Only Murders in the Building Season 5 Episode 9 "LESTR" Review

Time to wrap things up on the investigation of Only Murders in the Building. The penultimate episode of the Hulu original series’ season five has arrived to put a pin in the latest whodunit for the mystery comedy, starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. 

When we last saw our trusty trio of amateur true crime solvers, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel had just caught replacement doorman Randall (Jermaine Fowler) red-handed on video holding deceased doorman Lester’s elevator crank, the supposed murder weapon.

Could Randall have returned to the scene of the crime to retrieve the bloody crank that night?  It was the question on everyone’s mind when the super sleuths confronted the deceased doorman’s protege the following day, to which the younger doorman beat feet to avoid spilling the beans. 

For various reasons, the trio could not give chase, allowing Randall to go missing. 

In the midst of the impending building move-out, the trio continue their investigation of the murders of both the beloved doorman Lester Coluca (Teddy Coluca) and dry-cleaning mobster Nicky Caccimelio (Bobby Cannavale). The amateur sleuths head next door to the drycleaners, owned by the Caccimelio Family, to learn what may have happened to Randall. There, they run into Nicky’s overgrown man children and his stalwart mother of few words.

From there, a good portion of the episode is told through the lens of the ever-present doorman robot who, as we come to find, may hold the keys to more secrets than anyone realized.

Modeled after real-life doorman of similar name, LESTR 2.0, seems to be here, there, everywhere, always at-the-ready to assist Arconia residents.

Little do the tenants know, in his effort to be available when needed most, LESTR spends a considerable amount of time lurking in the background listening in on the residents and their lives. Creepy, I know. But may prove handy when solving a murder…or two.

We get a little backstory of robot LESTR’s arrival to the Arconia, brought in by HOA president Howard (Cyril Michael Creighton), to assist when the real doorman was nearing retirement. In addition to being handy with a mop, LESTR has also been handy with a data recorder, gathering 411 on the residents since his arrival, and becoming quite bitter for being repeatedly blamed for humans’ failings in the process. 

It seems when the OG robot came to know too much, he was met with an unfortunate fall from a sixth story window in this season’s episode two, and was found in bits and bytes in the Arconia fountain — a bit of dead doorman deja vu, wouldn’t you say?

Enter LESTR 2.0, the replacement robot apparently uploaded with the first robot’s data secrets, which included catching Randall with the supposed murder weapon in the employee locker room. It seems these LESTRs are a veritable fly on the wall, or better yet, a camera in the hall.

Robots aside, this season has not been without its usual cavalcade of quirky characters making an appearance, as some familiar faces from previous seasons make their return for this episode.

Chief among them is Teddy Dimas, played by Nathan Lane, back on the small screen as the disgraced Broadway producer who figured prominently in the mystery from season one. If you recall, Teddy had been sent away to prison five years ago for his involvement in a grave-robbing scheme with his son, Theo, played by James Caverly.

This season, Lane’s character has been released from jail and he had returned to the Arconia, just in time to say goodbye to his former neighbors on their last night in the building.

It is a nice return to the familiar with Lane's masterful use of sarcasm and wit to capture Teddy's shrewdness, making him both amusing and unpredictable. Marked by a charismatic blend of charm, cunning, and a hint of vulnerability, Lane embodies Teddy as a once-significant businessman with a larger-than-life presence. Utilizing his signature comedic timing to deliver both humorous lines and more serious undertones, Teddy becomes the unexpected sounding board to several characters as they navigate the end of the Arconia.

Mabel (Gomez) is the first to run into Teddy in the lobby as he day-drinks his way down memory lane. Giving their past history, she reluctantly joins him in a glass to ease her own anxiety of having to leave her beloved home.

Detective Williams (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) shows up not soon after to offer her own goodbyes. She and Mabel retreat to the downstairs gaming room to dish on the end of the podcasting/ investigator’s life. Back upstairs, LESTR roams the lobby reminding residents of their countdown to move-out, serving as the alarm clock no one asked for. We are now firmly in the last days of the Arconia as we know it.

Though, Mabel does not know where she is moving just yet, she has excepted a yachting trip with billionaire black sheep Jay Pflug (Logan Lerman). Nevertheless, she still bemoans the fact that they have lost the Arconia and also failed the Lester.

The plot thickens when a suspect social media post drops from Randall indicating that he may have fled the country.

Hiding out in his apartment, once the site of many nights of investigative podcast pondering, Charles (Martin) vacillates between new home hunting and searching for a new-friend group in his outdated Rolodex. (Kids ask your parents what that is.) It seems he and Oliver (Short) have been having a hard time finding closure to their relationship, particularly, with Oliver headed to New Zealand to be with his actress wife, Loretta (Meryl Streep). 

Back in the Velvet Room, Mabel and Detective Williams find a curious shoe print that leads to yet another secret passage in the building, this time from the off-the-books gaming room to the dry-cleaning shop next door where Nicky was found dead in the season opener.

The plot thickens even further when Mabel finds incriminating evidence that Randall’s Instagram post may have been filmed in the secret room. Mabel arrives back upstairs to inform others that Randall may still be in the building.

Vincent Fish (Richard Kind) calls for emergency building meeting to discuss. LESTR uses the opportunity to rat out Randall who has been squatting in a vacant apartment all along. And, he would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling robot.

When Randall tries to bolt once again, this time through the lobby, he is unceremoniously toppled when he literally runs into Theo Dimas at the door, who’s come to the Arconia looking for his dad.

Fast forward, Randall maintains his innocence when facing the Arconia residents needing answers. While the OG LESTR was at the scene  of the crime, all of the old bot’s files were uploaded to LESTR 2.0. And, in a scene right out of Star Wars, the mechanical doorman replays the events of the night of the murders. 

What is revealed in the playback is an unexpected confession from the deceased doorman last seen running through halls of the Arconia with the murder weapon in-hand — the very Lester, who had once considered the Arconia job only as temporary, as he awaited his never-to-come big acting break. 

Back in Oliver’s apartment, the investigative trio and their fellow residents try to finally solve the mystery of Lester’s death. Staged as a Last Supper of sorts, complete with religious iconography, the motley crew reminisce about happier days at the Arconia, as Oliver and Mabel try to recreate the murder board.

Intermingled in the calls for clarity with the investigation are short poignant scenes that come in stolen moments between Oliver and Charles, and even Charles and Howard. If you did not know any better it, the placement of the dialogue and plot points feel like the series, itself, is coming to a desperate end as opposed to a season close. Only time can say for sure. But, I digress.

Always the more sentimental of the group, Charles uses the time to reflect on being a better neighbor with Howard, and then later a tender moment with Oliver about their friendship and former podcast. It is in these moments the comedy rounds out its emotions with these brief pauses to remind us that life is filled with a mix of the dramatic, the heartfelt, and the humorous, often all at the same time. Only Murders does a fairly decent job to not be too preachy in the process of showcasing its sentimental range.

The episode comes quickly to a close when an innocuous clue on the murder board points to a scuff mark in Charles’ apartment that was never identified when the frozen finger stored in his refrigerator originally went missing. When Randall immediately implicates LESTR 2.0, claiming that he had been cleaning up the robot’s scuff marks in the lobby for weeks, Howard jumps in to defend the bot, claiming only one other digital device could have made such marks. The light bulb goes off immediately for Mabel remembering the one and only person they had seen with the means and motive to want to retrieve that incriminating evidence.

Is the murderer of doorman Lester hiding in plain sight?! There’s only one more episode left to find out. Season 5 of Only Murders In The Building comes to close in one week! See if you got it right on who did it.

Created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, Only Murders In The Building is streaming now on Hulu.

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