House Of Cards TV Series

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/what-is-going-on-in-the-missouri-republican-party/389075/

Meanwhile, a radio ad backing Hanaway featured a Frank Underwood imitator mocking Schweich as a Barney Fife lookalike and a "little bug."

Couple of more episodes and I'll be caught up. I'll put down some thoughts then, but I continue to find Doug Stamper a memorably haunted character. At one point there was a shot of him at the end of a hallway, and with his cane he reminded me of Everett Sloane Lady from Shanghai. I find those shots of him staring at that intersection on his monitor sad and moving.

"Everett Sloane from..."

omfg Ellen Burstyn we praise you

also I am SO pleased to see that this show has officially become House of Claire bcz she really has been imo the "main" character this whole time and now she's first and foremost.

man no one cares about this show anymore eh

Well, it certainly got less interesting after Frank stopped doing the really crazy stuff and now only does stuff that real politicians do. In retrospect I feel like they fired the big guns too early. Was a better season than season 3 at least. And I finished watching it in two days but I think that speaks more to my poor life choices than the show's quality

I'm still interested. But I'll have to wait until a co-worker gets it all onto a USB for me.

I'm so out of it sometimes as to the way things are done now. When she let me know on Friday that the new season was out this weekend, I said that that went along with theory that Claire would run again Frank, and that everything would be timed to the election in November. She then reminded me that the entire season was out this weekend.

really liked this season eventually -- slow start but set in place the right dynamics for later.

final shot is kind of chilling

HWHY?

Six episodes in, liking most of it. The problem with watching it the way I have--the first three seasons quickly, then a few months away from it--is that characters pop up and I've forgotten their entire backstory (and am too lazy to check plot synopses on Wikipedia). I can't remember why Dunbar is running against Frank, can't remember how Secretary Durant got where she is; when Zoe Barnes, the alcoholic congressman, and Raymond Tusk turn up, it's amusing to remember how central they once were. Doug Stamper remains my favorite character; loved "Now, why don't you threaten me again?"

Stamper is like a scary Terminator death machine ugh

he's like a sociopath without the charisma or someothing

As someone who loved S1 and disliked S2 should I bother catching up with 3 and 4?

Yes, definitely. I think the show has plotlines that could very easily write themselves into corners but they manage to shift gears and continue along in interesting ways.

if you enjoy the idea of "Melrose Place" in the Beltway.

I think that's a partly true characterization of Stamper, but the best and most complicated relationship in the whole series for me was his obvious love for Rachel pitted against his maniacal loyalty to Underwood--at least until that was resolved, he was this great tortured and haunted character. (He's moved more towards the Terminator side since, but I still find the character fascinating.)

Just watched episode 8, my favourite in a while. I kept thinking about how great it all looked--much closer to the shadowy cool of All the President's Men than Spotlight ever got, say. I love the juxtaposition of the main story with the Zoe Barnes investigation burrowing underneath--very glad that's been resurrected. I've avoided reading anything on the new season, so I'm not sure where it's headed.

Not sure about the finale, but overall, good season. I especially liked Remy turning into Hal Holbrook.

I'm assuming that the first 3 seasons are adapted from the British Tv series or straight from the books which both only go up to a 3rd volume as far as i'm aware. So is this 4th series completely original to the US tv writers or was there any input from the original author?

Ian Richardson is really good as the central manipulator in the UK version.

this show is terrible, the bbc one was terrible, and richard iii is also terrible, to arrange them in ascending order of intermittently fun camp

The editing on this is tight — we watched last night waiting for a place to pause it and go to bed but the scenes just snap one to the next until suddenly the episode is over.

Funny watching this season in light of Trump; almost seems like an outdated Pleasantville version of US politics, a venal candidate who still needs the cover of respectable political maneuvering to get ahead.

that's partly why the show's unwatchable for me in March 2016. I did experience a mild frisson at the sight of Ellen Burstyn.

Also: Kevin Spacey has become a dreary, predictable, terrible actor.

I don't know--if you like political maneuvering in films, this falls somewhere on a spectrum from Advise and Consent (the best) and The Best Man to lesser films like The Ides of March and The Contender. I thought Spacey was too much in the early episodes of the first season, but got better and better after that.

I'm glad the new season wasn't overloaded with Trump references--suspect that most of it was filmed before he became overlord of the world. Not surprisingly, Nixon and Clinton allusions dominated. If they were trying to be timely, I'm guessing Conway was a stand-in for what they thought would be a Rubio nomination.

Not sure I can (nor want to) picture Rubio starting his mornings that way. Maybe Justin Trudeau?

