Only Murders In The Building's Season 5 Premiere Commits A Murder-Mystery Sin That I Don't Think I Can Forgive

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched the first episode of Only Murders in the Building via Hulu subscription, so be warned!

One of TV’s deadliest structures is back to take more victims, as Only Murders in the Building has graced the 2025 premiere schedule with its Season 5 return. Understandably, it kicks off soon after the events of the Season 4 finale, in which the newest on-site victim was identified to be the beloved doorman Lester, and raised those stakes even higher by revealing a second dead body in the fifth season’s premiere. And you just know everything is connected.

For all the fun that I had watching Téa Leoni join the fun as Sofia Caccimelio while catching back up with the core trio, the latter characters stumbled upon their newest groundbreaking mystery in ways that truly bothered me from a narrative perspective. In fact, I think one of those instances exemplifies possibly the worst storytelling sin that can happen in a murder-mystery.

OMITB's Biggest Murder-Mystery Storytelling Sin: Oliver's Dry Cleaner Scene

With a fairly complex beginning stage set for our central podcasters to kick off their investigation, the premiere ends with a fairly predictable shocker for a show like this: the missing husband that Leoni's character wanted the trio to track down wound up being the second corpse. Bobby Cannavale's Nicky Caccimelio was revealed to already be dead the first time we fully see him in person, with his death no doubt connected to Lester's.

But how did Nicky's body get discovered? Was it the result of stringent and unwavering detective work? No. Was it the result of hours of intense stakeouts and scouring over hours of security footage? Mabel did watch lots of such footage, but that also had nothing to do with it.

Instead, the body was found because Oliver attempted to get Lester's hat dry cleaning after hours, and instead of either finding a new dry cleaner's or making a plan to return in the morning, Oliver instead tries the door, finds it's unlocked, and then waltzes inside. Then, instead of leaving the hat on the counter with a polite note and some money, Oliver takes it upon himself to turn all the machinery on so that he can see the rest of Lester's uniform. It seems like he should have been able to just walk up and grab it after seeing the jacket, but he still uses the conveyor.

One of the biggest faux pas that any kind of mystery can make is relying on pure coincidences and baffling character behavior to push the plot forward, and Oliver's actions in the Season 5 premiere align entirely with those forced story beats. If this show took place in the '70s or '80s, I could more easily buy into a neurotic character randomly entering a closed business and futzing with equipment without either getting shot or setting off any alarms.

To clarify, I'm sure there's a perfectly fine plot-related explanation for why Nicky's body was hung up in his family's business like that, and for why the front door seemed to suddenly unlock when Oliver was standing in front of it, and that those reveals are coming in later episodes. But no explanations could possibly justify Oliver's legitimately criminal decision to not-quite-break into a business for personal reasons. I get that he's an unpredictable loon, but impulse-driven coincidences are not a good foundation for a murder-mystery where detailed minutiae is key.

I'm Also Not In Love With Another Big Reveal Being Tied The Arconia's Secret Architecture

As someone who adores escape rooms, I love that Only Murders in the Building can occasionally scratch that same puzzle-minded itch with its twisty plotting. And the premiere dropped a doozy of a reveal by having Charles and Mabel discover that a full-on casino exists below the Arconia, thanks in part to a super-special card deck that boasts a magnetic card with a secret map on it. Because sure, why wouldn't such a card exist?

That said, this reveal also felt wildly coincidental and unnatural within the scheme of things. Sofia giving Charles the deck as a "clue" was extremely baffling, and had Charles chosen to examine the cards while drinking anything but wine, he probably wouldn't have ever realized the map existed. Or if he hadn't been near anything magnetic, he may not have even realized that one card was special.

But sure, I can buy into each of those things happening, since it's TV. However, if the stairway down to the casino was merely hidden in one of the lobby floor's custodial closets, why did anyone need a secret map to figure that out? It could have just said "Broom Closet Near Elevators." Even then, though, I'm questioning why anyone in possession of the key would even need that reminder of where the casino is, considering there aren't many steps required to find it.

I think my biggest issue with this reveal, however, is that it's not the first time Only Murders has pinned a mystery on the Arconia having secret areas that the main characters weren't privy to, despite two of them living there for eons. (I'm referring here to the behind-the-walls tunnels that Jan utilized in Season 1.) As much as I like the idea of a clandestine casino, I don't want this show to already become a parody of itself by just rehashing ideas.

On the one hand, I totally get it, since there are only so many ways to make an apartment complex continue to justify its titular placement this many years into a show's existence. But on the other hand, if the creative team is going to continue requiring viewers to suspend the disbelief with each new season introducing more and more murders happening around Charles, Oliver and Mabel, then they should be able to tell those stories without retreading ground and eschewing logic all at once.

Perhaps we'll learn later in the season from new cast member Keegan-Michael Key that Oliver was diagnosed with a syndrome when he was young that makes him unable to not walk into businesses after closing. But I doubt it.

Only Murders in the Building streams new episodes every Tuesday on Hulu.