Murdery things and other House of Cards happenings
Confession time: I don’t remember the last season of House of Cards that I binged in its entirety. Maybe Season 3 or 4? All the corruption of the past five years has just sort of bled into a Rorschach test of my fandom for this undeniably game-changing show.
The last thing I remember was that Claire and Frank Underwood, your friendly neighbour Macbeths, were having some serious marital problems (cheating, murdering, smoking cigarettes) and that Frank wanted Claire to help him out with the midterms or whatever and that Claire was like “no way” and then she was like “OK fine, because I love-hate you.” Or something.
Either way, I was woefully behind when the sixth and final season of House of Cards dropped Friday. But since the plot twists and turns of this roller-coaster ride are always impossible to keep straight, why not just dive in blind? So, using the questions I had as I watched, let’s break down the final season of Netflix’s political drama.
FRANK IS DEAD?
After being fired from the show (and all of Hollywood) following accusations of sexual harassment, Kevin Spacey, who played the almost-comically devious Frank Underwood, had to go. Apparently — and again, I didn’t watch last season, or the season before that — Claire Underwood was already headed to the Oval Office and divorce was on the horizon by the end of Season 5. We learn immediately that Frank isn’t just dead to Claire: He’s dead to everyone. And no one knows how he really died because no deaths are natural or accidental on this show. Claire claims she awoke to Francis (her pet name for him) cold in bed next to her, but later makes it clear that she found him in his own room and that she suspects murder. Murder by whom? We don’t know yet.
DOUG IN REHAB LIMBO?
Douglas Stamper, Frank’s right-hand man — the hand of the devil, if you will — is in some type of rehab facility for killing killers. The Underwoods somehow persuaded Doug to take the fall for Zoe Barnes’ death by Metro. Zoe is a character that even the most casual House of Cards fan will never forget. She was the journalist whose career Frank helped catapult by feeding her scoops that helped him politically. She’s also the smart young woman (and Frank’s sometimemistress) who figured out Mr. Underwood was doing murdery things behind the scenes and who therefore got pushed in front of a subway train by Frank. But Doug, being a fiercely loyal Frankophile, is being rewarded for his decades of service to the Underwoods (which included committing murder), with possible jail time. Oh, and he secretly hates Claire’s guts. In seasons past, that often came across as jealousy but has, in this final go-round, blossomed into full-blown contempt.
I thought the older sister from Party of Five was in this.
She died last season.
WHERE DID THE ANTICHRIST FROM AMERICAN HORROR STORY: APOCALYPSE COME FROM?
Apparently there is a third political party operating in super secret, using the substantial wealth of its clandestine 0.00001-per-cent members to prop up elected officials across the country. In the House of Cards universe, this party is run by the Shepherds, a strange brothersister-son trio with Oedipaly vibes who want Claire dead because she won’t sign a bill that would, like, dismantle every government regulation ever or something. The heir apparent of the Shepherd dynasty is Duncan, played by a creepy Cody Fern, who also stars as the devil’s son in American Horror Story: Apocalypse, so obviously everything he does is evil. The Shepherds do everything they can to take down President Hale (she’s gone back to her maiden name), including trying to kill her unborn daughter by inducing an early labour.
WAIT, CLAIRE IS PREGNANT?
Yes. In continuing the apocalypse theme, Claire is carrying the spawn of someone. It is never explained how Claire became pregnant with Frank’s child, seeing as how they were on the outs, she was sleeping with his presidential biographer and Frank is dead. But we’re led to believe that Claire and Frank, who, as far as I can recall, never wanted children, were “trying” and as soon as it was politically convenient, she announces that she’s pregnant. While this does not deter the Shepherds’ plot to assassinate her, Doug seems to feel slightly queasy about killing the mother of his favourite boss’s only heir. Slightly.
WHERE DID THE MOM FROM SHARP OBJECTS COME FROM?
Patricia Clarkson plays Jane Davis, a Washington insider without a discernible job title whom Claire trusts more than anyone. Claire trusts Jane so much that she moves her into the White House and the two have lunch together and sometimes lounge around in their silk PJs. Eventually, of course, Jane betrays Claire and is summarily sentenced to a beautiful death in a weird Nancy Meyers-designed adult-size cubbyhole. Seriously.
IS JOURNALISM DEAD?
Yes. Sort of. Almost every reporter character on this show has died a gruesome death, except for Janine Skorsky (Constance Zimmer). In the final season, Janine is still working for a small weekly paper in Ithaca, New York, which we are led to believe is better than being murdered. She and Doug collaborate on a series of exclusives involving Frank’s “audio diary” (remember all those breakingthe-fourth-wall talks Underwood used to have with the audience? It’s those). It is Janine’s work that threatens to expose the “real” Claire to the world, and she is who Claire reaches out to to tell her story, which we know is a terrible idea if Janine likes breathing.
Not even Frank’s voice makes an appearance, huh?
No.
DOUG KILLED FRANK?!
In the final scene of the series, a very pregnant Claire and a very upset Doug, who’ve been dancing around each other for months, eventually take it to the mat. Doug meets Claire in the Oval as she basks in the temporary victory of having foiled the Shepherds’ plot to have her killed inside the White House. He gives her Frank’s audio diary and though we can’t make out what is said, Claire has a visceral reaction to what she hears. After some verbal fist-fighting, Claire gets Doug to admit that it was him! He killed Frank, who was going to kill Claire and therefore his entire legacy. So Doug poisoned his longtime hero to “protect the legacy from the man.” Doug wants Claire to admit that Frank made her who she is and she refuses to, even with a letter opener held to her throat. Secret Service is useless outside the door as Claire turns the letter opener on Doug and delivers a fatal blow, stabbing him in the stomach. The two people who arguably knew Frank best then have an incredibly intimate moment on the floor of the Oval Office as Doug bleeds out on the carpet. Claire, echoing Frank in the pilot episode, tells him: “There. No more pain.”