S04.E13: Chapter 52

[DrSpaceman73]

Thank you! Exactly what I was thinking. It actually affected my ability to watch the rest of this episode objectively.

Wright and Spacey are terrific but much of their words/actions are moving too close to campy and over the top. They play it out very differently but still...

Count me among those that are suspicious of Doug's GF. Although I will cheer when his downfall comes, Doug may have met his match. Surely she must suspect the someone in the WH may have reshuffled the list of liver recipients.

Why was Tom - the guy that writes speeches - in the Situation Room watching the execution? Just in case the three of them want to discuss it during breakfast the next morning?

I enjoyed this season but I think that HOC has run out of steam. I hope that next season is its last. The downfall of the Underwoods is eminent and that could make it the best season of all.

The whole story is full of over the top campiness and bad lines.

"I may be white trash, but now I'm in the White House" has to be one of the all time bad lines that sounds like something from a soap opera parody.

From Season one, I believe, "I love that woman more than sharks love blood". So poetic.

Let's just say I don't watch the show for believability or profound one liners.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!
 

After A Comeback Season, Did House Of Cards Lower The Ante At The End?
The way Season 4 finishes makes Sarah D. Bunting wonder if the show knows its own strengths.

[Lexxy]

I love that Claire broke the fourth wall.  I know there's the argument that the fourth wall break can be lazy story telling but I really like how HoC does it.  My husband wasn't looking at the screen during the last 10 seconds so when I yelped, That was SO COOL, we had to rewind so he could see it.  I just liked that she reacted to what he was saying, it was surprising in a great way. 

 

But also kind of funny because we have this running/lame joke whenever Frank talks to the audience - "Uhh, sir?  Who are you talking to?  Should we get a doctor?" and Claire finally did that!  Turned to him like, "Um, you're talking to the middle of the table..."

[Dobian]

I liked the last episode and the season as a whole, but I couldn't buy into that last scene.  Is the show making the observation that Frank and Claire really think the public can be so manipulated (because indeed politicians do think this way), or does the show believe that Frank and Claire can really manipulate the public this way?  Because I just don't see how this blots the huge Herald scandal out of everyone's mind.  People would see it for the political grandstanding that it is.

[Anela]

Well, that was underwhelming. (Or as Frank would say, underHHHHwhelming.)

 

I mean...that's it? Hammerschmidt's story was barely given a chance to make a ripple, so narratively it felt totally flat after a season of build-up. 

I agree. I was checked out for a lot of this season, so I'm going to have to re-watch at some point, when I can focus more, but I'm disappointed that it seems like Tom's story is going to be pushed aside by this beheading they allowed to happen. I loved it when he told Underwood that he didn't believe  a word of what he'd just said, and that he would give him three hours to provide a response to the article. 

 

They allow a beheading, just to try to retain some control. I really want them to be brought down.

 

(I had to google, "broke the fourth wall". I missed the very end, because I was disgusted that they were sitting there so calmly, and watching a beheading that they had just orchestrated for their own benefit.)

Edited April 15, 2016 by Anela

[ChicksDigScars]

I really disliked how much camera time Claire was given in the first half of the season, but by the end, I was kinda over it. Maybe it was my growing dislike for the Conways, including the kid that they let run wild in the White House, and indulged without consequence, so that you basically agreed with Claire when it came to her stance on children.  I fell into that blatant manipulation, hook, line and sinker. 

 

I remain steadfast about Hammerschmidt's dog, however. DO. NOT. KILL THE. LAB. I was a little fearful that Doug was leaving at the end, not to meet his new girlfriend, but to pay Hammerschmidt's unsupervised pooch a little payback visit. 

 

Okay, I probably know the answer to this, but when the home grown terrorists did the deed, they cut away before showing it, right? I couldn't watch. I closed my eyes and I can't go back to it. They weren't that graphic, were they? Please tell me that the reaction of those around the table was all we got. 

 

The end scene? Chilling. Frank and Claire are the epitome of stone fucking cold. 

[millennium]

I felt the finale was right in step with the rest of the season -- a dreary let-down.   The final moments were ridiculous.  As someone noted above, Frank and Claire have become cartoon villains.   Boris and Natasha.   "We make the terror."    All it lacked was an evil "Bwahahahahahaha!" 

 

Playing the terrorism card is such a cliche solution to the whole mess.   The Bush administration did it so often it the "terror alert level" became a national joke.   You'd see news that the terror color-code had been upgraded, then automatically look at the other news to see what scandal/bad news/PR blunder the administration was attempting to downplay.   How are we -- or anyone in post-Bush America -- supposed to take it seriously?

Edited April 24, 2016 by millennium

[RustbeltWriter]

I enjoyed it but next season really needs to have them dealing with the fallout of Hammerschmidt's article. There is some pretty damning stuff in there and it needs to rock the White House. It also wouldn't hurt for someone to figure out what really happened to Zoe and Peter.

Oh, and Doug is the creepiest creep that ever crept.

