![]() ![]() ![]() Is Netflix going to try to stretch this thing out? Because season four suggests that would be a very bad idea. House of Cards isn't going to suddenly become the best show on television if it ends in season five, but it's probably much closer to the end of its story than the middle. And Willimon left the show as so many other showrunners have (including Aaron Sorkin of the previous political drama The West Wing) - in a place where it feels like the status quo can never be regained, even though all TV needs a return to the status quo eventually. It all feels like the story's big drum roll before the explosions of the ending.īut when Netflix picked up the show for a fifth season, it very pointedly did not say that season five would be the show's last. But it's impossible to watch most of season four and not feel as if it's the first part of a two-part conclusion.įor the most part, season four is just a collection of incidents, of things that happenĪs the season wraps up, everything is coming down around the Underwoods' ears, and they're vowing to create more chaos in hopes of climbing the rubble as it falls around them. Maybe season five will turn out to be House of Cards' last, and Willimon's departure had nothing to do with him wanting the show to end while Netflix wanted nothing of the sort. Bad: The show's story is hurtling toward an ending it has little to no intention of providing Frank wages a bitter presidential campaign that dodges several bullets (somewhat improbably). Season four comes the closest the show ever has to realizing that ambition. House of Cards has always longed to be an opera, right down to the soprano who occasionally wails on the soundtrack. Season four's sweep is, in some ways, a little cheap (when you've written off as many characters as this show has, it's easy to buy gravitas by bringing a few back), but it's also entertaining. There were times in season four when I missed the intimacy of season three, a season that didn't quite work but was at least trying to develop House of Cards' characters into something more than pieces to move around a game board. And a journalist finally digs up something to stick to the president, as the season finale ends with a damning report on Frank hitting the Washington Herald. Characters who should have told Frank to fuck off ages ago finally tell him to do just that. Characters we thought were long gone return, whether in the afterlife or living far off in seclusion. Showrunner Beau Willimon threw everything into the pot for his final season on the show.Īnd throughout the season, there's a willingness to engage with House of Cards ' history that is, frankly, welcome. It features everything from an assassination attempt to what it considers the ultimate examination of the Underwood marriage to threats of war with Russia to threats of war with ICO (a variant on ISIS) to a brokered convention to a presidential election. Say what you will about whether season four makes sense on a macro level (it mostly doesn't), but this thing has scope. Good: The season has a certain epic sweep to it Bringing back former President Walker (Michel Gill, right) gives the season a feeling of epic grandeur it doesn't precisely earn. ![]() Needless to say, spoilers (for the whole season) follow. Here's the good, bad, and weird of House of Cards, season four. Here in 2016 America, could it be that House of Cards feels almost idealistic, because the worst nightmare it could possibly imagine is a president who murders people one at a time? Strangely enough, that's where we are.īut there's way more where that came from. For instance, when Frank's father's connection to the Ku Klux Klan (he wasn't a member, but he posed for a photo with one) is revealed early in the season, it really, really hurts Frank's candidacy, at least for a blip of a moment. As our real-life political world got wackier, House of Cards stayed the course, and now it feels downright quaint. Plus, a curious thing happened to House of Cards between seasons three and four. Related 5 supposedly shocking moments from season 4 of House of Cardsīut what things! If season three felt as if it tried too hard to invest the show with meaning, season four is totally comfortable with being an incoherent roller coaster, one stuffed full of events, where literally nothing of consequence happens. ![]()
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