The first three episodes of Only Murders in the Building season 5 are now available to stream on Hulu (Disney+ in the UK and Australia), and I can’t remember the last time I binged a TV show so quickly. You can read my full reaction in my season 5 review, but for me, our lead trio and main ensemble have never been better.
Fans of the series will already know that there’s sadly been another death at The Arconia as we learned at the end of season 4 (RIP, Teddy Coluca’s Lester). Frankly, I’m not sure how many more dead bodies it’ll take for the building to be closed down altogether, but hey, it’s these mysteries that keep bringing us all together.
But not everybody is dead or an incredibly familiar face in the latest installment of the hit series – some hot new bombshells have entered the villa, to borrow a quote from Love Island. In fact, one cameo is so metaphorically hot that I think they’re already my favorite character in Only Murders in the Building season 5… even though we’ve only seen them for all of 30 seconds.
Renée Zellweger’s Camila White will be the best part of Only Murders in the Buliding season 5
Spoilers for Only Murders in the Building season 5 ahead.
Of course, I’m talking about the magnificent Renée Zellweger, who’s joined the cast of season 5 as Camila White. It’s the first major role we’ve seen her in since the latest Bridget Jones movie that released in February, and I’m thrilled we’re finally getting more opportunities to see her onscreen outside of wearing massive granny pants with her skirt tucked into them.
She’s introduced in the very last moments of episode 3, after Charles (Steve Martin) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) discover there’s a secret casino underneath The Arconia. They’re trying to figure out where local mobster Nicky Caccimelio (Bobby Cannavale) has disappeared to and who’s connected to Lester’s death. Instead of finding Nicky, though, the trio return to the casino to find three billionaire CEOs, one of them being Camila.
At this stage we know hardly anything about her, but her sheer demeanor tells us she’s going to be a lot of fun this season. If Bridget Jones got drunk off her face, put all of her best clothes on at once and decided to behave like a lofty aristocrat playing a game of Cluedo, we’d have Camila White. It’s difficult to know if we can take her seriously or not – or how much of a problem she’s going to cause The Arconia going forward – but it’s clear she’s going to be hilarious to watch.
Against her two fellow billionaires, she’s even more entertaining. Millennial Jay Pflug (Logan Lerman) has clearly got rich by some very lucky accident, tapping into every atrocious stereotype that would make you want to avoid him at any cost. Bash (Christopher Waltz) is the complete opposite, a cold-hearted tech billionaire molded in the shape of Steve Job and Bill Gates’ Silicon Valley baby. They’re an odd trio, and thankfully, this dysfunctional dynamic is only just getting started.
Only Murders in the Building season 5 will have been hyping Zellweger up as its new recruit for a reason, and something tells me we could be seeing a lot more of her than anyone else joining The Arconia’s ranks. It’s the perfect fit, and she might be the only person in the show’s history to match Oliver’s (Martin Short) natural level of camp.
NB: An extra shoutout is needed to Dianne Wiest as Lester’s wife Lorraine, who does an incredibly impressive cuckoo impression about 10 minutes into episode 1. More of her too, please.
