“The road to power is paved with hypocrisy.” —Frank Underwood
Frank Underwood is Kevin Spacey. I wonder now if I would’ve sought out the original Netflix TV series House of Cards if the actor had not been accused of sexual assault of who was at the time a minor.
I have to be honest: The first few episodes of House of Cards had me always thinking of the personality of Kevin Spacey in relation to the character he plays. In the series, Spacey is a politician with a gay past that keeps intruding—or garnishing—his present. This past is not so much expressed as hinted at, the kind of personal history that is whispered about but not proven. Everybody anyway has a sordid and dark past in House of Cards, as everybody parades through a present threatening to injure or impugn his or her character. This take on destiny makes us wait for the future promised as episode after episode brings us to enjoy the doomsday of each individual.
House of Cards is a story of politics and politicians. Given that, expect therefore a narrative of schemes and secrets, of dirty tricks and tricky deeds. These are old stories. The manipulations are common occurrences taken as given by those who know how evil politics can be even when politicians don’t mean any harm. It is how the system works. A politician is only good insofar as he is several steps ahead of another person’s machination. It’s really how the whole game functions. It’s a game after all, and not a good universe where moral ascendancy is the only way to climb to fame or reach a position.
The difference in House of Cards is how the narrative stacks up the occurences to give us results that either destroys a person, elevates him or creates further complications. The actions are a web rather than a linear progression or regression. One seemingly distant act affects a player whose impulse to the act impinges on another act or person who may not be aware what came upon him. This cluelessness in some and acute awareness in others makes House of Cards one of the most gripping shows on TV.
Stories about politics used to be cautionary tales and allegories about the battle between good and evil. Not House of Cards—the series does have lead characters but they’re not necessarily harbinger of the good and positive.
The problem of House of Cards is in the direction of the lives of its characters: There is no moral
compass involved in their journeys. There are no explicit moral lessons because, as it comes across, the series does not aim to give such. But the absence of a moral clause brings us into a social contract with each episode. Here’s my guilt: I relish how characters work to destroy each other. No one is spared; no one is saved. A character may become the most powerful man on Earth but that does not mean his redemption. No one, it seems, can be saved from anything. Everyone traverses Heaven and Hell and Heaven again. Purgation is brief and token. The series is an eternal, it seems, joyride to a hell one brings upon another person.
The twists and turns are unending in House of Cards. We never tire of the manipulation because it is, after all, organic in politics. My guilt though—my guilty pleasure actually—is I find all that delicious.
The story is old. A congressman who throws his support for a president finds that his dream to be the secretary of State will not come through. He is kept in Congress because the president thinks he could get more support if this man remains in the legislative. This man is Frank Underwood. House of Cards is the story of how he comes back to be at the center of a political universe he has already constructed in his mind. Along the way, he destroys other people, including the president so that he could become the new president. He has a partner that would have been described as in-crime but the series is not about criminals. Politicians may be evil but they’re never seen as criminals. Odd but true.
Claire Underwood has her own developmental organization, but she also operates like her husband, who she calls “Francis.” We could be tempted to call her “Lady Macbeth” but this is no Elizabethan tragedy where comeuppance descends upon those who commit murder. House of Cards is more like a circus, but instead of clowns and freaks, we have intelligent individuals out to transform us constituents and audiences into clowns and freaks.
The cast is stellar in performances. The characters are almost as delicious as those in Downtown Abbey, transplanted to Washington and a different period. Unlike that globally beloved British hit, House of Cards has characters who don’t wait for fate to take over. They try to change destiny when its old hands loom in the horizon. The nice thing about the series is that no one has the monopoly of fate at all.
Actors who play politicians and lobbyists and secret-service agents all smell of dirty politics, or, at least, allows into politics a scent of superficial decency.
We can complain about the numerous characters whose names we can’t follow. But that’s the least of our problem. The way to enjoy House of Cards is to savor the events without knowing the people. It is, after all, a carnival where people in grand costumes and with grand gestures come and go. We needn’t know them. They are all wearing masks. Let us enjoy the masquerade ball before the plague kills them one by one.
Gerald McRaney as Raymund Tusk is the billionaire who manipulates the prices of gas, China and the president. He’s compelling as an old man who lives modestly but has the wisdom of amorality.
Claire Underwood is played by Robin Wright. She has an affair with a photographer, a dalliance that was known by her husband. When her photo in bed was leaked to the press, she used the photographer to deny and admit his involvement. This left the public confused about truth, a confusion that allowed Claire to survive the disaster. Her good, boring fashion, which limited her dress colors to black white and beige, hides a colorful collection of plots that could ruin other people.
Kevin Spacey, of course, is the ringmaster for this circus. Armed with asides that allow him to be theatrical, Spacey runs away with each episode. He is practically in all of the frames. Following the allegation of sexual assault late last year, he was fired by Netflix. I can’t imagine the episodes without Spacey delivering lines that’s a mixture of Bette Davis and Laurence Olivier. His character survived the attacks in House of Cards. But the actor couldn’t surmount the sexual-assault allegation in real life.
House of Cards is based on the novel written by Michael Dobbs.
By the way, in one episode, Frank kisses his bodyguard as Claire watches. So there.