House Of Cards UK “House Of Cards Episode Three”

Look, I know roughly how this will end.  I’ve seen the American version.  That the British told the entire story in one less episode than a single season of the American take on this show tells me a lot.

But we can pretend certain things will happen.

Like, we can pretend that Francis Urquhart can lose this thing.  He takes the news that Prime Minister Collingridge is resigning in the wake of a scandal involving the PM’s alcoholic brother using insider government tips to make money illegally, something Francis faked himself with some inside help that may have come from the party PR man with the cocaine habit that Francis blackmailed into helping.

We know that won’t work.  Francis explains that Collingridge needs to go, we shouldn’t feel bad, as the man just wanted to be liked.  Quite frankly, when Collingridge goes to see his brother at a private clinic, the PM is relieved he’s out of it.

We also shouldn’t be surprised he starts a physical relationship with the doting Mattie.  That she wants to call him “Daddy” is rather creepy.  All that happens off-camera.  Some things a gentleman like Francis won’t talk about to his willing audience as he schools them on what politics is really like.

His wife, Elizabeth, seems to know what’s happening.  She doesn’t mind.  Hell, she approves.  She likes the way he doesn’t publicly commit to becoming the new Prime Minister.

But the fly in the ointment is actually Mattie.  She met Charlie Collingridge.  He seemed…harmless.  And when she does manage to track him down, she believes his brother Henry really was framed.  That gets her a visit from a blackmailed Roger the Cokehead.  Not a face-to-face one, but one where he damages her car and tosses a brick with a threatening note through her window.  She’s also taken off the politics beat at her job.  That comes after she finds some incriminating evidence to show Henry Collingridge really was set up by parties unknown.

Of course, even after tracking Roger down, she still goes to Francis with everything she knows because, well, she just trusts that guy.

So, we can guess where that might go for her.