The murder mystery genre is on a hot streak, and Shondaland's new series, The Residence, aims to keep this fan-favorite trend alive and thriving. Uzo Aduba leads the epic ensemble cast as Cordelia Cupp, the world's greatest detective, who is summoned to the White House to help solve -- you guessed it -- a murder.Â
No stranger to Oval Office drama, Shonda Rhimes and former Scandal writer and producer Paul William Davies are back in the nation's capital, but this time, they're playing the episodic long game, inviting audiences along for the clue-hunting ride to get to the bottom of this scandalous (see what I did there?) case.Â
The case: 132 rooms, 157 suspects and one dead body.Â
Cordelia Cupp has her work cut out for her. Aduba was up to the task.
"Cordelia talks and thinks so fast, and I had to really work on thinking at that clip," she said. "It's just so quick, how Cordelia thinks and puts pieces together, then moves them. She doesn't miss a beat, and I was drawn to that. I was drawn to the idea of keeping up with her pace and the pace of this world."
Davies, who created the series, wrote each episode and serves as executive producer and showrunner, explained where the inspiration for the program (which he categorizes as "comedic, almost farcical") came from during the show's official press day.
"I just had this lightbulb moment of, oh, it's like the White House is a Clue game board," he said. "I could tell this story of the White House staff through a murder mystery, or a murder mystery through the lives of the White House staff. So I had the notion of doing something like that, and ultimately, I married it with a genre I knew and loved and that I had always wanted to work in -- and that's kind of the alchemy that created the show."
The Residence boasts an ensemble cast that includes Randall Park, Giancarlo Esposito, Susan Kelechi Watson, Jane Curtin, Jason Lee, Ken Marino, Al Mitchell, Edwina Findley, Bronson Pinchot, Mel Rodriguez, Taran Killam, Al Franken and Eliza Coupe. And these names are just scratching the surface.Â
Are you ready to dig into your next TV show obsession? Keep reading for details on how to watch The Residence.
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Isiah Whitlock Jr., Dan Perrault, Spencer Garrett, Uzo Aduba, Randall Park, Andrew Friedman, Ken Marino and Molly Griggs star in The Residence on Netflix.
When to watch The Residence
The Residence drops all eight episodes on Netflix on Thursday, March 20.Â
Netflix recently increased its subscription prices. The ad-based plan is $8 a month, the Standard plan is $18, and the streamer's Premium plan is $25. If you're a premium subscriber who wants to share your account with someone outside your household, you'll have to pay an extra fee of $8.