The cast and creator answer many more burning questions.
BY ARIANA ROMERO
MARCH 21, 2025
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
This article contains major character or plot details.
The Residence maintains its murder mystery until the very end. As all the major players settle into the Yellow Oval Room, there are still multiple suspects in the murder of A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito): the dubious “third man” Patrick Doumbe (Timothy Hornor), engineer Bruce Geller (Mel Rodriguez), and housekeeper Elsyie Chayle (Julieth Restrepo) all seem to be likely candidates.
But, the true culprit is someone else entirely. Lead detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) reveals the killer is Lilly Schumacher (Molly Griggs), the White House social secretary. The woman who hated the White House murdered the person who most embodied its values. Griggs was thrilled to “push the boundaries” with Lilly.
“Getting to crawl into Lilly’s demented head was really fun,” the actor says. “It was really satisfying to make her as kooky as possible. Then it’s actually quite scary when you see how calculated she can be and how dismissive of people’s humanity she can be. It’s actually not a big leap emotionally to go from playing this silly person who thinks everybody is a little peon in her life to somebody who’s capable of cold-blooded murder.”
ERIN SIMKIN/
The Residence stars Susan Kelechi Watson (Jasmine Haney) and Ken Marino (Harry Hollinger) break into grins when they think back on filming the unmasking scene, with Kelechi Watson calling it “classic,” to Marino’s agreement. The cast filmed the scene over a series of days and were “blown away” by Aduba’s performance, according to Randall Park, who plays Edwin Park.
Aduba is proud of what she, The Residence creator Paul William Davies, and the entire team accomplished. “There’s this wonderful balance that Paul is able to do where you see this allegory for Americana tied up really nicely,” the actor says. “It’s just really powerful.”
So what steps did the Residence take to create its ending? And, why did Lilly kill A.B.? Keep reading for a full debrief of the many mysteries of The Residence, as explained by the cast and Davies.
Who killed A.B. Wynter in The Residence?
Much to the surprise of the Residence cast themselves, White House social secretary Lilly Schumacher is the killer. Lilly’s reveal even tricked the actor who portrays the great Cordelia Cupp. “I had no idea who did it before reading the finale script,” Aduba admits. “I had my guesses. But I was surprised by who it turned out to be.” Griggs, however, found out about Lilly’s bloodthirsty ways early on. Davies and executive producer Betsy Beers gave Griggs the news during the same Zoom call where they offered the actor the role of The Residence’s murderess. “I just got so excited. I think my jaw was on the floor. I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “It was just such a thrilling moment. I can’t believe that now — two years later — everyone’s about to know.”
The Residence reveals the truth about Lilly in a spectacular manner befitting the murder mystery genre. In Episode 8, Cordelia takes all of her remaining persons of interest on a tour of the White House, pointing out clues along the way. Everything builds to a group conversation in the Yellow Oval Room, where Lilly admits she had a door sealed, and explains that she did it to “protect” White House staff members Elsyie and Bruce, who are the lead suspects. But, Lilly didn’t close the passage out of the goodness of her heart. Instead, she did it to hide her murder weapon: the clock she used to bludgeon A.B.
Griggs, Davies, and the Residence’s team of directors worked hard to maintain the shock of Lilly’s reveal as the murderer. “We played into how ridiculous she is — how foppish she can be and totally unaware of herself,” Griggs explains. “It throws the scent off her because she’s so silly and entitled and bratty. You don’t think she would be capable of something so calculated and elaborate, or that she would have that kind of follow-through.” And yet, the finale confirms that’s exactly the kind of person Lilly is.
Aduba likens the twist to finding out the identity of Keyser Söze in the film The Usual Suspects. “It’s that kind of moment where you mentally flip through the whole thing, and you’re like, ‘Right, that totally makes sense.’ All the pieces come together,” the actor says. “It was really satisfying to feel like the steps were all right there.”
JESSICA BROOKS
How did The Residence murder actually happen?
During Lilly’s faux admission — in which she claims to have had the Yellow Oval Room passage closed to save troubled lovers Elsyie and Bruce — she actually does disclose many actual facts about the night A.B. died. The inciting incident did occur early in the evening, when A.B. confronted Lilly about her various transgressions, which included criminal activity. And she did steal a page out of his journal in a fit of rage. What Lilly doesn’t immediately admit to is what happened once she read A.B.’s writings, which she realized could be mistaken for a suicide note.
