A mother, daughter and manipulation

The Show: House of Cards, Season 4, Episode 10 The Moment: The death bed

Claire Underwood (Robin Wright), who’s running for U.S. vice-president, is talking to her mother Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), who wants Claire to hasten her imminent death.

“When you were small, you would sit at that window every night, trying to make the sun rise all by yourself,” Elizabeth says. “Your daddy would put you in bed after you’d fallen asleep with your face against the glass. I was so jealous.” “Of me and Daddy?” Claire asks. “That you believed you could make the sun rise,” Elizabeth answers.

“I can’t do it, Mother,” Claire says. “I can’t do what you want me to do.”

“Claire,” Elizabeth says flatly. “It would help you win.”

I was relieved when this scene came along, because I was losing patience with this season and this show. It’s at once too cynical (there is not one decent soul in all of government) and too silly (a husband and wife running for president and VP? Come on).

House of Cards’ strength, however, is scenes like the one above: the dramatization of how easily people are manipulated, even (or especially) if the end result is not in their best interests.

Its writers couldn’t have anticipated the absurdist reality show that is Donald Trump. But both point up the risk of democracy. As threatening as Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) tries to be, there is nothing more dangerous than a citizen with his/her hand on the wrong lever. House of Cards streams on Netflix Canada. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.