Well, I've been watching House of Cards since season 1, and in that time I've had the incredible privilege of witnessing TV get better and better and moving beyond this ridiculous show. All while real world politics getting more insane every day rendered it completely irrelevant. So here's some reviews of the final season after star Kevin Spacey was ousted due to real-life sexual harassment accusations!
I think it's safe to say there are SPOILERS in these.
The first episode 'Chapter 66' doesn't waste any time, with Claire Underwood as the first female president of the United States. She's trying to establish herself as dominant by doing things like having all the death threats against her read aloud in the oval office. I'm sure that's like a lullaby to her calloused blackened soul. But then again it's not like we get any character development – we haven't in this show for years now. The closest we get is when, while doing one of the show's trademarked facing the camera speeches, she says that “everything Francis told us was a lie” over the course of the show. No real elaboration yet, not even a hint of it, but it SOUNDS cool. Oh, hey, that's most of this show since like season 3.
Then there's one scene where she finds the bats in the walls of the White House that she thinks represent her husband Frank. Then going outside and releasing it while giving a speech about being free. Which, I'm sure will give some jobs to people to fix that wall and to stomp out the bat problem apparently in there... see, who says the first female president wasn't going to get anything done?
Oh and she also gets into a weird pointless thing with a black military girl who asks her if she'll have a plan that won't get them all killed – it's a legitimate question, and Claire responds haughtily and dismissively with “would you have asked me that if I were a man?” It's weird that this is trying to be progressive in a gender way but also reinforces the old 'rich powerful white woman talks down to a person of color' thing at the same time. Sort of a kaleidoscopic labyrinth and you can't tell how to feel about it. But you be you, show!
There's no shortage of manufactured drama, either – in one scene, barely a half hour in, someone attempts to assassinate her by shooting through her car window. Jesus! This show doesn't let up. Being president truly is an exciting job where most of it consists of espionage and dodging bullets. Being president is basically just being John McClane.
There's also the Doug Stamper character, who is now in a mental institution talking to therapists – truly an innovative idea we've never seen before. And Greg Kinnear and Diane Lane return as a pair of psychopathic rich donors called the Shepherds, who really want Claire to sign this de-regulation bill and she won't do it. All of this is pretty tired for the show, but not too bad yet. If anything it's just funny how every scene is really just a bunch of angry people shouting at each other. Nobody is happy on this show. Ever. Every scene, their scowls are practically choreographed.
In 'Chapter 67' we start to get a bit more of a story. Claire, while in a town that has been evacuated for a chemical leak, finds Frank Underwood's ring on a bed in a house there. She deduces, apparently correctly, that someone has dug up Frank's grave in order to get the ring just to leave it on the bed in a random house! Dun dun dun! Apparently Greg Kinnear's character, Bill Shepherd, did this. He also shot at her in the first episode. And he was also breaking into her house at one point. This guy really wants that dumb bill passed. Because in House of Cards land, this behavior apparently doesn't even warrant a strange look or a turn of the head.
Meanwhile his sister, Annie, is apparently one of Claire's childhood friends. They have a tense conversation about how they both slept with Frank and how he wasn't that great at having sex. For this to be a serious conversation between the two main female characters is just... uh, hilarious, to put it lightly. Like, hey, what else would a woman president and a powerful female adversary EVER have to talk about but sex? They also have a weird sort of yoga scene with their shoes off. Show, if you want us to take you remotely seriously, you gotta do this exact scene but with men next time. Just do that.
There's also the BIG REVEAL of what really happened to Frank that we never saw. Claire tells us, in one of those trademarked scenes of her facing the camera alone again, that he came back to the White House after being ousted and shouted drunkenly at her, forcing her to retreat to her room. Then she found him dead the next day in his bed. So it was “Them,” a shadowy cabal, she says, that killed him! Conspiracy! Sound the sirens and ready the bunker!
Uh, show, are you sure it's a good idea to release a plotline in this political climate about a deep state that secretly controls and can kill the higher-ups in the White House? There are some real cases like Pizzagate where this stuff was taken too far. Not a great message. But who am I kidding? The people who believe that stuff would've already been bored to sleep by this incompetent show.
The rest of the episode is mostly boring stuff about de-regulation policies. Because this show, existing in the current American political climate, thinks de-regulation policies is what would be firing up the cylinders on talk news shows in a fictional world. Cute. Almost quaint.
Anyway, tune in soon for more of the 'being president is basically being an action hero' show! Who knows what wacky hijinks will ensue? I've got six more episodes. Send help.
Pictures credited to their original owners; we don't own them.
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