Cordelia Cupp cracks the case in the finale of The Residence, the sharp new White House murder mystery from Shondaland.

After a series of twists and turns, the brilliant and eccentric detective played by Uzo Aduba unmasks the culprit: Lilly Schumacher (Molly Griggs), the White House social secretary and one of the many staffers who clashed with chief usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito, who took over the role from the late Andre Braugher) on the night of his death. The wealthy socialite poisoned A.B. with paraquat, a toxic herbicide, before bludgeoning him to death with a clock after he learned of all of her illegal transgressions on the job, including misappropriation of funds.

Below, Paul William Davies, chief of state of the comedic whodunnit, breaks down that big reveal, the homage to Braugher, the Hugh Jackman cameo that never came to be, and a potential season 2.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You knew before you sat down to write the show that the killer would be Lilly. At what point did Molly Griggs learn that she would be the killer?

PAUL WILLIAM DAVIES: She knew right when she came aboard. I told her and she was like, “Great.” Molly’s such a lovely person, just a great spirit and game to do what needs to be done and have fun. I guess there’s a world in which you could hide that and reveal it later to her, but that seemed not right to me.

What made her the most compelling killer? It maybe felt like commentary about the rich and what they think they could get away with. Is that a fair assessment?

I mean, it’s not really commentary. She is rich and entitled for sure, but I wanted that relationship between the killer and the victim to be rooted in the life of the house and what goes on in the house. Not that it has ever turned murderous at all, but there is sometimes real tension there between the staff that exists over many administrations. You can see it from both perspectives, the people who come in and they want to change things up and they see inefficiencies, and they’re kind of frustrated. And yet you completely understand from the people that work there and they’re like, you’ve got to be kidding me with this. I wanted to work with that tension, just like I do in so many other elements of the show, of rooting it in things that really exist there. So that was really fun for me. 

Hugh Jackman being a guest at the Australian state dinner is a recurring gag. You tried to get him to appear but he had a scheduling conflict. How would you have integrated him in if he were available?

Honestly, I don’t know, because it was contingent on how long [he would be available]; I probably would’ve gotten anything I could out of him and spread it over as many episodes as I could. Like with Kylie [Minogue], we approached her, she was totally game. I thought we’d only be able to do one little thing with her performing and that would be it, and then she was game to do more and the schedule worked out, so I did [the scene] with the Lincoln Bedroom. I wrote the stuff with her spending the night and finding the blood only after I knew she could do it, and I would’ve done that with Hugh. 

The finale pays homage to the late Andre Braugher, who filmed a few episodes prior to his passing. How would you describe him as a collaborator?

Amazing. I sat down with him the first day he came to the lot and we talked for an hour and a half about A.B. Wynter and what he thought and what some of his ideas were. [He asked] me lots of questions about what my intentions were for certain things, and it was really a remarkable conversation that has stuck with me and will stick with me for the rest of my life. Because he was so smart and incisive and asked so many thoughtful, probing questions that were all in an effort to understand who this person was and what I was looking for in his performance. It was mind boggling, having been working on this for two years at that point and given a lot of thought [to the characters]. Yet he was asking me things that I had thought about inadequately. It made me think more about it in a way that was very helpful to me. He was just an incredible person and force to be around. It was devastating to lose him.

With those questions that he had, did they inform any changes to Giancarlo’s A.B. Wynter?

I didn’t [need to] rewrite for Giancarlo. They both inhabited it in their own way, which is what great actors do. I remember talking to Andre about the backstory of A.B. and who he was, and because I hadn’t finished it yet, I told him I was going to do this thing in the beginning of [episode] 8 where I told a little bit about his story, but it wasn’t going to be that much. I remember him being very supportive of that. So I didn’t write it differently, but I did take things away from the conversation in terms of what I had done and where I was going. That was really important to me.

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The mystery has been solved, but would you want to continue the show in some capacity? Have there been talks with Netflix?

Cordelia is a great character. She’s a lot of fun to write for. I love working with Uzo. The relationship between Cordelia and Edwin is really fun. I love the genre. I would love to be able to keep telling Cordelia stories if I could. And if folks wanted to do it in the way that we’ve done it, then that would be amazing to me. This has been a big ambitious project and we’ve all put our heart and soul into it, and so we just want as many people to see it and be enthusiastic about it. And then we’ll talk about the future. 

Are there any ideas percolating in your head?

I’ve definitely got ideas. I mean, Cordelia travels all over the world, and she does that for birds mostly. She serves as a consulting detective for the MPD, and I think she’s known all over the world because of that. So I think the idea of going on an adventure with her sounds fun, and I think there’s a lot of different places she could do her master work. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. The Residence is streaming on Netflix.