I think it’s time to admit that House of Cards has a Frank and Claire problem. This is not the same as Frank and Claire having problems, which obviously they are. But season three has pretty decisively torpedoed any goodwill the viewer might have had towards the main characters, the point where I find myself thinking “I wonder what a show centered around Doug would be like? Or Remy? Or Rachel?”
“Chapter 39” really sets its crosshairs on Claire. I understand she’s going through a lot, but she’s also being unreasonable and, frankly, childish. To wit: in the wake of her comment that landed “38” – which if you’ll remember was her telling Frank that they’d been lying to each other – she immediately says “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.” That’s not a high school move, Claire, that’s a middle school move. She spends a lot of time needlessly goading Frank; sure, maybe she’s trying to get some – any – kind of reaction out of him, but she’s only operating from the extreme ends of the spectrum. She slaps Frank twice and puts his hand around her neck, demanding rough sex. When he doesn’t comply, she lies there on the bed, pointedly in the Christ position. What did you think he was going to say? If this isn’t something the Underwoods have engaged in before, Claire’s petulant reaction to not getting her way just goes further to make her an unlikable ice queen. It makes me wonder why her likability was such a threat to Dunbar in Iowa.
It doesn’t help matters that Doug’s story is much more interesting. First he travels to Venezuela, where he beats up Gavin with his cane to get Rachel’s location. Then he goes to Santa Fe, where he buys a panel van, a shovel, and bleach. That’s, uh, not good. Apparently he bought chloroform at some point too, because he subdues and abducts Rachel. In the midst of digging her an unmarked grave, Rachel convinces Doug not to kill her by showing him the new identity she’d bought for herself. Doug decides she’s not a threat, and lets her live (well, kinda – she does have to walk twenty miles in the New Mexico heat). It’s nice to put a cap on the whole Rachel plotline, although I found myself wondering, how loose is Doug’s schedule? He just became the White House Chief of Staff, and his first order of business was to jet off to Caracas to beat up a hacker on a houseboat.
So let’s talk about the ending, where “39” sputtered across the finish line of HoC‘s third season. After yet another argument, where Claire says she resents that she needs Frank’s help, she – hold on, this bugged me too. Once more Claire Underwood is being unreasonable, because everyone needs help at some point, and to insist that you’re the rare bird who doesn’t is proof of nothing more than an inflated ego. Frank dresses her down pretty brutally (“Without me, you’re nothing”), and the next morning she leaves him. Cut to black. To be fair, I’m interested in seeing how Frank runs a campaign in the midst of a divorce, seeing as how much of his likability came from Claire, which I still don’t understand, but whatever.
House of Cards was up and down this season (I gave more three and three and a half star reviews than I expected to). The show is never less than competently made, and has a reliably good cast of not only actors but directors and writers. And since it more or less gave birth to binge-watching, it’s always going to be appointment television. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible. This third season, for all its occasional glory – “Chapter 29” and “32,” namely – was still the show’s weakest. In my review of “Chapter 27,” I asked where the show could go from here. The short answer is, it’s not really sure.
“Chapter 39” score: 3 stars
Season score: 3.5 stars
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