Review: Only Murders in the Building, "After You" | Season 5, Episode 2

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Well, this is a weird one so soon out of the gate: a capsule history of Lester Coluca’s time in the Arcona, told as a flashback that kicks off from Lester’s interview in a documentary about New York doormen. Breaking format in the season’s second episode is a bold move, but also one seemingly born out of necessity—if we’re already investigating two murders, and one of the victims we only sort of know and the other we’ve just met, it’s helpful to have some creatively told backstory. Is it both creative and coherent? Not really, and frankly I can’t wait to read Myles’ thoughts about it in the comments or as an editor’s note. [Myles still hasn't solved the footnote issue which is for the best in this case.] But there is some slick filmmaking in “After You,” along with some vital information about how Lester came to know everyone who lived at his workplace—and how he came to be a semi-willing associate of Nicky Caccimelio.

For all their suspension-of-disbelief-threatening matters of format and character age (Lester’s supposed to be 45 when he starts at the Arconia, but he’s being played by 35-year-old Emory Cohen?), the contents of “After You” could almost make up an episode of the podcast-within-the-show. It’s very much the kind of “who was the victim?” exploration that a true-crime podcast might put together. And the somewhat trite conclusion that it comes to (also par for the true-crime course) is that Lester was the Arconia. If those walls could talk, it’d be in the Brooklyn dialect and dependable greetings affected by Cohen and Teddy Coluca. In the early days of the job, he was even physically connected to the building via the elevator crank. The other doormen sum it up at the beginning of the episode: they watch entire lives play out in their lobbies. “After You” flips the POV, while also fortifying the connections between Lester and the trio and establishing his history with Nicky.