Well, it's here, the final two House of Cards episodes and the removal of the metaphorical ulcer on all of our subsconsciouses. I know some people like the show, but fuck it, this isn't about them. I am glad this is show is done. Now all that's left is for me to pump out some paragraphs detailing exactly what was so strange and silly about these episodes...
So apparently it's several months in the future, and Claire is pregnant and has a 70% approval rating as president. Wow, I knew this was fantasy, but goddamn is that a stretch. The Russian troll farms alone would've crucified her by this point. Let alone the mommy's boys who live in their parents' basements and consider a day of posting on Reddit to be productive. I guess there is some kind of plot about an app that invaded people's privacy, which Claire gets credit for slamming – but that's all very boring and ends up leading precisely nowhere.
Another thing that leads nowhere is the Shepherds' storyline, with Greg Kinnear's character getting accosted by a random girl at an event for polluting the city with chemicals. It really has no relevance. I guess they had to fill up screen time. I would've preferred if they had put in one of those old Windows maze screensavers instead. Those were cool and more engaging than this.
Not all is peachy, though, as apparently Doug Stamper is on the run, only surfacing from random gas stations in the country to call Seth Grayson, another old character nobody cares about, and tell him a bunch of Frank Underwood diary quotes from the beginning of the fucking show, about characters like Zoe who have long since been dead. This show expects us all to be fucking historians. Jesus – if you don't have much to focus on now, maybe your show needs work if all you have is stuff from six years ago.
Oh, and would Frank have kept a diary? He didn't seem like the type. Not with all his machinations. But who am I to criticize obviously flimsy plots you made as a half-assed attempt to cover up for Kevin Spacey's real life misdeeds? You do what you gotta do to get by, show, even if it is as shameless as possible. We all have those times.
Hm, what else have I missed? Oh yeah – the plot to assassinate Claire, orchestrated by Annie Shepherd and a bunch of other people, sitting around a board room in the middle of the day like goddamn supervillains. It's so insane, even though I am positive people will try and spin this as “oooOOOOOoooh, this happens in real life all the time!!” I dunno. I just love the line where Annie says “What are we going to do about the conspiracy nonsense when that comes up?” Conspiracy nonsense? YOU ARE CONSPIRING RIGHT NOW. THAT IS HAPPENING. I get what she meant, but damn do I love some of these goofy-ass lines.
The episode ends with an utterly fucking insane moment of Claire sitting in a dark room and singing a horrific nursing rhyme... “Row row row your boat / gently down the stream / If you see a crocodile / don't forget to scream.” It's literally like a fucking horror movie. God this show has lost its fucking mind.
In 'Chapter 73,' everything just starts unraveling. News of the potential assassination has reached Claire, and she's in panic mode, beginning to talk about nuking Russia or something. It's all very insane and I guess the show is playing up her pregnancy and how people feel about a pregnant woman. It's sort of trying to make a statement? Maybe? I dunno. It could be worse at it, I'll give you that – but I hardly think this is a very insightful message or anything. Not like House of Cards will be what people reach for in terms of feminist critique later.
It's just that they're not really saying anything. They have people reacting poorly to Claire because she's pregnant. Big whoop. What do you really have to say in deeper layers beyond 'people are biased against pregnant women's ability to lead'? Claire even makes a big speech about “pre-conceived notions.” Actually, she's had several lines this season like that, just direct and on the nose. It would be fine if it were better written or had more of a point, but there's just nothing to hook you in beyond that and so it feels like preaching. Just saying “Women are treated bad” out loud isn't really a feminist critique so far as writing a fictional TV show goes.
The issue with the show now is that it's gotten rid of every interesting character. Most of the ones focused on the last two seasons – Jane Davis and the Shepherds and Mark Usher – there's nothing interesting about. It's like if they just started following around random accounting people in an office. I don't give one single shit about these characters.
So I guess if you're gonna go out, there are worse ways than a bunch of scenes of a pregnant President threatening to nuke everyone. It's actually kind of funny, I'll give them that. She orders everyone out of the White House pretty much, intending to try and isolate herself from the impending assassin.
Doug Stamper shows up, probably the most obvious candidate for an assassin, but he's just allowed to walk around wherever I guess. This is the same White House where Frank pushed a woman down the stairs and into a coma in broad daylight – confirmed.
He and Claire have a talk and it's revealed that Doug was actually the one who killed Frank! My god! It's barely elucidated on as to why this happened. There's enough drama in this scene to be some kind of bargain-basement version version of Shakespeare. All the overwrought emoting, but none of the talent. I guess you got to work with what you have. It is almost like some kind of strange Scooby Doo episode reveal. "I would've gotten away with killing Frank if not for the show's lame writing!"
Then Doug stabs her in the neck, and she stabs him in the gut, killing him. Who knows how this is going to play when the general American public finds out that a woman killed a man in the White House? I mean, for real life, that still wouldn't be shocking. We'd be like 'big deal, last week Trump took a shit on the floor of the Iranian embassy on live TV.' But in this universe I'm sure it's at least a bit of a feather-ruffling.
So, I guess in general, this was how I expected House of Cards to end when I started watching it years ago. No complaints here! Since this episode aired, though, Kevin Spacey was formally charged with sexual assault for the first time and he released an utterly insane video where he acted as Frank Underwood and blathered on about how he wasn't dead and every accusation against him is a lie. So I guess we can brace for THAT spinoff – wouldn't you find it morbidly curious to watch him try to make a sequel to House of Cards on his iPhone where he tries to make it actually legit? 'The REAL story' or some such garbage? That would be fucked up, but interesting in the way a car crash is.
At every fucking turn this show was less dramatic than real life. It was completely devoured by reality. Every goddamn time. If it was a better show than the awful garbage it became in its final seasons, I might have even felt bad.
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