Only Murders in the Building showrunner teases season 5's murder case: 'It gets very complex'

Warning: This article contains spoilers about the Only Murders in the Building season 4 finale.

As one murder case closes on Only Murders in the Building, another immediately opens. Oliver (Martin Short) was right to be paranoid about another body dropping, but at least he, Charles (Steve Martin), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) made it out of season 4 alive to investigate the latest Arconia murder victim when Hulu's comedic whodunnit returns for season 5.

The season 4 finale saw the podcast trio solve Sazz Pataki's (Jane Lynch) murder — it was stuntman-turned-script-stealer Marshall (Jin Ha) who shot her through the window of Charles' apartment — only to stumble upon a new dead body the morning after Oliver and Loretta's (Meryl Streep) surprisingly death-free wedding celebration. Doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca) turned up dead in the Arconia courtyard fountain, and the season ended with the trio calling 9-1-1 while freaking out over the bloody discovery.

"I felt particularly proud of this one in all the big swing ways that we like to do, and all that intrigue felt like, in some way, me honoring the work we do as writers on the show, through Sazz," showrunner John Hoffman tells Entertainment Weekly. "And I'm in season 5 planning right now with the writers, and that dance is big and exhaustive and fun. We're going in a great new direction for season 5 already. It feels very new."

Below, the series co-creator breaks down that season 4 finale ending and teases what to expect from season 5 — including how he might actually kill off Streep in the future.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Is doorman Lester going to be the main murder case next season?

JOHN HOFFMAN: There's a complexity to the murder case next season, and Lester is at the square center of it emotionally, and we have a lot to learn about him. When we were developing the next season and thinking of who and how and all of that, what areas we wanted to go into — I won't share too much about that world we're going into, but I will say the show has always been a mix of classic meets modern, right? These classic comedians with this modern young woman, this old prewar apartment building smack dab in New York that's ever-changing and developing, so that felt intriguing to get back to, but in a new way through a new direction. The classic of the doorman who's been there many, many years at a prewar apartment building, all of the things he's seen, all of the secrets he's held, all of the things he knows, what else has been going on, all felt like a good entry point to starting a narrative for the next season.

It's so sad because everyone kept brushing him off in the finale, only for him to turn up dead in such a gruesome way. Justice for Lester!

That's what I want you to feel. I feel the same way, and I think the trio feels the same way. We're always looking for ways into, what's the new angle? What's the new territory we haven't hit before? More than ever before, it feels like we're heading towards New York of this very moment in 2024, and what does that look like, and how can we reflect that in a way that maybe we haven't done before? We have a fairly romanticized New York in many ways in our show, but in some ways we've definitely leaned on, in our development of our season 5, the more modern, the more now, and tomorrow of New York that we're heading towards.

How is this investigation going to compare to what we've seen the trio tackle the past four seasons?

It's always really important to me that the personal is located quickly for our trio. What is it that they see in this situation, or they have known in their own history, that connects them to the actual crime here and the person who's died? Their own history with Lester, all of them will be leaning into that. Also looking at the larger scope, as I said about New York, about the city, about the building, about the power dynamics, the respect that's shown in old school ways of a doorman to all of our tenants in the building for decades, the respect that continues to be shown and now our trio being landed in the feeling of like, "We have to respect that man and find what happened." So there's lots of ways it goes, and it gets very complex.

We also meet surprise guest star Tea Leoni's Sofia Caccimelio, a.k.a. the wife of missing and presumed dead Nicky "The Neck" Caccimelio.

I just love her. Granted, it may not be evident from that scene — she's pretty elegant in the way she comports herself in that scene — but I think there's great opportunity for some delightful things hopefully going forward, comedically.

She wants to hire the trio to investigate her husband's disappearance, believing that he's still alive, but Mabel turns her down. She then vaguely says something about how Nicky has everything to do with their building. What does she mean?

That's a biggie. Yes, his disappearance has everything to do with this building, in her mind. And that will be unfolded pretty quickly in the beginning of the next season, to understand what is happening around that disappearance and how it might in some way connect to what happened in the fountain. There may be a connection, the trio is quick to think there has to be a connection. The dry cleaning world that the Caccimelios are known for around the Manhattan boroughs, this is an area that's been well trod, so in the realm of what do we do with New York in 2024 with territories that we haven't visited, that felt like great fodder for us to check in and say, "What does that look like now?" We really pull from headlines that are happening in New York right now to balance all of that and say, "What could be going on? What is the source of that, that Sofia is saying? What was going on in that building that could hold all of this?" So that's where we're going.

How much are we going to see Sofia next season? Is Tea going to be a series regular?

Well, I've been texting with her as of last week, and talking about some things going on. So I'm very excited about her being a part of, as much as possible, but I can't share too much yet.

Is Meryl going to return next season? Or is Loretta going to be in production in New Zealand the entire time?

First of all, I have to ask, were you in any way stressed out thinking, "Oh, god. Please don't kill her," throughout the finale?

Of course! I thought either you were going to kill her or she and Oliver were going to break up. I thought something terrible was going to happen but they got married and both survived. I was shocked.

[Laughs] That was the goal.

Can you even kill off Meryl?

I can't do it. I may soon, I may somewhere along the way, but not yet. I just love her on the show and she's become such an incredible presence within our world. That relationship of Loretta and Oliver is so rare and beautiful to me. I also just like the idea narratively of her recognizing him and what he's doing in his life and career, and he recognizing what she's doing in her life and career, and recognizing that together they've never been anything remotely conventional or traditional, and the idea that she sees him with that trio and says, "Don't come to New Zealand with me now. You'll come in a couple of weeks." That felt very exciting and adult, much in the way that it's been very beautiful to write a romance between people not in their 20s or in their 60s, even. It's been sweet to watch them and appreciate that, so that's all the reasons for why I would love to have her back.

Should we still be worried that they can't make long-distance work, immediately after tying the knot?

The show operates on worry and fear underneath everything, so I'm perfectly happy to have people worried and fearful traumatically about the show. They're laughing, but underneath it's like, "Oh, no. Don't tell me they're going to do this." It's a good thing. I'm sorry, I know. I had to learn to embrace it.

After Jan kills Marshall, she tells Charles that they're "endgame." And he actually seemed into it! What can you reveal about their potential future now that she's gone back to prison?

It delighted me tremendously in the writer's room when we came around to what happens there at that incredible turn, and what Jan does, all driven by an insanity that can only be in the mind of a killer. She loves Sazz, she loves Charles, these are the two people closest to her, and there's justice in her mind that has to happen. In some perverse way she has a real sense of, "You know you liked that I did that," with Charles, and he can't deny it. Charles is, I want to say, a slight bit turned on. So who knows what that means?

How many more seasons do you want this show to run?

There is a part of me that wants to say forever, because I don't think I'll ever have another experience like this. There's no part of me that would ever rush to wrap this one up. I'm sure there will be a natural end, but for now I'm game for as much as they want.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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