Also: Kevin Spacey has become a dreary, predictable, terrible actor.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

I don't usually see his films, so can't speak generally, but I watched Margin Call for the second time last week, and I think he's excellent in that.

he's OK until he has to cry for the dog

I saw him in Moon for the Misbegotten on Broadway in 2008 and it was an...interesting performance. I liked Spacey in general in the 90s tho.

I'm nine episodes in and Season 4 is so fucking boring.

Does it get better?

I more or less liked the nine episodes you hated. So for you, I'd have to say no.

The final scene is really shocking and awesome and memorable. So if you've begrudgingly made it this far, you might as well stick it out.

I haven't worked up the enthusiasm to get thru s3 let alone s4

the bleakness, darkness of it is really suffocating after a while

Liked this a lot more than season 3, where the Stamper/abduction roadtrip felt like a sadistic potboiler. Glad this one sticks to D.C.

I more or less liked the nine episodes you hated. So for you, I'd have to say no.

I really enjoyed the first half of the season but the presidential campaign and Claire's ongoing rise towards the ticket is dull and seems to have killed off all the intrigue. Might as well stick it out I suppose.

finally finished this; really enjoyed it, in particular the Claire stuff because she's the most interesting character on the show, to me. really at this point they could kill Spacey off and it would probably be better. Also it was nice to see Walker back a bit, it made me nostalgic for his non-existence administration.

I'm mid-way into the current season and am not sure how I feel about it. Francis' and Claire's characters were loosely based on the Clintons, and with the way the 2016 election turned out IRL, the show kind of feels irrelevant now. I mean, I'm not faulting the creators as nobody could have predicted Trump or the sheer lunacy of today's national political scene back when they were writing/filming this season, but it's almost like watching a funhouse mirror version of the WH where everybody at least appears to have their shit together.

I'm five or six eps in and so far, not so good.

The Elysian Fields / Bohemian Grove episode is the worst.

i can't listen to his voice. maria was watching this and i always had to leave the room. in theory, a cartoon about a campy gay southern house cat with a cruel streak would sound awesome to me. and i made it through the first two seasons okay.

but, yeah, trumpworld has kinda made this show seem quaint like a revival of our town.

actually, i think that's what he reminds me of. "well, hello there, things are quiet today in grover's corners..."

(also robin wright is just a beautiful bore who peaked with hollywood vice squad and the princess bride. and she wasn't even that great in those. she has made about 40 movies that nobody really needs to see though. that's an accomplishment.)

I thought this season wound up being ok, about on par with the previous year; nothing is going to match the batshit insanity of the first couple of years though. I'm glad hammerschmidt is closing in on making all of this stuff public. really the show only gets good when it gets dirty and ludicrous, ie: when they start killing people and stamper starts doing shady ridiculous shit. I found Patricia Clarkson and the other dude more interesting than anyone else though.

also, fuck this show for making me start for sympathize with the horrible republican Conway and his perfect wife.

Just started Season 5. Seemed to get zero attention, here and everywhere. Only two episodes in, but already it feels anachronistic. It still looks good, but the tone is very Bush-era, like it got by-passed by Trump. Looking forward to Patricia Clarkson, who I loved in Six Feet Under.

Six episodes in, and the only thing I'm able to make sense of is that Conway's cracking up. The machinations of the election-in-limbo mostly baffle me.

I'd watch a sixth season, so it hasn't lost me altogether. But Season 5 mostly felt far removed from what drew me in the first three seasons--had the same problem with The Leftovers--which was primarily the stories of Rachel Posner, Zoe Barnes, and Doug Stamper. I liked it when all of that returned towards the end. All the contested-election stuff (four episodes' worth?) was rendered pointless when it all got resolved with a couple of incriminating recordings--they could have dispensed with that in a single episode. Patricia Clarkson's character was bizarre. Good bizarre, I think--couldn't figure her out at all. Campbell Scott was good. Whoever played Macallan reminded me of Harry Dean Stanton. The absence of Mahershala Ali and Molly Parker hurt. The very ending made clear what I'd always assumed: the final season, maybe even the whole run, was conceived with a Hillary presidency as a given. I guess Trump's emergence came too late to change that (although a couple of Spacey's fourth-wall monologues had a clear Trump slant to them).

The Claire-Tom Yates affair/arrangement/whatever was such a drag after a while. He was an interesting character when he first appeared, but by 5, every scene of theirs seemed to start with him standing at the kitchen sink looking forlorn and immobile.

I hope they renew for a sixth season, if only to conclude the story.

show has been prophetic, a PG-13 preview of a XXX trumputin putsch. don't know what you're all so blase about. keep it on the air in perpetuity so long as it keeps forecasting accurate impressions of american/russian political connivery