The Residence
Uzo Aduba's performance as Cordelia Cupp will go down among the great fictional detectives of all time. This amateur ornithologist deserves a place alongside Benoit Blanc, Hercule Poirot, and Jacques Clouseau. Unfortunately she's not the star of the show, the White House is. Because this show is perplexingly based on a non-fiction book about life in the White House. Kate Andersen Brower's 2015 book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House takes a deep dive into what makes the White House function and for some reason all those excruciating infinitesimal details of what makes the White House work are the backbone of this series. While yes, this does give the show a grounding, the verisimilitude is off the charts, the problem is the show became so enamored of these details and how many cooks and chefs there are that is was repetitive. I do not need to hear what everyone was supposed to be doing and where and when for the hundredth time based on "protocol." I need to have some forward momentum. And to have a show with only eight episodes seem overly long, that signifies you are doing something wrong. They blundered cameos, they underutilized Australian red herrings, and, in the end, sure, I got a good, nostalgic Jason Lee rant, be he didn't even seem to be feeling it. They should have asked Jane Curtain in the first episode who did it and been done in five minutes. But instead the show limps on, they release the suspects and have a hearing only to have to bring everyone back. And all the while they never even explained the calligrapher! By the end I didn't care. I just wanted it over. But for me the biggest misstep was Al Franken. Al Franken is supposed to add to the verisimilitude. He's playing a Senator from Washington and was a Senator of Minnesota until he was forced to resign in 2018 due to sexual misconduct allegations. And while what Al Franken was accused of is nothing compared to what is happening right now in the government that doesn't mean that he should be forgiven because his crimes were minor in comparison. Yes, discount the suffering of his victims because it could have been worse. That's a great stance to take. MSNBC seems to take that stance as well because they've been trying to rehab his image for years which I find simply repugnant. And that's what The Residence is doing, it's helping to rehab his image. Look, he was so good as a senator, don't you want him back? No. No I absolutely do not. And every single time I saw his face on this show or heard his voice I was enraged. He is an abuser given this platform and that is just unacceptable. Shonda Rhimes should be ashamed of herself. Resigning from the Kennedy Center Board doesn't make it right. For once I was glad a show I watched was cancelled. They wanted verisimilitude but all they got was my ire. And the ire of my friend who studies the habitat of birds. Yeah. They might have got the details of the White House bang on, but they did not do so with the birds.
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