“Chapter 28” was basically House of Cards‘ way of shitting all over its main characters. Seriously, Frank and Claire just could not catch a fucking break (even Doug and Remy are having rough goes of it; Seth seems to be doing okay).
It starts off promisingly enough, with Claire at a confirmation hearing for the Ambassador gig. She handles herself well, because Claire Underwood is nothing if not composed and eloquent. Unfortunately, she’s also married to Frank Underwood, and some of that temper must have rubbed off on her, because she gets pretty riled up after Senator Mendoza grills her over an out-of-context remark about the military being irrelevant. It’s a frustrating moment, because Claire would actually make a good Ambassador, but now she has no shot because everyone has to appeal to their base (and their baser instincts – God I’m good at this).
Frank isn’t doing much better. The Democratic leadership doesn’t want him to run in 2016, which comes as a shock (he was expecting it, but not so early). Everyone is pretty much looking out for themselves, especially Jackie Sharp. Frank’s created quite the little monster. She tells Remy that she’ll help him out of the jam, but only if she can be his Vice President in 2016, which Remy (CORRECTLY) points out is pretty fucking disproportionate.
“I whipped up the votes for impeachment,” she counters. Uh, yeah, but Frank put you in the position to do so. This isn’t a chicken-egg situation, Jackie. Get over yourself.
To Frank’s credit he does agree not to seek re-election, but only if the Democrats help him push America Works through Congress. Why they’re so opposed to this, I don’t know; probably something to do with the welfare and entitlement cuts. Frank goes around their back, because that’s what Frank does, and gives a speech on TV saying that America Works will be introduced to the public in the next few weeks. He’s in full-on not giving a fuck mode after deciding not to run. He even agrees to give Claire the Ambassadorship by Presidential order, because fuck Mendoza!
I’m not sure what else to say about “Chapter 28.” (You’ll notice this review is shorter than mine typically are.) Quite frankly, I’m not sure what to say about House of Cards this season as a whole. Granted, two episodes in is a very short time to be making judgments, but is the show wrapping itself up? That’s fine if it is, but Frank Underwood seems like the type to go out with a bang rather than a whimper. And part of me thinks he’s bullshitting the DNC, forcing them to support AmWorks, then using the program’s success as a platform to launch a campaign in 2016. I’d watch the hell out of that show, especially because HoC showrunner Beau Willimon would just crush it; he wrote the play Farragut North, which became the underrated George Clooney movie The Ides of March.
But I digress. It was nice to see the Underwoods struggle for a change, so I’ll give “Chapter 28” points for that. But it made me think more about the show itself and less about what was happening on the show. We’ll see how “Chapter 29” deals with the fallout of Frank’s speech.
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