We know very little about Only Murders In The Building‘s fifth season so far, except that it will explore the fourth season finale’s cliffhanger death (Lester the doorman, played by Teddy Coluca) and feature a range of guest stars including Keegan-Michael Key, Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Jermaine Fowler, Bobby Cannavale, Dianne Wiest, and Beanie Feldstein. (Short says potential guest stars are run past himself, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez: “If they suggested someone that I either personally hated or professionally hated, that vote would go a long way. It wouldn’t work.”) Teá Leoni will also reprise her role as Sofia Caccimelio from the fourth season finale, a character that appears to have mafia ties. According to the season synopsis from Hulu, the podcasters’ investigation “plunges them into the shadowy corners of New York and beyond—where the trio uncovers a dangerous web of secrets connecting powerful billionaires, old-school mobsters and the mysterious residents of the Arconia. The trio discovers a deeper divide between their storied city they thought they knew and the new New York evolving around them—one where the old mob fights to hold on as newer, even more dangerous players emerge.”
Easy to see some relevant parallels to our world today, given that the country is run by an old-school New York City real estate tycoon with alleged connections to organized crime. “We’re pulling from the headlines to ask very specific questions about the balance of power in New York and who has that power,” Hoffmann tells Deadline. “That’s what we’re really looking at—the shifting power dynamics of the country. And what’s really fun about it, the comedic side of it, is that the history of power in New York is pretty colorful, with the old mob and the new mob mixing in. What do those two look like, and how do they sit on either side, with our trio in the center of it?”
Speaking with The Wrap last year, Hoffmann teased that the story the Only Murders In The Building writers wanted to tell about power in NYC became relevant “in ways that honestly we couldn’t have even predicted. We built our story and then certain things revealed themselves, and vice versa. We found out certain things, we were hearing whispers about certain things and it’s a little bit more reflective, deeply New York, both historically and the modern New York right now too.” He added, “The show has always been classic meets modern. So that is carried through again in a very, very big way within the next season. Another wildly funny world for our group to get thrown into is all I will say.”
