How Absolute Power Can Delight Absolutely
'House of Cards' may well be the most joyless show on television.
Colors are so washed-out that the closest thing to brightness in all that gray, taupe and black is an orange Post-it note. There is no laughter, not even the forced bonhomie that real politicians trade in cloakrooms and on cable news talk shows. This Netflix series is more cynical than 'The Americans' on FX and more pessimistic about human nature than 'The Walking Dead' on AMC.
Yet it's hard not to feel giddy delight at the first sight of those emblematic clouds rolling across the landscape of the nation's capital and plunging the city into a Stygian gloom.
All of Season 2 of 'House of Cards' becomes available on Friday, Valentine's Day. It's a bitter chocolate bonbon for people who love to hate Washington.
It's not clear exactly why this gloomy show is so appealing and binge-worthy. It could be that just as victims of tragedy find it hard to accept that their suffering is random and purposeless, voters find it intolerable that so many of the petty, shortsighted moves by elected officials have no greater meaning than small-time expediency. After so many years of Washington gridlock, there is a fascination with leaders who could actually get things done, like Lyndon B. Johnson, who is the subject of a new Broadway play, ' All the Way,' starring Bryan Cranston.
By positing a Johnsonesque power broker and master schemer who wields cabalistic influence behind the scenes, 'House of Cards' assigns order and purpose to what, in real life, is too often just an endless, baffling tick-tack-toe stalemate.
Or maybe it's just a well-made Washington thriller.
After much maneuvering and malfeasance, Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey), a Democratic congressman from South Carolina, is about to be sworn in as vice president. He remains just as intent on consolidating his gains and squashing his enemies, especially the few who suspect a conspiracy. He is racing against time and karma: It is Underwood's precarious limbo between power and self-destruction that lends 'House of Cards' much of its suspense.
He is one heartbeat away from the presidency, but also just one step ahead of the truth.
Season 2 is as immersed in the battlegrounds of governing as 'The West Wing' was: entitlements, Chinese cyberespionage, anthrax scares, parliamentary procedure, government shutdowns. But that Aaron Sorkin series on NBC ennobled politics. 'House of Cards,' which was adapted from a 1990 British series of the same title, eviscerates it. And while the second season picks up where Season 1 left off (the tagline is 'The race for power continues'), this continuation is possibly even darker and more compelling than the first.
Underwood still turns from the action to address the audience in the style of Shakespeare's Richard III, but his cynical asides are not as clever as his underhanded actions. The conceit worked better in the British original, which was more arch and satirical and closer in spirit to ' Kind Hearts and Coronets.'
The American version takes itself more seriously: Its tone is a double bass, not a flute.
Underwood's cool, inscrutable wife, Claire ( Robin Wright), is still ruthlessly pursuing her own agenda as well as her husband's. She remains an enigma even as she reveals more and more disturbing secrets from her past. (Her perfectly organized closet is on the verge of self-parody - 50 shades of slate.)
There are some welcome newcomers, especially a congresswoman, Jacqueline Sharp (Molly Parker), who is an ambitious former soldier who becomes an Underwood protégée and, like everyone else in his poisoned orbit, soon discovers that Underwood expects his people to cast aside principle and pursue his grand plan.
There are few starry-eyed depictions of government anymore; cynicism is the currency of choice. And there are many variations on the theme.
' The Americans,' the show about Soviet moles in the Reagan era, is more complex and inventive than 'House of Cards,' and it begins a second season on Feb. 26. The next day, ' Scandal,' Shonda Rhimes's frothy, over-the-top West Wing telenovela, returns to ABC with new episodes, and it is a campy, escapist romp.
'House of Cards' is 'Scandal' for naysayers and misanthropes, and that's actually quite cheering.
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