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drunken officeparty
Aug 23, 2006

Slashrat posted:

Remy Danton and Jackie Sharp decided to no longer give a gently caress about their careers and/or the blackmail Frank had on them, and instead just cut ties with Washington and ran off together.

gently caress I knew the name Jackie Sharp but didn't put it because I convinced myself it was the name of the prosecutor special investigator(??) woman.

Anyway I'm on episode 5 and if this show doesn't end with him declared Dictator For Life or some scorched earth nuke everyone thing then it was not worth it.

drunken officeparty fucked around with this message at 12:20 on May 31, 2017

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BigglesSWE
Dec 2, 2014

How 'bout them hawks news huh!

Slashrat posted:

Remy Danton and Jackie Sharp decided to no longer give a gently caress about their careers and/or the blackmail Frank had on them, and instead just cut ties with Washington and ran off together.

Good for them, honestly. Two likeable characters that don't end up killed by Doug.

Rupert Buttermilk
Apr 15, 2007

🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

I'm only on S5E4, but holy jesus christ, this is the best show :munch:

BigglesSWE
Dec 2, 2014

How 'bout them hawks news huh!

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

I'm only on S5E4, but holy jesus christ, this is the best show :munch:

It takes a bit of a dip at E5 but yeah, first for episodes are really solid.

Rest I've seen isn't bad either but it feels less exciting, somehow.

Rupert Buttermilk
Apr 15, 2007

🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

Ugh, gently caress OFF, Tom. Seriously, I really, REALLY don't care about anything he says. I get that it's part of Claire's story, and I have no issues with her story, but he and everything he says bugs me.

Caros
May 14, 2008

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

Ugh, gently caress OFF, Tom. Seriously, I really, REALLY don't care about anything he says. I get that it's part of Claire's story, and I have no issues with her story, but he and everything he says bugs me.

I have been straight up fast forwarding every time he is on screen because he annoys me that much.

Rupert Buttermilk
Apr 15, 2007

🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

Caros posted:

I have been straight up fast forwarding every time he is on screen because he annoys me that much.

I'd be cool with random scenes of him loving various White House staff in different rooms.

dead gay comedy forums
Oct 21, 2011


House of Cards truly has a problem of working like a tv series when netflix affords them an absurd amount of flexibility

they get rid of characters and plots like a 90s tv drama

edit (because I justposted and didn't finish):

the writer is a fantastic example of a character that was added for... what reason

Lucas got shot for what (ok that might be a commentary on post-facts presidencies and what not)

remember that if the writers are actually keeping pace on things, the american social service net is gone, an educational reform went through that fucks everything up, FEMA is done, poo poo has gone down in Palestine that would have actually led to a very hot war and so forth but nevermind forget everything

also the actor playing conway is pretty bad for a politician character imho

dead gay comedy forums fucked around with this message at 16:28 on May 31, 2017

drunken officeparty
Aug 23, 2006

He's handsome as hell though. You can tell he's packing some serious gunnage under those dress shirts

Rupert Buttermilk
Apr 15, 2007

🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

drunken officeparty posted:

He's handsome as hell though. You can tell he's packing some serious gunnage under those dress shirts

Watch 'The Killing', he makes the show. There's a lot of 'NO MAYBE THE KILLER IS THIS PERSON! WAIT, MAYBE IT'S THIS PERSON!' but overall, it's not a bad show, especially Kinneman's Holder character. Tallest, skinniest, whitest black dude on the show.

gently caress, I'd love it if it was a 'Holder 2016' campaign they were running in this show.

Open Source Idiom
Jan 4, 2013
I suspect Kinneman charts really well by Netflix's metrics -- he's also going to be the lead on Altered Carbon. Which makes three separate Netflix shows he's a prominent part on now.

Boris Galerkin
Dec 17, 2011

I don't understand why I can't harass people online. Seriously, somebody please explain why I shouldn't be allowed to stalk others on social media!
I forgot which episode this is but I really liked the scene where (nothing major): Conway meets with the black caucus and they're just like "we want to hear a plan, not just generic drug stuff" and Conway had nothing. Now that I think about it, they totally missed out on trashing Ben Carson. Should had Conway start randomly spouting off stuff about the inner cities unprovoked.

