This post contains spoilers from The Residence episode 3 from this point forward.
Jumping off from the revelation at the end of episode 2 that Didier was in the game room at the time of A.B.'s death and took a knife from the scene, The Residence episode 3 opens with the pastry chef cleaning blood off his knife. He places a bloody rag in a box and takes it to the incinerator. Sheila (Edwina Findley) the butler spots him and tries to tell him he has something on his back, as do others.
In a flashback to the Christmas season, which was 10 months earlier, Didier presents his latest gingerbread replica of the White House to A.B. He even created a mini A.B. out of gingerbread. The gingerbread White House is typically displayed upstairs in the dining room, but Lilly and her energy medium St. Pierre (Taran Killam) convinced the First Gentleman to have it moved downstairs in the China Room in favor of an IV drip station. Didier blamed A.B. for not sticking up for him and the gingerbread house.
As expected, Lilly's holiday spectacle wellness situation was a disaster and she worked overtime to place the blame elsewhere. She believed she had been set up or so Jasmine tells Cordelia. Jasmine thinks Didier feeling betrayed by A.B. during the holiday mess could give him motive to kill A.B. Jasmine explains to Cordelia and Edwin that the White House residence is separated in an us vs. them situation between the staff and the administration.
The Residence episode 3 recap
On top of the us vs. them division, there was even in-fighting among the staff, including Didier and Marvella constantly fighting over meals and eventually not speaking to each other. They were the old school vs. the new school. A.B. become caught in the middle of the old school vs. new school battle and didn't have Didier's back. Apparently, Didier than stabbed the gingerbread A.B. in the back with a candy knife.
When Cordelia questions Didier, he denies having any part in A.B.'s death. He wasn't even aware that he had a blue chalk mark on the back of his white coat. Cordelia tries to get him to open up by mentioning Badrutt's Palace, but she pauses that questioning and talks to Sheila. The butler comes to Cordelia with the information about seeing Didier going to the incinerator with a box. The incinerator doesn't work, so they're able to retrieve the box.
Inside the box, Cordelia pulls out the knife. A flashback reveals Didier decided to put the knife in the box and moved another knife to fill its place on his knife rack. It's crooked, which Cordelia noticed during her walkthrough. Finally, Didier opens up about going to his office on the third floor before leaving and finding A.B. dead with one of the knives he kept in his office beside him. He swiped the knife from the crime scene out of fear that he would be pinned for the murder.
Earlier that night, A.B. and Didier had it out over the dessert he was serving during the Australian state dinner, which featured candy kangaroos on top. The Australians complained about the kangaroos on the dessert, calling them offensive, but Didier refused to have the removed. A.B. insisted on having them removed, causing another rift between the pastry chef and the chief usher.
Cordelia talks to the gardener, Emily Mackil, in the gardening shed to see what she knows. She's eliminated as a suspect because Cordelia notices that Emily didn't use a key to enter, expressed confusion over a light switch, moved the phone, and spotted something missing from the bookshelf. Translation: Emily wasn't the one who made the phone call from the shed. Someone else was in there. Cordelia asks about the Cedar of Lebanon leaf found at the crime scene.
Edwin's ready to call the case with Didier as the culprit, but Cordelia isn't done yet. After all, Rylance said he saw two people outside. The detective finds a cigarette stub underneath the cedar tree. Edwin assumes Didier was the one who was smoking under the tree, but there was lipstick on the cigarette. It was Sheila, and she was in the game room earlier! The ending reveals someone wearing leather gloves placed the candy knife in gingerbread A.B.'s back.
Watch The Residence only on Netflix.