The only truly batshit thing that happens in this episode is Frank’s phone call with Cathy, the secretary of state. But meanwhile in reality, Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee for president of the United States of America, was endorsed by David Duke, former grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, and then proceeded to pretend that he didn’t know anything about Duke or the KKK and wouldn’t be able to condemn either without doing “research” first. Then, because I guess after Slugline faded from the scene this show decided to ignore the internet, Claire has someone she knows with a printer blow it up and hang it on that Peachoid. Like, the craziest idea HoC can come up with is that, stashed away in a safe deposit box, Frank has a photo of his dad shaking hands with a dude in the KKK. I think the problem here is that HoC thinks it’s the radical dystopian vision of American politics, but it can’t even come close to the actual dystopian reality of current American politics. This is what an Underwood presidency hath wrought.) For context, in the summer of 2008, one of the priciest-at-the-pump seasons on record, gas was $4 a gallon. Why am I supposed to be invested in - nay, interested in - the pandering, cliché-riddled efforts of a non-existent human to lead this fake America? (Fun fact: In this fake America, gas is about to be seven bucks a gallon. This kind of stuff is barely entertaining when it’s the real election and the fate of our union is at stake. This episode is (*checks watch*) 78 percent stump speeches, so it’s 78 percent boring. Wait, sorry, did I say “rousing?” I take that back. We get another one of these private life/public life cuts (PSA: Robin Wright directed this episode) as we see Frank privately murmur his speech to himself, pacing around his room, and then, with the twang cranked up to eleven, deliver the rousing address in public. Celia and Doris are letting their constituents know that Frank is not like a regular white guy, he’s a cool white guy, and they’ll all be better off if he stays in the White House. Why keep reverting back to combat? Claire is fighting enough people, and ruthlessness gets dull if it’s all we ever get to see.įrank is visiting a church in his hometown of Gaffney. These extended battle scenes are much less interesting than their moments of tenderness. I took something of yours.” She tells Claire not to come back Claire brushes it off. And as soon as Claire finds them, Elizabeth says, “You’re taking my money. Lying about it when the earrings were literally in the most obvious place - the drawer of her vanity - is so amateur. She stole Claire’s earrings, which would have been a cool power play if she had (a) done a better job of hiding them or (b) been more brazen and just worn them. Lizzie update: Sadly, we see very little of Claire’s mom this week. Might just be hope yet for this hopeless bro. But later on, we see her have a change of heart about his conspiracy theory. He tells Dunbar everything she, understandably, dismisses him as a wackadoo liability and leaves him sobbing and begging for help in a stairwell. Lucas manages to get face time with Dunbar by pretending to be a journalist - how poetic, his fake identity is his real identity - and his former colleague, Cynthia, who is now Dunbar’s campaign manager, vouches for him. There is obviously an obstacle here - the existing obstacles, wherein Lucas has been given strict rules by which he must abide lest he lose the freedom and government protection he fought so hard to secure, apparently not being enough - and that obstacle is the coworker who goes for that one-two punch of demanding he pay for this favor with ~sex things~ and blackmailing him so he has nowhere to go but the backseat. It’s a relic of his old life: He learns that Heather Dunbar will be in Ohio on Tuesday, and so begins Lucas’s elaborate plot to blow up Frank’s elaborate plots. Lucas is cleaning rental cars, generally enjoying the thrills of his new WITSEC job, when he sees a print newspaper tossed on the floor. But it’s basically Scandal without a sense of humor. House of Cards is operating under the misconception that it is a real-deal top-tier prestige drama. Just because something has all the trappings of “serious” doesn’t automatically make it worth taking seriously. In this episode, we see a classic error, which, in the summer of 2013, one would have called a Low Winter Sun failure: Mistaking darkness for depth. Much like its characters, House of Cards can’t stop making the same mistakes over and over again.
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