Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez dive into the murder of the Arconia’s beloved doorman in the fifth season of Only Murders in the Building
After four seasons of Manhattan-based murder and mayhem, one has to wonder if perhaps the residents of the Arconia should just move. Nevertheless, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) have stuck it out this far, and when their doorman turns up dead, the crime-loving trio knows better than to accept it as an accident.
When Only Murders in the Building first debuted in late summer 2021, it immediately garnered a 100 per cent rating on the RottenTomatoes.com Tomatometer, a metric used to quantify critics’ opinions regarding various specific films and TV series. Forty episodes and seven Primetime Emmys later, the series still holds an average Tomatometer reading of 97 per cent across all four seasons.
Hoping for another hit season as it crosses the 50-episode threshold, the fifth continues its longstanding tradition of packing big-name talent into the cast. This year’s major addition — introduced, as most new cast members have been, during the previous season’s finale — is Madam Secretary star Téa Leoni. “I think she’s the great tease at the end of the finale and a little bit of an intriguing bump forward,” co-creator John Hoffman told Deadline of Leoni’s role. “She’s an extension of the little news report in episode nine that Mabel makes note of at the hospital,” Hoffman elaborated, adding that Leoni’s character, Sofia Caccimelio, “is the wife of the Dry Cleaning King of Brooklyn, and maybe a couple of dry cleaning outlets in Manhattan, as well.”
While dry cleaners are not typically considered to be dangerous, the Caccimelios do have ties to organized crime within the Big Apple, and are particularly intertwined with the Caputo crime family, mentioned at least once throughout the series to date.
As is always the case for Only Murders in the Building, Hoffman reiterates that much of the risk is simply “involved in helping” to solve the crimes, but he made sure to add that “there are some moves that might come in season five that change the whole equation.”
This season’s murder hits close to home, with longtime Arconia doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca) the latest victim in an unsolved murder. “After their beloved doorman, Lester, dies under suspicious circumstances, Charles, Oliver and Mabel refuse to believe it was an accident,” reads the new season’s logline. “Their investigation plunges them into the shadowy corners of New York and beyond — where the trio uncovers a dangerous web of secrets connecting powerful billionaires, old-school mobsters and the mysterious residents of the Arconia. The trio discovers a deeper divide between their storied city they thought they knew and the new New York evolving around them — one where the old mob fights to hold on as newer, even more dangerous players emerge.”
Meanwhile, fans can expect familiar faces from previous seasons, including Michael Cyril Creighton as Arconia resident and unabashed cat-lover Howard Morris; Meryl Streep as actress (and Oliver’s new bride) Loretta Durkin-Putnam; Da’Vine Joy Randolph as NYPD detective Donna Williams, who always seems to be catching up to the trio; Richard Kind as “Stink Eye Joe,” a.k.a. eyepatch-wearing neighbour Vince Fish; and Nathan Lane as Teddy Dimas, last seen way back in season two.
Joining Leoni in the so-called “newcomers club” are Renée Zellweger, Christoph Waltz, Keegan-Michael Key, Logan Lerman, Dianne Wiest, Beanie Feldstein, Jermaine Fowler and Bobby Cannavale. As usual, info on their characters is being kept tightly under wraps.
Still, amid all the new characters and chaotic plot twists, it’s nice to know that the show has achieved a level of stability that is relatively uncommon in the fickle world of streaming — something Hoffman attributes to the reflective, conversational tone of the show.
“The ‘meta’ nature of it . . . seems to be one constant theme for the show,” Hoffman added. “The part of it that really surprises me is that it’s able to hold so much . . . I can’t believe the way in which these three can find their ways comedically and dramatically but also hold . . . all of that meta ‘wink-wink.’”
In an interview with Variety, Hoffman offered some clues about the new season, hinting that “we do something new, we pull from the headlines of New York today. That’ll be a tease, and you’ll have to figure out what I mean by that. But very specifically in ways that are very current right now. And also we go back to the theme that’s always started this, the classic-meets-modern and old versus new.”
Added Hoffman: “This is very much, what is the power game going on in New York that might be reflective of a little bit of what’s going on in the country. And in our own way, we are sort of pointing out some interesting dynamics about who gets the power and who has the power? Who had the power? Who will get it now? And what does our trio do if they’re smack dab in the middle of that? So I hope you enjoy it. We wink at a lot of things that way throughout the season.”
The season premiere of Only Murders in the Building begins streaming on Tuesday, September 16, on Disney+