House of Cards gets its power from a few key elements: the Shakespearean magnitude, historical and present political mirrors, the dark and extra-dirty world, and the guilty pleasure of rooting for its deliciously wicked central couple.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
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For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain there can be no mercy.
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There is but one rule: hunt or be hunted.
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Welcome back.
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Back in 2013 house of cards came on the scene as Netflix’s first ever self
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commissioned original series. Since then the series created by Beau Willimon has
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not only grown as a mature, textured piece of television, but also offered a
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sturdy foundation for the towering house that Netflix built.
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Inspired by the 90s BBC series starring Ian Richardson, and the 1989 book by
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Michael Dobbs, House of Cards’s appeal is based on its darkly distinctive mood
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and world, it’s Shakespearean magnitude, its
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heightened mirrors of our own world and historical past, and the guilty pleasure
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of rooting for its deliciously wicked central couple — Frank and Claire
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Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Let’s walk through each of
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these elements which make this series so enduringly binge worthy. Beware there
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will be a few spoilers coming.
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[And the butchery begins.]
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House of Cards draws on
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the spirit of Shakespearean history and tragedy to imbue its drama with hyper
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real grandeur and intrigue. We feel we might be watching a heightened version
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of today’s politics presented as exaggerated history for a future
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audience. The show captures perhaps better than any modern example the
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spirit of what Shakespearean audiences must have felt going to see productions
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of Richard III. In the historical play the villainous Richard, who Spacey
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played at the London Old Vic in 2011, speaks openly to the audience,
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using his asides, not to confess but to gloat about his wicked designs.
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House of Cards, like it’s
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BBC predecessor, utilizes the same confessional fourth wall break
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[Please slit my wrists with this butter knife.]
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The theatrical device could easily
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fall flat on camera. But it works thanks to Spacey’s
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enjoyably devious performance, the over-the-top nature of this extra dirty
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world, and the disconnect between Frank says to us, and how he appears to
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everyone else.
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[I will not run for President. Look they’re thinking it’s
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too good to be true and it is.]
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Getting this window into his mind fascinates us
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and knowing his secrets gets us on his side until we subtly root for his success
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at all costs. We feel in the know, superior to the foolishly honest victims
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All of this psychologically works on us the same way Shakespeare played his
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audiences. In Othello, Iago is motivated by resentment when a fellow
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promotes another over him — just as Frank’s plot against the President is
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set off by him feeling robbed of his promised cabinet position. Claire takes a
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cue from Iago’s tactics of suggestion, as well, when she plants the idea of an
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affair in the First Lady’s head.
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[I just have a thing about women who sleep with
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their bosses.]
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But the Shakespeare play that most deeply shapes House of Cards
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thematically is Macbeth.
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The Underwood’s channel the
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Macbeths disconnect between inner and outer to hide their true selves. As Lady
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Macbeth says:
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[Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.]
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When Frank speaks to Peter
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Russo’s ghost in church, this recalls how Macbeth is haunted
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by the ghost of Banquo the friend he murdered. Most strikingly though is Lady
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Macbeth as a model for Claire. At times, like Lady Macbeth, Claire seems the
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superior mastermind, the even more ambitious one really pulling the strings.
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Claire’s convincing lack of need for romance, fidelity, or motherhood reminds
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us of Lady Macbeth’s famous words
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[I’m willing to let your child wither and
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die inside you if that’s what’s required.]
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Lady Macbeth
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references having given suck, or breastfed, a child but we’re told that
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the Macbeth’s are childless. Their implicit lost child is
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echoed in Claire’s past abortions. And neither woman expresses regret for a
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childless destiny. Yet in both stories the couple’s lack of children starts to
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haunt them, at least politically. The Macbeth’s and their barren crown, and
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the Underwoods in their inability to present the shining picture-perfect
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family of Frank’s Republican opponent, Conway.
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[You guessed it, I still hate children.]
