In Which Nick Watches House of Cards -- Prelude

So I was pretty excited when Netflix finally released the third season of House of Cards.  So excited in fact that in typical Nick Marickovich fashion I decided that the only way to do the event justice was to watch the previous two seasons before diving into the final installment (or the latest installment...).

I think the first time I did this was with the Harry Potter books, and I remember doing it when the last book came out.  Part of it was that they were so good they seemed worth reading a second or third time - the other part of it was that I honestly could not remember everything that happened in books one through six (I had forgotten, for example, that Sirius Black had met his maker in book number five).

I've repeated this maddness with Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and the Twilight movies (though that was really more about wanting to see Taylor Lautners perfect pectorals again...they are so beautiful, sometimes my soul simply cannot handle it, and I am moved to tears).  So it seemed natural that I would do so with House of Cards.

And now I am asking myself why, God?  Why?

Look, the first season is really pretty good.  It was worth watching again.  We get to meet the Underwoods and see how fucked up they are, how Frank and Claire really only seem to care about power (and yet in an odd way about each other as well).  The Peter Russo story arch is fascinating and sad.

And what's more all the moves make sense.  It's implausible and improbable that it would have all actually worked, but you can see how B follows A and allows for C to happen.

But the second season?  Its kind of shitty.  I've heard it said in other places and I would have to agree that the Frank Underwood of Season Two is more a cartoon character than anything else, a Yosemite Sam bonking people on the head throughout the greater Washington DC Metro area.  And the moves just don't make sense.  Samarium?  Something about a bridge?  I get the cover-up aspects of the story, the whole thing with Lucas Goodwin, but what fuels the fight between Raymond Tusk and Vice President Underwood is something I have a hard time grasping.  It's almost like the viewer is supposed to accept that its there, and with every episode another layer, another implausible double or triple cross, gets added.  It's maddness.

So, all 20 of you (yes, I think my readership has probably jumped from 12 to 20.  I'm on my way!), allow me the liberty of catching up with the second half of season two on Wikipedia and then diving into the third season. I hope they at least decide to go all in on the cartoon aspect of the show or return to something more serious and realistic, rather than trying to bridge a gap between the two.  But with Frank Underwood at the reigns of our Happy Republic, I have little hope that anything good will come of it.