TL;DR – This was a delightful time as we pulled apart the motives of all the many people in the White House who possibly wanted a man to die.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this show.

The Residence Review –

Many genres rise and fall as time goes on, and unless you live in the British countryside, one example of that is the humble Murder Mystery. There are times when we can’t get enough of them, and then there can be a desert with none in sight. They are also one of the oldest genres in the industry, and you have to wonder if there is space for anything new? Well, today, we get a delightful new entry that shows it can.  

So, to set the scene, it is just a typical day at The White House as everyone prepares for a state dinner with Australia who the Americans are currently on poor terms with. There is chaos in the kitchens, disasters in the seating plans, and some unfortunate kangaroo placements. However, all of that changes when a piercing screen from Nan Cox (Jane Curtin) echoes through the halls of power. For the chief usher, A.B. Winter (Giancarlo Esposito), is dead under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Anyone dying in the White House would be a calamitous event, but murder? That is unheard of. And while everyone fights to find out who actually has jurisdiction in this case, Larry Dokes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), the Chief of Police at the MPD, calls upon the one person that he knows can take on such a challenge, Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba), a consulting detective. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

The first thing that I want to talk about is our central character, Cordelia Cupp, because the show lives and dies in her depiction. If I were to describe the character, I would say that she lives in the space created by Sherlock Holmes, that sort of aloof detective who can see things that others miss and have their own peculiarities that infuriate others. However, there is one profound difference: she is not a total [well, add your best sentence enhancer here]. She is caring, passionate, and makes deep connections with those around her. But she also does not suffer fools. All of this is captured in Uzo Aduba’s superb performance that captivates you in the first time she is on scene exploring for birds. Without that powerful performance, this show does not work.

Then, I need to make it clear that the rest of the cast are no slouches because you need a rich tapestry of characters, witnesses, and suspects to make this work. The first thing that comes to mind is our victim, who dies in the first few minutes but still has a persistent persistence throughout. Giancarlo Esposito brings humanity to a role that is meant to be invisible, which is made even harder because he is replacing his friend Andre Braugher, who passed away during filming. We are constantly moving from one wild character to the next, as the editing style tends to involve a more chaotic feel. This allows excellent character actors like Mary Wiseman, Ken Marino, Eliza Coupe, Jane Curtin, Julian McMahon, Jason Lee, Bronson Pinchot, Kylie Minogue, and Randall Park to eat up the screen.

Narratively, we spend the first episode meeting all these wilder-than-life characters, all of whom have a reason or opportunity to murder the Chief Usher, which makes untangling the mess so much fun. However, that mess is heightened because of the location, which makes every action have an immensely greater impact. Sure, it sucks when you keep a bunch of people overnight to investigate a murder, but what happens when those people are the President of the United States (Paul Fitzgerald), the Prime Minister of Australia (Julian McMahon), Kylie Minogue (Kylie Minogue), and Hugh Jackman (Ben Prendergast). But then this escalation crashes into the reality that people are broken, have profoundly different interpretations of events, and also might be straight-up lying.   

From this onset, the story weaves a very interesting path through the White House till we find our eventual killer. What keeps this frantic pace of the series going is first the editing that constantly reinforces and shapes the narrative as it jumps around the timeline with casual abandon. But then we also contend with the structural conceit of the series in that we view everything through the lens of a congressional committee months after the event. This helps drive the momentum because you can always cut back to the chaos of the committee if you want to move things along or dramatically undercut everything you just learned. Red herrings abound, and while you may have picked the killer out a lot sooner than me, it still is an interesting watch trying to see how they work it out.

In many ways, The Residence is almost a love letter to the Murder Mystery genre in much the same way that Knives Out was, a film that gets name-checked more than once. We get these big tentpole moments that you expect from a show like this smattered throughout the series like little gems to find. I especially liked that moment when they brought all the suspects together in the room and confirmed my suspicion that the two people who told different stories were both telling the truth, which was the least probable solution. But then we intersperse this with some solid bird-watching facts in a juxtaposition that just works for this show.    

The cast is phenomenal, and that mystery is fascinating to watch unfurl, but the one last thing that I need to talk about is the set design. It is always refreshing to sit down and realise that someone has clearly done their homework. Because the set design and art direction in this show are meticulous, this might be one of the best renditions of the White House that I have ever seen put to film, and I am counting The West Wing on that list. They help bring the layers of history of the building and setting to life. It also helps inform the story and the flow as we pass from room to room. There is credibility that cannot be underestimated when you have all those details because it improves not only the visuals but also the performances.

In the end, do we recommend The Residence? Absolutely. Sure, not every episode works to the same level and it ends on a bit of a weird note. However, I was always engaged from the start to the finish. Uzo Aduba gives a command performance, and I hope they make a push for her at awards time and that this is not the last time we meet up with this character. My recommendation also has absolutely nothing to do with Australia getting to have its day, which is kind of nice in the current climate, which the show was not referencing at all. Have you seen The Residence yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Residence
Directed by – Liza Johnson & Jaffar Mahmood
Written by – Paul William Davies
Created by – Paul William Davies
Based On – The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
Production/Distribution Companies – Shondaland, Shondaland Media & Netflix
Starring – Uzo Aduba, Giancarlo Esposito, Molly Griggs, Ken Marino, Randall Park, Susan Kelechi Watson, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Edwina Findley, Jason Lee, Al Mitchell, Dan Perrault, Bronson Pinchot, Julieth Restrepo, Mel Rodriguex & Mary Wiseman with Keiko Agena, Dana Bash, Eliza Coupe, Jane Curtin, Jess Darrow, Izzy Diaz, Ryan Farrell, Rebecca Field, Paul Fitzgerald, Barrett Foa, Al Franken, Andrew Friedman, Spencer Garrett, Timothy Hornor, Juliette Jeffers, Tara Karsian, Taran Killam, Sonya Leslie, Julian McMahon, Kylie Minogue, Sumalee Montano, Matt Oberg, Alexandra Siegel, Jake Tapper & Brett Tucker and Cinda Adams, Marshel Adams, Ito Aghayere, James Babson, Ben Bigler, Soledad Campos, Elizabeth Phoenix Caro, Catherine Carlen, Ca’ron Jaden Coleman, Will Dixon, Justin Ellis-Johnson, Jeremiah Felder, Paul William Davies, Sklar Ebron, Kevin Garbee, Ros Gentle,Fidel Gomez, Chris Grace, Reagan Grant, J.D. Hall, Andrew Hwang, Emanuel Loarce, Nathan Lovejoy, Devika Parikh, Ben Prendergast, Anna Rajo, Stan Sellers, Mark Sipka, Michael Anthony Spady, Anna Rajo, Tristan Turner, Aubrey Wakeling, Quin Walters, Jodi Bianca Wise, Paul Witten & J.R. Yenque
Episodes Covered – The Fall of the House of Usher, Dial M for Murder, Knives Out, The Last of Sheila, The Trouble with Harry, The Third Man, The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb & The Mystery of the Yellow Room