Below you'll find my full-spoiler thoughts on how House of Cards: Season 5 ended along with some other plot-specific musings that you shouldn't dive into unless you've completed all 13 episodes. For my non-spoilery review of Season 5, head over here.
Man, I keep my reviews of Netflix shows as non-spoilery as possible, but House of Cards was a bit of beast this year. I found myself not really being able to discuss anything since each chapter of Season 5 contained various earth-shifting elements that I didn't want to expose. But that's the nature of the series. Everything's in flux at all times. Victories are momentary, as are defeats. It's fairly rambunctious for a series we all once considered to be a somewhat dystopian look at government.
I suppose what I mostly want to dig into here is the idea that Frank, following his visit to Elysian Fields, orchestrated his entire takedown, using Zoe Barns and his deals with Tusk as a way to eliminate himself from the picture, end the ceaseless harassment, and put Claire into a position of power that he no longer deemed to be all that powerful. Kevin Spacey's role in the Usual Suspects, "Verbal" Kint, sprung to mind here as Frank revealed himself to be the shadowy mastermind behind his own exile.
And all of this was done to, kinda sorta, get Claire into power and echo, to an extent, some of the story from the original U.K. version of the series. Obviously, Claire gets put into power in a drastically different way on this series than on the British one, but that doesn't mean she escaped this season without blood on her hands. When I mentioned in my original review that this season almost felt like a reminder that the show, overall, was about heartless murder, it wasn't just because Zoe and Rachel's deaths were brought back into play, but because Claire herself joined the club after she poisoned Tom Yates (Paul Sparks).
Tom's death felt a little cheap, almost as if the price, the toll charge, for becoming president on this series had officially become being willing to kill another human being standing in your way, though I'm more interested now, going forward, with how this murder will wind up compromising Claire since Mark Usher knows about it and - perhaps Jane Davis too! The two people Claire's now relying on to steer her forward have a big advantage over her, and she doesn't fully trust them. Plus, the woman who was most loyal to her, LeAnn, is probably dead now thanks to a car "accident." All of this at the same time she's chosen to alienate Frank by not announcing an official pardon. Going into next season, will the Underwoods continue to crumble apart, or will they galvanize against the new coven of conspirators threatening to pull the strings?
The middle part of the season, when Frank purposefully mucked up the entire election and then turned the votes over to the House and Senate was a delay tactic that felt, narratively, like a delay tactic. This was when Season 5 felt the most arduous. When Conway vanished for a spell only to return as a crazed and crumbling version of his former self. At that point, since it was happening mid-way through the season, we knew Frank and Claire would squeeze through and come out on top somehow so every break they caught wound up feeling convenient while every setback felt frustrating and plodding.
Because House of Cards' "chapters" easily ooze into one another, the standout episodes this season were the coup attempt, "Chapter 59," and the Elysium trip, "Chapter 60" (episodes 7 and 8) as they helped create a needed narrative break from the grind of the Conway chapters.
So? What did you all think of Season 5?
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at http://ift.tt/2aJ67FB.
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