The Residence

“The Residence” is fun, frothy and full of intrigue, and sometimes that’s more than enough.

Aduba's Detective Cordelia Cupp is a particular standout in the show. However, the entire cast of The Residence gives it their all, resulting in multiple memorable characters who all elevate the series.

While not hilarious, The Residence has funny moments. Paired with Uzo Aduba’s mesmerizing performance as Cordelia Cupp, the show is very watchable.

With such a large ensemble, the show cleverly gives each character their moment—whether it’s their motivations, quirks, or secrets coming to light. And as the investigation unfolds, it becomes harder to distinguish the guilty from the suspicious, making the mystery all the more compelling.

The Residence fully asserts itself as a welcome and bold addition to the murder mystery canon on streaming.

“Fun” is absolutely the watchword of this comic thriller.

Although there is an ensemble vibe, it remains Aduba’s show, and rightfully so. She is a magnetic presence and The Residence takes full advantage of that. This is not television that is going to change the world, but it is going to give you eight hours of fantastic escape. Enjoy.

The Residence is not groundbreaking or flawless or thematically rich, but it is entertainment executed at a very high level. It's funny and engaging, and its technical craft is impressive.

“The Residence” never achieves the same frothy fun that Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” series so effortlessly does except for its last Christie-perfect episode, but it’s still quite a bit of fun.

It’s nearly impossible for anyone to get a read on Cordelia, and Aduba is having a lot of fun with the role.

Cordelia’s signature quirk keeps the tone featherlight while doubling as a whetstone. .... Besides Park and the victim, the White House’s chief usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito), no other character feels especially essential. Don’t get me wrong – her co-stars are the bonding agents strengthening this whimsical flimsiness.

The conceit runs a bit thin before we learn whodunit, but the cast is so full of comedy pros (including Jane Curtin, Bronson Pinchot and Al Franken) that we're happy to find them all guilty of scene-stealing. [24 Mar - 13 Apr 2025, p.4]

When not laboring to make the show legible to half-watchers and the recently concussed, “The Residence” is actually pretty fun. Aduba is superb, exuding rigid brilliance and appeal. She’s also the show’s best volleying partner; the characters are their most interesting and vibrant when talking to Cupp.

I can’t speak to whether “The Residence” works as an actual whodunit. .... But regardless of where it all ends up, watching Cupp working through her leads — and getting folks to fess up to lesser crimes while nattering darkly about birds — makes for a pretty good time.

Aduba’s an imposing presence in any case, and one would hope to see her character enlisted in further Cornelia Cupp adventures — the name itself seems too good to waste — if perhaps shorter than the current season’s eight episodes, which are by temporal necessity here and there padded. (“It’s hard to keep track of everything,” Cupp says at one point, as if in sympathy with the viewer.) There could be twice as many stories if they made them half as long, and four times as many at a perfectly generous two hours.

The show is an overwhelming 1000-piece puzzle that eventually comes together should audiences have the patience to stick it out.

“The Residence,” now streaming all episodes, benefits from snappy (though profanity-laced) dialogue and quick cuts for comedic purposes, but the story and characters aren’t strong enough to support eight hours, especially given the formulaic approach to episodes.

While it’s often amusing and aided mightily by a magnetic performance from star Uzo Aduba, the whodunit struggles to carve out a distinct identity in a genre that’s become increasingly crowded of late.

She [Uzo Aduba] is a worthy addition to the TV detective ranks, but everyone else here – the writer, the director, Kylie Minogue – needs to dial it down.

It feels like a prime example of a show that, while clever on its feet, has been bloated to a length far in excess of what's necessary. .... Still Aduba is a hoot as Cupp.

The Residence may not be much more than an overstuffed, Shonda-fied take on the same murder mystery you’ve seen a hundred times. But Cordelia Cupp? She’s a revelation, and Netflix would be wise to realize her potential beyond this story.

I found it both amusing and exhausting, with Aduba’s performance and the energy of the wildly overstuffed ensemble elevating a mystery that’s treated with too much frenzy to ever become emotionally involving.

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.

Time would’ve been better spent, however, investing in characters — or at least one character. With such a large ensemble, it’s inevitable that most parts will be one-dimensional. That’s fine. .... But why is Cordelia Cupp similarly one-note? Beyond the audience’s preexisting adoration for Uzo Aduba, there’s very little about her character to latch onto.

It’s trying to be cleverer than its genre and more than “just” a murder mystery, as if that wouldn’t have been fun, interesting, or watchable enough. The joke—and it’s way meatier than that running Hugh Jackman one—though is that The Residence should have just stuck to the basics (and given us more Aduba).

The result, unfortunately, is a lot less than the sum of its many, many parts. The main problem with The Residence is that there’s too much of it. Its hour-long episodes (a crime for any comedy series) are stopped dead by flashbacks and flash-forwards that turn the very act of watching into a chore while you’re forced to parse where each scene exists in the timeline.