The Residence Review

The Residence arrives with an intriguing premise, a lush setting, and a stacked cast, but the locked-room enigma yet finds itself tangled up successful its ain ambition. Set wrong the hallowed halls of the White House, the latest offering from Netflix’s concern with enforcement shaper Shonda Rhimes positions itself arsenic an offbeat whodunnit successful the vein of Knives Out oregon Poker Face. But it struggles to carve retired a chiseled individuality successful a genre that’s feeling a spot overdone of late.

Credit to creator Paul William Davies for looking beyond the lawsuit files of Hercule Poirot and Lieutenant Columbo for inspiration: The Residence drops its unconventional gumshoe, Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba), into an highly escaped adaptation of a nonfiction publication astir the White House and the radical who support it running. He’s taken a humanities model and spun it into thing playfully subversive, but the effect is simply a bid that aims for crisp and propulsive, but lacks the followthrough to propulsion it off.

Aduba commands the proceedings with implicit ease, adjacent if she’s playing a detective whose eccentricities whitethorn arsenic good beryllium cobbled unneurotic from the “memorable TV sleuth” breakout kit. (She's an obsessive ornithology enthusiast successful her spare time, for one). In the aftermath of a mysterious decease during a authorities meal for Australia, Cupp and the Watson to her Holmes (FBI Special Agent Edwin Park, played by Ranall Park) sift done a cavalcade of imaginable perps, including a disgruntled pastry cook (Bronson Pinchot), the president’s slovenly member (Jason Lee), a shifty statesmanlike advisor (Ken Marino) and the White House’s flighty societal caput (Molly Griggs). Oh, and Kylie Minogue. Yes, that Kylie Minogue – she of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and the precise ’80s screen of “The Loco-Motion.” No one is supra suspicion.

On paper, the enigma of who killed persnickety White House Chief Usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) is precisely the benignant of twisty, Agatha Christie-inflected setup that should marque for crackerjack TV. But The Residence keeps getting successful its ain way. The pacing of the episodes (all hovering astir an hour) is oddly languid, its web of suspects and subplots often convoluted for convolution’s involvement arsenic it cuts betwixt the nighttime of the execution and the days and hours starring up to it. All that back-and-forth yet dampens immoderate interaction the solution whitethorn person had: The show’s aggregate timelines – including a legislature enquiry taking spot respective months aft the transgression – muddy the waters alternatively than adding to the intrigue.

That’s not to accidental The Residence is without its charms. The accumulation plan is lavish, the dialog has the signature drawback of past Rhimes productions similar Bridgerton and Scandal, and Aduba is effortlessly watchable successful a relation that seems tailor-made for her. Some of the season’s champion moments are erstwhile Cupp sets her steely regard connected 1 of her suspects – oregon arsenic she prefers to telephone them, interviewees. Before long, they spill their guts each connected their own.

There are immoderate invited moments of biting societal commentary nestled among The Residence’s clues and reddish herrings. But by the clip the eight-episode tally (with super-sized finale) wrapped, I was near wondering if it would’ve been amended disconnected playing things consecutive – a prestige play astir the unseen workers of the White House, alternatively than a execution enigma mapped onto a behind-the-scenes bestseller. There’s decidedly immoderate amusive to beryllium had, but successful the progressively crowded tract of quirky detective fare, The Residence ne'er afloat earns its spot astatine the authorities dinner.