House Of Cards “Chapter Twenty-Nine”

OK, is this season going anywhere?

And no, I don’t really care about Doug, that hacker, or the search for Rachel.

So, here we have two separate sets of wooing going on in the foreign sphere.  Claire, newly installed UN ambassador, along with Secretary of State Durant, are trying to work out a peace deal between Israel and Palestine that would involve a Russian partnership.  The problem is various foreign diplomats keep deferring to Claire instead of Durant.  Durant doesn’t seem to mind too much, but Claire smartly tries to fix that.

See, the successful wooing comes from Claire keeping Durant on the Underwoods’ side, and even listening to the more experienced woman.

The less successful wooing comes when Frank hosts Russian President Victor Petrov to be that partner, but Petrov is largely uninterested unless Frank makes a monumental concession or two.  Petrov, at a state dinner, seems intent on outdoing Frank at every turn and even lays a big ol’ kiss on Claire at one point.

Hey, wait, that actor is Lars Mikkelsen!  His kid brother Mads was the purposeless villain in Doctor Strange and a cannibalistic serial killer on TV’s Hannibal.  Why is a Danish actor playing a Russian president?  Probably because Americans can’t tell the differences in accents.

So, anyhoo, working with ideas from Durant and Claire, Frank finds a new way to do that while the AmWorks thing is…going somewhere else, I guess.

I’m sure something will happen at some point.

Though, truthfully, this looks like one of those episodes where the writers think they can solve intractable political problems more easily than the same things happening in the real world.