I hope House of Cards stays on the air for fifty seasons, just so the writers can keep trying to top themselves with the most screwed-up openings they can conjure up. Last season commenced with Frank Underwood urinating on his father’s grave; this season we get Lucas Goodwin, bearded, gaunt, and still in prison, talking dirty so his cellmate can jack off to it – which he does, to completion, just so nothing is lost in translation. It’s a dark way to begin what’s sure to be a dark season.
And I mean literally dark, because this is the gloomiest show on TV right now. Hell, most of The Walking Dead takes place in the daytime. The muted color palette of season 1-3 has evolved into a world of perpetual shadows, reminiscent of cinematographer Gordon Willis’s work on The Godfather. There’s a reason behind all of this: the characters on House of Cards are the worst people in the world.
“Chapter 40” picks up six months after “Chapter 39,” with Frank on the campaign trail and Claire still dodging his calls. He’s won Iowa and is polling well in New Hampshire, meaning the timeline more or less matches up with ours, a smart move on HoC‘s part (come to think of it, this show would be seen as parody if it tried to replicate this election cycle). Normally I’d be thrilled at the prospect of a front-row seat to election-season chicanery, but Frank is more removed than ever; he doesn’t address the audience even once, a first for this show. I don’t know if season 4 plans on keeping that up, if the show has done away with its most famous gimmick, or if it was a one-time thing. I’m not sure how well it works. Without Frank addressing us, we lose not just the sense of intimacy but the sense of complicity that, at its best, House of Cards so expertly evoked. The counter argument to this is that Frank’s Shakespearean soliloquies so often boiled down to “Once I get ____ to do _____, the _____ is all but mine.” Insert cackle, star wipe, and we’re out. We’ll see how this progresses through the season.
Where House of Cards is poised to succeed is in its portrayal of badass women who continually get the best of Frank. Claire has been doing this for a while – I’ll have more to say on Claire later – and last season the show introduced Jackie Sharp and Heather Dunbar, the latter of whom is drubbing Frank in the polls. “Chapter 40” introduces Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) and Claire’s mother Elizabeth, played with maximum Southern charming hostility by Ellen Burstyn. Elizabeth is not shy at all when it comes to Frank. “Claire is the First Lady of the United States and you still think she made the wrong choice,” Frank quips. Elizabeth retorts: “Not even being President could give you any class.” I bring up Elizabeth and Leann because they’re both set to fuel Claire on her quest to become as awful a person as her husband.
For a while now, the show has had no idea what to do with Claire. The Clean Water Initiative was something, I guess, then she was an ambassador for a hot minute and had that dopey publicity stunt last season where she spent the night in a Russian prison. So it makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose, that she would now turn her eyes towards a congressional seat, specifically the 30th district of Texas, with an eye on the governorship in 2020. Because in House of Cards, it’s not worth doing anything if you don’t have some Machiavellian long con in mind. Claire enlists Leann to run her campaign, which leads Frank to threaten her in hilariously quick fashion. This is all well and good, and pretty standard HoC fare, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to root for the Underwoods, which, obviously, was never the point of the show, but it was at least something you could do from a perverse spectator standpoint. It was part of the show’s idea.
But Claire’s campaign might be a bridge too far. Not because I don’t think HoC could handle dual campaigns – I’m sure it’d be fine – but because Claire’s plan is extraordinarily shitty. Not shitty as in “ill-conceived,” but as in “wow, what a shitty thing to do.” Her plan is to ask elderly congresswoman Doris Jones (Cicely Tyson) to step down, then support Claire instead of her daughter Celia, who, Claire promises, will get the seat. Eventually. Claire wants to basically co-opt the candidacy of a black woman so she can eventually become governor of a state she doesn’t even live in.
And look, I don’t need – or want – my House of Cards characters to be cuddly or even likable. I want them ruthless, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask of them to be sympathetic as well (Michael Kelly achieves this balance perfectly as Doug Stamper). Otherwise, why the hell am I watching? I ask myself that from time to time, but then I remember the brazen audacity of scenes like “Chapter 40″‘s cold open, then remember, oh right, this show don’t give a fuck. I’m in. But cautiously so.
A Few Thoughts
- This episode was directed by Tucker Gates, whose name makes him sound like a House of Cards character. That is the only thing I have left to say.
- Welcome back to GAMbIT’s coverage of House of Cards! As with most Netflix shows, I’m going to try to cover an episode a day. But I’m gonna be honest, my life is a chaotic mess right now, so that might be a pipe dream. (I certainly screwed up with my Jessica Jones coverage.) Either way, it’s good to be back.
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