Can anyone remind me who the guy working for Conway is again? He's kinda giving me a huge Bannon vibe (during the whole "President Bannon" thing when we all still thought he was puppet master, which seems so long ago) but I don't remember if we met him before in the last season. I thought he was just the owner of that data company or whatever but why does he use access to congresspeople?

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
I'm going to start watching but I really hope they fix the problem that's happened since season 3, which is how Frank Underwood went from this ruthless, brilliant, ten steps ahead politician to a complete loving buffoon that couldn't run a 711.

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

This season was a real return to form, in that it was a complete wet fart.

-Blackadder-
Jan 2, 2007

Game....Blouses.
Just finished...

I like the show ok and will probably watch next season but...

This show really peaked in season 2. The end of season 2 when it looks like Frank is caught dead to rights and he cunningly flips everything around and literally talks the President out of his own job as if he were his best friend, even though Frank is the one sticking the knife in his back, is top-tier television. It was perfectly executed and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Then we get season 3 and 4 where Frank spends all his time barely fighting off one scandal after another. Claire's screen time expands with even more annoying storylines. And Frank's character overall feels weaker and less cunning than in previous seasons.

Season 5 felt like more of the same from seasons 3 and 4 except ratcheted up to 11.

I feel like this show made two primary mistakes; it made Frank president, so he had nowhere to go but down, making it seem like he was always running around reacting to some crisis instead of being the cunning villain who was the one creating the crisis. And it took Claire's character in the wrong direction. Frank is at his best when he's the solo underdog, clawing his way up the ladder, free to monologue without having to share so much screen time with his wife. Claire is at her best when she was doing her subtle manipulation, power-behind-the-throne thing instead of hamfistedly trying to be Frank's rival and making Queen Cersei look competent.

I'll still probably watch next season. As someone else said the one bright spot going into next season is that we might get a full-on cutthroat Frank vs. Claire storyline where they pull no punches on each other. It would make Frank the lone underdog again and probably be more interesting than watching him as president getting repeatedly pummeled with scandal after scandal like a proto-Trump.

-Blackadder- fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jun 1, 2017

Rupert Buttermilk
Apr 15, 2007

🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

I'm almost done 5, but I can agree with this. When it looks like it's really bad, and people are scrambling, that's great tv. When Frank polishes his plot armour for the umpteenth time that season, well... That's less than compelling.

Hyperbole from my previous posts aside, I realized that while I binge the gently caress out of new episodes, I don't ever feel like rewatching any of this show at all. I would have loved for season 3 to have been a violent messy downfall of the Underwoods, so I hope that's what season 6 is.

That promo of the tattered upside down flag was, to me, slightly misleading; I feel like it tried to paint the picture of real war on American soil with the government in shambles. I actually had the feeling that nukes would have been involved. And while everything was upset during the election shenanigans, it then went right back to Frank and Doug, putting out fires here and there.

I'm an episode and a half away from the end, so I'm hoping that, like at the end of season 2, it points towards everything crashing down. I know I should probably watch the British original, and I will, but I'm also reminded of another show from overseas that didn't waste any time getting the plot going: Happy Valley.

Seriously, if you want to see a show not drag its heels, but instead ratchet up the tension and pacing, check it out. It's a police drama, not a political one, and I didn't even know where they were going to go with season 2, but it absolutely worked. They did more in those 12 episodes than most shows, HoC (US) included, do in twice as many.

Edit: I'll admit, Happy Valley does a thing I love (twice), when a plan is hatched by someone, it gets incredibly hosed up and out of control, and they keep trying to fix it with diminishing returns. It never fails to draw me in. Fargo (the movie) did this perfectly. I guess I'm really just tired of seeing Frank, once again, get away with it. The writing is leagues better, but it's starting to feel s little bit like Dexter, where no one on the show wants it to end, to the detriment of the plot.

Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jun 1, 2017

Caros
May 14, 2008

Okay... really show?

The Durrant thing is the stupidest poo poo ever. He pushes her down a flight of stairs? Really? It's like ten feet? What the gently caress was his plan when she survives that like any normal person, gets up and says "He pushed me down the loving stairs"

Goons Are Gifts
Jan 1, 1970

I'd think that the compelling part of this show is not really the institutional height that Francis or Claire reach, but rather the game itself and how they play around.
Francis becoming Vice President after being Whip is a great step, becoming president after all that happened in season 2 even more, but that's more or less just the result, not the trip that they had reaching it.

