The Residence Is an Overstuffed White House Whodunit With a Delightful Detective

Cordelia Cupp is not easily intimidated. That’s the main thing the denizens of the White House learn when Cordelia—said to be the world’s best detective and played by the preternaturally intense Uzo Aduba, who makes you believe it—is drafted to investigate a suspicious death within its walls during a state dinner. Summoned to the scene by the chief of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), she’s confronted by a coterie of high-ranking government officials and senior advisors to the President; “wow, that’s a lot of dudes,” is all she has to say about that. Examining the body, she chides them for missing several clues. Nor is she impressed when POTUS’s best friend, Harry Hollinger (Ken Marino), starts speechifying. “There is no place like this on Earth,” he lectures her. “It is bigger than you.” Cordelia: “Do you mean that the house is literally bigger than me? Because that seems obvious. I’m inside the house.”

Brilliant, self-assured, stubborn, endlessly patient (she’s also an obsessive birder), likely neurodivergent, and above all tenacious, Cordelia is both the heroine of Netflix’s The Residence—which the platform describes as a “screwball whodunit,” from Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland production company—and its most fascinating character. As conceived by creator Paul William Davies (Scandal, For the People) and embodied by Aduba, she’s more than just another eccentric detective à la Hercule Poirot, Knives Out’s Benoit Blanc, and the multigenerational trio of podcasters in Only Murders in the Building. While she resembles many Rhimesian leads in that she’s the smartest person in any room (and she knows it), Cordelia is also refreshingly virtuous compared to the likes of an Olivia Pope or an Anna Delvey. To the limited extent that The Residence adds up to more than a canny combination of Shondaland conventions and the whodunit trend currently dominating film and TV, the reason is Cordelia.

Despite its rarefied setting, the case mostly fits the classic Agatha-Christie-via-Clue template. As a delegation of Australian dignitaries and other VIP guests meet, greet, eat, and enjoy an intimate performance by Kylie Minogue (who appears as herself) downstairs, a man dies upstairs. And he’s not just any man—he’s A.B. Wynter, the White House’s longtime chief usher, whose humble title belies his powerful position as the household staff’s big boss. (Because A.B. is played by Giancarlo Esposito, you know he’s refined, self-possessed, and fastidious to a fault.) The body is discovered by Nan Cox, the cranky, hard-drinking, ratty-bathrobe-clad mother (Jane Curtin, always a pleasure to see) of President Perry Morgan’s (Paul Fitzgerald) husband, Elliot (Barrett Foa); because The Residence is set in Shondaland rather than in reality, POTUS’s queerness isn’t treated as though it’s particularly noteworthy. Nan screams, of course.

Among the people who come running and reach the scene before Cordelia arrives are some of the show’s many—way too many, really—potential suspects. Perry’s old pal and most trusted advisor, Harry is also a Machiavellian schemer with his own agenda. A.B.’s otherwise competent deputy, Jasmine Haney (Susan Kelechi Watson), has been getting wasted on the clock since he reneged on a promise to retire and leave the job to her. Elsewhere in the building, employees who have compelling motives include a warring chef (Mary Wiseman) and pastry chef (Bronson Pinchot) who both have reasons to feel betrayed by A.B.; a chatty butler (Edwina Findley, very funny) whose liveliness doesn’t exactly mesh with A.B.’s restraint; and a pushy, entitled social secretary (Molly Griggs) who wants to reinvent White House events for the era of wellness and influencing, with guidance from her energy healer (Taran Killam), much to A.B.’s consternation.

This is just a small selection of The Residence’s dozens of characters. Other famous faces in the cast include perennial G-man Randall Park as Cordelia’s frustratingly conventional FBI minder and Jason Lee as the President’s Roger-Clinton-esque loser brother. In a separate timeline, months after the alleged murder, which the White House is desperate to pass off as a suicide, a senator played by Al Franken (yes, the same Al Franken who resigned his Senate seat amid sexual misconduct accusations) faces off with a conspiracy-addled Marjorie Taylor Greene type (Eliza Coupe, not quite as kooky as you’d hope) in a hearing about the incident. To add to the information overload, there are flashbacks, self-aware references to classic whodunits, digressions into White House lore presumably mined from Kate Andersen Brower’s book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, which inspired the show.

Complication and confusion come with the territory of the grittier, darker, perhaps more Nordic-noir-inflected crime dramas that are also overrepresented on TV. But for the kind of series so many of us watch to give our brains a vacation, it’s a lot to ask of viewers to keep track of all this stuff. The effort feels particularly burdensome in the first three episodes of the eight-part season, when introductions and interrogations happen fast, and no one stays on screen for long enough to gain more depth than any other generic quirky whodunit suspect.

The shift that propelled me through the second half of the series (I haven’t seen the finale, so we’ll all have to wait and see whether the resolution lands) comes at the beginning of Episode 4. In a flashback, far away from the White House, Cordelia is birding on a deserted beach with her young nephew. She ends up telling him her childhood origin story, which involves finding a missing sock the boy’s mother cherished. This is the human truth behind Cordelia’s calling, one that brings specificity and humanity to the character. For this woman who feels deeply but communicates only through logic, investigation—the pursuit of truth and justice—is a love language. When you know this, it’s impossible not to feel invested in Cordelia’s quest.

The Residence may not be much more than an overstuffed, Shonda-fied take on the same murder mystery you’ve seen a hundred times. But Cordelia Cupp? She’s a revelation, and Netflix would be wise to realize her potential beyond this story. The platform that made a gumshoe as flimsy as Benoit Blanc the center of his own franchise owes her all that and more.