Paul William Davies on Writing a Season-long Screwball Whodunnit

Writing a solid mystery is an art unto itself. It involves juggling suspects, motives, alibis, and throwing in enough curveballs to keep audiences on their toes. Making it a season-long comedic mystery set during a state dinner at The White House—like Shondaland’s new eight-episode series, The Residence (premiering March 20 on Netflix)—adds whole new layers of complications.

The Planning

Never a big fan of outlining, when Paul William Davies (Scandal, Betrayal, For the People) began developing the idea for The Residence, he quickly realized that meticulous outlines can be worth the effort.

After reading Kate Andersen Brower’s 2015 nonfiction book, The Residence, about the behind-the-scenes staff that keeps The White House running from administration to administration, Davies saw C-SPAN footage of a Clinton-era chief usher testifying before a congressional committee, and the puzzle pieces began to click.

“After my middle of the night epiphany from C-SPAN, I wrote up an overview of what I thought the series was and what the perspective would be, and that I did relatively quickly,” says Davies, who set the idea aside briefly during the pandemic.

“The next time I picked it up, I sat down and figured out in a lot of detail exactly what the show was. I created a kind of bible, really, for the show, that included all of the characters, character descriptions of almost everybody in the show that would be of any prominence, and a separate character relationship document, and I embedded within that who the key suspects were. Then I did a full episode by episode, high level outline,” says Davies, who wrote all eight episodes himself.

“I looked at it not that long ago, and was kind of shocked at how much I kept to it. I mean, this was written probably four years ago. It was an overview of all the episodes, characters, relationships. Then there were certain things—like the congressional hearings, or the state dinner—that I did little standalone pieces on that explained who was at the state dinner and what was the relationship of the US and Australia.”

He says that bible included pretty much everything he needed to know in order to start writing. Intensive research was involved, especially about The White House and its staff. Davies’ assistant and co-producer of the show, Eileen Hutchinson, helped gather and process the copious amounts of information required before writing could begin.

The Process

“When I wrote the first episode, I knew everything in terms of who the victim was, who the killer was, who the suspects were, how it was going to unfold over the arc of the season. While I did change some things later, and leaned into certain things, the original architecture largely held.”

He also knew from the outset that the series would be between seven and nine episodes.

Executive Producer Paul William Davies behind the scenes of The Residence. Cr. Jessica Brooks/Netflix

“I definitely went into it knowing the mystery was going to be answered at the end of the season. Not that I wouldn’t want the show to continue as a show. I just wanted there to be a resolution—identify the person and wrap it up. I wasn’t trying to set up for another season.”

By the time production started in early 2023 (before being waylaid by the writers’ and actors’ strikes and the December 2023 death of Andre Braugher, who’d filmed several episodes as chief usher A.B. Wynter; later re-cast with Giancarlo Esposito) Davies had six of the eight episodes written. But the actual writing process took longer than expected.

“I’m a pretty quick writer in general, and had this outlined pretty thoroughly, so I thought it would go even quicker than normal, but once I got into it, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know where this is going, and I know what I have to do here, but there’s a lot of people, and this is complicated.’ I definitely underestimated how long it was going to take.”

Along with the standard challenges of mystery writing, The Residence takes place in the past with suspects’ alibis and detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) pieces things together in her mind; the present as the investigation proceeds amid a lockdown during the state dinner; and the future, as a congressional hearing led by Senator Filkins (played by actual former Senator Al Franken) seeks answers about what happened that fateful night.

(L to R) Eliza Coupe as Senator Margery Bay Bix, Al Franken as Senator Aaron Filkins in episode 108 of The Residence. Cr. Jessica Brooks/Netflix

“There’s a point at which things come together in the different time frames, and I wanted to make that work in a way that really felt good,” Davies says. “It’s a very complicated show, but I didn’t want it to feel complicated. An additional challenge was to make all of the storytelling, which was quite complex, feel very easy to follow. As I got into it I realized I’d have to work that much harder to make the complicated simple.”

As for the mystery itself, Davies focused on details.

“If one thing is off it can throw everything, and people are like, ‘Why is that vase here? Why is that glass there?’ I had to be scrupulous about it.”

Adding humor to the murder mystery came naturally to Davies.

“It probably would have been harder for me to write a non-comedic, straightforward, dramatic mystery with none of those elements,” he admits. “For me this feels more comfortable as a tone. Luckily, I work in a company that gives me a lot of latitude to be able to tell stories that way. It’s not like ‘You have to do an emotional scene here in episode two,’ or ‘we need to have a backstory here in episode three.’ That’s not the way Shondaland or Netflix has been. It’s been more like, ‘What’s the story you want to tell, and how do you want to tell it?’”

The Practicalities

Davies’ advice for screenwriters hoping to tackle a sustained mystery is to focus on planning and preparation.

“This was an unusual process for me because I normally don’t outline things to the extent that I did with this, not even close. I tend to be more of a write your way through it type,” he says. “Planning and preparation when you’re trying to do something that is extended and complicated really makes a huge difference. I learned a lot about just my own process that way. I might even be able to do that with projects that aren’t like this, although I probably would revert back to who I normally am for other types of things.”

He suggests staying open-minded about how you’re going to tell your story.

“Think about the characters and what they would be doing, and really let that process be organic,” Davies says. “Sometimes there’s a tendency—especially for me when outlining things, previously—is to think top down, like, ‘here’s the structure of it.’ But I let this come together and flow naturally. I knew I had to get to a certain place, and I needed to establish certain things, and once I had the structure established I could fill it all in. I don’t know if that makes sense. Outlining and creating structure is very important for something that’s complicated and big, but in that process of creating structure and outlining, let yourself be open to where the story goes and how it’s told.”

Once you know where you’re going and what the important markers are, you can go back and fill as needed and tweak things with the confidence of knowing you’ve already figured out the hard part.

Davies also believes it’s helpful to acknowledge your little accomplishments along the way.

“This kind of writing is hard. So when you kind of see that you’ve got those building blocks in place, it can give you confidence just knowing you’ve knocked that stuff out.”

The Residence premieres March 20, 2025 on Netflix.