Watched: House of Cards, Season 2
There is a writing decision early in this season that absolutely horrified me, but in retrospect was sort of genius; Frank Underwood is the sort of character who never exactly redeems himself, but pulls the narrative sleight of hand that leads you constantly have a huge investment in his next horrible trick. There’s no fucking around, here; whereas shows like True Detective and Breaking Bad hover around this weird level of empathy for characters who likely don’t deserve it, House of Cards creates a truly terrible protagonist and then openly dares you to like him. And part of me does! Maybe it’s Kevin Spacey (who is masterful as always), or the brilliantly calculated partnership he has with Robin Wright’s Claire, but there is something winning about every moment of brilliance that Frank pulls off. He’s simultaneously loathsome and brilliant.
This show makes me excited about the sort of thing Netflix can achieve in a way that the current HBO programming (aggressive over-reliance on boobs and butts) and season 4 of Arrested Development never did; it’s witty, slow-burning, and the sort of saga that deserves to be spread out over thirteen episodes. There are episodes that end in a completely unsatisfying way, but in the way you’d expect episodes of The Wire to end; to be treated as part of a larger whole.
Finally, there’s a subplot in this series that treats the sort of topic that usually either ends up sensationalised or (worse) eroticised, and it’s brilliantly sensitive to the topic at hand without providing a jarring alteration in character. It fits. Every character is so perfectly defined, here. I would be absolutely terrified of them, but by the end of a perfect second-season arc, I wanted to spend more time with everyone.
