--- title: The Residence Ending, Explained description: Breaking down the twisty finale of Netflix's White House murder mystery series. canonical: https://time.com/7269113/the-residence-netflix-ending-explained/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-03-21T19:46:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:10.014Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Breaking Down the Ending of Netflix's The Residence og:description: How the finale of Shonda Rhimes' White House murder mystery series wraps up the whodunnit at its center. og:url: https://time.com/7269113/the-residence-netflix-ending-explained/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49369d9e183d16fd/6998c4fad32e93b363cd6d50/The-Residence.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Residence og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Breaking Down the Ending of Netflix's The Residence twitter:description: How the finale of Shonda Rhimes' White House murder mystery series wraps up the whodunnit at its center. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49369d9e183d16fd/6998c4fad32e93b363cd6d50/The-Residence.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Breaking Down the Bait-and-Switch Ending of Netflix's White House Murder Mystery _The Residence_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Residence | Official Trailer | Netflix [Watch (HLS stream): The Residence | Official Trailer | Netflix](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/l2aX7Nbx.m3u8) (2:13)  _Published 2025-03-20. How the finale of the White House murder mystery series wraps up the whodunnit at its center._  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Mar 21, 2025 7:46 PM UTC  (L-R): Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Larry Dokes, Dan Perrault as Colin Trask, Spencer Garrett as Wally Glick, Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, Randall Park as Edwin Park, Andrew Friedman as Irv Samuelson, Ken Marino as Harry Hollinger, and Molly Griggs as Lilly Schumacher in Episode 1 of The Residence. (L-R): Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Larry Dokes, Dan Perrault as Colin Trask, Spencer Garrett as Wally Glick, Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, Randall Park as Edwin Park, Andrew Friedman as Irv Samuelson, Ken Marino as Harry Hollinger, and Molly Griggs as Lilly Schumacher in Episode 1 of The Residence.Erin Simkin—Netflix  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Mar 21, 2025 7:46 PM UTC **_Warning: This post contains spoilers for_** [**The Residence**](https://time.com/7269318/the-residence-review-netflix/)**_._** Executive producer [Shonda Rhimes](https://time.com/collection/firsts/4898572/shonda-rhimes-firsts/) is taking a break from the world of [_Bridgerton_](https://time.com/6978879/benedict-bridgerton-netflix-appreciation/) to serve up something with a little less romance and a lot more red herrings: _The Residence_. Created, written, and produced by showrunner Paul William Davies (_Scandal_, _For the People_), the new [Netflix murder mystery series](https://time.com/7213446/the-are-murders-netflix-ending-explained/), all eight episodes of which are now streaming, centers on the investigation and subsequent Senate committee hearings surrounding the death of White House Chief Usher A.B. Wynter ([Giancarlo Esposito](https://entertainment.time.com/2011/10/10/interview-talking-gus-fring-with-giancarlo-esposito/)) on the night of a state dinner President Perry Morgan (Paul Fitzgerald) and First Gentleman Elliott Morgan (Barrett Foa) were hosting for Australia. After Elliott's mother discovers A.B.'s body in the third-floor Game Room, idiosyncratic detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba)—an avid amateur birder in her spare time—is brought in by Maryland Police Department Chief Larry Dokes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) to take on the case. Over the course of the next seven episodes, the show jumps back and forth between the night of the murder and the hearings to illuminate what happened that evening from the perspectives of a number of different White House residents, guests, and staff members. _The Residence_ keeps viewers guessing right up until the near end, only revealing the true culprit and their motivations in the final stretch of its feature-length finale. **Read More:** [The Residence _Is an Overstuffed White House Whodunit With a Delightful Detective_](https://time.com/7269318/the-residence-review-netflix/) ## Who killed A.B. Wynter? The eighth and final episode of _The Residence_, aptly titled "The Mystery of the Yellow Room," opens by rehashing the night of the state dinner from the perspective of A.B. himself, right up until the moment he walked into the Yellow Oval Room, where he was killed. Then, in the present-day, Cordelia finally appears before the Senate committee overseeing the hearings to relay the story of how she solved the murder. After discovering some new clues at the White House that she realized she missed the night of the state dinner, Cordelia gathered her full roster of suspects and walked them through what she had already figured out. Although A.B. was killed in the Yellow Room, engineer Bruce Geller (Mel Rodriguez) had moved A.B.'s body from the Yellow Room to the Lincoln Bedroom before carrying him up the stairs to Room 301, the room undergoing a fake renovation, and placing him next to a sleeping Tripp Morgan (Jason Lee), the president's degenerate brother. Bruce did all this thinking he was covering up the crime of his lady love, housekeeper Elsyie Chayle (Julieth Restrepo), who had gotten into a fight with A.B. earlier that evening. When Tripp woke up next to a dead A.B., he panicked and moved the body down the hall to the Game Room. Then, fearing he'd be blamed, Tripp stole a knife from the office of pastry chef Didier Gotthard (Bronson Pinchot) and used it to slit A.B.'s wrists in order to make his death look more like a suicide. However, none of those people were the true culprit. After realizing that a large painting had been moved into the Yellow Room to try to cover up the fact that a door to a passageway that led to the neighboring Treaty Room had recently been sealed and hidden away by a new wall, Cordelia was at long last able to deduce who the killer was: White House social secretary Lilly Schumacher (Molly Griggs). Rich heiress Lilly hated not only the White House itself, but everything it represented: the history, the traditions, the staff. She had wanted to reinvent the residence and, to her, that meant tearing it down both literally and figuratively. So she hated A.B. because he represented what the White House represented, and he loved and cared about the house and the people who lived and worked there. After finding A.B.'s journal in the library, Cordelia figured out he had not only been documenting Lilly's bad behavior, but had been keeping a record of all the money she had misappropriated as well as the various criminal statutes and ethical codes she had violated securing contracts, trading favors, and much more. On the night of the state dinner, Lilly had found out A.B. was planning to expose her and had tried to rip the journal out of his hand. When she realized that the scrap of a page she had come away with could be read as a suicide note, she formed a plan to kill A.B. and frame it as a suicide. First, she went to the White House gardening shed and secured some poison in the form of the pesticide paraquat. She then called A.B. and told him to meet her in the Yellow Room for a chat before calling the Secret Service, impersonating the First Gentleman, and telling them to clear the second floor. After giving A.B. the page of journal back and watching him put in his pocket, she slipped him some poison in a glass of scotch. However, she quickly realized he hadn't drunk enough to die and ultimately ended up bashing him over the head with a large clock she grabbed off the room's mantle. She then escaped into the Treaty Room passageway and stuffed the clock into a secret storage drawer before the rest of the night's events unfolded. It's a bit of a convoluted ending but still works to get across the point the show seems like it's trying to make: that the institution of America that A.B. represents and believes in is worth fighting for. 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