That's why I honestly do not think season 3 was bad because there was no more stuff to achieve for them and that it's mainly fighting off scandals and staying in power (which, of course, is the main focus of anyone sitting on the top of the pyramide), but that it focused on completely uninteresting, boring and even annoying storylines. That Doug-Rachel thing, what the gently caress. The meltdown of Doug in general and the focus on him despite him being barely more than a minion in the two seasons before.
That plus some really mediocre storytelling and weird focus on random sex stories that didn't have any real impact on anything made season 3 less enjoyable.

They got rid of that in season 4 (mostly, at least) and came back to Francis as the conquerer and emperor along with his wife that increasingly becomes a factor and tries to be Francis to some extend - as that's what their "partnership" is about anyways.
Season 5 continued on that branch and sticked some major events and actual action to it to increase excitement and on that end, I think it worked just fine and was a very good season.

However, given that this is now the third season where the main business is not reaching new achievements, but rather sticking on what you achieved already, I do agree that there is an increasing need for more and some new stuff happening. Watching the same game with more or less the same circumstances, no matter how shadow-y, despicably and immorally it might be, becomes boring when you get used to it.

I hope they find a solid conclusion to the show and don't go the milking money way with a show that deserves a proper ending and hopefully that happens before most of the viewers think of it as some sort of politicial "monster of the week" session - because that's what I fear it may become when they stick to this rhythm for too long.

Rupert Buttermilk
Apr 15, 2007

🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

I'm just a bit into the last episode of season 5, but the whole Frank being the leak revelation definitely helps towards him seemingly being one step ahead no matter what; it makes sense now how he was able to be that way.

That said, I am REALLY hoping for some crazy fallout in season 6. I would love it if they announced that S6 was the last.

ricro
Dec 22, 2008
I hate this lovely show and I hate that I'm still watching it

Condoleezza Nice!
Jan 4, 2010

Lite som Robin Hood
fast inte

SlipkPIe posted:

I hate this lovely show and I hate that I'm still watching it

:same:

Michael Corleone
Mar 30, 2011

by VideoGames
Finished it yesterday and it certainly isn't as good as it once was, but it is the only show I will binge in a day or two every year so whatever. Hopefully season 6 is about Frank trying to become the worlds first Trillionaire with Claire's help and it is really corrupt, maybe they take over the country or some poo poo. But, it will probably be the end and they will go all out to destroy each other.
Also, like half of last season and 75% of this one was based on re-election, which is weird and we no longer match a real world election timeline.

dead gay comedy forums
Oct 21, 2011


the thing I dislike most about house of cards right now is where are the people

trump can't have a random fart without 3 different leaks to the WaPo, an illegal president with this amount of poo poo should be on the rails all the time

like I said before the showrunners forget plots and structure for a supposed sake of the immediate

benzine
Oct 21, 2010
I want my time spent watching this season back, but like a bad crash I can't stop watching. Compared to the first and the second season this is a parody, also they felt bigger to me, with more in play.

My gripe with this season
If you work for the Underwoods there is a 70% chance of dying, it is just absurd.
The Conway-reelection arc made no sense.
Jane Davis, this character knows everything but on the shadows, next season she'll be part of the illuminati

Michael Corleone
Mar 30, 2011

by VideoGames
Someone said Conway had PTSD coming on, but I thought that maybe he didn't really save that dude and that was why he didn't like to go into detail, but their idea is probably better.

GobiasIndustries
Dec 14, 2007

Lipstick Apathy
Re: Conway (episode 3) during the marathon Q&A session the guy he rescued made it sound like there were other soldiers they left behind, since he kept saying 'you heard it, I know you heard it', or am I reading into that too much?

upgunned shitpost
Jan 21, 2015

benzine posted:

Jane Davis, this character knows everything but on the shadows, next season she'll be part of the illuminati

I got the feeling she was more of a 'deep state' player, with an intelligence background and ties to the money. I don't know how true it is, but every time a spook shows up in movies and television, they're usually given some bullshit cover title like' attache to the undersecretary of travelling pants', she had a similar job title. I think she was more of a vehicle to start putting Claie into power, since a lot of the real players in DC had come to the conclusion that Frank couldn't be managed.

gucci bane
Oct 27, 2008



What the gently caress were they thinking. All they had to do was have claire kill frank and end it nicely, I could write 800 words about how much this sucked but I don't want to bore you all even more than the show did.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug
So, if I ducked out after S3, is it worth trying to get back into it? I think I started S4 and gave up an episode or two in.

