Honestly, I had a hard time reviewing these episodes. They're pretty boring. The show has a tendency to fill up its runtimes with a lot of navel-gazing political back-channels and “drama” solely manufactured from everyone backstabbing each other and talking about how they want to backstab each other. I fell asleep during both of these episodes, and I don't think it was just me being tired. It's a dull slog of a time.
I guess there's the return of the Tom Hammerschmidt character, who has been in this since season 1 and trying and failing to put together any clues that could bring down the Underwoods. Buddy, if you've been at it this long and still can't do it, maybe this wasn't ever the job for you. This season we first see him losing his temper at his job over them not investigating Frank's death enough. He screams in the middle of the office that they're barely even doing journalism so much as “feeding pigs from the trough” with viral content. He's right, but man is it a hilarious outburst that would demand to go viral for how funny it is if it were real. I'd play that a few times.
Then there's also Cathy Durant, recovered from the time Frank pushed her down the stairs in the middle of the White House in broad daylight – which was pretty much the show's crown jewel of stupidity and one of the worst moments on TV I can think of lately. Claire, feeling that she's going to testify against her, wants Doug Stamper to have her killed. God, this shit is like a really poor mafia story these days. Like The Godfather, but written by a half-assed hack airport thriller writer.
You know, maybe it would be more interesting to have character development rather than just everyone constantly scheming to kill one another. Look at the wild characters we're dealing with in real life politics. Imagine all the neuroses and seething resentments and weird psychoses you could play with if you mirrored THAT. But nah better just stick to the same old soulless tricks! At least it's a decent sleep medication. I did need to catch up on that.
Meanwhile the Shepherds continue to try and manipulate Claire, mostly using Vice President Mark Usher, who is mostly dull here despite the guy's obvious acting chops. More angry people shouting! Greg Kinnear is way too good to be in this. They just didn't give him any interesting lines or character traits. There's some talk about a Supreme Court justice, and about a war in the Middle East, and none of it is more interesting than real life politics – the show's constant failure now.
There's also Janine Skorsky, another journalist character who used to be interesting but now gets like one episode per season. Her main role is looking like a terrified deer in headlights all the time, it seems like. She's driving around with Hammerschmidt and the two of them are talking about the coincidence of all these bodies piling up around the Underwoods, and how it all seems to connect. OH REALLY? DOES IT ALL CONNECT? TELL ME MORE, SHERLOCKS! REGALE ME WITH YOUR HYPOTHESES AND GUESSES ON WHETHER OR NOT THESE OBVIOUS CRIMINALS ARE ENGAGED IN CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.
It's revealed, I guess, that Cathy Durant isn't really dead after all! OOOoooOOOO! Only even that doesn't get me excited. These aren't characters so much as they are chess pieces and pawns. It's not engaging fiction.
I can't even describe accurately how boring these episodes were. I barely even got to make jokes. There was so little funny here. I guess I'll continue from here and hope that the boredom doesn't lower my heart rate to the point where I die.
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