Like a locked-room mystery, do you? How about a 132-locked-rooms mystery, with more than 150 murder suspects? Settle in for some uber-Christie with comic knobs on, courtesy of Shondaland’s latest production: The Residence, a bonkers whodunnit written by Paul William Davies (who worked with Shonda Rhimes on her most famous creation, Scandal) and starring the magnificently inimitable Uzo Aduba, who appears to be having almost as much fun as her audience. The Residence is a very happy experience all round – moreish, bingeable, a complete tonic.
Aduba, known for her portrayal of Crazy Eyes in Orange Is the New Black, is more than capable of inducing emotional devastation in the viewer, but she is also funny to her marrow, as we see here. She plays Cordelia Cupp, a brilliant detective (and keen birdwatcher and, er, sardine-eater) called in to investigate the death of the White House’s chief usher, AB Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito). His body is found in the private quarters of the presidential building while a state dinner designed to repair fracturing relations with Australia unfolds below. (The Australian prime minister is played by Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon, who is the son of the country’s 20th PM, Sir William McMahon. How about that, fact fans?)
Enter the president’s advisers, the director of the FBI and Secret Service agents (“Jesus,” sighs Cupp at one point, “how many dudes do you need?”). They assume, from their confidence in the security procedures, that it must have been suicide. Cupp takes one look at the body – after a brief stop outside to see if she can spot any of the birds in the White House grounds that fellow birding enthusiast Teddy Roosevelt noted over his years in residence – and knows that it is murder. The dudes are furious … and that is before she informs them they are going to have to tell everyone at dinner they cannot leave until the case is solved.
Off we go on a wild yet perfectly controlled caper, which incorporates Cupp’s genius deduction skills and cartoonish cutaway visions of the first family’s home, interrupted by interviews with an array of fabulously idiosyncratic characters, who provide clues, possible motives and suspects for the murder.
An assistant usher, Jasmine Haney (Susan Kelechi Watson), explains the them-and-us divide between the domestic and political staff – then reveals that she was due to take over as chief usher before Wynter’s mysterious decision that day not to retire as he had planned. The president’s friend Harry Hollinger (Ken Marino) is found secretly searching the victim’s study for “important papers”. The permanently drunk butler Sheila Cannon (Edwina Findley) has left a potentially incriminating cigarette butt near the garden shed from which a fateful call to Wynter was placed. And does the pastry chef’s resentment over Wynter’s relegation of his annual Christmas gingerbread masterpiece to a lesser showroom make him a suspect, too, or just a heartbroken but harmless patissier?
There is also a cameo from Kylie Minogue (who has been bribed to perform with the promise of an overnight stay in the Lincoln bedroom); a spot of outdoor sex between the Australian foreign minister (Brett Tucker) and a White House chef (Mary Wiseman), before Cupp trains her binoculars on him and discovers, thanks to her knowledge of Australian and American tailoring, that he is wearing the dead man’s shirt; and much, much else besides. It’s all executed with absurd audacity and panache.
The Residence is a gorgeous, gleeful romp that allows not just Aduba but all of the many players in the cast to shine. A spirit of uplifting generosity and joy infuses the whole thing. The investigation is cleverly structured as a flashback, delivered between scenes of them all – or almost all, and therein lies a growing secondary mystery – giving testimony before a congressional committee full of bickering senators, but ostensibly designed to lay rumours to rest and counter the misinformation distributed to the public since the death became public.
Although there is an ensemble vibe, it remains Aduba’s show, and rightfully so. She is a magnetic presence and The Residence takes full advantage of that. This is not television that is going to change the world, but it is going to give you eight hours of fantastic escape. Enjoy.