Not all heroes wear capes. Some sport a tweed blazer and a pair of birding binoculars. That’s how viewers meet detective Cordelia Cupp — played with witty self-confidence by SAG–winner Uzo Aduba — in the crime comedy The Residence, executive produced by Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers, and Scandal writer Paul William Davies, who is also the creator and showrunner.

World-renowned investigator Cordelia is brought to the White House on an unprecedented evening. As a disastrous state dinner crumbles downstairs, the dead body of White House chief usher A. B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) is found in the third-floor game room. Detective Cupp must cut through the secrets and competing agendas to figure out the truth about A. B.’s death. Her search for answers takes her on a twisty tour of the White House that’s worthy of a production by Shondaland — Rhimes’s powerhouse company that’s given us Scandal,...