Only Murders in the Building Season 5 Open-Ended Finale Explained: The Clues You Missed and Who Really Killed Lester

Only Murders in the Building wrapped Season 5 the way this show loves to do it: clean up the current mess, then casually drop a bigger one in your lap on the way out. Lester Coluca, the Arconia's longtime doorman, finally gets justice. And then the show tees up a new murder that looks nastier than anything our trio has tackled yet.

The finale: how they cracked Lester and saved the Arconia

Yes, there is a secret underground casino beneath the Arconia. Because of course there is. That is where Mabel, Charles, and Oliver piece together the truth about Lester's murder — and stumble into a much bigger conspiracy.

• The trio corners the truth inside the Arconia's hidden casino and exposes a trio of billionaires plotting to demolish the building and bury the evidence — including a severed finger.
• They record a confession that blows the scheme open.
• Mayor Beau Tillman tries to shut them up by trapping them in a room scheduled for demolition.
• Howard and pop star Althea create a distraction, giving the trio time to escape and broadcast the confession live.
• The Arconia is spared, the cover-up collapses, and the podcasters chalk up another win.

So who actually killed Lester?

It all circles back to Mayor Beau Tillman — and Sofia. Beau was secretly involved with Sofia and had been cutting deals for that billionaire trio for a while. When Nicky Caccimelio tried to expose the affair, things went sideways: Lester accidentally killed Nicky. To keep his own dealings buried, Beau hunted Lester down and murdered him. The fallout pulls a crooked police force into the light, and Beau gets hauled off in cuffs.

Three months later: the reset... and the swerve

Jump ahead three months. The building is intact, everyone's pretending to move on. Sofia bails to Positano. Cinda Canning heads to the U.K. to launch a new true-crime podcast about a red-haired woman accused of killing a royal heir.

Then the rug gets yanked. A body turns up outside the Arconia. At first it looks like it could tie to Cinda's new case, but the twist is meaner than that: the victim is Cinda herself. New season, new corpse, same address — and it sounds darker than where we just came from.