Episode Nine POV: you’re a doorman robot that waltzes around the Arconia, hours before it shuts down for good. It’s a technology takeover in “LESTR,” as the trio races to solve the case before the Arconia is sold off to Camila White.
LESTR counts down the last days in the Arconia – and even gets a theme song cameo – as the residents pack up their lives and look at what’s next for them. The robot doorman is also voiced by Paul Rudd, making this his third acting gig in the series. First, the trio tries to catch another doorman, Randall (Jermaine Fowler, Sorry to Bother You), who they caught red-handed with Lester’s bloody elevator crank. However, he apparently finds the trio’s one achilles heel: running.
He sprints away from them and out of their grasp, evading capture for days, until he posts a picture of himself in Cuba on Instagram. They realize there’s no getting to him, and have to instead turn their attention to dealing with their very imminent move.
The true crime trio never just gives up, so this is a tough pill to swallow. There are tons of little interactions that take place, like when the trio go to the Caccimelio’s dry cleaners to see what Randall did before he disappeared and have a hilarious and weird run-in with Sofia’s sons. Mabel is not only texting with Jay Pflug (Logan Lerman, The Perks of Being a Wallflower), she decides it’s time to get drunk and forget the case entirely. Charles decides to hunt for new friends and hobbies, which breaks Oliver’s heart just a little. And we get to see some extremely fun reunions – for example, Teddy Dimas (Nathan Lane, The Lion King) is back in the building, out of jail and ready to pack up his place, with a bottle of wine in hand.
It’s cute to see all the residents come together in their beloved Arconia’s final days, but it is the Arconia. Even in her final hours, this building was made for murder! Mabel and Detective Williams (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers) stumble upon a hidden chamber in the velvet room, one that leads to the dry cleaners. In there, they discover a tropical painting that has the same exact background as Randall’s Instagram post. Did they seriously just get duped by Randall sitting in a beach chair sitting in front of a picture frame?
Either way, the trio finds out, via painting, food delivery, and thanks to a tip from LESTR, that Randall is still living in 6C – so to 6C we go! He tries to run again and almost slips away through the lobby, but is stopped by none other than Theo (James Caverly, Chicago Med). It’s exciting to see Theo again after so long and when the trio tells him Randall’s the murderer, his response is pure genius: “Of course he is. I know what building I’m in.”
While most of Only Murders in the Building Season 5 Episode 9 feels like an ode to the Arconia, we are still in the dark about what happened with its recent doorman. Randall reveals he swore he would not tell anyone, but Lester actually used his elevator crank the night he died…to kill Nicky. LESTR even shows us video evidence to back up this claim. If he killed Nicky, then who killed Lester?
Truthfully, Lester never flat-out admits to killing Nicky in the clip, just says he did what he had to in order to protect the Arconia, while clutching his bloody crank. In this writer’s eyes, this is a bit suspicious and there is a gut feeling that someone else is still behind Nicky’s actual death. But Lester knew the trio would solve the case, as he tells Randall to bring the shrimp with the finger to Oliver’s apartment, which at least answers one question about Oliver’s wedding seafood.
Oliver decides to throw a last supper party in his apartment, which leads to Uma (Jackie Hoffman, Glass Onion) and Vince (Richard Kind, Inside Out) bonding, Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton, American Fiction) confessing him and Jonathan broke up, and Charles realizing the Arconia truly gave him the family he needed and making up with Oliver. These moments will make you teary, especially Howard revealing his break up is the reason he is now in a toxic relationship with the doorman robot.
This last supper also has some laugh-out-loud moments, like Miller the trash guy (David Patrick Kelly, Twin Peaks) suggesting they throw LESTR off the roof again, or Teddy Dimas saying they should’ve been cancelled after two seasons. Even Jay shows up at Mabel’s door, ready to take her yachting, and she tells him off for making the world a worse place. He is a billionaire, after all. This begs the question: will Jay buy the Arconia back from Camila and prove his character to Mabel?
But the murder board is back in action, which is especially helpful when Howard reveals that the scuff mark in one of the photos belongs to a specific type of mobility scooter, one that the Caccimelio’s Nonna (Elizabeth D’Onofrio, The Right Stuff) also has. They confront the family in the dry cleaners, and we find out they are definitely involved somehow.
Once again, yours truly has to ask, did they really do it? Or did they steal the finger for a different reason? Perhaps it was to get their own podcast fame, or for another purpose entirely. It still seems fishy, as there are so many questions left with only one episode remaining.
What about the mayor – as we at The Pop Break suspect, is he involved? How about THÉ? And what about the Bash Steed of it all? Or do we just have a whodunnit with too many cooks in the mobster kitchen? Ultimately, the next question we all need to answer is, who is the next victim of OMITB – and is it one of our remaining Arconia residents who came together in the Arconia’s last hours? There’s only one more week, so place your bets now. This, and hopefully all of the other loose ends, will be tied up soon.
