Shonda Rhimes' 'The Residence' is a deflated balloon of a whodunit
Shonda Rhimes' 'The Residence' is a deflated balloon of a whodunit
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If I happened to be a Netflix honcho, and megaproducer Shonda Rhimes came to me with a pitch for a "Knives Out"-style murder mystery set in the White House, I would have said yes immediately, just as the real streaming service did.
What's not to love about the idea? You've got Rhimes, the prolific TV creator responsible for "Grey's Anatomy" and "Bridgerton," plus the kind of silly/serious whodunit that has served Netflix very well with director Rian Johnson's "Knives" film series. Add stars like Uzo Aduba ("Orange is the New Black"), Randall Park ("Fresh Off the Boat") and Giancarlo Esposito ("Better Call Saul") and you might be tempted to start printing your own money.
But somehow, despite all it has going for it, "The Residence" (now streaming, ★★ out of four) is a disappointingly flimsy and flaccid story. Created by Paul William Davies ("Scandal" and "For the People") and produced by Rhimes and frequent collaborator Betsy Beers, "Residence" is not an abject failure. But it's also nothing resembling the greatness of "Bridgerton" or "Grey's." It's like a dish cooked with a whole lot of expensive, artisanal ingredients that ends up tasting like Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. It tastes good, sure, but it's not nearly as delicious as all of its components should make it.
Set in the headquarters of the nation's executive branch, the eight-episode miniseries takes place mostly on the night of a state dinner for Australian leaders in which chief White House usher A.B. Wynter (Esposito) is found dead in a room in the residential side of the building, and it's not clear if foul play is involved. It's a political, diplomatic and jurisdictional nightmare, and D.C. Metro Police Chief Larry Dokes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) calls in his trusty consulting detective, Cordelia Cupp (Aduba) to run the investigation. Quirky (but more in an annoying way than a charming one), savant-like and completely lacking in social niceties, Aduba's Sherlockian gumshoe somehow convinces the president (Paul Fitzgerald) to lock down the entire White House as she questions butlers, chefs, political staffers, foreign emissaries and even the president himself. Scenes of Cupp's investigation are intertwined with those from congressional hearings that inevitably followed the incident, complete with former Senator Al Franken playing a senator.
Watching "Residence" is frustrating because none of these intriguing elements add up to much. Aduba's quirky Cupp lacks the originality and delectable flavor of great pop-culture detectives like "Knives" protagonist Benoit Blanc. Instead, she feels like a cheap Amazon dupe of the Daniel Craig character: Looks right in the pictures, but falls apart after delivery. Her character development is in the shallow end of the pool, yet she might be the character who's most deeply drawn in the overstuffed cast.
The whodunit's central mystery is also half-baked: the death of Wynter is as bland as Esposito's character is in flashbacks. It doesn't provide the humorous tone the series is clearly courting, and the jokes are half-hearted and awkward. Even the show's title is a letdown: Although it's an accurate label for the private areas of the White House that the president and his family reside in, it is a generic, sanitized name for a series aiming for quirk and comedy. "Knives Out"! "Clue"! "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"! These are snappy titles that draw you in. (Meanwhile, my mind keeps confusing "The Residence" with Fox's 2018-23 soapy medical drama "The Resident.")
The series just generally lacks snap, panache, style, verve, or whatever you want to call it. It's the pudding without the proof, less than the sum of its parts. TV is absolutely plagued with these good-but-not-good-enough series right now, so it's frustrating to sit through middling episodes from Hollywood's most talented professionals.
If we're going to get Shonda Rhimes in the White House with a comedic murder-mystery series, I want to see the best version of that.
Not just the most passable one Netflix can get to our screens.
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