*Spoiler alert!* If you haven’t yet seen the 6th season of House of Cards and intend to, DO NOT PROCEED!!
Machiavelli married to Lady Macbeth is how I always viewed House of Cards. The machinations, the manipulations, the sheer genius and evil of this power couple was enough to keep me hooked, season after season. Yes, some of the plot lines were absurd, some so far fetched that it took a huge suspension of disbelief to swallow them, but despite all that, it was a riveting and fascinating insight into politics and power play in the U.S. Capitol.
Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright were the hugely talented duo on which the series revolved. Him, the dark, scheming, scrabbler from the wrong side of the tracks. Her, the icy cool, rich and privileged blonde with ambition and fire to match his. Both unscrupulous, both with their eyes on the ultimate prize: the presidency. Their internal rivalry, their disposal of their external rivals, their scheming, their successes and failures, their attempts to outdo one another, their unpredictability, their compulsions and their respective and combined journeys to the White House, was a thrilling roller coaster ride that allowed the viewer to be hypnotised and scandalised in equal measure.
Spacey’s untimely departure from the series due to the surfacing of past sexual misdemeanours must have come as a massive blow to Netflix. Although season 6 was always meant to be the last season of the show, how could they possibly fill the very large space vacated by one of the principal characters of the show?
Before I go any further with my analysis of what went wrong with the last season, let me address two things. One: Kevin Spacey got what was coming. In dropping him from the show, Netflix did the right and honourable thing. Second: Robin Wright is an incredible actress in her own right, and there was never any doubt in my mind that she would be able to carry the show on her very slim shoulders, very capably.
So, what did go wrong?
The writing is what went horribly wrong. The ghost of Frank Underwood/Kevin Spacey lingered for far too long. His death under suspicious circumstances seemed to take centre stage, then retreat, then return and basically never allowed the series to progress. One step forward, two steps back, seemed to be the subconscious mantra. Claire Underwood had her own share of challenges, none more so than the team of writers who couldn’t make up their minds on how to portray her. No longer the perfect foil to her patently ambitious husband, what was she now? A pseudo feminist, a power grabber, a war mongerer, an earth mother or a cold blooded killer?
Worse still were the new power couple who were meant to be her adversaries. A brother/sister pair that were suddenly presented to us as the ones who had been pulling the strings behind the scenes all along. Not convincing at all. When that meandering storyline seemed to flounder, Underwood’s old buddy, his Chief of Staff, Doug Stamper, was resurrected. Still suffering from slavish devotion to his deceased employer, was he the man that would ultimately bring Claire down?
The eight episodes of the last season were confusing, convoluted and contrived. None of the characters, Claire Underwood included, seemed to be able to hold the audience’s attention or sympathy. Working with material such as this, Robin Wright showed flashes of brilliance, but ultimately the series sank into a morass of its own making, and there was little she could do to rescue it.
A fresher slant, a newer perspective and a team of writers who could have dispensed with the long shadow cast by Spacey over the last season, might have created a fitting end to a series that gave meaning to the old adage, ‘power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Instead, all it showed was that ultimately, a house of cards has to collapse, and this one does under the weight of its own pretensions.
