Really enjoyed this season, particularly the latter half after the election bit was out of the way. Initially, I wasn't too impressed with the first few episodes. It felt a bit like watching
24, that is to say it had long since jumped the shark and become formulaic, and I was watching out of habit more than anything, able to predict what would happen way in advance. But once Frank was sworn in, it all ramped back into the high gear I remember from seasons 1 and 2, and it was great. I
did call who Tom's source was quite early on, but otherwise I didn't see the final plan coming together. And what a great direction for the show, President Claire Underwood.
It is funny and a little terrifying that a show that once seemed so ridiculous and far fetched, and left you asking how the public would ever swallow such a leader, now seems almost tame by comparison. The post-facts politics of reality has almost left
House of Cards looking slightly quaint, an AU in which people still care about things the President might have done wrong.
Favourite moment of the season was Claire turning to the camera and doing Frank's Shakespearean aside. A huge foreshadowing that she was about to become our main focus. Could it even be said that
House of Cards has been the story of Claire Underwood all along? When we thought we were watching Frank gain power, were we actually watching Claire play the long game?
And was she really still unconscious (or kept quiet) during that whole time during the last two episodes? A bit farfetched even for this show.
My take was that Cathy took it as a warning, a 'if you testify, you won't wake up next time' and used her health as a way to delay testifying in the hope that something would come up, which it did. Cathy was privy to some of the Underwood machine by that point but that was her first taste of just how far Francis would go to retain power.
Just my own little theory, but I think it's because Frank has already become dissatisfied with the level of power the Presidency affords. He, at first, saw it as the brass ring, the ultimate achievement of power, but once he got there and realized how hamstrung he was at every level, it simply was no longer enough, so Frank lost just enough respect for the office to not care whether or not the people around him addressed him as Mr. President or not. See, when Freddy called him Frank, he had done it right after Francis had achieved his initial goal, so he was riding high.
I think this is very well reasoned, and I think the key theme of this season - the world was not enough. He thought that if he could be President, it would all fall in his lap, but it didn't. So he retained the office for Claire, making sure she got the top job permanently and intending to head out to where he saw the real power as being. I think a key sequence that didn't seem so important at the time was his visit to the retreat with the powerful men - I think he saw at that point how powerless a President truly was. He's always been consistent in his belief that power is more important than anything: money, fame, or titles.
