House Of Cards “Chapter Fifty-Three”

My regular, possibly fictional, readers will not notice this, but there’s a gap in writing about House of Cards going on here.  I write these far in advance, and as a result, when I finished season four, Netflix had not yet dropped season five, but the posts had gone on far enough ahead that no one would really notice aside from me.

That was a good thing as far as I am concerned.

See, of the different shows I have and do cover for Gabbing Geek–and I’ve said this before and will probably say it again–House of Cards may be the most frustrating.  I’m not one for binge-watching anything.  I get bored watching the same TV show too many episodes in a row.  Heck, the closest I can come to a binge-watch is to watch an episode of something, do something else, and maybe watch one or two more episodes the same day.  Many Netflix shows, such as House of Cards, were not designed to be watched in weekly installments with the binge-model in mind.  As such, the show moves at a glacial pace until the season is just about finished, or Frank and Claire have some kind of temporary adversary to vanquish.  And, to date, none of the Underwood’s adversaries have been all that formidable.

How does a show like this end, anyway?  I recently read how the original British version ended, and there’s some portentous dialogue here that hints that, yes, the American version could very easily go that route.  Will it?  I don’t know.  I’ll find out eventually.  How much more of this show does Kevin Spacey want to do anyway?  He is basically the reason to watch the show, with Robin Wright being a strong second, but the overall drama is too over-the-top to really get anyone looking for a more serious or realistic political drama anything approaching either serious or realistic.

Take the opening for this season, where Frank takes over the House of Representatives to demand a declaration of war against a non-state actor.  Would a president act that way and get ejected?  Could it happen?  It’s a moment made for fictional television, and nothing more.

Take the final fate of the second of the two home-grown radicalized terrorists.  Frank and Claire are creating the illusion of a terror state when the fellow the country is looking for is already secretly in custody and about to be executed without a trial to create the impression that the Underwoods keep America safe.  Yes, neither of the surviving members of the Miller family are buying it, but if enough voters do, that’s enough.

So, we’re left with a self-serving couple that will never yield and promise to keep us safe.  Who keeps us safe from them?  Is the final unraveling starting to happen?  Hammerschmidt is gathering an investigative team, and Frank’s own actions have opened the door for a Congressional investigation into his own actions.

Somehow, I doubt this is what stops him, no matter how much he deserves punishment.