Only Murders in the Building Season 5 Ending Explained: Who Murdered Lester And What Happened To Charles, Oliver, and Mabel?
Tuesday, 28 October, the tenth and final episode of Only Murders in the Building Season 5 is out on Hulu, the fifth season of the brilliant crime comedy series with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. As always, the season ended with the solution to the mystery that kept the protagonists busy in the previous episodes, and then with a new murder that will be the subject of investigations in season 6, already confirmed, which will take place partly in London. But Arconia, fortunately, is safe, or rather, it was saved by our trio of podcaster detectives in the season finale. To understand how, and above all to understand who killed the doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca) and the mafioso-biscazziere-lavender Nicky Caccimelio played by Bobby Cannavale (who, let’s remember, is probably the mispronunciation made by American customs officers of the surname Coccimiglio), here is our explanation-summary of the ending of OMITB 5. Of course, from here on out, it’s full of every spoiler imaginable and possible.
After solving the mystery of the fourth installment and learning of the shocking death of beloved goalkeeper Lester Coluca (Teddy Coluca), in the fifth season of “Only Murders in the Building”- Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) investigate this new case and deal with the unexpected arrival of secret billionaires, old-school gangsters and secret residents to the Arconia. Therefore, this has become the most dangerous case for podcasting detectives. When the trio find an amputated finger, they confirm their suspicions that Lester’s death was not accidental. Thanks to the wedding photos, they discover that Lester, who is missing no fingers, was talking to a man identified as mobster Nicky Caccimelio (Bobby Cannavale), who disappeared and whose wife, Sofía (Téa Leoni), tried to hire the protagonists to investigate the case. After finding Nicky’s body at the Caccimelios’ dry cleaners, Oliver takes the body to Charles’ apartment to avoid involving the police. The trio performs the autopsy and discovers that Nicky died around the same time as Lester, but was frozen. Additionally, they find a piece of paper from Lester’s ledger in Nicky’s mouth. With this, they learn about a poker game in the casino’s secret room and attend the event in which they realize that the heir of pharmaceutical magnate Jay Pflug (Logan Lerman) is missing a finger.
Only Murders in the Building Season 5 Ending Explained: Who Killed Nicky?
Let’s start from this point, which was already understood in the finale of the penultimate episode of the season, when the robot doorman LESTR had shown the images of the moment in which the doorman Lester said he wanted to rebel once and for all against that mafioso who was about to transform the Arconia in a large casino, complicit in Camila’s evil plan (Renee Zellweger). And so in the reconstruction of the tragic events of that evening, when Oliver was celebrating his wedding and blood was flowing in the basement of the building, it happened that Lester went down to the secret gaming room and hit Nicky with the old elevator crank, from there a fight arose which ended when Nicky fell on Lester who was holding the cleaver used shortly before by Nicky, and on impact Nicky was hit in the abdomen and died from the wound involuntarily inflicted on him by Lester.
Whose Severed Finger Ended Up in Oliver’s Shrimp?
So let’s take a step back: what was that cleaver doing in the clandestine casino under Arconia? Nicky had brought it to us, having discovered the affair between his wife, Sofia (Tea Leoni), and the mayor of New York, Beau Tillman (Keegan-Michael Key). So, that night, when the mayor went down to the gambling den to, as usual, get stuffed with money by Camila, Pflug (Logan Lerman) and Bash (Christoph Waltz) to turn a blind eye to their dirty business, Nicky loses his temper and hits Beau in the hand, who loses his finger…
Who Killed Lester? And How?
The mayor got himself a fake finger thanks to his billionaire friends, but he never stopped looking for his real missing finger. Indeed, to have him searched for by the three billionaires, promising permission to build a casino to whoever brought it to him. This is because, between the cleaver blow inflicted by Nicky and his subsequent death at the hands of Lester, a bit of confusion arose in the room. Lester took advantage of this, putting his finger in his pocket, escaped from Beau, handed it to Randall (Jermaine Fowler) to hide in Oliver’s shrimp so the three would have a clue to investigate, and escaped into the palace garden. Here he was joined by Beau, who pushed him into the fountain, causing his head to hit; shortly before his death, Lester found a way around tampering with the palace cameras, operated by a Bash company, by whistling in his bird call and turning on Vince’s (Richard Kind) bird-watching cameras.
How Did They Find Out That Mayor Beau Was to Blame for Lester’s Death?
Mabel, Charles, and Oliver had decided to put the three billionaires against the wall and had rushed into the underground gambling den when there were only a few minutes left until the start of work to demolish Arconia and build the casino “won” by Camila. But they weren’t getting much of a hit, at least until Mabel got a text from Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton), who was supposed to stop anyone from going downstairs while the three grilled the other three. Instead, the mayor comes down, and Howard warns Mabel that Beau Tillman is coming. But the phone’s autocorrect twice transforms “It’s Beau Tillman” into “It’s beautiful”. This text reminded Mabel of the message Lester had sent to his wife, Lorraine (Dianne Wiest), while running away from the mayor: the proofreader had also changed Beau Tillman to beautiful, and Mabel understands everything.
How Do Charles, Mabel and Oliver Save Arconia?
The three billionaires, or rather especially Camila, have no particular interest in the truth emerging, and so the mayor has an easy time telling the corrupt policemen who work with him to take the three detectives and lock them up in the basement, so that they die crushed by the rubble in the imminent demolition of the building.
Howard, at a certain point, realizes that his friends are in trouble, and with the help of TEÈ (Beanie Feldstein), they pass the checks of the corrupt policemen and take all the journalists who came to the casino’s presentation press conference to the basement. Thanks to Charles’s magician skills, the three free themselves from their chains and appear before everyone to accuse the mayor. Who still tries to deny everything, counting on the fact that there is no evidence of his guilt, but Mabel Oliver and Charles take out from the secret drawer under the roulette wheel the turned-on recorder on which the mayor’s confession is recorded, and he is then arrested together with the corrupt agents.
But it’s still not enough to save the building, and so Pflug makes the gesture of kindness that Mabel has been asking of him for some time, and confesses to the police his and his billionaire colleagues’ complicity in hiding Nicky’s body to help Beau. The billionaires are then also arrested, and Arconia fortunately saves itself. This case is also closed.
The Epilogue of OMitB 5 is the New Case for Next Season: The Dead Woman is Cinda Canning?
Of course, our friends can’t talk about the case on their podcast, since they are under contract with the three billionaires who bought the production company to silence them. And so, while Lorraine moves to Arconia thanks to the money received from Sofia (the result of the investment in the theatre), who finally goes to Positano where she is reached by the news of her elderly mother’s death, Mabel Oliver and Charles console themselves by listening to the latest podcast from their mentor-rival-friend Cinda Canning (Tina Fey), a case that comes from London.
But while Cinda’s voice illustrates the case, we see a woman who responds to the description given by the podcaster wandering around suffering near the Arconia, and then collapsing in front of the gate just as Charles, Mabel, and Oliver are leaving. Howard points out that technically, that person didn’t die in the building, so it’s not exactly suitable for the title of the podcast (and the TV series), but at that moment, the woman has one last gasp of life with which she extends her arm to touch the gate. And the woman, who dies at that moment, is Cinda Canning herself, who evidently used her last energy to get to the three colleagues’ building and be sure that the three of them will take care of her case. And they’ll fix it next season.
