House Of Cards “Chapter Forty-One”

I think I’m getting tired of this show.

When I started this project, doing a different TV show for a quick post that would come out once per weekday, I liked a lot of what I saw.  There was a show I considered weaker than the others, making me wonder if I would give up on it.  I’m not the type to give up on much of anything, so here we are still with an episode where Frank uses the State of the Union to undermine Claire’s electoral hopes and now she has a different plan of some kind, and some stuff involving Jackie and Remy and so forth.

But where is House of Cards actually going?

See, I thought Vikings would be the weak link here, but oddly enough, Vikings has grown on me.  I don’t believe Vikings is great television compared to some of the other things I watch, but I enjoy it a lot more than I do House of Cards at this point.  It seems to be running for the sake of running.  How have we gone forty-one episodes so far with what looks like so little actually happening?

And the funny thing is, it isn’t the big political stuff that’s so darn slow.  In the real world, political progress takes time.  Frank can usually get past most political obstacles by the end of a given episode.  And now we’re in some scenario where Frank and Claire are at odds with each other?  I’m just not buying it.

So, yeah, for me all this House of Cards stuff isn’t working.  I’ve been going through shows like Rome, Penny Dreadful, The Wire, Vikings, Stranger Things, The Night Manager, The OA, and True Detective and right now, I can honestly say I look forward to more episodes of True Detective‘s generally maligned second season than I am House of Cards.  Maybe House of Cards is meant more for quick binges than a long term an-episode-a-week or so viewing experiment.  I don’t tend to quit things, but this show isn’t working for me like it did at the start.  Give Frank a real enemy.  So far, he’s had a series of pushovers who never stood a chance.  Develop Claire better.  Her political aspirations came out of nowhere, and it makes her complaints about how Frank was treating her in season three seem less serious than they should be.  In many ways, House of Cards is a cartoonish version of real politics.  Maybe try embracing that more and focusing on the characters that actually make sense and are interesting and not on where Remy and Jackie stand on their relationship since it seems to have next to no relevance to anything the Underwoods are doing.

OK, maybe next week I’ll say more about the episode itself, but this show hasn’t been doing much for me lately, so we’ll see.

Actually, quick note:  Neve Campbell still looks pretty good.