"Cuckoo Chicks" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of Only Murders in the Building, starring Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short. It originally aired on October 14, 2025.
Short Summary[]
Mabel gathers a ragtag group to crash an exclusive ladies night. While trying to save the Arconia from being sold, Charles and Oliver accidentally end up in couples' therapy.
Full Summary[]
In a flashback to one of the high-stakes game nights in the Velvet Room, Camila White flirts heavily with Nicky at the bar while he serves drinks. She proposes hosting a monthly ladies' night at the casino to escape the leering eyes of male patrons, and Nicky agrees.
In the present day, Mabel informs Vince about Camila's aggressive apartment-buying spree in the Arconia, leaving him distraught at the potential loss of his hard-won home. Shortly after, Thē arrives and invites Mabel to an exclusive ladies' night event at the Velvet Room, hosted by Camila herself. Thē declines to attend herself, citing a hangover risk before a video shoot involving heavy machinery. Meanwhile, Charles and Oliver learn from Randall —the Arconia's scheming understudy doorman—that Camila has already acquired 82 of the building's 165 units, giving her a 49% stake. She needs just one more apartment to reach the 51% majority required to force a sale and convert the Arconia into an extension of her casino empire. Oliver frets over the implications for his relationship with Loretta, who is eager to leave the Arconia behind for a fresh start elsewhere, while he clings to his unit and the building's chaotic familiarity.
Mabel rushes to Charles and Oliver with news of the ladies' night invitation, which they hail as the perfect infiltration opportunity. They quip that women at such gatherings "yap like hens" about men, spilling secrets freely—though Mabel retorts that she lacks "lady friends" for such experiences. Oliver quickly calls Loretta, who's been stranded at the airport since international flights were canceled due to a storm, and she agrees to join Mabel. Accompanying her is Detective Donna Williams, whose planned Cabo vacation has also been derailed. Over drinks in Oliver's apartment, Donna outlines her scheme: using her card-sharking expertise (honed from "cold decking" in her youth) to deal Camila a string of losing hands at blackjack, rattling her into a confession. Charles endorses the plan, drawing parallels to his late mother, a card cheat who only showed him affection when he assisted her scams—a pattern he links to his attraction to dangerous women like Jan. Donna astutely connects this to Charles's deeper issues, while Mabel rehearses an exaggerated "happy" reaction to her wins, though it comes off more menacing than celebratory.
As a backup, Loretta reveals her latent "medium" abilities, picked up from her first New York roommate, the psychic Celerie Whisp (a role she'll impersonate). Camila is notoriously superstitious, believing herself to be the reincarnation of her great-grandmother, a casino pioneer. Loretta proposes channeling spirits with a thick Eastern European accent to probe Camila's guilt over Nicky's murder. That evening, the trio—Mabel, Loretta, and Donna—glams up for the event but encounters a tearful Rainey in the Arconia lobby. Devastated by Lester's confirmed murder, Rainey (who had hoped it was a hoax) insists on tagging along to confront the killer. With no formal guest list, she's welcomed, though Donna warns: "No tears, yes margaritas."
Upstairs, Charles and Oliver canvass the remaining holdout residents, but most units are already vacated. Randall texts them to the lobby, where they meet the final undecided seller: Dr. Stanley, a therapist whose escrow closes at midnight. Desperate, Charles and Oliver book an impromptu "therapy session" with him over drinks, clumsily probing his motivations while airing their own neuroses.
At the Velvet Room's glittering ladies' night—decked out in feathers, crystals, and high-rollers—Donna slips into a stolen dealer's uniform and takes over a 21 table. Camila arrives fashionably late and joins Mabel, Rainey, and "Celerie Whisp" (Loretta in heavy makeup and accent) for a game. Donna rigs the deck masterfully, dealing bust after bust to Camila while showering wins on the others. But the plan frays: Mabel's forced smiles unnerve rather than provoke, Loretta stays too deep in character, and Rainey glares daggers at Camila, finally snapping, "You should choke for being this happy while my husband is six feet under!". Mabel hustles Rainey to the lobby for damage control, where Rainey laments the absence of Lester's prized elevator crank from his memorial display case—assuming Mabel had kept it as a clue.
With the card scheme in tatters, Loretta pivots: She publicly calls out Donna for "double-dealing," earning Camila's wary trust and getting the detective ejected. Alone with the rattled billionaire, "Celerie" offers to act as a "bridge to the other side," sensing a spirit in the room eager to connect—not Camila's great-grandmother, but someone tied to recent events. Intrigued and vulnerable, Camila agrees to a private séance.
