The Residence ending explained: who killed AB Wynter?

Netflix’s murder mystery The Residence has as many twists and turns as the White House corridors where it is set. The series, which WTW gave five starts to in our The Residence review, kicks off after AB Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) is found dead inside the White House game room, and the eccentric but brilliant detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) is tasked with solving the whodunnit.

Fair warning, we’re about to get into plenty of The Residence ending SPOILERS, including who killed AB Wynter and why. So if you want to wait and see who the killer is for yourself, we advise you come back after finishing the series for our in-depth breakdown.

Alright, let’s get into it. Harry Hollinger (Ken Marino), the president’s chief adviser, is adamant that Wynter killed himself. There’s even a note, which Harry insists is a declaration of suicide, inside Wynter’s jacket. But on closer inspection, Cupp is certain Wynter was murdered. Not in the game room, though. She believes he was murdered somewhere else, then dragged there.

Over the course of the evening, Wynter had been embroiled in a number of arguments with White House staff members, several of whom openly declared they wanted to kill him. Cupp has to figure out which of the White House’s 132 rooms Wynter was killed in, and whittle down the 157 suspects who were in the building that night.

Who are the main suspects in The Residence?

There’s Jasmine Haney (Susan Kelechi Watson), the White House assistant usher who has been impatiently waiting for Wynter to retire. Sheila Cannon (Edwina Findlay), the White House butler who Wynter admonished for being too drunk. Lilly Schumacher (Molly Griggs), the president’s social secretary who Wynter keeps stopping from changing the White House.

In the kitchen there’s Marvella (Mary Wiseman), the chef, and Didier (Bronson Pinchot), the pastry chef, who both had run-ins with Wynter over how they prepare their food.

Bruce Geller (Mel Rodriguez), the engineer, and Elsyie (Julieth Restrepo), the housekeeper, who have recently fallen in love, but were caught having ferocious arguments with Wynter that night.

Then there’s Harry and Tripp (Jason Lee), the president’s troublesome younger brother, who fell out with Wynter that night. Rounding it out, there’s Mr. Doumbe (Timothy Horner), who accidentally crashed the state dinner and walked around the White House that night.

Who killed AB Wynter in The Residence?

It was Lilly.

Cupp deciphers that Lilly despises the White House — not just the building but the idea of it as an institution. She wanted to uproot and change its history, tradition and staff.

As a result she repeatedly butted heads with Wynter, which meant she hated him most of all.

On the night of the State Dinner, Wynter threatened Lilly, as she’d been using illegal approaches and activities in her role as social secretary. This included embezzlement and the breaking of criminal and ethical statues to secure contracts and invite celebrities and influencers into the White House. Wynter was going to expose all of her lies and bad behavior to the president.

How did Lilly kill AB Wynter in The Residence?

While having a huge argument earlier with Wyner over these topics, Lilly tried to grab Wynter’s diary from his hand, where he made a note of all her indiscretions. In doing so, Lilly ripped a page out of Wynter’s diary by accident. When she read the page, she realized it sounded like a suicide note. At that moment, she decided to kill Wynter and stage it as a suicide. Killing Wynter would make all of her problems go away, and allow her to redo all the rooms and fire the staff.

Having been working on a gardening initiative, she knew there was paraquat, a herbicide/poison, in the White House shed. She filled a glass with paraquat and asked to meet Wynter in the Yellow Oval room to talk things over. At the same time, she also called the secret service. Pretending to be the First Gentleman Elliot (Barrett Foa), she asked the second floor to be cleared of agents.

In the Yellow Oval room, Lilly watched Wynter argue with Elsyie. When Elsyie left, she gave the note back to Wynter and watched him put it in his pocket. Wynter then drank the poison, but he immediately knew what it was so he threw it out. It still slowed him down, but wasn’t enough to kill him. Lilly threw the vase at Wynter, then hit him with a huge clock.

Lilly knew there was a secret passageway out of the room, so she used it to escape. While in the passageway, she hid the clock in a secret closet.

How was Lilly caught?

It actually takes a few weeks for Cupp to figure out Lilly was responsible. On the night of the murder, Edwin Park (Randall Park), an FBI Special Agent working alongside Cupp, halts the investigation, labeling it a suicide.

At a hearing on Wynter’s death, Cupp heard Mr. Doumbe’s testimony and knew she could figure out who did it. The biggest reason why Cupp couldn’t piece together the murder was that, after finding Wynter’s body, Bruce moved the corpse up to the next floor, because he thought Elsyie had murdered Wynter. Earlier that night she had told Bruce she wanted to kill Wynter.

Bruce put Wynter’s body in the spare room, which people believed was being redecorated, but that was just an excuse so Harry’s sister couldn’t stay over.

Then Tripp got involved. After being told he couldn’t attend the State Dinner, Tripp got black out drunk. He passed out in the spare room and woke up next to Wynter’s dead body. Knowing he might be a suspect because of his own argument with Wynter that night, Tripp moved the body to the game room. As he did so, Tripp discovered the suicide note. Tripp decided to cut Wynter’s wrists to make it look even more like a suicide.

But Lilly caught Cupp’s attention when she said she saw Bruce put the note in Wynter’s jacket. Lilly wasn’t in the game room when Cupp first arrived at the White House and removed the note, so Lilly couldn’t have known where it was unless she put it there herself.

Lilly’s biggest mistake, though, was ordering the secret passage in the Yellow Oval room to be sealed. After Cupp notices that, she asks who ordered it. Harry says it was Jasmine, but Jasmine says she was told by Elliot to do it. Elliot insists he’s innocent. Then Cupp remembers Lilly had boasted about her dead-on impression of Elliot. Pretending to be Elliot, Lilly demanded the secret passage was sealed.

Cupp uses a knife to break the seal, opens up the passage and then the closet, where she finds the huge missing clock that was used to bash and kill Wynter. It even still has Wynter’s blood on it.

All episodes of The Residence are now streaming on Netflix.