When a White House employee is found dead on the premises during a state dinner, Cordelia Cupp, a consulting detective for the police, is called in to find out who done it in the Netflix series “The Residence.” The series comes from Paul William Davies, whose credits include the soapy Shonda Rhi mes drama “Scandal,” about White House power players and the fixer tasked with keeping their secrets hidden. It probably wasn’t a leap for Davies (or Rhimes, who is an executive producer here) to wonder if that setting would work as the backdrop for a comedic murder mystery. Considering the real-world state of affairs at the moment, I don’t know what to do with the cognitive dissonance of a concept that envisions the White House as a neutral location for a breezy, deeply nonpolitical TV series. Just go with it, I guess? But at least Davies has done something increasingly rare. Instead of putting wielders of influence at the story’s center, he’s refocused his attention — and therefore ours — to the people who labor in the background tasked with the upkeep and cleaning of the building itself. He’s drawing from the 2015 book “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House,” a non-fiction account of the behind-the-scenes staff who work official events, as well as accommodate the whims and needs of the first family in their private residence. The latter is where the dead body is discovered. Starring Uzo Aduba, Cordelia Cupp is a sleuth defined by her competence. That’s her quirk. It’s a great spin on a character trope more typically written as an over-the-top eccentric genius. Cordelia can be blunt, which generates all kinds of sputtering and appalled reactions, which she blithely ignores. People assume she cares what they think of her. She doesn’t! A Senate hearing investigating her investigation provides a framing device for much of the season, in which relevant witnesses recall what happened on the night of the murder. Randall Park plays the FBI agent who is paired with Cordelia, though she has little use for him and he tries to get this point across in his testimony. “And she didn’t care about anything you said?” a senator asks? “No! She didn’t care about what anybody said! And a lot of people were saying things at that point.” Striding around the White House in her wooly brown suit and nerdy sweater vest, she’s too self-assured to even notice, let alone be bothered. She’s there to work, but she doesn’t make a show of it because she doesn’t have to. Her reputation for solving unsolvable crimes precedes her. Related Articles TV and Streaming | Q&A: ‘Severance’ is renewed for Season 3. Ben Stiller once thought the series might not get made TV and Streaming | ‘Ludwig’ review: On BritBox, the accidental detective TV and Streaming | Hulu’s ‘Good American Family’ with Ellen Pompeo scrambles a wild true-crime case TV and Streaming | Zoren: Show partly filmed in Delaware County running on Apple TV+ TV and Streaming | ‘Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna’ review: A tragedy retold She doesn’t rush into assumptions and this makes her a spiritual cousin of the indelible private detective Hercule Poirot. In one of Agatha Christie’s novels, he’s asked what he thinks. “As yet, I think nothing,” he says. “I collect only impressions. What kind of people they were, all those who were involved, and what happened exactly on those last few days?” This is Cordelia’s style as well. Instead of setting up a murder board, she quietly sketches and jots down her thoughts in a journal. She’s a serious birder, which seems to confuse or at least annoy everyone, but it reflects her curiosity and her patience. Her interview technique is to simply sit and stare until the person becomes so uncomfortable they start babbling. It’s nearly impossible for anyone to get a read on Cordelia, and Aduba is having a lot of fun with the role. The dead man, one A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito), was a head of the household staff. Elegantly professional, we get a sense of who he was in flashbacks, where he’s shown to be an impeccable if quietly demanding, sometimes inflexible boss. When he loses his cool with subordinates, it’s behind closed doors. But in public, he’s the picture of self-control. Who would want him gone? Any number of people who were at the White House that night are possible suspects, with a focus on the “downstairs” personnel, including a pastry chef (Bronson Pinchot), a maintenance worker (Mel Rodriguez), a housekeeper (Julieth Restrepo) and a butler (Edwina Findley). As for the president (Paul Fitzgerald), he’s a cypher. His political party, or anything even hinting in that direction, never comes up. His bland facade is occasionally threatened by a freeloading brother (Jason Lee) who also lives in the White House because he’s the rogue family member who needs stashing away to prevent any unseemly PR disasters. The president’s vodka-loving mother-in-law (Jane Curtin) also lives in the White House, and she’s able to tell Cordelia the exact time she heard a thump when Wynter’s body hit the floor a few rooms over. How can you be so precise, Cordelia asks suspiciously? “Well, I have a clock,” says the older woman, gesturing to a nearby digital clock with large red numbers. “That is a clock,” Cupp concurs. Reader, I have the same clock. The numbers are enormous. I bought it specifically so I could see the time from anywhere in the room. I had to laugh. I also love a throwaway gag as two people go at it amorously in the kitchen; the physical comedy is brief but wonderfully ridiculous as they’re splayed on a counter with all four legs clanging on the pots and pans hanging overhead. The show is structured as a manor house murder mystery and wears its influences on its sleeve. Impatient with Cordelia’s process, one outraged and betuxed member of the president’s inner circle declares: “I don’t care if she’s Miss Marple or Sherlock Holmes or whoever Daniel Craig is in that movie.” Episode 3 is literally titled “Knives Out,” just in case anyone missed the parallels. But if anything, I wonder if the concept would be better suited to a more traditional network TV-style series, featuring Cordelia Cupp in a new location each week, solving another unsolvable crime. She’s the kind of character who could work in any setting, surrounded by a new ensemble each time. That requires a strong, no-nonsense performance (check) but also writing that understands what makes self-contained storytelling so satisfying on an episode-by-episode basis (and there are real hints of that here). “Murder, She Wrote” made it work for 12 seasons and 264 episodes. It’s a shame streaming platforms have lesser ambitions. “The Residence” — 3 stars (out of 4) Where to watch: Netflix Nina Metz is a Tribune critic. ...read more read less