Tom's Two Cents : House of Cards on Netflix

I never expected to be admitting to anyone that I've been binging on a TV series, much less one about politics.  It's bad enough to binge on anything, chocolate maybe, but television?  Well, my cousin Doug tricked me into it by coming down from Dallas a few weeks ago, shopping with me for an Apple TV remote and then conveniently installing the darn thing.  A couple of episodes of "House of Cards" and I was hooked.  Admittedly I had seen the British 3-episode series with the great Ian Mackellan first, but the American version with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, now at the end of its fourth season, has gone to 52 episodes and is still running strong.  Why?  Well, it's superbly written, acted, directed and produced, but it's very, very dark, and, if you take it too seriously, not just as a piece of entertainment, but as a rather true-to-life slice of America's political pie, then it's positively scary.

"House of Cards" is the story of Francis Underwood, U.S. Senator and Majority Whip from South Carolina, and his wife, Claire, both deeply driven and ambitious individuals, enmeshed in the political machinations of the nation's Capitol.  And what machinations they are!  Alongside Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright is a superb ensemble cast with a Machiavellian plot line that allows very little time, if any, for kitchen or bathroom breaks (no commercial interruptions--aha!) each episode filled with twists and turns that may or may not be unraveled until later in the season.  The series as a whole traces the rise of the Senator from South Carolina from Majority Whip to Secretary of the Treasury to Vice-President to President, while his equally ambitious wife conspires both with and against him to create her own ascendancy from U.S. Ambassador to the UN to his running partner in next year's (i.e. Season's) forthcoming presidential election.  By the end of this fourth season, if not long before, you know this couple will stop at--well, nothing, actually, to achieve their path to power.

Does this show descend into melodrama, murder and mayhem, and explicit and sometimes pointless sexuality?  Yes--at times, but for the most part it walks a finely rugged line in appealing to mass audiences and prurient interests.  Believe it or not, the best comparison I can make is to Shakespeare's "Macbeth," even to its use of an old dramatic technique, the aside to the audience.  At their common core both works are about the corruption of power in high places and the inevitable fall of those who get there.  After four seasons of devious and malevolent ascent, I predict that "House of Cards," like "Macbeth," can go only downward, into death and destruction.  Attributed to Euripides (but in fact erroneously), the statement "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad [with power]" could easily be the watchword of this show.