I very much enjoyed watching the Netflix/Shondaland miniseries The Residence with may family. These fun whodunnits are, well, fun. But it seemed to me that they were setting up a path to the ending that was just left hanging and unmentioned, and I’m really left wondering whether there was an earlier path that went that way. I mean, I announced this as the reason for the murder at the end of the fifth episode, and felt confident in it up until the point where it was clear they were not touching the solution.

Key facts established:

1. The President’s mom is (or was, I don’t recall if she survives) Australian.
2. The President and his brother, Tripp, are very different, personalitywise.
3. The President was having a private meeting with just a couple Australians, including industrialist Walpole Bing.
4. The staff were regularly in places where they might here very sensitive information, and they do not hear it… but other folks cannot trust that they do not hear it.
5. When asked, Tripp’s dad had told him the he loved him best.

My analysis: The person everyone believes was the President’s father was not, at least not biologically. The first mom had had an affair with Walpole Bing, which Bing was telling him, possibly to help Australia gain some leverage. Why is this major leverage? Because if he was born abroad to a US father, he can be considered a natural-born citizen, but if his parents were both Australian citizens and he was born abroad, then he’s not a natural born citizen… and is thus ineligible for the Presidency. If A. B. Wynter was in position to overhear this revelation, there would be a motive for any of a number of people to kill him as a way of protecting the presidency — the First Gentleman was my preferred suspect for that.

(High point of the show? Jane Curtin. She only had a few real scenes, but was dynamite in them. No surprise.)