14-20 Oct 2017^ guide^82
Jump the shark
Pinpointing the moment
when good shows go bad.
This week: House of Cards
No longer was Frank
thrillingly attackingbut stuck in defence,
doomed to repetitionhen House of Cards first
premiered on Netflix in
2013, the biggest story
in American politics was that
nothing was happening – that
Congress, gridlocked over the
budget of President Obama, was
stuck in a frustrating state of
paralysis. By comparison, the
show was a parallel universe
in which Washington, so
mundane in reality, became the
domain of snakes and raptors,
of machiavellian masterminds
epitomised by Democratic
congressman Frank Underwood
(Kevin Spacey), the house
majority whip with ambitions
of absolute power. Moodily lit
and beautifully shot, it was still
always considerably trashier than
it looked but none the worse
for it, full of ridiculous dialogue
and knowing hyperbole. But not
since The West Wing had politics
looked so possible, politicians
so impressively full of agency.
In the words of Obama himself:
“Man, this guy’s getting a lot of
stuff done.”
House of Cards has always
thrived upon topicality. Its
third, Russia-centric series
riffed upon the homophobic
policies of Vladimir Putin; its
fourth gave Frank a scandal
involving the KKK. Season five
had him calling for a travel ban,
and also saw his wife, Robin
Wright’s Claire, attain power –
obviously banking on a Hillary
Clinton administration. But yes:
in recent years, its outrageousW
portrayal of American politics
doesn’t seem so outrageous
any more. If anything, House
of Cards has found itself in the
impossible position of not being
stupid enough to compete with
Donald Trump (Claire becoming
vice president, despite having
no political experience, suddenly
seems tame), and yet being
too frivolous for the alarming
times we live in.
In spite of all these factors,
however, House of Cards didn’t
ultimately crumble because of
context. It was simply text: at
the end of season two, Frank
Underwood became president
and – after the novelty woreoff in series three – the show
seemingly had nowhere to go.
No longer was Frank thrillingly
attacking but stuck in defence,
limited by his office, doomed to
repetition. Here comes Frank,
yet again, with a scheme that
makes no sense; there goes
Claire, yet again, testing the
limits of nepotism; welcome back
Doug Stamper, here to brood,
relapse and hit someone? Cool;
and let’s not forget everyone’s
favourite writer, Tom Yates, the
live-in lover of Claire who just ...
sits around a lot?
Worse than all that, though,
was that the show had lost its
edge, its wit, its dark sense of
fun; it didn’t even break the
fourth wall that much any more.
It was still ludicrous, of course,
but in a much more earnest,
straightforward way. It asked
viewers to believe in Frank
and Claire, to take seriously
what they were doing , which
was difficult, considering that
by this time their motivations
had grown vague, the show
had lost interest in them as
people, and they were nowhere
near as smart as the scripts
thought they were. Hark at the
great political operator Frank
Underwood, for example, whose
grand solution to a problem
in season five is to push his
secretary of state down some
stairs. Even Donald Trump isn’t
that stupid. Probably ILLUSTRATION: JULIA SCHEELE Stephen Kelly