House of Cards

[Lief 🗽]

I just finished watching it! I thought it was very good, not quite at the level of television masterpieces like Mad Men or Breaking Bad or the Wire, but pretty close. I also loved the way Kevin Spacey approached the character, it all felt very theatrical and purposefully overly dramatic, which plays into the notion that is more of a Shakespearean tragedy than a political drama (because honestly a lot of the politics of this show don't really make any sense). My only problem is that in the beginning it seemed like things were way too easy for Underwood, like all his opponents were idiots and he was running circles around them, but the last few episodes of the season showed that he really underestimated a lot of the people he thought he was using for his own purposes (his wife, the reporter girl, the president) and now going into season 2 he'll have more formidable enemies.

I'm not really sure what the deal with some of the more surreal episodes was though? I mean the crazy homeless man who gave Claire the origami dollar bill or the angry lady in the cemetery.

[Lief 🗽]

I've only watched through episode 3, but this season doesn't make any sense. The Democrats vote lockstep to push through entitlement reform over the protests of the Tea Party? Ummmm??? And Underwood has Republican Senators literally arrested and handcuffed and there's no public backlash about this? Why are all the Democrats in this show right wing DINOs??

It was hilarious when one of the McPoyle brothers shows up as the l33t hacker though.

[Lief 🗽]

Don't think about it too much, Lief. There are titties in later episodes.

better be robin wright titties

[Lief 🗽]

Okay, so the second half of the season gets considerably better (once they stop trying to be a third-rate nonsensical West Wing and get back to Frank scheming; the escalation between him and Tusk is done very well and it's very compelling, I thought). But then that threesome scene. Jesus christ no. No, no, no, no, no. Who thought that was a good idea?!

[Lief 🗽]

Okay now they're impeaching the president because he took a xanax and didn't publicly disclose his marriage counseling??? This f[inks]ing show...

[Lief 🗽]

Speaking of the blacks, I did enjoy the episode where they took us to the projects and Freddy's son was a one-dimensional gangster with anger issues who pulled out a gun on camera after a guy took his picture.

Wait no, that was also the worst.

[Lief 🗽]

I wonder if Frank is going to murder the Russian President, or simply end up having sex with him.

[Lief 🗽]

So many of my friends who when I talk about real politics, their eyes glaze over, love this show for some reason. I find it quite frustrating and bizarre.

Why? House of Cards isn't a show about politics.

[Lief 🗽]

I just watched the first episode of season 3. It was very weird. I would have preferred that they kept Doug dead instead of apparently setting some weird alcohol/drug/sex addiction storyline.

[Lief 🗽]

I'm on episode 3, and this season is just awful. How the f[inks] is this show so popular.

[Lief 🗽]

Yes, America Works makes absolutely zero sense from either a policy or politics perspective. One of the many reasons I believe that season 3 was literally written by children.

[Lief 🗽]

Netflix should really stop trying to make original content, they're terrible at it.

No. If Netflix were a TV network, it would definitely be one of the better ones.