Only Murders Boss Breaks Down The First 3 Episodes Of Season 5 — The Flashbacks, The Godfather House And All Those Major Character Returns!

By the end of the Only Murders in the Building Season 5 premiere, Lester's death is ruled an accident — while Nicky Caccimelio turns up dead under mysterious circumstances. Oh, and to top it all off, our trio stumbles upon a secret underground casino hidden beneath the Arconia.

That discovery sets the stage for Episode 2 — a memorable flashback chronicling Lester's storied career as doorman and his marriage to Lorraine that brings back a bevy of familiar faces, including Nathan Lane as Teddy Dimas and Jane Lynch as the late Sazz Pataki. Meanwhile, new evidence suggests Lester might've been fatally stabbed with an elevator crank.

By Episode 3's conclusion, it's clear the cops have been bought off by those behind Nicky's murder — with three suspects, all among the world's wealthiest moguls, standing mere feet from Charles, Oliver and Mabel. (Gasp!)

As tradition demands, I hopped on Zoom with series co-creator John Hoffman to chat about the rollicking start to Season 5. But rather than ask him to play dumb and weigh in on each suspect and potential clue, we're leaving that to you — share your murder boards in the comments. Instead, we focused on some of the more playful highlights of Episodes 1-3, including several Easter eggs and those major cast returns.

TVLINE | Let's start with Charles, Oliver and Mabel's trip to Staten Island. Was that the actual house from The Godfather?
Yes. That was the big surprise! First of all, I didn't know the Godfather house was still in existence, and I didn't know it was on Staten Island — like, wow, really?!? And then I immediately imagined shooting on the Staten Island ferry, which was a delight.

When we saw the house, we got ushered in by this fantastic family who was so welcoming. But it didn't look anything like The Godfather's interior, and we were all sort of thinking, "Well, are the bones here?" Our brilliant art team, led by Patrick Howe, jumped in and made magic happen. We shot inside that house.

The lovely owner of that home told us that there was an in-ground pool where the wedding was [shot] in The Godfather. I asked, "When did the pool go in?" — that's kind of blasphemous! They said, "The pool went in because they had the wedding there, and it was a gift from the producers to the owners of the home. They said, 'We'll give you a pool if you let us shoot the wedding out here and ruin your grass.'"

TVLINE | Across Seasons 2 and 4, you introduced secret passageways and the west wing of the Arconia. Now in Season 5, there's a dry cleaner and an underground casino. Is there someone in the writers' room keeping track of the building's layout?
Yes to that question. But as long as there is something that, for me, points to authenticity in these concoctions [I'm OK adding to the building].

Since I've been making this show, I've been in two massive pre-war apartment buildings in Manhattan — one was the London Terrace in Chelsea, and I would go to my dry cleaners at street level, so that was certainly one where I was like, "There can be a dry cleaner right there, and it's attached to the building." That was important for our title, as you know, and what happens there — spoiler! And then the bigger conceit, really, was about [the time period] that the Arconia was built, and knowing that stables were once at the bottom level of these apartment buildings — and they get turned into many different things. There were a couple of options that we talked about, but [the casino] felt key to where we were going.

TVLINE | From the very beginning, there's been a poster for the Broadway show Newark, Newark hanging in Oliver's apartment. Four years later, we finally got context for it — involving a $400 loan from the mob. Did you always have a backstory in mind, or did it come to you in preparation for Season 5?
I did not have anything to do with that poster — it was all our art team. Now, granted, they gave me a list of show names [in Season 1], and I do remember picking Newark, Newark. But it was so big, for so many seasons, on the back wall there, and you couldn't avoid it. I had so many people coming up to me in between seasons and [asking about] that big poster. There was always interest, and we knew we were going to have to figure out what Newark, Newark was in Oliver's life. There's another comment about it in the finale, by the way! It comes back around. But the idea of the origin story, of why it haunts him still to this day, I thought was a really fun idea to land [in Season 5]. And then I love that description of the show — some pertinent nods to airport traffic.