Lilly decided to kill A.B., and use the journal page to stage the murder as a death by suicide. She stole a toxic herbicide called paraquat from the gardening shed — breaking a glass in the process — and took a dish from gardner Emily Mackil (Rebecca Field) to carry the poison into the White House. Lilly also called A.B. from the shed and asked him to meet her in the Yellow Oval Room; around this time, she also impersonated First Gentleman Elliot Morgan (Barrett Foa) and had Secret Service removed from the area. Once on the second floor, Lilly poured the paraquat into a glass from the family living room and topped it off with scotch to cover up the poison. While mixing her deadly cocktail, Lilly saw A.B. have a disagreement with Elsyie.
Once Elsyie was gone, Lilly approached A.B. under the guise of a reconciliation. She gave him the poisoned glass, and A.B. accepted it. But, once he drank the deadly mixture, A.B. realized what was really happening. Lilly then threw a vase at him and, when the flying object merely startled A.B., she bludgeoned him to death with the nearby clock. Lilly finally hid the clock in the passageway between the Yellow Oval Room and the Treaty Room. Once the evidence was secured, Lilly returned to the State Dinner to secure an alibi.
“You never really see her thinking too far ahead. That behavior teaches the audience that she’s not thinking super globally,” Griggs says. But, by Episode 7, we start to realize Lilly actually does have great plans for the White House. “So by the finale, it makes sense that she would be able to think on her feet when she was trying to cover up the murder.”
JESSICA BROOKS
How did A.B.’s body end up in the Game Room?
Despite all of Lilly’s planning, the night takes a turn for the confusing once she returns to the Yellow Oval Room. A.B.’s body is gone and no one is talking about a murder.
That’s because various misunderstandings led three people to get A.B.’s body from the Yellow Oval Room to the Game Room, where he was ultimately found. Bruce and Elsyie both assumed the other committed the murder. So, Bruce dragged A.B. from the Yellow Oval Room across the second floor to the Lincoln Bedroom and finally up to room 301 — because he hoped to throw the scent off Elysie. Tripp Morgan (Jason Lee) then woke up in room 301 next to A.B.’s corpse. In a paranoid effort to protect himself, Tripp dragged the body to the Game Room, used Didier Gotthard’s (Bronson Pinchot) knives to create wrist lacerations, and painted over the blood in room 301. Like Lilly, Tripp hoped authorities would assume A.B. died by suicide.
Tripp confesses his sins, unprompted, to George McCutcheon (J.D. Hall) right before Cordelia starts her White House tour. “It’s absolutely hilarious that he finds the first guy he sees and he unravels all of this stuff,” Lee tells Tudum. “I think it’s to clear his name a little bit. He’s trying to relate his story to the guy. I love that he just keeps going, even though George doesn’t say anything the entire time.”
Why did Lilly kill A.B.?
Initially, Cordelia explains that A.B. planned to reveal all of Lilly’s “shitty behavior” to the Morgans. But, that isn’t all the chief usher had to say. A.B. had a diligent log of each criminal statute and ethical code Lilly broke during her tenure at the White House, from stealing money to trading favors and securing shady contracts. Even the chaos of the State Dinner was Lilly’s fault — she let energy healer St. Pierre (Taran Killam) advise on the seating arrangements of American government officials at an official State Dinner.
Lilly also hated the White House more than anything. So, she naturally despised A.B., who embodied all the qualities of the mansion itself.
JESSICA BROOKS
Why did A.B. drink the poison?
Throughout The Residence, we see A.B. predict his own murder, telling Australian Foreign Minister David Rylance (Brett Tucker), “I am going to be dead by the end of the night.” In Episode 8, we learn A.B. said this directly after agreeing to meet Lilly. Nevertheless, he still welcomed a glass of scotch from her in the Yellow Oval Room.
“A.B. accepts the drink because he’s cordial and appropriate. He did not expect at all that it could be laced,” Esposito says. The actor also explains that Lilly got to him at a particularly vulnerable time. A.B. had a difficult day, his shift was ending, and he was exhausted. “She’s presenting a peace offering. So he takes a drink with her — and that’s his undoing and his end. If he were still alive, he would be in shock that someone would do that.”
ERIN SIMKIN
Were there clues about the Residence killer?
Davies placed clues throughout Season 1, so the final surprises of the finale would feel satisfying. “I really wanted to be as fair to the audience as possible, so that when these reveals came you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, he wasn’t hiding anything,’ ” says the Residence creator. “I know it can be frustrating when you feel like there’s information that you didn’t have in a murder mystery.” Here are a few of the clues Davies hopes you notice upon second viewing:
The dresses
While everyone else in the Residence cast is in dark or bland colors for the State Dinner, Lilly is in attention-grabbing pink. “When you look at the tableau of people, you see how much she stands out. You don’t really think about it at first because she’s Lilly Schumacher and of course she’s going to wear that dress,” Davies says. “But you go back and you’re like, ‘Wait, they were showing that to me all the way along.’ ”
Griggs credits her collaboration with Davies, costume designer Lyn Elizabeth Paolo (Queen Charlotte ), and the Residence hair and makeup team for helping create the “evil Barbie person” that is Lilly.