[RCharter]

On 4/24/2016 at 3:32 PM, millennium said:

I felt the finale was right in step with the rest of the season -- a dreary let-down.   The final moments were ridiculous.  As someone noted above, Frank and Claire have become cartoon villains.   Boris and Natasha.   "We make the terror."    All it lacked was an evil "Bwahahahahahaha!" 

 

Playing the terrorism card is such a cliche solution to the whole mess.   The Bush administration did it so often it the "terror alert level" became a national joke.   You'd see news that the terror color-code had been upgraded, then automatically look at the other news to see what scandal/bad news/PR blunder the administration was attempting to downplay.   How are we -- or anyone in post-Bush America -- supposed to take it seriously?

SNL did this skit on the terror level....I think they used beige tones though....it was hilarious and a fitting commentary

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/ridge-address-cold-open/2872724

Edited April 29, 2016 by RCharter

[Milburn Stone]

On April 22, 2016 at 6:57 PM, ChicksDigScars said:

The end scene? Chilling.

And thrilling. Mention has been made here of how awesome it was to see Claire break the fourth wall for the first time, but I have to give props to Robin Wright for breaking it exactly right. The writers had a cool conception when they thought up that look to camera, but the perfect execution by the actress is what made it deliver on the goosebumps.

And now I'm going to ask something embarrassing...Just what is Hammerschmidt's bombshell story, anyway? Mention is made of travel logs, and Tusk, and lots of people knowing stuff and finally being willing to talk, but for the life of me I don't remember what Frank did so wrong that the story threatens his undoing. (I mean, we know he murdered people and all, but Hammerschmidt doesn't know that, so that's not the story.) If anyone can sum it up, I'll appreciate it.

[GreekGeek]

I thought that Hammerschmidt did have some sort of info about the deaths of Zoe and Peter.

I must have missed something, but why are Frank and Claire so sure that starting the equivalent of World War III at home will assure Frank's re-election? Sure, Americans enjoy hearing leaders talk tough about fighting terrorism. But I took Frank's remarks to mean not that he will send troops to a distant land but will take it to the streets of America. How will people feel about him if every day becomes 9/11?

[Chaos Theory]

Right now Hammerschmidt can loosely connect the Underwoods to a whole lot of corruption.  He had one of the best and most ironic lines of the season when he was "talking" to Remy.  I think it went along the lines of "They are corrupt but they aren't murderers."   He is being smart and following the trail of corruption. Right now he doesn't have enough to do more then maybe cost The Underwood the election but if he follows the trail far enough......

[NutMeg]

21 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

Right now Hammerschmidt can loosely connect the Underwoods to a whole lot of corruption.  He had one of the best and most ironic lines of the season when he was "talking" to Remy.  I think it went along the lines of "They are corrupt but they aren't murderers."   He is being smart and following the trail of corruption. Right now he doesn't have enough to do more then maybe cost The Underwood the election but if he follows the trail far enough......

Yes, that was sweet irony, I think he said Frank was a corrupt politician but not a murderer. He has nooooo idea...

[WatchrTina]

Quote

There is no way in sweet hell that the First Lady would get authority to handle a terrorist negotiations one-on-one, seriously the writing here was sooo far-fetched it was insulting.

Yeah I was scoffing so hard at that that I think I sprained something.

Then during the Claire & Frank's "It's all lost" talk in The Residence I found myself thinking, "Okay it's over -- you'll lose the election but you're still rich and you (Claire) just inherited a nice big ranch in Texas and you are entitled to Secret Service protection for the rest of your lives so you can just retire there in seclusion and read books and watch TV in luxury the rest of you lives.  It's not so bad."

But no, they subscribe to Littlefinger's "Chaos is a ladder" theory.  Claire has an idea that they can use terror and fear to stay in power and Frank says "Yes we can."  I fucking HATED the co-opting of that slogan by the show.

I might be done here.

BTW -- There are lots of reactions here to Claire breaking the 4th wall but that wasn't the 4th wall incident that caught my attention.  Re-watch the scene between Frank and Tom-the-reporter in their second scene when they talk across that table.  The actor playing Tom was careful to look to the side of the camera when addressing Frank but Frank (Kevin Spacey) looked right into the camera when supposedly addressing Tom.  Or was he addressing us and breaking the 4th wall?  It wasn't clear and Tom seemed to "hear" everything he said, which shouldn't happen during an aside to the audience.  I think they messed up. 

[Sesquipedalia]

It's funny to read this thread, with so many people objecting to the lack of realism, in light of today's politics.

I loved Claire this episode and the breaking of the fourth wall at the end. 

I didn't get why Frank gave the speech before the beheading. It would have made more sense if he had let the beheading happen and then swooped in to take advantage of the people's shock to sow fear. 

I also don't see the point of making the terrorists white. America has a way of accepting when white guys kill a bunch of people but gets really worked up when brown people do it, but maybe the show just wanted to take race out of it altogether.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Sesquipedalia