House of Cards
Number of Seasons: 2 (26 episodes)
Time Requirements: Watch a few episodes a night and you can coast through this one in two weeks. (Spoilers: You might get through it a lot quicker at points, especially when it gets close to the end of a season.)
Where to Get Your Fix: Netflix
Best Character to Follow: Well, what are you looking for in your Machiavellian political drama? Immoral sociopaths who love only power? That’d be main character Frank Underwood (Spacey). An only-slightly-less-sociopathic person who might have a shred of humanity left within her otherwise tattered soul? Look to Frank’s wife Claire (Robin Wright). However, if you’re a fan of mid-level employees whose lives are entirely ruined by their devotion to a job they know is bad for them, there’s only one character to pay attention to: Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly). Hey, unlike Frank and Claire, at least Doug has a song named after him.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
The problem (and, honestly, the strength) of House of Cards is that even when one part of the narrative is dragging, it rarely gets enough screen time to make an entire episode of the show unwatchable. So, short of saying “Really, you can fast forward through any of Freddy’s subplot in the second season,” there’s only really one episode that we feel entirely confident in suggesting you skip.
Season 1: Episode 8, “Chapter 8″ Frank goes back to his military college and drunken hijinks ensue. Obviously intended as a glimpse at the man behind the mask, this episode feels like filler in a way that others don’t, in part because what makes Frank so interesting is the mask. We don’t want to see the real him, we want to see how far he’ll go to stop others seeing.
Seasons/Episodes You Can’t Skip:
Season 1: Episodes 10-13, “Chapter 10,” “Chapter 11,” “Chapter 12,” and “Chapter 13″ As things start to go wrong with Frank’s master plan, the show comes alive, showing just how far he (and those around him) are willing to go in the pursuit of power. Meanwhile, Peter Russo, the ill-fated congressman played by Corey Stoll, shows he isn’t cut from the same cloth as those around him.
Season 2: Episode 1, “Chapter 14″ Just when you thought that Frank couldn’t go any further, he goes further. To say more would be to ruin it for those who haven’t seen the show, but what’s so enjoyable about this episode isn’t just what happens, but the way in which the show is built around that event. Everything, from the performances to the script to the direction and pacing of the episode, is filled with such a sense of perverse glee and boldness it’s impossible not to be drawn in.
Why You Should Binge:
It’s perhaps fitting that it can be tough to get a handle on quite what House of Cards is, at least in the beginning: Is it a cynical drama? A dark comedy? A damning indictment on the corruption at the heart of democracy? The answer is all three, and then some. But House of Cards can also be as frustrating as the political process it sets out to satirize, occasionally becoming too interested in storylines no one really cares about, and other times getting a little too broad with the dramatic plot twists (see: the start of the second season).
Yet, while it can be as bloated as the politicians it seeks to damn, House of Cards is—just like its lead character—irresistibly charming and almost impossible to turn down. The best way to approach it (and almost certainly the easiest way to enjoy it) is to think of the show as a particularly misanthropic, bitter soap opera with aspirations. It’s The West Wing from the Mirror Universe, or a Scandal that’s embraced the dark side. Don’t take it too seriously and surrender to its bad, bad lure.
Best Scene—That Subway Scene
For those who haven’t watched the show, I won’t give any details away, but something happens in a subway station in the first episode of the second season that is hands-down the best scene of the entire series for the sheer, take-your-breath-away, wait, did that really happen?-ness of it all.
If you’re feeling short-changed by that, enjoy some of Frank Underwood’s wit and wisdom in the meantime. (Spacey’s “Do you think I’d forgotten you?” to the camera, which was the first time he spoke to the viewer in the second season, is another highlight of the show.)
The Takeaway:
Politics really is a dirty business.
If You Liked House of Cards You’ll Love:
The original British House of Cards series is a must, being both more arch and more optimistic than the American remake. It’s very different in tone, but watching Mitt (the 2014 documentary shot in the run up to, and during, Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential run) afterwards makes for an interesting—and arguably uplifting—comparison, as does checking out the far less subtle, more polemic 2010 flick Fair Game.
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