater. Meanwhile, Charles, Mabel and Williams discover that the finger is gone, and Althea tells them she heard someone break into Charles's apartment. Upon checking the security footage, they find nothing, causing Mabel to send Althea away, but later regrets it and apologizes. Althea reminds her that Mabel abandoned her first after Zoe's death and reveals that her hit song was actually written about her admiration for Mabel. They mend their friendship. Later, Williams discovers that the security footage was edited and that the camera's distribution company belongs to Bash. He mockingly reveals himself through a dating profile Charles texted with, which he used to gain information about him.
The trio interviews Mayor Tillman for the podcast, and he tells them about Bash's political influence on his mayoral campaign. He gives them his address in the countryside so they can snoop around there. The trio visits Bash's mansion, finding him, Camila and Jay holding a game night. Charles and Mabel challenge them in a game of "Name That Person, Place, Thing" and win due to their category being Broadway and they use their knowledge from Oliver's personal stories. As a winning prize, the billionaires confess to them that on the night of Nicky's and Lester's murder, they discussed over a poker game which one of them will obtain the rights to build New York City's first casino. Jay also slips that the severed finger has a crucial role in whoever will obtain the rights, but refuses to explain why. The trio retrieves the finger and flee the mansion. Later, Camila visits and forces them at gunpoint to give her the finger. They surrender it as Camila reveals her plan to turn the Arconia into a casino.
48
8
"Cuckoo Chicks"
Jessica Yu
Kristin Newman & McKenna Thurber
October14,2025(2025-10-14)
5DWB08
Camila organizes an exclusive game night in the casino room for women only, for which Althea receives an invitation and gives it to Mabel. She wants to use this opportunity to extract a confession from Camila, and invites Williams, Loretta, and Lorraine for help. Posing as a psychic, Loretta makes Camila tell her that she was in love with Nicky, so she proposed a partnership to expand his casino to the entire building. Initially hesitant due to the casino being Sofia's inheritance, Nicky agreed after discovering that his wife was cheating on him. Meanwhile, Charles and Oliver learn that Camila bought up 51% of the apartments in the Arconia, but fail to convince the last seller, Dr. Grover Stanley, to change his mind before the sale is finalized. Loretta finds the elevator crank in Nicky's office with Lester's blood on it, while Lorraine accidentally activates a bird-watching camera that Lester used to record himself before dying. The footage reveals that Randall found and removed the murder weapon from the crime scene.
Filming for the season took place between March and June 2025.[17][18]
Release
The fifth season premiered on September 9, 2025, with three new episodes, on Hulu. Subsequent episodes will be released weekly until the season finale on October 28.[19]
Reception
For the fifth season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 95% approval rating, based on 38 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Putting the very fate of the Arconia on the line, Only Murders in the Building's fifth season goes back to the series' fundamentals — its core trio — and reaffirms that their charm hasn't waned one bit."[20]Metacritic gave the fifth season a weighted average score of 71 out of 100 based on 16 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable".[21]
Notes
↑ Credited as a special guest star during the opening credits in the season alongside the main cast in the episodes she appears in.
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