House of Cards won’t fold without Frank
HOUSE OF CARDS NETFLIX
HOUSE Of Cards will go down in TV history for a variety of reasons, not all of them good.
When the first series went out in 2013, it helped to propel the then niche Netflix brand into the mainstream and, along with Stranger Things and Making A Murderer, formed part of that emerging network’s Holy Trinity.
A remake of the brilliant, original House Of Cards, which aired on the BBC in the early 90s, the first few seasons managed to be arguably even better than the Beeb’s adaptation of Michael Dobbs’ novel and Kevin Spacey, for a time, was simply the best actor on the small screen.
His version of the amoral, psychopathic politician Frank Underwood was in turns charming, menacing and nuanced.
However, by the time those, ahem, unfortunate allegations were made against him, he seemed almost bored with the role and spent so much time hamming it up and chewing the scenery that long portions of the last few seasons actually became almost infuriating.
It was always clear that his wife, Claire, played in a career-reviving turn by Robin Wright, was the brains of the operation and, forced to complete this sixth and final season without him, the previously unthinkable was now eminently possible – House Of Cards will be better without Frank.
Following his resignation in disgrace and later death from natural causes – although things are never really that simple or, indeed, natural in Washington, are they? – Claire has become the first female president of the United States, but she still has scores to settle and a plan to enact.
It was hardly the fault of House Of Cards that realworld events in Washington became so weird and crazy that the Beltway Swamp has become hard to mock in a fictional way.
Let’s put it this way, the moment that grabbed everyone’s attention in the first season came when Frank threw a young journalist to her death under a subway train which, regardless of your political affiliations, one could easily imagine is Donald Trump’s favourite TV moment of all time.
But even before Spacey’s defenestration from the show, things were beginning to look flabby around the edges, so it’s probably best for its legacy if they go out on a high with Claire Underwood as an even more terrifying creature than her late and extremely unlamented hubby ...
It’s certainly not as unmissable as it once was, but the interest will, ironically, be higher in this much-anticipated final series than it had been even before its star left.