Whatever his motivations, watching him struggle and scheme was darkly entertaining, and I like how the show sort of gracefully moved him into third lead position. I genuinely didn’t know if Doug was trying to get revenge on Frank or become a mole to get back in his good graces when he joined the Dunbar campaign, and I kind of think Doug didn’t know either. Normally I don’t like that whole grim-relapse kind of plot, but I think House of Cards took it in some interesting, unexpected directions. But survive he did, and I think he had probably the most interesting arc of anyone this season. That was a surprise, wasn’t it? When we interviewed Michael Kelly this summer, he gave no indication that he’d be back, that Doug would survive taking a big rock to the head. This is a show that answers most of its questions, so I think we haven’t heard the last, and may be about to hear a lot more, about Frank’s sexuality. I don’t think anything is going to be left unknown in the Pine Barrens when this show ends. Though, why keep bringing this thing up if it’s not headed somewhere? This isn’t The Sopranos. Maybe not! It’s possible that Frank’s murky, fluid sexuality is just an illustrative detail of his bigger, complicated self and will stay mostly unexplored.
#House of cards season 4 plot series
I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into things, or asking too much of the show, but it does kind of seem like the series might be headed toward something a little less latent and a little more overt. I know a lot of that had to do with other things, ambitions and dreams and whatnot, but there were definite sexual overtones to it too, no? Especially that bedroom scene with Claire demanding that Frank take her by force.
#House of cards season 4 plot plus
Plus there was all that stuff this season about Claire not seeming satisfied in the relationship. With the homoerotic memories of his days at The Sentinel, the Meechum threesome, and now that charged scene with Thomas Yates, you have to wonder if House of Cards is trying to tell us something about who Frank is. Maybe there’s a concrete reason for all that marital misery. I suspect it will be the former, but boy do I hope it’s the latter. The question now is whether the fourth season will be about them coming back together or trying to destroy each other. But by the end, with that terrifying showdown in the Oval Office, I think the collapse of their marriage provided almost enough dramatic oomph to sustain the season.
It was unpleasant to watch! And for a while I found myself frustrated by how much the third season focused on their relationship rather than some outside intrigue. So they ruptured, the typically laser-focused duo now badly out of sync and clashing awkwardly. The trouble for Frank and Claire, of course, was that Frank’s rocky term in the White House was just getting started as Claire grew anxious to get her second act going. All the talk of her giving him his time and now wanting hers was, I’m assuming, a deliberate allusion to the Clintons, Hillary stepping forward as her husband retreated to the high-end lecture circuit. ambassador maybe seemed a bit abrupt this season, it makes sense that she would, with Frank finally ensconced in the White House, start wanting something more for herself. I’m tempted to call that tension sudden, but it wasn’t really, was it? The fundamental problems of their power dynamic were always there, it just took Frank’s ascendancy to the Oval Office to make them plain.
The central narrative this season was, instead of some murder-y plot, the tension in Frank and Claire’s relationship. How does Season 3 measure up? What lingering questions are left? Well, here’s a list. Now that a lot of us are done, let’s have a chat about what we just watched. Many of us are by now finished with the third season of House of Cards, Netflix’s thoroughly addictive political drama/thriller series that arrived online last Friday.
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