Halfway through its fifth season, Only Murders In The Building is as quirky as ever.
The trio got to know quite a few staff members at the Arcodia, including the new man on garbage duty, who apparently was willing to destroy a robot to protect the staff.
Unfortunately, Only Murders In The Building Season 5 Episode 5 didn’t bring us much closer to figuring out who killed Lester and Nicky, but I guess you can’t have everything.
The Best Part of Only Murders In The Building Continues to Be the Relationships Between the Detectives
Although this show is supposed to be a murder mystery, that has always been secondary to the character relationships, and that’s even more true on Only Murders In The Building Season 5.
The heart of the story — comedy, drama, mystery, everything — is how these three misfits have become a family of sorts.
The subplot about Oliver potentially moving is a great example of that, plus it shows that Mabel has come a long way.
On Only Murders In the Building Season 1, she had to work with Oliver and Charles, but had little use for them, and now she’s begging Oliver not to move away.
That’s the kind of character growth I live for.
This season also features a running thread about Charles facing his mortality and re-evaluating his life as a result, which is both poignant and humorous.
I especially loved Mabel looking at Charles’ dating profile because she needed a laugh, and Charles’ misinterpretations of what the profile was asking for were among the funniest moments of the hour.
What’s Going On With the Podcast Storyline?
Only Murders In The Building Season 5 Episode 4 offered a brilliant twist when it revealed that the three top suspects owned the podcast’s new distributor.
This is an exciting and timely development, considering the current (and well-deserved) uproar over the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s program due to political pressure.
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Sadly, there was little movement in that story, not counting the recap at the beginning of the episode.
The trio continued the investigation, which was the top priority, as it should have been, but something felt amiss because nobody had even mentioned the podcast issue.
The seeds were all planted for a major confrontation over this issue when the time is right, so I’m sure Only Murders In The Building will get back to it, but it’s still annoying that it was mostly forgotten during “Tongue Tied.”
Did Learning Who Destroyed LEST-R Bring Us Any Closer to Who Killed Lester?
The robot subplot was silly.
I know, I know, everyone is worried about AI.
All you have to do is open any social media platform to find people worrying about AI taking over jobs or ruining the arts.
Only Murders In The Building attempted to address this pervasive fear by introducing the LEST-R robot storyline.
It made some decent points. I especially appreciated that Uman and Vince liked the service the robot provided.
All too often, TV about AI suggests that it’s 100% negative, so it was nice for a show to suggest that maybe some people get some use out of it.
Even though Vince’s susceptibility to pink-eye is ridiculous, it was also a nice stand-in for the fact that some disabled people find AI helpful.
That said, this was bad timing.
We’re halfway through the season. Usually, at this point, there are one or two viable suspects, or at least someone who we know can’t be the one because it’s too obvious.
Technically, we have the three billionaires as suspects, but they’ve done very little to advance that plot.
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Discovering that someone had cleaned up the evidence didn’t lead anywhere, since instead of learning anything useful from the staff, the trio was sidetracked by the workers’ hatred of LEST-R.
The episode also spent way too much time trying to figure out who had broken the robot and whether all the evidence it might have held was destroyed.
Unless the new garbage guy also killed the human Lester, the fact that he broke a robot is meaningless.
Also, why did the detectives miss the most obvious step to take?
When LEST-R was spouting off random facts upon request, someone should have asked it about the secret casino, but nobody did.
In the meantime, my money is on Téa Leoni’s character being the killer, but not because there’s been much evidence.
Charles is falling for her, and he seems to have a knack for falling for killers, plus Leoni is well-known for playing a virtuous character on Madam Secretary.
Murder mystery 101 says that when such an actress appears on a mystery show and isn’t the victim, 99% of the time, she’s the killer.
You Know What I Think. But I Want To Know What You Think
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Only Murders In The Building streams on Hulu. New episodes drop on Tuesdays at 12/11c.
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