When good TV goes bad: how House of Cards came tumbling down

The machiavellian manoeuvring that took Frank Underwood from chief whip to president was thrilling to watch, but it left the show with nowhere to go

When House of Cards first premiered on Netflix in 2013, the biggest story in American politics was that nothing was happening – that Congress, gridlocked over the budget of President Obama, was stuck in a frustrating state of paralysis. By comparison, the show was a parallel universe in which Washington, so mundane in reality, became the domain of snakes and raptors, of machiavellian masterminds epitomised by Democratic congressman Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), the house majority whip with ambitions of absolute power. Moodily lit and beautifully shot, it was still always considerably trashier than it looked, but none the worse for it, full of ridiculous dialogue and knowing hyperbole. But not since The West Wing had politics looked so possible, politicians so impressively full of agency. In the words of Obama himself: “Man, this guy’s getting a lot of stuff done.”

Related: Let's make House of Cards great again

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2gIi154