Welcome to GAMbIT’s coverage of House of Cards. This is strange for me, because I’ve never done episodic reviews of a show that made its entire season available all at once (the only other Netflix show I’ve reviewed was BoJack Horseman, and I did that as one review of the whole season). So I’m going to try to get one review up every day. Probably a bad idea, but if I had good ideas I wouldn’t be a blogger.
“Chapter 27” finds our heroes in dire straits, but not until it gets a pretty kick-ass opening out of the way. Frank goes to visit his father’s grave in Gaffney, SC, and it seems like a normal House of Cards scene – superficially sentimental but cynical underneath – until Frank starts pissing ON HIS FATHER’S GRAVE. That should tell you all you need to know about President Underwood. The man has gone from a behind-the-scenes conniver to a Southern-fried Bond villain. He’s not an all-out caricature yet, but he’s definitely steering into the skid.
What surprised me most about this episode was the amount of attention paid to Doug, which, yay, Doug Stamper is still alive! I thought he was done for after Rachel Posner performed her fatality on him in the woods last season. But he’s still kicking – or he will be after months of intense physical therapy. Doug was in a coma for a while and now that he’s out he wants to come back and work for Frank (Remy Danton is working as Frank’s new Chief of Staff). Frank demurs, saying he wants to wait until Doug is healed. Seriously guys, Doug is in “Chapter 27” more than Frank is. It’s actually a remarkable achievement for a show as cold and cynical as House of Cards to get me so invested in the human element. Doug, for all his faults, is the closest thing this show has to a conscience, or at least some semblance of humanity (since Peter Russo, Zoe Barnes, and Lucas Godwin are all out of the picture). So you really feel for the guy when he, say, slips in the shower and fucks up his arm, or relapses with a call girl and asks her to squirt bourbon into his mouth from a syringe, definitely one of the odder things I’ve seen on this show, and this is a show where the President and the First Lady had a bisexual three-way with a Secret Service Agent. Maybe the whole relapse thing hit me harder than most, because I’ve had my own problems with addiction, but regardless of what you yourself might bring to the scene, there’s no denying it was very capably handled by director John David Coles.
Speaking of the First Lady, Claire wants Frank to nominate her as Ambassador to the UN. Several characters, including Frank, mention her reputation as a “dilettante,” which isn’t unfair. House of Cards isn’t sure exactly what it wants to do with Claire; Robin Wright makes for a good Lady Macbeth, but beyond that Claire doesn’t have much of her own story.
Which brings me to my main concern with not only “Chapter 27,” but with the third season of House of Cards as a whole – where can the show go from here? Season one saw Frank weasel his way into the Vice Presidency, and season two saw him assume the title of leader of the free world. Sure, there’s the looming threat of campaigning in 2016, and Frank’s abysmal approval ratings, but are we going to watch him campaign? Or are we going to watch him write his memoirs and support Claire’s run for Senate, and whatever else retired Presidents do? Don’t get me wrong, I’d watch either of those shows because Kevin Spacey is a fucking beast, but beyond this season, I’m not sure how much longer House of Cards can sustain itself. It’ll be a hell of a ride, though.
A Few Thoughts
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Hi, Stephen Colbert! You nailed President Underwood in that interview
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Donald Blythe is Frank’s Vice President. I’d watch that sitcom
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