The Residence arrives with an intriguing premise, a lush setting, and a stacked forged, however the locked-room thriller finally finds itself tousled in its personal ambition. Set throughout the hallowed halls of the White House, the most recent providing from Netflix’s partnership with government producer Shonda Rhimes positions itself as an offbeat whodunnit within the vein of Knives Out or Poker Face. But it struggles to carve out a definite id in a style that’s feeling a bit overdone of late.
Credit to creator Paul William Davies for trying past the case information of Hercule Poirot and Lieutenant Columbo for inspiration: The Residence drops its unconventional gumshoe, Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba), into a particularly free adaptation of a nonfiction e book concerning the White House and the individuals who preserve it operating. He’s taken a historic framework and spun it into one thing playfully subversive, however the result’s a collection that goals for sharp and propulsive, however lacks the followthrough to drag it off.
Aduba instructions the proceedings with absolute ease, even when she’s taking part in a detective whose eccentricities might as properly be cobbled collectively from the “memorable TV sleuth” breakout equipment. (She’s an obsessive ornithology fanatic in her spare time, for one). In the aftermath of a mysterious dying throughout a state dinner for Australia, Cupp and the Watson to her Holmes (FBI Special Agent Edwin Park, performed by Ranall Park) sift by means of a cavalcade of potential perps, together with a disgruntled pastry chef (Bronson Pinchot), the president’s slovenly brother (Jason Lee), a shifty presidential advisor (Ken Marino) and the White House’s flighty social secretary (Molly Griggs). Oh, and Kylie Minogue. Yes, that Kylie Minogue – she of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and the very ’80s cowl of “The Loco-Motion.” No one is above suspicion.
On paper, the thriller of who killed persnickety White House Chief Usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) is precisely the sort of twisty, Agatha Christie-inflected setup that ought to make for crackerjack TV. But The Residence retains getting in its personal method. The pacing of the episodes (all hovering round an hour) is oddly languid, its internet of suspects and subplots typically convoluted for convolution’s sake because it cuts between the night time of the homicide and the times and hours main as much as it. All that back-and-forth finally dampens any impression the answer might have had: The present’s a number of timelines – together with a congressional inquiry happening a number of months after the crime – muddy the waters quite than including to the intrigue.
That’s to not say The Residence is with out its charms. The manufacturing design is lavish, the dialogue has the signature snap of previous Rhimes productions like Bridgerton and Scandal, and Aduba is effortlessly watchable in a job that appears tailored for her. Some of the season’s finest moments are when Cupp units her steely gaze on considered one of her suspects – or as she prefers to name them, interviewees. Before lengthy, they spill their guts all on their very own.
There are some welcome moments of biting social commentary nestled amongst The Residence’s clues and purple herrings. But by the point the eight-episode run (with super-sized finale) wrapped, I used to be left questioning if it might’ve been higher off taking part in issues straight – a status drama concerning the unseen employees of the White House, quite than a homicide thriller mapped onto a behind-the-scenes bestseller. There’s positively some enjoyable available, however within the more and more crowded subject of quirky detective fare, The Residence by no means totally earns its seat on the state dinner.
