Warning! Major plot spoilers for House of Cards Season 2 below – read at your own risk!
Still the biggest and perhaps best moment in the entire show was the season premiere. There was no finer way of showing the ruthlessness of Frank than when he killed Zoe himself. Nobody would have expected Zoe Barnes to be killed off in episode 1 of the season, especially considering her role as arguably the second lead and how actress Kate Mara was used in the second season’s marketing. The scene where Zoe is pushed onto the train tracks is perhaps one of the most brutal in TV I’ve seen. She was a problem that needed to be dealt with to Frank and any emotional attachment that he had with Zoe, even below his thick emotional surface, was flattened by the train. The fact that Zoe is never referred to by Frank through the rest of the season shows the absolute villainy of this amazing character.
The plot with Lucas looking for justice was interesting, but when he was set up by Gavin (the hacker) and sent to prison on cyber-terrorism charges I thought it was premature. No doubt that Janine Skorsky would have been scared by the power that Underwood holds, but between her and Lucas a story could easily have been created I felt. Gavin knows about the tie with Rachel Posner, but doesn’t know necessarily how it ties in with Underwood in any other way. He is perhaps the only loose end going into season three that hasn’t been dealt with.
This leads me to Doug Stamper, and his interesting plot line this season. Michael Kelly does a tremendous job of bringing us Doug – a cool, soft-spoken and gentle man with a heart of ice. He is conflicted with his relationship with Rachel, a sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome, breaching his own strict professionalism for perhaps his most human desire. Now, I personally think Doug is one of the best characters in the show – so I’m a bit upset that it appears that Rachel has killed him in the final stages of the finale. Don’t get me wrong – he had it coming for the torment that Rachel has been put through, but I think there was more to Doug that could be explored. He almost seemed to accept his fate after being struck for the second time, perhaps weary of battling demons of his work, his alcohol addiction and Rachel day after day.
Other subplots emerged, but seemed to pop up out of the blue or fritter away in the background. Freddy and his BBQ Joint were taken out of the equation for little more than to show, in Frank’s own words “The road to power is paved with hypocrisy. And casualties.”, something that the audience was well aware of anyway. Adam Galloway, Claire’s lover from season 1, returned just to be disgraced by Claire in a way that none would have been shocked by. Claire’s subplot of pushing legislation to tackle sexual assault in the military, after revealing that she had been raped by an army general, seemed only to serve as a vehicle for Claire to be involved with the First Lady. These plots were all interesting – but I think they all were delivered less focus than they perhaps deserved. I’d blame the constraints of having only 13 episodes in the season for that, though, rather than bad writing. As slow going as House of Cards can be, the way it builds and builds the underlying tension couldn’t be done any other way – so sacrificing that for the sake of pithy subplots would not work nearly so well.
I was in little doubt that Frank Underwood’s thirst for power would lead him to eventually be the President. Walker was always a weak President – although as I’ve mentioned his character grew stronger in this season – and I was waiting for the loophole that would bring Underwood to power. In the end it was his involvement with Tusk that led to Walker’s demise – even though he was entirely innocent. The pressures of the office and of the battle going on around him between Frank and Tusk were too great for him, and his marriage, to cope. Walker and his wife are probably the two characters in the show that I empathise with most – doing what they think is right and never stooping to the character destroying antics of the rest of the ensemble.
I’m interested to see if the third season can match the first two with Underwood’s rise to power seeming to be at its zenith. With so much personal scandal behind him, far less than brought down Walker, I’m wondering if the third season will see the titular house of cards fall down for the Underwoods. With two such malevolent characters, it seems only just that it will at some point – but they have dodged every bullet that’s come their way so far.
House of Cards is one of the finest shows around – and I’ll be waiting patiently for the next season when it comes out, presumably next February. How I’ll get my fix of megalomania between now and then I have no idea!