Goons Are Gifts
Jan 1, 1970

GobiasIndustries posted:

Re: Conway (episode 3) during the marathon Q&A session the guy he rescued made it sound like there were other soldiers they left behind, since he kept saying 'you heard it, I know you heard it', or am I reading into that too much?

That's what I understood from it, yes.
That also is precisely the reason he refuses to talk about it and didn't even mention it once in public despite him having a purple heart for that. He obviously has massive problems talking about it and kinda broke down after it being brought up again.

Also "yadayada this show sucks now because he's president and it's boring and bad and not good also rip season 2" is a pretty common rational and well-thought critic that I am glad to read here often.

DeafNote
Jun 4, 2014

Only Happy When It Rains
just starting this
episode 1 a strong start at least

I still maintain season 4 was a massive upgrade from season 3

counterfeitsaint
Feb 26, 2010

I'm a girl, and you're
gnomes, and it's like
what? Yikes.
Season 5 got better at the end when actual things were happening. How much of this show has been dedicated to this one stupid election now? It started pretty early in S3 if I recall, then all of S4, and over half of S5 god drat just move onto something else already.

im on the net me boys
Feb 19, 2017

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis
I finally finished watching, and..... I'm not sure why I watch this show anymore? It's dragged on a bit too long, I think.

It feels like a lot of the murders this season were there to make up for how boring everything else was, then the election poo poo was incredibly dull, then constantly having Frank come out of then dive into new scandals with every two episodes was not enjoyable. Have Claire kill Frank and finish this loving show Netflix.

QuoProQuid
Jan 12, 2012

Tr*ckin' and F*ckin' all the way to tha
T O P

the bohemian grove episode is one of the most baffling things i have seen on television recently

QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jun 2, 2017

OctaviusBeaver
Apr 30, 2009

Say what now?
Why is the race between a popular, handsome, war hero, Republican governor of New York and Frank even close? Wasn't he already massively unpopular last season? All Conway has to do is take New York, his home state, and the race is over. None of this makes any sense.

QuoProQuid
Jan 12, 2012

Tr*ckin' and F*ckin' all the way to tha
T O P

OctaviusBeaver posted:

Why is the race between a popular, handsome, war hero, Republican governor of New York and Frank even close? Wasn't he already massively unpopular last season? All Conway has to do is take New York, his home state, and the race is over. None of this makes any sense.

According to the show, the Underwoods' terror campaign and militarized "voting centers" dropped turnout so low that nobody but diehard voters turned out. I don't know if this justifies the victory of an unelected, openly corrupt and nepotistic president with no legislative accomplishments, but that's the justification.

Was Conway's shadowy adviser in any of the previous seasons? I am skimming through old summaries of past seasons but I don't remember him.

nooneofconsequence
Oct 30, 2012

she had tiny Italian boobs.
Well that's my story.

I'm on episode 7 and I've started skipping Mickey Doyle's scenes. I hope he dies.

benzine
Oct 21, 2010

QuoProQuid posted:

Was Conway's shadowy adviser in any of the previous seasons? I am skimming through old summaries of past seasons but I don't remember him.

No, just appeared from the shadows.

nooneofconsequence posted:

I'm on episode 7 and I've started skipping Mickey Doyle's scenes. I hope he dies.

You aren't missing anything.

Am I the only that thinks that Petrov is underutilized, this season you can miss him and doesn't matter. I think this show went south after Claire let the guy kill himself in the cell.

drunken officeparty
Aug 23, 2006

I always felt that way about the solo Doug scenes. The actor makes a great loyal henchman for the Underwoods, but good god I don't care about him stalking a variety of women. And those scenes are always super slow and uninteresting even if I did care.

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lunar detritus
May 6, 2009


drunken officeparty posted:

I always felt that way about the solo Doug scenes. The actor makes a great loyal henchman for the Underwoods, but good god I don't care about him stalking a variety of women. And those scenes are always super slow and uninteresting even if I did care.

I don't know, it was awesome to watch him being taken down this season "I gently caress you because I hate you".

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