We are now officially headed toward end-of-season recess on “House of Cards” and Ashley Parker and David Carr take a look at episode 10. If you like reading their take on the political and media dimensions of the rest of the season, you can find episode one, two,three, four, five, six,seven , eight or nine here. Spoilers are thicker than plots on “House of Cards,” so consider yourself warned.
Episode 10
Synopsis: Frank Underwood is excoriated by the president for getting the vote count wrong, and realizes that it was his wife, Claire, who sold him short. The Underwoods’ marriage faces a crisis. And Congressman Peter Russo faces a crisis of his own, as he falls off the wagon with some help from Frank’s henchmen.
Parker: Deliciously, early on in this episode, Zoe Barnes is the one who breaks the news to Frank that his wife helped him lose the crucial two votes for Peter Russo’s watershed act.
“This is a juicy story, Francis,” she says, using the full name that only his wife calls him. “Carly will love it. The majority whip’s wife stabs him in the back.”
And so we get yet another glimpse into the marriage/partnership of the Underwoods. When Frank confronts Claire, his accusation seems to get at the crux of their relationship: “We make decisions together,” he says, to which she retorts that it certainly hasn’t felt that way recently. The betrayal seems to bother him less than the fact that they are no longer operating in tandem, making choices together to further their mutual ambitions.
Finally, a frustrated Frank tells Claire a hard truth he thinks she needs to hear: “CWI is important, yes,” he says, referring to the Clean Water Initiative, the foundation she runs, “but it doesn’t come close to what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Which made me wonder: What are they trying to accomplish? The season starts with Frank Underwood being passed over for secretary of state, unfairly in his eyes. He vows revenge and to right the wrong, but it quickly becomes clear that secretary of state is no longer what he’s going for. He wants to punish the president, but how, and to what end? As the show has progressed, it’s become increasingly unclear to me just what Frank (and Claire) want. What do you think, David? Does he have a bigger or more lofty goal than simply amassing power for power’s sake?
Carr: I am not in the writer’s head, but I think Frank is gunning for a position from which he can launch an inside job on the president. I felt from the beginning and still feel that the motivating factor in Frank’s life is simple payback, more so than the accumulation of power and favors.
It’s not a very lofty goal and perhaps Claire senses that. Why sacrifice and let hard work go down the drain unless there is something real in play. It’s been odd to watch the last three episodes because we have been led to believe that Frank is the ultimate inside player, someone who is always a few moves ahead of everyone, and sometimes he is. Yet we have also seen him played, time and again. He has been double-crossed by the president, his spouse and, depending on how you keep score, Zoe Barnes.
So does Frank have game or not? For a player, he seems to get played a lot. Perhaps that is because he is in the midst of a dangerous game, but his instincts for where the real threats to his plans are seem off to me. The great unraveling of the last few episodes pulled me in, hard, just when I thought I knew where things were headed. And it makes me wonder what he might be willing to do when cornered.
And because I have had my own struggles with addiction, I have to pop off a bit about recovery issues in the series. It’s clear that Peter Russo is a mess, albeit an occasionally charming one, and also that he is just one more game piece on Frank’s chess board. But Doug Stamper? Frank’s aide de camp and henchman is first set up as Congressman Russo’s sponsor in recovery and now is greasing the skids so he can go tumbling off the wagon. Without getting into the specifics of any recovery program, that is supposed to be a sacred relationship, and yet when push comes to shove, Doug Stamper is more than happy to all but pour the whiskey down Peter’s throat.
I guess it is of a piece with other plot lines. When real blood is drawn in “House of Cards,” it’s not by enemies or political opponents, but by intimates, people whose proximity and relationship of trust allows them to inflict maximum damage. So keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and by the way, your friends might be your real enemies, I guess.
Ashley, I sense we are both somewhat reluctant, but now die-hard fans of the show. Are you enjoying these hard, brutal plot turns?
Parker: As a reporter, I’ve learned that hard, brutal plot turns often make the best copy. Covering a coup against House Speaker John A. Boehner at the hands of his disgruntled conservatives, for instance, would be a much better — and more exciting — story than Mr. Boehner once again managing to barely keep his conference in line. But as a person, I’m oddly squeamish about seeing people brought low, and human vulnerability laid out in all its glistening slickness.
I have a special soft spot for Peter Russo, and keep hoping for him to succeed against the odds. I’m drawn to the fighter in him, the one who does what it takes and keeps on getting up even when it’s a struggle — which is why I was so frustrated, and frankly confused, that he so easily succumbed to the girl-and-alcohol set-up. To me, it seems like it would have been the simplest and most obvious thing for him to simply walk away. He has a supportive girlfriend, he has two kids, he has a run for Pennsylvania governor that’s shaping into the real deal — in short, he has every personal and professional reason in the world not to fall off the wagon. And yet. And yet.
Then again, I’ve never dealt with addiction. How realistic did that scene seem to you, David?
Carr:Peter Russo has everything going for him, everything to fight for, and when someone sets the equivalent of a loaded gun in front of him, he picks it up and puts it in his mouth.
Remember that it is not his addiction to mood altering substances that pulls him up to that room and to the brink of collapse, but the promise of sex. Men, again and again in this story, again and again on your beat, and in real life as it is lived by most, often seem incapable of making the smart play. Peter may be sober when the episode starts, but it is a series of very un-sober choices that puts him back in the ditch.
Washington is the place where Wilbur Mills ended up in the Tidal Basin on the wrong end of a very embarrassing story, but the issue of men not being who they pretend to be is not a Beltway phenomenon, but a human one.
Parker: That may be true, David. But when that human phenomenon occurs inside the Beltway, as we discussed above, it almost always makes for good copy.