HOUSE OF CARDS BINGE NOTES: SEASON ONE CHAPTERS 2-3

Kevin Spacey as Frank

HOUSE OF CARDS binging continues, from the second episode following the pilot, these were all written watching and experiencing the show while catching up to Season 3...

CHAPTER 2: Like DALLAS tycoon J.R. Ewing, Frank Underwood's a guy you love to hate… Only there’s little hating going on since no one else is very lovable in comparison… We’re talking Washington here so Frank is probably the most likeable of the lot… He turns and looks right at us, and says what’s going on… So his lies are honest and he’s serves his audience a promise to, for better or worse, deliver...

Hillary & Carville inspired?

And this fourth wall breaking has gone even further – he tells us an opinion about a rowing machine and a few other more mundane things, less important than the important political maneuvers during the first chapter… This time we journey deeper into the knockdown of his possible replacement for Secretary of State… Perhaps it’s a bit farfetched to think an education bill would get so much media scrutiny in the first place, especially manned by Democrats, but by digging up the past, Frank, using his blog medium Zoe Barnes, pounds his surreptitious rivals (as in, they don’t know he hates them) while the most vulnerable and flawed of the cast, Peter Stoll’s Rep. Peter Russo, snorts coke and smokes pot (rarely are both of these actions done at the same time... why medicate a catapult?)... Russo's getting loaded with a libertarian recluse (with a really hot stripper girlfriend) who… well that’s one of many things set up for further episode… We’ll only highlight what’s memorable...

Rowing Underwood

And it’s a good chapter, sort of a slick version of the pilot, moving forward at a nice pace… And least we forget the secondary character, Frank’s wife Claire, played by Robin Wright, who, taking over a non-profit clean water association, proves equally cutthroat as her husband... And he does use that rowing machine he’d moaned about earlier – seeing Spacey shaping up is reminiscent of AMERICAN BEAUTY, only without Bob Dylan on the radio in a dusty garage. "Said the joker to the thief..." 

Shaping up in Beauty

CHAPTER 3: The first episode not directed by David Fincher… Kevin Spacey’s GLENNGARY GLEN ROSS pilot James Foley takes the helm, and this chapter finally settles us into Congressman Frank Underwood’s menial job with the down and outs, progressing from the edgy pinpointed revenge theme of the pilot and continuous follow-up…

Almost feels like the start of an actual series now, as happens when the initial kickstarting pilot/movie ends and a real story begins, an aftermath with legs... Because of an electric tower that resembles an X Rated Peach on the South Carolina highway... that Frank had signed into fruition (partial pun intended)... a young girl is killed while driving and texting, and we venture with Frank to his roots, where he represents but has far surpassed mentally… And that accent now fits the setting…

Kate Mara in Fantastic 4

One very important scene shows the difference between a D.C. shark and a small town minnow when the latter, sitting on his porch and irate to the bone, doesn’t invite his enemy up for a drink… Frank points this out, and we learn a deeper lesson in the political beast: never show your real feelings and always be kind... Friends close, enemies closer kind of thing…

Sexy Kate Mara

Meanwhile, the fourth-wall breaking hits a new high – or low depending on your perspective as Frank turns to the audience during a Sunday morning church vigil, telling us about his father, who he cared little for… No surprise there… And the show’s young hot sexpot Zoe (starring in the upcoming FANTASTIC FOUR reboot) seems to have sights above and beyond her newspaper for a newscaster job at cable news… And things are subliminally heating up between her and her mentor… Nice soapy element… After all, all these addictive high-end cable serials have their roots planted in the nighttime soaps of yesteryear, only now we can watch ‘em whenever and wherever… Long live technology… No more waiting a week and being tortured with commercial breaks.

RIP

Now a word or two about THE WALKING DEAD and how it’s been the last season… (NOTE: The following was written before the positive post about the episode REMEMBER). Seems to be stuck in a sort of malaise, which isn’t entirely a bad thing… In this zombie apocalypse future there would be a lot of meantime… Wandering around searching for life, in a sort of investigatory element, is always welcome, and sometimes surpasses high drama and battles and such… Only we’re getting our feet stuck in the sand…

A beloved character, Tyreese, died last episode, the second of the fifth half-season and while surprising and bittersweet, and pretty shocking, must an entire episode dwell on an important character buying the farm? Just a thought, and more on THE WALKING DEAD as it goes... And perhaps we’ll venture back to the beginning, during those first two seasons when, like the entire BREAKING BAD run, it seemed like a really long epic film with a beginning, middle and end… Lately it feels like a story that doesn’t quite know how to end in order to continue further… Or something... But for that you can venture into the CABLE page by clicking here. More HOUSE OF CARDS binge notes coming soon...