Recently, I came across this series in Netflix called House of Cards… I had heard that name some time before in the news when a controversy about an actor was being reported… The trailer looked interesting and so decided to watch it and basically ended up watching all of it season by season till the end whenever I could find the time and I thought I could write about a couple of thoughts I had about the series and here we are… 🙂
House of Cards is an American Political Thriller Streaming Television Series created by Beau Willimon that was originally released in Netflix back in 2013… It is based on the 1989 novel by the same name written by Micheal Dobbs… The story, set in Washington D.C., takes you along the journey of an ambitious political couple Frank and Claire Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey and Robin Right respectively, as they go about on their meticulously planned path in the world of ruthless politics, to become the First Family of the United States… The series deals with everything a power hungry outsider politician has to go thru and be willing to do what it takes to rise to the top and to survive… This series was the first online only streaming television series to get major Emmy nominations including but not limited to acting for the lead actors, music for the original score by Jeff Beal, direction for David Fincher, multiple times (33 Emmy nominations altogether over the years) and many others including both the lead actors winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and Actress in Television Series Drama category… But all that glory ended up short lived as in 2017, the lead actor Kevin Spacey was fired from the show following sexual misconduct allegations and the show attempted to go on without him reworking the script and other complications resulting in ending up being cancelled with the shorter 6th and final season…
Regarding my thoughts, well personally, I don’t think I have seen a story thats so perfectly matches the title… Essentially this series appears to convey the message that everything we see around us, even the whole world is essentially one big house of cards and as you watch, it takes you through a roller-coaster ride of Houses of Cards being painstakingly built and collapsing all the way down to be rebuilt again… Ruthless Pragmatism is the key phrase here as for those involved in each subplots, nothing matters more than the results that they hope to achieve thru their actions and the sheer genius of the storyline is that the consequences of those actions end up being the catalyst that causes the Houses of Cards to collapse and the uncertainty of it all, makes this whole series very thrilling to watch… The series also appears to say that everything we see around us is not what it seems and that everything is indeed built as a house of cards, as in everything that looks good (like having an all female cabinet for the first time in history or sending relief/aid to people affected by a hurricane or even stopping a war, as shown in the series) is built using cards that include bad things that just are not visible in the front and there is always that one loose end that could at any time expose that one loose card causing the house of cards to collapse and thereby loosing everything that was built so far and so compromises are made to maintain those loose cards to ensure that the intended results are met and hence the ruthless pragmatism being the central theme of everything in the series…
Regarding the making and performance of everyone involved, I think this series is indeed a visual treat with exceptional performances by the actors captured so well in each frame which was further elevated by the amazing background score and sound design to match… Pretty much all the actors did a wonderful job portraying their individual characters and my personal favourite was the performance of Micheal Kelly as Douglas Stamper as I think the way he handled being Frank’s right-hand-man who keeps all the leverage in the Capitol bullying others into getting things done for him, to his transformation to being the Psychotic murderer felt so well portrayed… Other than that I think Kate Mara and Sebastian Arcelus deserve special mention for their portrayal of the journalists Zoe Barnes and Lucas Goodwin respectively who try to build their own houses of cards in pursuit of “the truth”… Overall, regarding the series staying true to its name, I felt that each subplot keeps creating a house of cards of hope for a happy ending in the viewers mind, again to be collapsed so unexpectedly over and over again… Personally, I didn’t like the way they ended the series but nevertheless, I felt the series was quite entertaining to watch and it does keep you hooked on till the end… Feel free to check it out 🙂
