Warning: SPOILERS for the Only Murders in the Building episode “Tongue Tied” are ahead!
Only Murders in the Building Season 5 is halfway into its run on the 2025 TV schedule, and another character has bitten the dust. This time, though, it was hilarious, because L.E.S.T.R., the robot voiced by Paul Rudd, was thrown off the building in “Tongue Tied” by a disgruntled member of the Arcadia’s staff. Only Murders showrunner John Hoffman explained why it was a “no-brainer” to kill off L.E.S.T.R., and I’m entirely in agreement with his simple, yet logical reason.
This is the third character Rudd has played on Only Murders in the Building, having previously appeared as Ben Glenroy in the Season 2 finale and Season 3, and then as Glen Stubbins in Season 4. With two of his characters having died under unfortunate circumstances, it only made sense for Hoffman and the rest of the Hulu subscription-exclusive show’s creative team to do the same to L.E.S.T.R.. As the showrunner told TVLine:
What do we do with that robot midseason? We dump him off the roof — and we kill him again. So it felt like it was sitting there for us because of what we’ve done with Paul Rudd many times now. It kind of felt like a no-brainer.
I’m sorry, but a precedent has been set on Only Murders in the Building, so L.E.S.T.R. absolutely needed to go. It’s just a shame it happened only a week after we met it, as the robot was brought in during “Dirty Birds” to handle duties like deliveries and reminders. The only reason L.E.S.T.R. didn’t take over as the full time Arconia doorman is that Randall, the late Lester Coluca’s successor, was protected by his union, but by the time “Tongue Tied” rolled around, he and the other staff members had grown to hate the robot.
It was warranted, as many of the residents had grown to favor the robot over the humans working in the Arconia. In an attempt to make nice with the staff as they looked for clues pertaining to Lester and Nicky Caccimelio’s murders, Oliver and Mabel held a building meeting to try and resolve the growing divide between the two sides. Well, it didn’t take long for the meeting to devolve into chaos, during which time Miller the garbage man stole L.E.S.T.R. and threw it off the building.
Howard, who had been acting as L.E.S.T.R.’s keeper and called the robot his “best friend” now that his dog and cat had third-wheeled him, was shaken by that turn of events, though not for long since another robot was on its way and already connected to his Gmail. Really, the only downside of L.E.S.T.R.’s destruction was that it contained digital copies of Lester’s paperwork, which Oliver, Mabel and Charles had been hoping to use to further their investigation.
Who knows, maybe the next L.E.S.T.R. robot, which I hope is also voiced by Paul Rudd, will have those copies if they were backed up on the cloud. And at least some good came out of L.E.S.T.R. being destroyed, as Miller later gave our trio of main characters a portrait of Lester Coluca made out of the garbage from the day he died, as they’d requested. From there, they learned about an address and arrived there just in time to see Lorraine, Lester’s wife, meeting with Sofia, Nicky’s wife. We’ll learn what’s going on with that when Only Murders in the Building Season 5’s sixth episode premieres next Tuesday.
