The Residence review: White House whodunnit keeps you guessing

Content warning: discussion of suicide

In The Residence, Kylie Minogue is not happy. ‘I have sung Can’t Get You Out of My Head seven times … seven fucking times.’

It’s the first state dinner held at the White House in many a year for an Australian Prime Minister – here played by Nip/Tuck star Julian McMahon, son of the real deal in late Aus PM William McMahon.

President Perry Morgan (Paul Fitzgerald) is trying to mend bridges burned by the previous administration (lol at the idea of a former tenant being worse than the current real-world incumbent). But the glittering affair, held under crystal chandeliers, has turned into a right fizzer and our beloved pop export is mighty pissed.

The Residence: Usher

Episode one’s title – The Fall of the House of Usher – may throw you for a moment. No, you haven’t accidentally hit play on Mike Flanagan’s Edgar Allan Poe-adapting horror show. While it’s certainly a sly nod to the Netflix multiverse – see how many hat tips you can spot, with more on that later – the usher in question is AB Wynter.

As played by a mellifluously withering Giancarlo Esposito, he’s the chief usher of the White House, officially responsible for the upkeep of the residence. Or at least he was, given the new miniseries from Shondaland (Bridgerton, Grey’s Anatomy), the house of super-producer Shonda Rhimes, opens Cluedo-like on his body in the games room.

Watch The Residence trailer.

While newly upgraded chief usher Jasmine (Susan Kelechi Watson) and all the President’s men attempt to cover up his presumed suicide, thereby preventing an international incident, the local police department has already thwarted the Secret Service’s efforts.

Chief Larry Dokes (Isiah Whitlock Jr) calls in acclaimed private detective Cordelia Cup. As magnificently portrayed by Orange is the New Black alum Uzo Aduba in a natty tweed suit and asymmetric curls, she’s a very Agatha Christie-coded sleuth. A binocular-bearing twitcher with a thing for tinned sardines and very little patience with most humans. Unfortunately, she’s saddled with Randall Park’s puppy dog-keen FBI agent Edwin.

Cordelia strongarms the President into shutting down the house, much to the annoyance of Barrett Foa’s annoying if historic First Gentleman, Elliot Morgan. And so the world’s worst sleepover begins as the detective walks the claustrophobically ostentatious corridors of one of the world’s most famous houses, gathering clues and interrogating staff, security and guests alike, including a stuck-on-repeat Kylie.

The real Minogue gamely leans into a much crankier persona than her super-sweet rep. Her alternate reality version was a late draft to perform for the event and is particularly pissed she’s been robbed of her deal-sweetener, a night in the Lincoln bedroom, r, with the upper floors on lockdown.

When she hears a teased but as-yet unseen (and maybe never) Hugh Jackman might score that berth because of his itchy feet, she screeches, ‘Why doesn’t he scratch them with his big fucking claws’. Rarrrr.

The Residence: Daft fun

Showrunner Paul William Davies, who also penned Shondaland’s Scandal, poured over Kate Andersen Brower’s best-selling non-fiction book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House. He uses these bones to draw a wickedly funny parlour puzzle that feels embedded in the real, even as it ratchets the action up to absurd.

Masterfully manoeuvring a vast cast, Davies dances with obvious glee. Of the continually growing list of suspects, Ken Marino gets saddled with the too-West Wing straight turn as the President’s bite-is-as-bad-as-his-bark trusted advisor Harry Hollinger.

ScreenHub: Kylie is a suspect in Netflix murder mystery The Residence

The Residence is best when it’s dafter. A brief met by Jason Lee as the President’s wayward liability of a brother, Tripp, who is fingered (for the crime) even as his toilet backs up. True Romance actor Bronson Pinchot also gets it, as very pissed off Swiss-German pastry chef Didier, ropeable that AB has nixed his kangaroo on Uluru dessert.

His nationality sets up a winning swing when Edwin asks Cordelia if there’s anything that’s just Swiss, rather than French, German or Italian-inflected, and she responds, ‘Roger Federer’. Game, set and match.

Or could it be Didier’s kitchen nemesis, flame-haired head chef Marvella (Star Trek: Discovery’s stand-out Mary Wiseman)? She did, very loudly, threaten to murder AB for blocking her flaming wagyu for fire-prevention reasons.

This does allow the Australian contingent to come (pardon the low-blow pun) to the fore via a NSFW dalliance with Brett Tucker’s wandering eyes Foreign Minister David Rylance, who is brill, even if McMahon is oddly underutilised.

Molly Griggs is also a hoot as the overly wellbeing influencer-influenced social secretary Lilly, who lights more fires than she puts out, with Jane Curtin also snappy as the President’s cantankerous shut-in of a mother

But it’s The Power actor Edwina Findley’s tuxedoed, Jackman and vodka-fixated butler Sheila (not Aussie) who is by far the funniest suspect. Chewing every scene for its upstairs/downstairs potential, Findley winks at the audience, knowing how wide-eyed we’d be in this surreal scenario while dropping class-conscious bombs aplenty.

The Residence: devil’s game

Whizzing around the White House’s every nook and cranny like a giant doll’s house, The Residence may follow the standard Netflix eight hour-long episode format, but unlike many of the streamer’s offerings, it never feels overstuffed.

Though a framing mechanism involving a later-date congressional hearing over these unfortunate events slightly derails the cracking pace, it’s no fatal blow.

Directed by Liza Johnson (The Last of Us) and Jaffar Mahmood (Young Sheldon), the show’s remarkably tight for all that’s going on, anchored by Aduba’s eye-rolling impatience, particularly at Edwin, with the pair balancing burn-after-reading droll and deliriously silly between them.

Twists aplenty spiral from Cordelia clocking AB’s body has been tampered with, even if an overt plot point about shirt sizes makes zero sense when comparing the actors involved.

A promising reference to Knives Out’s detective Benoit Blanc is immediately undercut when Bond star Daniel Craig is also mentioned. We’ll never get the Netflix crossover we deserve, just as we were denied a Marple and Poirot team-up. Still, Kylie’s never far away, delivering the best-timed sight gag in the show.

Better the Devil You Know, she memorably sang, but you’ll be willing for The Residence to keep the grand reveal to itself, with Aduba and co grand company, leaving us wanting more.

We should be so lucky. After all, a Melbourne-set prequel is already suggested in the show …

The Residence premiered on Netflix on 20 March 2025.

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