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The Macbeth’s ascent to power leads to a mixed-up
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world in which fair is foul, and foul is fair. Yet in the vast majority of
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Shakespeare’s plays divine order or great chain of being must inevitably be
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restored. it remains to be seen if the House of Cards universe believes
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in poetic justice, but if Macbeth is any indication the
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story doesn’t end well. The Macbeth’s breakdown from within, as Lady Macbeth
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obsessively tries to wash invisible blood from her hands, and Macbeth
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reflects that “life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
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The dangerous nihilism of the Macbeth’s can only drive human beings insane where
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we cannot continue to engage with the world of nothing that means nothing.
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Like a mix of Shakespearean history and tragedy, House of Cards also draws
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loosely and colorfully from our own historical past and present. In season
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4, Underwood and Conway introduce a meta-commentary comparing themselves to
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Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election.
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[If you were a Democrat you’d be unstoppable you’d be the new JFK.]
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[And if you were a
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Republican would you be? Nixon?]
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Underwood’s comparison to the notorious
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Nixon, whom Spacey also played in the 2016 film Elvis and Nixon, is a plausible
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parallel. Brought down by his own paranoid plots, crimes, and scandals
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Nixon was experienced and ruthless. Kennedy was young, relatable
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and charismatic, just as the social media friendly Conway speaks directly to
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Americans and gives people hope. In the show, the candidates represent opposite
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parties to their historical parallels. Underwood is a Southern Democrat,
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long after the age when Democrats held the South. And Conway is a
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Republican from New York.
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[Oh you’re a New York Republican that’s an attractive
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fiction isn’t it?]
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[And you’re a Democrat from South Carolina that’s even bigger fiction.]
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[Well there you go.]
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This recalls an earlier presidential
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race between Harry S. Truman and Thomas Dewey in 1948 — a pragmatic Democrat
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versus a young New York Republican with a lead in the polls. Famously the belief
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that Dewey would win was so strong that the Chicago Tribune printed the false
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headline: Dewey Defeats Truman, only to be disproven by the final vote. Like Gerald
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Ford, Nixon’s successor, Underwood becomes president without ever winning an
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election, having taken on the offices of both President and Vice President after
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a series of cabinet changes and resignations.
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[One heartbeat away from the presidency and not a single vote cast in my name. Democracy is so overrated]
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Meanwhile, Underwood’s wheeling and dealing with Congress is
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inspired by JFK successor Lyndon B Johnson, also a southern Democrat and
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former Majority Whip. Frank Underwood proudly displays a famous picture of
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Lyndon B. Johnson staring down a frightened congressman; both also
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introduce ambitious social programs — LBJ’s Great Society and Underwood’s
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America Works. The outcomes of the programs are opposite: building the
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welfare system versus demolishing it. But both Underwood’s
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and LBJ’s hopes to define their legacies are derailed when global conflicts
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overshadow their legislative agenda. And of course there’s today. Claire’s and
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Frank’s power couple status invites comparisons to the Clintons.
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While the Nixonian undertones have been eerily close to new stories about
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Trump’s claims of tapes and calls for impeachment.
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[You know it’s at times like
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these I wish I was Nixon — had every nook and cranny bugged.]
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Yet again like Shakespeare’s histories, the show is willfully rearranging loose historical
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or present inspirations to create something larger than life.
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[All three of us took bullets. Well I know why we’re smiling: we survived.]
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House of Cards
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captures a tone of outright, over-the-top wickedness, letting us live our juicy
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imaginings of how bad Washington might be, while scaring us with the thought, at
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times, that it’s not purely exaggerated. One of the biggest differences between
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Netflix’s series and its BBC ancestor lies in the look, feel, and mood. Her Card’s
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Parliament is brightly lit, visually reflecting a stuffy, staid political
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landscape at its civilised surface, hiding all intrigue. But from its first
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episode — directed by David Fincher — the updated House of Cards is dark. From the
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pounding music, to the literal darkness of an overwhelming number of frames,
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we’re told the Underwood’s world is an underworld. This is a window into the shadows.
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[Miss Barnes].
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[How very Deepthroat of you.]
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Adding to the dark is a calculated
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distance between the characters and the camera. Rarely do we get a true close-up.