“We were all definitely involved in finding the right dress, the right shade of pink, the right color of her nails, and the right shade of her blonde hair. It was all so carefully put together,” Griggs says. “It was so wild to put on the armor of that straight hair and those nails and that dress and feel totally different.”
Lilly’s outfit in the finale echoes her scene-stealing State Dinner look, albeit with a different intent. “It’s an innocent pink dress this time,” Griggs explains. An air of purity is useful since Lilly is trying to hide her culpability. “It was perfect for that episode because it felt a little more demure than the previous versions of Lilly with her tight dresses and brighter colors. To have her in that pastel pink is so funny.”
The money
As Lilly herself says in Episode 8, she doesn’t really need her job. She’s an heiress and burgeoning celebrity in her own right. So, she wouldn’t kill A.B. to stop him from getting her fired. She would, however, commit murder to keep herself from prison for criminal abuses of federal funds. This is the shocking motive Cordelia explains in her finale monologue. Yet, we actually learn about Lilly’s inappropriate financial behavior in Episode 3, when she and A.B. disagree about White House holiday plans.
“That ends up being a big detail,” says Davies. “I do think all the way along you can track the clues, but hopefully not so much that it’s easy to figure out.”
The passageway
By the finale, Lilly has the passageway between the Yellow Oval Room and the Treaty Room permanently closed and papered over — as though it never existed. But, it did, and that’s where she hid the murder weapon. While the reveal of the hidden passage is thrilling, Davies admits viewers would have previously glimpsed its existence repeatedly in the series.
But, the creator has his fingers crossed that you won’t notice the sleight of hand with the space until the very end. “We’ve seen people walk through it many times,” he says. “But I hope most people are not going to realize that there was once a door there. It’s tricky — because you want to give enough, but not too much.”
What is Cordelia’s backstory?
To understand why Cordelia cares so much about solving The Residence’s mystery — or any mystery at all — viewers should look no further than Episode 4. The chapter opens with a flashback of Cordelia on a beachside birding trip with her nephew Ansel (Ca’Ron Jaden Coleman). When Ansel asks if Cordelia’s obsessive tendencies are “unhealthy,” she tells him the story of her very first case.
During childhood, Cordelia’s little sister Aimee — who is Ansel’s mom — lost her favorite sock. Cordelia could tell how important the sock was to Aimee, so she took it upon herself to track it down. She skipped school, inspected places she wasn’t meant to go in the Cupp household (including the untouched bedroom of an unseen boy), and interviewed her family about the sock. Eventually, Cordelia realized that a neighbor’s new puppy must have taken the item. That night, Cordelia found the sock in the puppy’s doghouse. From then on, Cordelia knew she was a natural investigator and embraced her gifts.
Initially, Davies didn’t expect to put Cordelia’s origin story into Episode 4. But, in the previous episode, Cordelia makes an offhand joke about a picture of her nephew. “I thought about that picture, and I was like, ‘What if we could learn where that picture was from? And what if it could tell us something about Cordelia?’ ” he explains. “After three episodes, it felt like a good time to step outside the White House. It was very organic.”
ERIN SIMKIN
What happens next for Cordelia and Edwin?
Cordelia and her co-detective Edwin don’t exactly see eye-to-eye upon first meeting. But, Edwin proves himself to be a worthy colleague. Early in the finale, Cordelia cautions him to look for the “blink,” or the moment the culprit accidentally reveals themselves. When Lilly falters, Edwin pounces, seeing the blink — and Cordelia’s perspective. Park says it’s the first time the FBI agent “sees things like a falcon.”
Aduba is equally excited by Edwin’s growth. “Cordelia loves it,” she says. “She was like an island before, and happy to move through life as such. Then she meets Edwin, and she realizes there is a worthy friend to be found in this world. Now they’re flying together.”
However, Davies is quick to point out Cordelia “is still the alpha” of their friendship. “It’s not like she’s going to start walking behind Edwin.”
(Re)watch Cordelia and Edwin’s friendship blossom as they solve one unforgettable mystery by streaming The Residence, now on Netflix. And keep coming back to Tudum to stay on the case with all your Cordelia Cupp news.
