This post contains spoilers from The Residence episode 4 from this point forward.
Changing up the scenery for the first time, The Residence episode 4 opens with a flashback to Cordelia birding with her nephew Ansel (Ca'Ron Jaden Coleman). They're looking for the Tuamotu sandpiper, but he's getting restless waiting. Cordelia's sister Aimee calls and says he wanted to see birds. There seems to be a bit of tension between the sisters. But a story about Cordelia never giving up on finding Aimee's strawberry sock as a kid inspires him.
Back at the White House, Cordelia sketches and jots down notes in her birding book to help think through the case. Inside the book, she has pages dedicated to the people she found "interesting" a.k.a. the suspects. Her latest entry is on Sheila the butler, and it's no wonder why since Sheila can't get her story straight. She first tells Cordelia that she was on the third floor deliver vodka to Nana Cox.
The butlers weren't supposed to bring Nan her drinks, but they didn't listen. So, Sheila was upstairs giving Nan her drink and stopped in the game room to take shots of the vodka before delivering it. She was stressed because she was pulled off the floor during the state dinner. But everyone else disagrees with Sheila's story. Instead of working the floor like she said, she was sitting with Mrs. Abkin (Catherine Carlen), the former First Lady per her request.
As the staff tells it, the guest list and seating chart were a constant mess at Lilly's hands (and St. Pierre's), leaving the seating situation in chaos even on the night. The conflict was just another source of stress for the staff while hosting the state dinner. After the fact, Sheila was complaining to anyone who would listen about the Morgans.
The Residence episode 4 recap
Sheila's close relationship with the Abkins became clear to the Morgans, forcing A.B. to pull her from the floor and leading to a blowup fight between A.B. and Sheila. He asked to see her in his office the first thing in the morning. Immediately, she feared that she was going to be fired. She had a history of butting heads with A.B. and calling him names behind his back.
The most incriminating aspect of what happened to Sheila is what she said: "He won't fire me if he isn't here anymore." But she claims to Cordelia she wanted to get him fired. Cordelia also knows that Sheila never delivered the vodka to Nan. Sheila takes a break to smoke, and while Cordelia continues to take notes in her birding book, a number of the "dudes" barge in to argue with each other and pressure her.
Cordelia continues talking with Sheila and reveals that she knows Sheila was on the third floor twice, the first time being when brought up the decanter but forgot the glass. She went back downstairs to get a glass and returned to drink the whole bottle of vodka. Finally, Cordelia asks about when Sheila was smoking under the tree. She saw Rylance and Marvella hooking up and another person going into the gardening shed. She also saw someone going into the room at the end of the hall on the third floor but was too drunk to notice who the person was.
The medical examiner, Anne Dodge (Tara Karsia), arrives to share her initial findings with Cordelia. She supposes A.B. was dead nearly 30 minutes before he was found. She also found evidence of nonfatal poisoning and suggests the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of his head, his wrists being cut after his death. During the congressional hearing, Anne Dodge reveals she never had access to the body again.
Cordelia realizes that A.B. wasn't killed in the game room. He was killed somewhere else and moved into the game room, hence why Sheila didn't find the body. Edwin tries to poke holes in her theory, but she has a rebuttal for each line of questioning. They enter the bedroom that's being "renovated," and Cordelia notices that the door was taped. It's a very suspicious room.
Turns out, the Morgans lied about the room being renovated in order to take the room out of rotation and avoid hosting another guest. Cordelia also smells paint in the room, which is odd since the painter says there was no painting done in the room. Cordelia follows the smell of the paint to a baseboard. She scrapes off the fresh coat of paint and discovers a blood stain. At the very same time, Cordelia receives a call from someone at the hotel across the street.
Watch The Residence only on Netflix.