In flashbacks triggered by Loretta's probing, Camila confesses her unrequited love for Nicky. Initially, she pitched the casino expansion to him as a partnership, but he rebuffed her advances, loyal to his wife Sofia (despite their rocky marriage). Heartbroken, Camila began snapping up Arconia units in a vengeful buying spree. Later, a disheveled Nicky—fresh from his staged "disappearance"—reaches out, agreeing to the plan after catching Sofia in an affair (the mystery partner's identity remains teasingly obscured). He reveals the cheating happened the week of his murder, and Camila urges him to host a private Saturday game with just her, Bash Steed, and Pflug to seal the bet and their future. The scheme nearly succeeds until thwarted by what Camila bitterly calls "that f—ing doorman," though she doesn't specify which one before Loretta's session is interrupted by a triumphant text: Dr. Stanley's escrow has closed, granting her the 51% stake. Camila exits the party crowing, "I won."
Back at the Arconia, Mabel and Rainey share a smoke in the lobby, bonding over grief and Mabel's conflicted feelings for Pflug. Rainey advises her to stop overthinking: If he's the killer, dump him; if not, relax and let life unfold. Mabel texts Pflug impulsively, then hands Rainey a modest "clue box" of Lester's mementos to sort through at home.
Meanwhile, the therapy session at Charles's apartment devolves into a raw group confessional. Dr. Stanley fixates on Charles and Oliver's codependent dynamic, mistaking it for a romantic jealousy. Exhausted Donna Williams crashes the session, cutting through the awkwardness with tough love. Charles admits his envy of Oliver and Loretta's stable bond, rooted in his mother's conditional affection and his string of toxic exes (culminating in Jan's kiss-or-kill ambiguity). Oliver confesses his terror of uprooting to New Zealand, fearing he'll lose Loretta to distance and irrelevance. Stanley, moved by their vulnerability, reveals his own isolation—he's selling to escape loneliness, not the building itself. Inspired, he vows to stay and reconnect with his community. But it's 15 minutes past midnight: The deal is done, and Camila now controls the Arconia.
The full group reconvenes at Charles's apartment, morale in the gutter. Mabel laments the loss of their podcast home, while Loretta (shedding her accent) arrives with partial victories: No outright confession, but revelations that Nicky discovered Sofia's affair mere days before his death; he and Camila were secret partners in the casino plot; and Lester may have been deeper in the web than assumed (possibly as the interfering "doorman"). Loretta nails a pitch-perfect Eva Longoria impression of Camila's parting curse: "That f—ing doorman." As proof of foul play, she produces Lester's bloodstained elevator crank, stashed in Nicky's office desk—likely the murder weapon.
Oliver pulls Loretta aside, tearfully admitting he doesn't want to sell or leave, rendering their future moot with the building's doom. She reassures him: Solve the case, save the Arconia, and their life together awaits. Just then, Vince and Rainey burst in with a eureka moment. While Peloton-spinning to Thē's music, Vince got a bird-sighting alert for Lester's favorite species in the courtyard—triggered unwittingly by Rainey testing his old whistle from the clue box. Unbeknownst to them, the whistle activated a hidden bird camera (set up by Lester and Vince to film avian visitors at the fountain, independent of Bash's surveillance). The footage, stored in the app, captures the night of Lester's "death": He lies in the fountain (pushed or fallen?), deliberately blows the whistle to record his final moments, and—crucially—Randall appears, snatches the bloody elevator crank from nearby, and flees. Camila's "f—ing doorman" wasn't Lester after all, but his duplicitous colleague. (A quick cut recalls Randall's earlier "DIE LESTER DIE" carving in the staff room, aimed at the human doorman, not his robot namesake, LESTR.)
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Steve Martin as Charles-Haden Savage
- Martin Short as Oliver Putnam
- Selena Gomez as Mabel Mora
- Michael Cyril Creighton as Howard Morris (credit only)
Special Guest Star[]
Guest starring[]
- Bobby Cannavale as Nicky Caccimelio
- Beanie Feldstein as Althea
- Jermaine Fowler as Randall Winston
- Russell G. Jones as Grover Stanley
- Richard Kind as Vince Fish
- Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Detective Donna Williams
- Dianne Wiest as Lorraine Coluca
- Renée Zellweger as Camila White
Notes and Trivia[]
General[]
- The title sequence to this episode shows a cocktail shaker in Charles' window alongside him and, up on the roof, Detective Williams, Mabel and Loretta stand overlooking the city-line.
Cultural references[]
Soundtrack[]
Media[]
Episode Stills[]
Behind the Scenes[]
Videos[]
See Also[]
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A complete overview of this episode's crew can be found here. |
References[]