One can think of the five lemma in terms of the two four lemmas. I think this makes it clearer... for instance drop the A1$A_1$ and B1$B_1$ from your diagram. If the maps from A2$A_2$ and A4$A_4$ to B2$B_2$ and B4$B_4$ are epimorphisms and the morphism A5 -> B5$A_5 \to B_5$ is monic then the cokernel of A3 -> A4$A_3 \to A_4$ is a subobject of the cokernel of B3 -> B4$B_3 \to B_4$. So morally B3$B_3$ is an "extension" of quotients of A2$A_2$ and A4$A_4$ and we have not "killed less stuff" in the bottom row so A3 -> B3$A_3 \to B_3$ should also be an epimorphism.