House of Cards is ultra-modern, visually exquisite, full of subtly effective performances and juicily surprising character arcs. I made it across the season 2 threshold and was rewarded with genuine surprise. I enjoy the Shakespearian ambition, the brilliant simplicity of its smaller, more human scenes and the revelation of new pages in the careers of its players, young and old, particularly under the helming of its brass of A-list directors. But I think I've run my course with it.
If you're going to set your sights on subject matter as obvious as, "Look at how corrupt Washington is," don't pull punches. Even the critical consensus has largely stopped taking the show seriously, even while the show continues taking itself seriously. The partisan divide is simplified to such a noticeably absent extent in order to clear the playground for all the scenery-chewing battles of wit the cast and its writers can stomach, but even if accepted on that safe-zone melodramatic level, only so many scenes of double-crossing, stage-managing and railroading can play out without the tables truly, not bluffingly, being turned.
The state of affairs is nowhere near as functional as it's made to look here. I wish Democrats WERE the sharks they're depicted to be on this show. The real-life Democrats desperately need Frank Underwood on their side, because in real life, it's not the back-stabbing and manipulation that causes Washington to be dysfunctional any more than it ever has. That is an automatic, superficial reduction of the nature of the beast. For anyone with a desire to tell the story of modern political affairs by cutting to the dark core of the situation, what must be depicted i's total, unabashed gridlock by corporate lobby-controlled politicians who continually get elected because of mass-produced shareholder-owned propaganda.
That story is nowhere to be found here. We get cursory subplots and ancillary characters involved in muckraking reportage, lobbying for natural gas, and there is of course the thrilling episode where Frank bobs and weaves past every hurtle to thwart Tea Party obstruction of his long-anticipated education bill. But it's almost as though Demoracts and Republicans rarely have to deal with each other, and that when they do, all Democrats need be is formidably smart in order to make advances. In a situation where the sky is the limit for corporate investment in campaigns and legislations, where ethics-free journalism is the precedent for a media culture in which news is just another part of the free market system, this depiction is woefully naïve and, frankly, wasteful when such stellar talent has the capability to tell that story.
For those of you countering me in your heads with points to the effect that it has to be reductive and idealized in order to tell an accessible and entertaining story, then let me ask how The Wire was able to encapsulate not one but all major aspects of our socioeconomic reality with not only utter precision and brutal pragmatism (things ironically touted so often by the characters on House of Cards), but also be one of the most direly engrossing series of all time? If Baltimore police journalists can do it, then veteran artists of cinema can do it.
If you're going to set your sights on subject matter as obvious as, "Look at how corrupt Washington is," don't pull punches. Even the critical consensus has largely stopped taking the show seriously, even while the show continues taking itself seriously. The partisan divide is simplified to such a noticeably absent extent in order to clear the playground for all the scenery-chewing battles of wit the cast and its writers can stomach, but even if accepted on that safe-zone melodramatic level, only so many scenes of double-crossing, stage-managing and railroading can play out without the tables truly, not bluffingly, being turned.
The state of affairs is nowhere near as functional as it's made to look here. I wish Democrats WERE the sharks they're depicted to be on this show. The real-life Democrats desperately need Frank Underwood on their side, because in real life, it's not the back-stabbing and manipulation that causes Washington to be dysfunctional any more than it ever has. That is an automatic, superficial reduction of the nature of the beast. For anyone with a desire to tell the story of modern political affairs by cutting to the dark core of the situation, what must be depicted i's total, unabashed gridlock by corporate lobby-controlled politicians who continually get elected because of mass-produced shareholder-owned propaganda.
That story is nowhere to be found here. We get cursory subplots and ancillary characters involved in muckraking reportage, lobbying for natural gas, and there is of course the thrilling episode where Frank bobs and weaves past every hurtle to thwart Tea Party obstruction of his long-anticipated education bill. But it's almost as though Demoracts and Republicans rarely have to deal with each other, and that when they do, all Democrats need be is formidably smart in order to make advances. In a situation where the sky is the limit for corporate investment in campaigns and legislations, where ethics-free journalism is the precedent for a media culture in which news is just another part of the free market system, this depiction is woefully naïve and, frankly, wasteful when such stellar talent has the capability to tell that story.
For those of you countering me in your heads with points to the effect that it has to be reductive and idealized in order to tell an accessible and entertaining story, then let me ask how The Wire was able to encapsulate not one but all major aspects of our socioeconomic reality with not only utter precision and brutal pragmatism (things ironically touted so often by the characters on House of Cards), but also be one of the most direly engrossing series of all time? If Baltimore police journalists can do it, then veteran artists of cinema can do it.