In The Residence, we meet Detective Cornelia Cupp after the Chief Usher of the White House is found dead during a state dinner. The case begins as a hush-hush thing on the top floors of the White House before Cupp claims it’s a murder mystery, and everyone who came to the dinner must stay back. This includes Australian delegates, the PM of Australia, Hugh Jackman, and Kylie Minogue. Then we spiral into a world of conspiracy and staff interviews, which later get evaluated in a public Congressional hearing so that Senator Bix can have a good time. You know, if you trust your instincts, you may be able to solve the case pretty early on, but that’s not what everyone really cares about. Sometimes it’s about the process, and that’s exactly what The Residence gives us. 8 deliberate episodes of waiting until we finally have the real answer. I guess you have to be as patient as a birdwatcher to get through to the final episode to figure out who killed A.B. Wynter. But, with that said, let’s dive straight into a comprehensive recap.
Spoiler Alert
Who Was A.B. Wynter?
At the beginning of the show, we meet a man named A.B. Wynter, the chief usher of the White House. He is meant to be retiring really soon, except he tells his assistant that he can’t leave things in the state they are in. At this point, it is understood that A.B. is a man of virtue. He cares about setting things straight and making sure everything is functioning perfectly. Now, I know you’re thinking already that his assistant killed him, but let me tell you, she did not. Throughout the series, we come to realize that everyone had some sort of beef with Wynter because of how he ran the place. So, loads of people fought with the guy on the very night he died, making everyone look like a prime suspect. It is Nan, the President’s mother-in-law, who finds A.B.’s body and screams. This is when Detective Cupp is invited to solve the case. On the other hand, Edwin Park from the FBI is meant to simply “assist” her.
A.B. Wynter’s body is found with a suicide note in his blazer pocket, both wrists slit, on the floor in a 3rd-storey room. But Cornelia finds that he’s bleeding from the head, which was likely the cause of his death. Nobody cuts both wrists while committing suicide, and usually, there are marks of hesitation.
Who Are The Suspects And Why?
As I said before, all residents look like suspects (yes, I’m including the staff, because that’s the whole point of the show, I think). Our first suspect is, of course, Jasmine Haney, Wynter’s assistant and the one who would’ve become chief usher if he retired. But Haney is extra cooperative; she gives the detectives a proper tour of the house, answers all their questions, and tells them everything that A.B. did. While she was desperate for the job, she’d never kill the man who basically taught her the ropes. Now, you must keep in mind that everybody at the dang state dinner gets interviewed by Cornelia, but there’s no point going into the details, because it doesn’t really give us any answers. No, it’s not the Australian Foreign Minister; they switched shirts because he got blood on his while having sex with the chef. It’s not the chef, even though she specifically said she’d kill him (it’s never those people). It’s not the gardener, or the President, or the Australian Prime Minister.
It was not Sheila, who drank all of Nan’s vodka herself. It is not Didier Gotthard, the Swiss-German dessert chef who tried to incinerate his knife even though he didn’t use it on A.B. It isn’t Tripp Morgan, the President’s most annoying brother, and it is most definitely not Harry Hollinger, who looks like he should be number one on the list but simply wants to have things in place for the President. Oh, and it is also not the third man, they’re all deviations from the main plot! So who is it?
Did Bruce and Elsyie kill A.B.?
We learn that Elsyie and Bruce, the housekeeping staff and the electrician, fell in love sometime during their stay at the White House. While they thought nobody knew about it, everybody did but didn’t make a big deal about it. A little closer to the state dinner, Elsyie is divorced and can freely be with Bruce. However, she thinks her husband told A.B. that she’d been arrested for a crime before becoming a part of the White House staff and lied about it. As a single mom, Elsyie cannot afford to lose this job. So, on the day of the state dinner, she has an argument with A.B. about it. Lilly, the PR gal, claims she saw it too. Now, soon after she talks to A.B., Elsyie sees Bruce and tells him she’s going to “kill him,” but she’s referring to her ex, not A.B. Bruce misunderstands her.
Elsyie goes back to find A.B., but by that time he’s already dead on the floor of the yellow oval room. She accidentally touches the candle stand that’s lying by his head and runs away with it. This is what Bruce sees. When he goes to the yellow oval room, he notices a dead A.B. To cover up for Elsyie, he then drags A.B. to another room as a cover-up. He thinks he’s cleaning up after Elsyie; only he’s just made things worse. Then, it is Tripp who finds the body and then makes a mess of things by slitting the man’s wrists after seeing the suicide note. I don’t even know why someone would do such a thing, but okay, anything to be safe, I guess. But none of these people actually killed the man. So who did?
Who Killed A.B. Wynter?
At the end of The Residence, it is revealed that Lily Schumacher is the one who killed A.B. out of spite. She even curates an entire story about how it was Bruce and Elsyie’s doing, but Cupp knows how to catch her, and she does. In the show, Detective Cupp is a birdwatcher. She comes to the White House with a list of the local birds that one of the presidents made when he lived there. She ticks off each bird she sees through her night there (and then during her second visit). At first, the death of A.B. Wynter is ruled a suicide thanks to Edwin claiming Cupp didn’t have enough evidence to rule it a murder and not a suicide. I’d like to argue that nothing about that body smelled like suicide, but okay. It is through the Congressional hearing, which is public, that people start to rethink what happened, and Cupp is invited back to figure it all out once again.
This time around, she takes all the residents and a few extras on a tour of the house for context. She explains how she solved the mystery of how A.B. was killed, but she claims she still doesn’t know who it is, even though she’s sure they’re in the room as she’s speaking. Finally, it is when Lily reveals the fabricated story of Bruce and Elsyie that Cupp realizes what she might’ve missed out on. It so happens that the clock that she used to hit A.B. on the head was in a hidden passageway that went out of the yellow oval room, which was conveniently sealed off after A.B.’s death. It is the fact that Lilly faked Elliot’s voice and told Jasmine to cover up the door that gives Cupp the final answer. See, if it was Bruce and Elsyie’s doing, there would’ve been no reason to cover up the hidden door.
The Residence ends on a positive note with Cupp telling Nan that she is the best detective in the world, and she knows it. She steps into the room A.B. was found in and sighs before the camera zooms out and we see a falcon taking off from the top of the White House: Cupp, finally free to go back to her birds and be satisfied with her work.
