The Residence S1E5: The Trouble with Harry

Our last episode ended with two reveals: an unused White House bedroom had recently been painted, and underneath the fresh paint was what looked a whole lot like blood. And someone across the street from the White House urgently wanted to speak with Cordelia Cupp.

So we go across the street, to a hotel overlooking the White House. A White House-obsessed kid named Vusi had his tour cancelled because of the state dinner, so he was watching the house from his hotel window at the time of the murder. He saw a red light flash in one of the windows. Being a conveniently WH-obsessed kid, he knows which window — the unused bedroom.

Randall Park’s FBI agent dismisses the red flights — brake lights from the street are reflected in the windows, the FBI gets calls about it all the time. Except Vusi only saw the lights twice, not repeatedly. So we’ve got another clue.

Except before we can follow it up, we for some reason get a side story about how Lily couldn’t book a musical guest, so Kyiie Minogue stepped in at the last minute. Her price was a stay in the Lincoln Bedroom, which was denied to her after the murder, and she’s upset about it. THis feels more like the show is trying to show off that they cast Kylie Minogue than anything plot-relevant.

And it’s one more annoyance for our detective. Who Cupp really wants to talk to is Harry Hollinger, the President’s best friend and chief advisor, who happens to have the bedroom across from the empty one. But while he always seems to be there when she doesn’t want him, he isn’t around when she does want to talk to him.

So instead, she ends up revisiting Jane Curtin’s acerbic First Mother-In-Law. She conveniently forgot to mention an overheard argument between AB Wynter and Tripp Morgan (Jason Lee), the president’s ne’er-do-well brother. He and Wynter hated each other. Tripp was a scandal magnet during the campaign, so the President made him stay in the White House to keep him out of trouble. Naturally, he continued to cause trouble, but because it was inside the people’s house, that made it Wynter’s problem.

Their most recent fight was over the state dinner. The Morgans’ mother was from Australia, so Tripp was uncharacteristically interested in going. His brother unsubtly uninvited him, Tripp was hurt, and he took out his frustration on Wynter. He was also stealing stuff from around the house, which pissed off Wynter. They have a loud argument, and Tripp gets added to the increasingly long list of people who threatened Wynter in the 24 hours before his death.

Unlike all those people, Tripp has a watch with a flashing red light.

But like all those people, Cupp isn’t convinced he did it. We get one more suspect, one more theory, a few more pieces of the puzzle, and a pointed question in the Senate hearing framing device to end the episode. But with three episodes to go, it’s still not clear whether this is an intricately-plotted puzzle box, or just a lot of stalling until we get to the heart of the real mystery. 

Amendments:
• We haven’t seen Jason Lee in much since Almost Famous and My Name Is Earl, but he’s still terrific at playing a charming dirtbag.

• We also meet a socialite couple who snuck into the party. Wynter followed security protocol and kept them in the house until the event was over, over Harry’s objection. Wynter was worried Hollinger was setting him up to break protocol so he’d have a pretext to fire him.

• Despite the episode’s title, we don’t actually see a lot of Harry. But we do see a few more signs pointing to him as being involved in the murder.