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The space around the characters retains their outer personas which they rarely
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let draw. No one is allowed inside. Camera movements are flawless tracking shots,
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always smooth. Composition is precise. Never do we see a human shake or
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messiness to the camera or framing. The production design heightens this feel of
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sterility. Frank and Claire — almost unbelievably free of clutter — seem to
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possess almost no personal items. Their perfectly empty homes visually
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underline that they lack a personal life; that they are their work and outer
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personas. Meanwhile the pristine surface belies the dirty plotting underneath. The
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darkness also leads to a muted color palette and understated desaturation.
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Both contribute to our feeling that the environment is clean and attractive
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yet not vibrant, human, or alive. We emotionally perceive the light is cold
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and it often is, but viewers have noted that many frames involve an interplay of
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cold and warm, or blue and yellow, often with blue in the foreground and yellow
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in the background. The blue and yellow create a spiritual contrast — not between
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black and white, which in noir might represent good and evil, but between warm
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and cold, making us think of the pull between human warmth and icy ambition.
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The frame is neatly streamlined, not crowded by diverging colors. Both lights
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also stem from realistic light sources — daylight or interior lights — so there is
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a functional foundation which is then moderately stylized thanks to the
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darkness and precision of lighting setups that strategically avoid multiple
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shadows. All of these visual cues together with music add up to a
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consistent mood and world. The atmosphere seems at once severely removed from our
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factual DC, and a close to home actual mirror of the disillusionment we feel about our
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actual political landscape. What keeps us engaged most of all is the central
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relationship between Frank and Claire. Their ups and downs, evolution and growth,
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together and away from one another. Like the Macbeth’s the Underwood’s are truly
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close. Setting aside their duplicity, they almost seem like a relationship other
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couples should study to learn how to communicate, work together, and read each
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other’s minds.
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[Are you unsatisfied?]
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They’re soul mates.
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[I love that woman. I love her more than sharks love blood.]
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Yet their connection
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isn’t traditionally romantic or primarily sexual — they rarely have sex
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and they each accept and expect the others’ sexual affairs. Yet both place much
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higher importance on achieving their shared plans.
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[Your wife — what does that even mean to you?]
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[Do not mistake any history you have shared for the slightest
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understanding of what our marriage is, or how insignificant you are in comparison.]
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in later seasons though we start to doubt the love and respect between the
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couple as their marriage falters, and looks, in bleaker moments,
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like a purely political arrangement.
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[I’m starting to question all of it Francis.
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What any of it is worth; what are we doing this for?]
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In the White House the
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couple now sleeps in separate rooms — the hall between them signaling their
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growing, gaping distance. The virtue Frank demands from others is loyalty.
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[Don’t surprise me.]
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But to Frank it’s about others being loyal to him. Apart from those he
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deceives, he treats everyone as a servant, even a dog who must obey before all else.
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[After a dog’s bitten you, you either put it to sleep or you put a muzzle on it.]
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This derives from Frank Urquhart’s worldview
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[Well, everybody can be valuable, that’s my philosophy.]
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Viewing all other people as pawns and servants leads to
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a tyrannical, dictator-like state, and ironically pushes people to consider
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turning on him, most notably Claire. Whereas Claire believes — and we initially
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perceive — if a couple are equal partners it becomes clear that he views her as
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another loyal subject merely the most privileged and important one.
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[And you will be the First Lady!]
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Though it’s not clear whether this is result of the
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isolating role of the presidency, or has been his feeling all along, Claire’s
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leaving at the end of Season 3, and her attempt to take political power in her
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own name in Season 4, finally proved to Frank that he needs her as much or
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more than she needs him.
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[I said you were nothing in the Oval without me. It’s the other way around.]
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Season 4 ends with a very significant
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moment, when for the first time they break the fourth wall together.
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[That’s right. We don’t submit to terror. We make the terror.]
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This cements the fact that they are now partners in crime
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Claire has finally convinced Frank that she is his equal, not his servant.
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The state of their union is strong yet the title House of Cards underlies the
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delicate fertility of you of any union or political empire,
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just as Frank’s career is always one dirty secret away from ruin.
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[How did this happen!?!]
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if we can predict anything for certain about the future
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episodes of House of Cards, it’s that inevitably Something Wicked
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This Way Comes.
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