How does ‘House of Cards’ kill Kevin Spacey?
Spoiler alert! This story contains major plot points from the final season of Netflix’s “House of Cards.”
What happened to Frank Underwood?
It’s a question that looms over the sixth and final season of Netflix’s “House of Cards” (now streaming), which finds the former president (Kevin Spacey) mysteriously dead and his widow, Claire (Robin Wright), embroiled in scandal as the new commander in chief. (Spacey was written off the show last fall after multiple allegations of sexual assault that he denied, and he does not appear in Season 6.)
It’s not until the last 10 minutes of the series finale that we finally get a satisfactory answer to how Frank died. While fielding questions from the media regarding Frank’s tampering with votes in a bid for re-election, Claire learns from a journalist that he excluded her from his will. She’s also told that someone within the White House has leaked poisonous claims against her, allegedly taken from Frank’s audio diary.
Pregnant with his daughter, Claire sets out to find who from her administration betrayed her – going so far as to threaten an airstrike and possibly start a war until someone comes forward. She eventually zeroes in on Frank’s former chief of staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), who switched out her husband’s medication and poisoned him, causing him to die in his sleep.
“I couldn’t let him destroy everything we built,” Doug says. “I had to protect the legacy from the man.”
“You’re happy he’s dead, too,” Claire assures, before a guilt-ridden Doug insists that Frank made her the powerful woman she is. A heated confrontation ensues in the Oval Office, in which Doug holds a letter opener to Claire’s throat before she stabs him.
“It’s all right, Doug. It’s all going to be all right,” Claire says, cradling his dying body in the final shot of the series. “There’s no more pain.”