TVLINE | Let's move on to Episode 2, which is told in flashbacks. This allows you to bring back nearly all of your former murder victims — including Julian Cihi as Tim Kono and Jayne Houdyshell as Bunny Folger, who we haven't seen since Seasons 1 and 2, respectively. How excited were you to find a way to bring them back into the building?
As much as you can imagine. From the beginning, it has been equally the dream to maybe have someone, oh, I don't know, like Meryl Streep, on the show — and to work with the great, brilliant New York theater and character actors that I've known and have loved for years, like Jackie Hoffman, Teddy Coluca, Jayne Houdyshell, Julian Cihi... the list just goes on and on. Sometimes, we can get a pretty long life out of a victim and bring them back in many ways, so I never say never to anyone who may think their time is done on the show as a victim or a perpetrator.

Truthfully, I've been a very close friend of Jayne Houdyshell's for years — for over a decade now, and I just adore her — so that opportunity was particularly sweet. I directed that episode, so I remember composing the shot with our brilliant DP, Kyle Wullschleger, and our AD, Cedric Vara. I was adamant that the gate had to swing open this way, because you have an arm going across to pull the swing this way, as the camera rose to reveal her. It was so specific because I wanted to give her a proper entrance, and hopefully an audience will get a sense of what that was.

The joy of that episode was being able to experience what the doorman has experienced — just getting passing glances and moments — and to create that sort of touchstone through the decades. We did the best we could in that episode to tell our story but also to give an audience a little bit of a grand pastiche sort of episode.

TVLINE | This episode gives you a chance to fill in a lot of blanks about the central trio and re-contextualize major events through Lester's perspective. I love seeing Charles's evolution—from household name to has-been... Oliver, deep in the throes of depression after his divorce from Roberta... Mabel's mother bringing her to the Arconia to visit her aunt. But my favorite moment is watching how Lester and Lorraine react to the multiple murders in the building. Dianne Wiest acknowledging four murders is just...
It's the read of the episode! Talk about another dream person to get a chance to work with. The way she does that line — that read, "I'm not gonna lie. That's a lot of murders." — and the two of them together, it's just heaven.

TVLINE | Were there any flashbacks that didn't make the final draft? Or any flashbacks that you shot that didn't make the final cut of the episode?
We have about 20 minutes of [unused] footage. It was a very expansive episode — I was working overtime on our tight schedule, having this many days to get that show done — and it had to feel all of a sort of orchestral piece. We had unbelievable things, layers upon layers, but [we only kept] the most essential. I came to a place where it was like, you know what? It's actually about the brevity and the glancing — the sense of, oh my god, Jane Lynch came in and did one pass through the lobby. That she came in just to do that one walk with Charles — that was very moving to me.

Hopefully, you're watching that episode, and maybe it's a little dizzying in a good way, a little disorienting... and you're piecing it together like an investigator. When we catch up to things — when you hear the fire alarm [from Season 1], and our trio is heading over, and it's all from a different perspective — that felt like a real opportunity.

TVLINE | We see a young Mabel arrive to visit her aunt — a character that has routinely been mentioned but never shown. If there was ever an episode to do it, it would've been this one! Did you ever consider introducing her here? Or has there ever been a point in a previous season where you strongly considered bringing that character in but decided against it?
I think I say this every year — because this has been a big discussion — but yes. For many seasons we've talked about who could be her, who could play her... and then, for whatever reason, a lot of times it's not [about] just having that person around. It [should be] very consequential in the story we're telling. So unless we can do that, then it feels a touch superfluous. But to remind and leave open the possibility that someday we will meet that aunt — who knows? We still could.

TVLINE | Now, in Episode 3, we see Charles, Oliver and Mabel return to their apartments to squeeze in a nap before they head down in the Velvet Room — and at one point, we see Oliver asleep on his couch, with a copy of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue draped across his chest. I was trying to remember if the show has ever referenced Palin before. If you have, forgive me — but if not, can you explain the context?
[Laughs] Trust me, I really am trying, in every way I can, to be everywhere when we're making the show — for every moment. But I did think in that moment — like, OK, I can actually do some things while I know this is going to be shot beautifully while Marty's asleep. There are no lines, there is no anything. I can go get a couple of other things done. Then I got back, and I'm, like, who gave him Sarah Palin's book? I did not know anything about it. But what I enjoy about a moment like that is — just as you're doing right now, it's such a... I don't know if it's an Easter egg or a goose egg, but it's sitting there on his chest, in a way that I was shocked by when I saw it. I mean, I could've probably changed it, but I was like, no, we're going with it.

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