The Residence trailer teases murderous tension among White House staff
Netflix's new mystery starring Uzo Aduba premieres March 20.
Murder mysteries set in the high stakes world of American politics are so hot right now. Fresh off the success of Hulu’s Paradise, Netflix is getting in the game with The Residence, premiering March 20. Unlike the sci-fi tinged drama of Paradise, The Residence is billing itself as a “screwball whodunnit.” But the two do seem to share a love of music: where Paradise has the president’s ’80s mixtapes, The Residence trailer has Kylie Minogue. Like, actual Kylie Minogue.
Uzo Aduba’s well-dressed detective Cordelia Cupp, the large ensemble of quirky characters, and The Residence trailer’s zippy orchestral soundtrack inevitably calls to mind another comparison—that is, Knives Out and its hero Benoit Blanc—but there are key differences there, too. Unlike the charming and personable Blanc, Cordelia has a more Holmesian approach to social interaction. That is to say, she’s brilliant but rude. See: her look of disgust at the introduction of FBI Special Agent Edwin Park (Randall Park), who professes he’s “really just here to help.”
Most PopularInterestingly, Shondaland’s stab at a murder mystery began its life as an adaptation of the distinctively non-murder-related nonfiction book The Residence: Inside The Private World Of The White House by Kate Andersen Bower. The book goes behind the scenes of the president’s mansion “through the voices of the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers, and others who tend to the needs of the President and First Family.” (A blurb from The Today Show calls the book “Downton Abbey for the White House.”) The show wandered far off the beaten path as far as adaptations go, but the DNA remains the same. “If you wanna understand the White House residence, you have to understand this. We are the house. All these other people, they are not,” one employee explains to Cordelia as she interviews the staff. “It’s us versus them.” Just who comes out on top of that rivalry will be revealed in March.
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