House of Cards

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

All 13 episodes of the remake will be on Netflix on the 1st. The NPR review makes it sound pretty good.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Binge viewed the entire season the last few days. It's a great story, the dialogue is no West Wing, but it is still very good. Spacey's delivery is thrilling, and I like the idea that (spoilers) there are people out there who are just as smart and can play ball right back, as opposed to the original (when FU and his wife were the only proper geniuses in the game).

Can't wait for Season 2.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I love Spacey, so at some point, I'll be watching this.

This too.

Binge viewed the entire season the last few days. It's a great story, the dialogue is no West Wing, but it is still very good. Spacey's delivery is thrilling, and I like the idea that (spoilers) there are people out there who are just as smart and can play ball right back, as opposed to the original (when FU and his wife were the only proper geniuses in the game).

Can't wait for Season 2.

So is Stamper as mindlessly loyal? Mattie Storin still having daddy-issues? Roger O'Neill has his cocaine addiction? Collingridge as naive and pliable?

Shame Ian Richardson has died. Maybe we'd have a crossover. In related things, I love the exceedingly detailed Wikipedia page of Francis Urqhart.

Stamper is still incredibly loyal, but I think that's more due to him being a Chief of Staff than anything. The Storin replacement actually mentions Spacey having the whole 'daddy' issue (which poetically lines up with American Beauty). She's more like Urquhart's wife from the original version. The O'Neill replacement is far more tragic.

I think the most sinister thing about this is that Spacey and his wife are actually liberals. Or maybe that's just my hackishness bleeding through.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

So there was something I just didn't understand from the third episode -- why was the old woman in the cemetery angry at Claire? That was the only part of the series that didn't make sense to me.

Also, spoiler alert is Claire trying to get pregnant at the end just to get out of the lawsuit? Talk about crazy strategies.

Well, Paul, the biggest difference I'd say is that FU in the new version is just working towards power as opposed to say a specific office, whereas the British FU was working towards the Premiership. I personally don't think FU intended for Russo to flop like that- I thought he intended to use him as a power center, but shifted to exploit that opportunity once that happened.

Actually he planned to run him for Governor and then destroy at final stage, but it wasn't revealed until he suggested the Vice President runs as replacement (so he can become VP himself). Talk about Byzantine intrigue, wow.

I actually think that destroying Russo was a conscious decision made after pushing Russo in as the Dem nominee. FU could have used Russo for his own run into the Presidency if he wanted to, it's just that he realized that Russo had become too much his own man (and therefore a threat) so he decided to expedite things and silence him.

I actually expect the second season to be all about destroying the Presidency, giving FU the nod in 2016.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I've only seen the first three episodes at this point. My favorite scene is probably when Russo meets with Libertas to get dirt on Kern.

I don't think Libertas could've had that cute of a girl living with him.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I mean they did use a whole episode about Frank's bisexuality. It was gonna get used for something eventually.[/quote]

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

They actually put up someone against Frank that the audience would actually want to win. Thank God.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

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

I honestly think to some extent we're all just prudes about popular media.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Spoilerish discussion below:

So, how the heck does America Works... work, anyway?  Annihilate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and plunge their funding into a massive government works program to wipe out unemployment?  I get the appeal of the latter, but what the hell kind of appeal does the former have, if there's apparently nothing to replace them?

I think, at least this is how he'd justify it, is the annihilating of those programs are to pay for American Works. It's pretty convoluted and makes little sense.

Annihilation wasn't exactly what was being proposed though. Gutting, yes, but not complete wipeout. Underwood's whole calculus is that those who receive a pension should receive less and investment in a younger generation is far more worth government money than paying it to out to pensions. His whole "You are entitled to nothing" crap is probably has its logical conclusions in "The money you're getting now is the money you would have gotten when you were retired, and when you do retire, you better have invested that money wisely." >_>

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

It just occurred to me that from a personal perspective, Frank is probably obsessed with America Works and gutting entitlements because of his hatred for his father, and his feeling that he just laid around and never amounted to anything.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Petrov is a great character though. I loved his slapping Frank around like a little child.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Lilyhammer is great pastiche. Season 3 is partially over the top but the end has some compelling drama and seeing Bruce Springsteen as a hitman never wears off.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I just realized that Conway is literally Tom Cotton.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I just realized that Conway is literally Tom Cotton.

I thought of him as more of a Marco Rubio or Justin Trudeau.

I mean he was supposed to come off as a Republican JFK, but his platform and background (military directly after law school around the time of 9/11) screamed Cotton to me. Basically if you transplanted Tom Cotton to a NE state you'd get Conway.