SPOILER ALERT: The story includes a detail from the Season 1 finale of Netflix’s The Residence.
The official description for Netflix’s comedic whodunit The Residence reads: “132 rooms. 157 suspects. One dead body. One disastrous State Dinner.”
While not quite 157, the series examined about a dozen or so suspects in the murder of Chief White House Usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito), including the Usher’s deputy, a chef, a pastry chef, an engineer, a maid, an Australian diplomat, an intruder, the President’s brother as well as the Commander In Chief’s chief adviser.
In the end, it was the President’s social secretary, Lilly Schumacher, played by Molly Griggs, who was revealed as the killer.
“Lilly is definitely a big personality and annoying to A.B. but funny. “Molly walked that line really well, and I found that all very satisfying,” The Residence creator Paul William Davies told Deadline. “I think that the finale worked out really well, and hopefully it is a surprise to many, and also something that probably some people got for various reasons, not overly obvious, but not impossible to figure out if you thought about certain things or you just had an instinct for it.”
If you didn’t have an instinct and didn’t figure it out on your own, you are not alone. Even Uzo Aduba, whose character Detective Cordelia Cupp solved the case, and Randall Park, whose FBI Special Agent Edwin Park assisted her, were surprised by the reveal.
“Shocked,” Park said.
Added Aduba, “Yes, exactly, shocked. It was not my guess.”
Susan Kelechi Watson and Ken Marino played two of the prime suspects, A.B.’s deputy Jasmine Haney and President’s chief advisor Harry Hollinger, respectively. They mused about what could’ve been in a joined video interview, a clip of which you can watch below.
“I kind of wanted to be the killer,” Watson said.
“The truth is, I thought you you were going to be,” replied Marino.
“I know, I would’ve been so cool, I would have loved it,” added Watson.
“I ultimately was like, I’m too angry and too obvious of a suspect to be the killer,” Marino added. “So I never had any fantasy about, like, at the end, I’ll be the guy who said ‘I did it’, although I would have been super surprised and super psyched if that did happen. But I was very surprised — and pleasantly surprised — with who it wound up being.”
While neither of their characters ended up being the killer, for a moment Watson and Marino thought that Jasmine and Harry could be co-conspirators in A.B.’s murder.
“I thought there was a cahoots thing going on, I really did,” Watson said.
“Oh yeah, there were certain looks in the first episode,” Marion added.
“There were looks we were giving each other, and I was like, something’s going on. Wouldn’t that have been good? Because they don’t like each other,” Watson continued.
Added Marino, “That would’ve been great.”
Here is the video:
The post Just Like You, The Stars Of ‘The Residence’ Were Surprised By Who The Killer Was: “Shocked” appeared first on Deadline.
