SPOILERS AHEAD!
Two comedy legends teaming up with a former Disney Channel actress (turned beauty mogul) to star in a murder mystery show makes for peak television. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez’s Only Murders in the Building, which just concluded its fifth season, can be best described as a blend between slapstick comedy and pure brilliance. The formula is simple: someone in the building dies, the trio investigates while recording a podcast about the case, things go wrong along the way, the murder is solved in the craziest way possible and a new murder arises.
Even though OMITB has a familiar structure from season to season, it stays fresh. It’s thrilling to watch Charles, Oliver and Mabel grow tremendously over the course of the series, plus it’s entertaining to learn about what secrets remain in the Arconia’s walls. There isn’t a set plan for a final season yet; however, the show will return for season six, so let’s take a look at what made each season special while we eagerly await more episodes.
Season One: Best Overall
Nobody outdoes the original. OMITB’s first season has some special sauce no others can replicate. A true crime podcast from Cinda Canning and the unrelated question “Who killed Tim Kono?” unites our favorite trio, leading them into a dangerous investigation throughout the Arconia. Along the way, we meet the cranky Bunny, eccentric Howard and mysterious Theo, to name a few. We also watch romance unfold between Charles and the bassoon-playing Jan Bellows, who is revealed to be the murderer after her instrument cleaner of all things points the trio in the right direction. Season One is as close as it gets to perfect television, setting up additional mysteries to follow.
Season Two: Best Murderer
Before the season finale, we’re hit with two bombshell revelations. First, we’re led to believe podcaster Cinda Canning slept with the crooked Detective Kreps to hide something. Cinda’s assistant, Poppy, then confesses she’s actually Becky Butler, the woman who went missing in Cinda’s popular podcast introduced in Season One. The trio (and audience!) is now convinced Cinda orchestrated Poppy/Becky’s disappearance and killed Bunny to create podcast content. Instead, Poppy/Becky killed Bunny so she could rise in the ranks under Cinda’s wing, having faked her disappearance to escape a tragic home life and start fresh in NYC. Actually insane!
Season Three: Best Music
This season felt different from the first two, but not necessarily in a bad way. Less of the story took place in the building since the original murder of Ben Glenroy occurred during a Death Rattle Dazzle performance and new characters spawned out of nowhere. The Broadway motifs added a spectacle feel to Season Three. The showstopping number “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” was penned by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the duo who wrote the music for The Greatest Showman and Dear Evan Hansen. Give the song a listen; it’s quite the earworm. And while you’re at it, go give “Creatures of the Night,” “For the Sake of a Child” and “Look for the Light” a listen, too.
Season Four: Best Victim
We didn’t know much about Tim, Bunny wasn’t all that warm and fuzzy aside from a few flashbacks and Ben had little to no redeeming traits. But Sazz Pataki, Charles’s hilarious stunt double for decades, always brought the energy and heart wherever she went. Poor Sazz got shot when she ran upstairs to grab some wine for a party! As the season goes on, we learn she wanted to open up a stunt camp and even penned a script for an OMITB movie that her former mentee killed her to obtain. Absolutely awful all around for Sazz.
Season Five: Best Cliffhanger
After discovering the fictional mayor of NYC (geez, what a stretch) killed Lester, the Arconia’s beloved doorman, the episode flashes forward three months with the trio listening to a new podcast from Cinda. The podcast follows a mysterious individual known as “The Girl with the Curls” on the run after encountering someone equally royal and dangerous. She runs throughout NYC after fleeing the United Kingdom, only to wind up dead outside the Arconia’s gate. During her final moment, she puts her finger “in” the building’s domain, confiding in the trio to solve her murder. And here’s the catch… Cinda was “The Girl with the Curls” all along! Now the trio must solve the murder of the woman who inspired them to solve murders in the first place. How poetic.
Season six partly takes place in London, so who knows what Charles, Oliver and Mabel will face. There aren’t any details on a release date yet, but if the show follows its production pattern, it’s stuck to since Season One, expect the first episode to drop sometime next fall!