(courtesy IMP Awards)
I know it’s become exhaustingly cliche to say your late to the party on something because surely storytelling, viral sensationalism aside which is hideously transitory, but in the case of The Residence I am absolutely very much way behind the curve.
Now, while it’s unlikely my tardy, if enthusiastic, bingeing of The Residence is too blame for the series being cancelled after one superlatively good season – unlikely; however much I prize my actions and opinions, and honestly I’m not the arrogant kind, I doubt one person in the Sydney, Australia would the algorithmic scales that decisively – it is true that I really should have jumped on this gem of a show far earlier than I did.
Blame far too many streaming options or a predilection for quirky dramas and loopy sitcoms over almost all other fare, but by leaving Shonda Rhimes’s show off my viewing dance card, I missed out on a show, until now, of course, which honestly pretty much has it all.
While it doesn’t quite stick the landing, though good lord it comes so close you can taste the vodka in the glass (this reference makes sense after you’ve viewed even just the first two episodes or so), The Residence ticks SO many other boxes than hitting next episode is something you can’t quite do quick enough.
Set at the White House occupied by a gay President, Perry Morgan (Paul Fitzgerald) and his husband Elliot (Barrett Foa), the sprawling ensemble show sets up its compelling plot pretty smartly when the Chief Usher, A. B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) is found murdered by a screaming Nan Cox (Jane Curtin in wickedly good form), who is the mother of Elliot and who hates the President with impressively, vodka-soaked ferocity (but no ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- not enough to kill him).
Now, a murder in the White House is unwelcome at any time, but this one takes place during a State Dinner for the Australian Prime Minister (played by the late Julian McMahon in a cameo role) with guests like Kylie Minogue (playing herself)m Hugh Jackman (heard but only seen from the back) and the Foreign Minister David Rylance (Brett Tucker) and as you can imagine, all manner of awkward, diplomatically dicey complications ensue.
Not the least of which is that the undisputed MVP of a brilliantly accomplished ensemble cast, Detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba), a consultant to the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department, immediately wants approximately 150 highly credentialled people held, along with all White House staff, for questioning during what turns out to be a very, VERY long night.
It’s not the done thing but such is the seriousness of the crime that it happens, allowing the glorious idiosyncrasies of super committed bird watcher Cupp to soar into full, hugely engaging flight.
Against a quirky jazz score, and a vibe that channels equal parts Wes Anderson and Only Murders in the Building without losing a gram of vibrantly buoyant originality, Cupp holds court like few protagonists before her, questioning everything, everyone and showing a cavalierly jolly disregard for any and all conventions unrelated to the actual business of solving a very tricky and messily involved crime.
Crime solving is something the detective wunderkind takes very seriously, though not you suspect as seriously as her love of bird watching which sees her take breaks throughout the night, and later in the day when the investigation resumes, to tick off a list of all the birds seen at the White House at one point or the other.
It’s quirky AF for sure, as is her penchant for simply staying silent when a salient question is asked, causing the subjects of her interrogation to spill the beans more often than not and for simply darting off from her FBI companion, the highly bemused Edwin Park (Randall Park), and while the various people under scrutiny, including a generously long line of suspects, view it as oddball eccentricity (and yeah, it is, it really is), Cupp absolutely wins the heart of viewers.
Cleverly, cognisant of the fact that Cupp could verge on being rude or insufferably odd, the writers of The Residence humanise the protagonist in a few key scenes, most notably when she is on a vacation with her nephew who is tiring of Cupp’s bird watching obsessiveness until he realises how much love is behind what she does.
She ends up winning over Park too, and along with the Chief of Police Larry Dokes ( Isiah Whitlock Jr.), ends up having a few people in her corner; ultimately though Cordelia is one of those rare souls who is happy to just do what she does, and if you like her, fine, if not, then no skin off her nose.
When you’re not watching and delighting in the sheer exuberance of Adubo’s supremely inviting performance, you will be happy to watch a cast of immensely talented actors doing their thing, especially who end up on a long line of suspects including highly strung chef Marvella (Mary Wiseman), Engineer Bruce Geller (Mel Rodriguez), executive pastry chef Didier Gotthard (Bronson Pinchot), the President’s loser brother Tripp (Jason Lee) and his best friend and advisor Harry Hollinger (Ken Marino), vapid social secretary Lilly Schumacher (Molly Griggs) and Assistant Usher Jasmine Haney (Susan Kelechi Watson).
They and a host of others, who are all used judiciously well, and who throw red herrings and not-so red herrings around with inadvertent chaotic glee, are a joy to watch in a show which takes slyly executed and nuanced funny digs at the messy administration of a current serving President, comments on the dysfunctional hell of highly charged workplaces like the White House and which somehow manages to inject a metric ton of at times affecting humanity into a grippingly amusing whodunnit, now with extra political ramifications (including a Senate Enquiry which provides a clever framework for much of the storytelling).
You won’t have a chance, or not much of one anyway, of working who the murderer is until you have a steel trap of a mind that can juggle and sort through some very fast-moving asides, quips and visual hijinks, but does that really matter?
The Residence is a wild ride of mystery sleuthing, flawed humanity exposing fun with a fast-talking, convention-bucking and idiosyncratically lovable protagonist who may not win the hearts of everyone but who fingers the perp, makes an impression and who even manages to fit some bird watching into the bargain.
What a pity we won’t get to see Cupp do her thing again but how lucky are we that she did it this once and so gloriously, amusingly and deliciously well and made us smile at a time when there are not a lot of laughs to be had.
The Residence streams on Netflix.