House Of Cards “Chapter Forty-Three”

Wow!  Something happened!

OK, so, that silly Claire-as-running-mate thing seems to be happening, sort of, as Claire attempts to basically blackmail her way onto the ticket by threatening to publicly announce she and Frank are getting a divorce if Frank doesn’t bow to her wishes.

Like, seriously?  I mean, I know both of these people suck, but I am really having a hard time accepting this plot line for a number of legal reasons that make a whole lot of sense to me.

And while there’s some stuff going on with Russia, and Frank is vandalizing the White House walls by tracing the ever-agreeable Meechum’s hand, then something big happens.  Frank goes to a rally, and while talking to some anti-Underwood protestors, Lucas Goodwin pops out of the crowd and shoots Frank in the gut.  Meechum takes a bullet too, but not before he manages to take Lucas down as well.  Lucas and Meechum are both dead, Frank has one less unwaveringly loyal associate (basically he’s down to Doug right now), and Frank is in critical condition and needing surgery.  Claire needs to go to Washington, though not before her mama wishes Frank dead.

Such a wonderful family here…

And, to probably no one’s surprise, Vice President Donald Blythe is not up to the task of actually making presidential decisions while Frank is in a coma.  That Russia thing is still in the air, and Claire offers her assistance in resolving it.  And that means Donald (with Claire) comes up with a completely new plan to ease the problems with Russia.

Um, is House of Cards trying to set up Claire as a competent potential Vice President?  Because that sure doesn’t seem to fit well with what we’ve seen of her before.  Claire as a person Frank can bounce ideas off and act as a strong ally to her husband?  Yes.  Claire as a talented diplomat when it comes to dealing with foreign powers and so forth?  Not so much.  She has her moments, but she also didn’t seem to want to work with real politic when the Underwoods went to Russia.  Then again, Petrov has Frank’s number as it is.  Claire can’t do much worse against the guy.

At any rate, she can shine now.  Hey, the new solution actually worked, and I really liked this episode after feeling like the show has been lost in the weeds for the last few episodes, going back to season three.  House of Cards works best when the Underwoods are devious together, not scheming against each other.