The third season of House of Cards premieres on Netflix on February 27th, meaning you can watch the first two seasons — each of the 26 episodes — watching one episode per day just in time for the Season Three to drop on the streaming service. Join in with Joel Kim Booster, who will be watching each episode for the first time and recapping them every day.
Despite the fact that "Chapter 21" feels like House of Cards is moving things into place before heading into the final stretch of the finale, it still felt like the most thrilling entry the show show has pumped out since it pushed Zoe Barnes off that train platform. A lot of this has to do with the many of the disparate plot threads they've introduced this season beginning to orbit each other more closely, but as per usual the most engaging storytelling comes as we get to see yet another side of Frank Underwood.
Fans and critics of the show alike have consistently noted that Frank never seems to be in any real danger of failing throughout both seasons. Each time the show creates a relatively interesting prospective threat, it hits them with an idiot stick and they become easily dispatched (Bye, Lucas and Zoe!). It's Raymond Tusk who reverses this trend and begins to push Frank to the brink. While the mysterious businessman has certainly gotten a few shots in this season, I don't think we've ever seen Frank begin to crack quite like we see here.
After failing to persuade Daniel Lanigan to switch sides last episode, Frank instead turns to a rival group of Native Americans who are hoping to become a federally recognized tribe and subsequently open a casino that will presumably create a headache for Lanigan. This win feels like it will send an especially powerful message to Lanigan, who scoffed at Frank's assertion of power before.
The whole thing is a total wash, however, as Lanigan reveals poolside that he absorbed that same group into his own tribe, thus neutralizing the threat to his casino. Cue the steak, and cue a colossal tantrum from Frank, whose only recourse is to waste a perfectly good cut of steak and endanger the life of yet another dog.
As "fuck you" exits go, it's not bad. He gets high marks both in rudeness and nuttiness, but at the end of the day he leaves this meeting a loser. Which is why it becomes all that more important that the president sign off on the bridge proposal that Frank had promised Xander Feng last episode. The only obstacle in his way here becomes poor Linda Vasquez.
It's great that Sakina Jaffrey finally gets to earn her paycheck a bit here, but the flatness of her scenes with Frank and the ease at which she folds just doesn't line up with Frank's "she was in it to win it" comment at episode's end. Vasquez has always been a pretty pliable doormat for Frank, so it makes sense that her one minor act of defiance (canceling Frank's appointment with the President) would illicit such a strong response, though I have to admit his "do you wanna go?" theatrics seemed like a bit of overkill to me, even in the face of her "we were just fine before you came along" petulance.
The fact is Vasquez has never been a very interesting player on this show, and her pathetic hail mary "I quit" tactic with the President just goes to demonstrate that she wasn't ready to play varsity with Frank quite yet. Since she's largely been shuffling around in the background this season, I'm glad the show is finally giving her the door. Hopefully they'll find a more suitable replacement, perhaps someone who won't give Frank a gift days after he verbally abuses her and forces her out of a job.
Perhaps Jackie Sharp! The show has done an excellent job of building her up to be a powerful political force, but as they've shifted focus in these last episodes onto her budding relationship with Remy, she remains a big giant question mark. Molly Parker's performance here is pretty impenetrable, making it really hard for me to distinguish if she's trying to leverage her relationship with Remy in order to get some assistance with her losing campaign, or if he honestly just makes her this horny:
I mean Mahershala Ali is undeniably hot — universally, I'd even go so far to say — but it appears he gave her a spontaneous orgasm here, which seems like a bit of a disproportionate reaction.
It also looks like Sharp is continuing to stall on finding co-sponsors for Claire's sexual assault bill, but the show hasn't exactly shed any light on that either, so what she's up to is anyone's guess at this point. Perhaps it has something to do with her mysterious tattoo that they have only briefly (and visually) referenced since they introduced it way back at the start of the season.
Whatever her motives are, they are now seemingly in direct opposition to Claire, who someone honestly needs to sit down and discuss the best way to deal with a person who's in the midst of a panic attack.
That ain't it, Claire. That ain't it.
Despite shoving her up against a brick wall and close-talking, she's surprisingly unable to get Megan Hennessey to change her mind about testifying. She doesn't seem too concerned, as she seems much more interested in the Walkers' marriage, sending them to a pastor who she claims previously helped when Frank and Claire were having their own marital strife.
Honestly, guys, I have no fucking clue what is going on with this subplot. I'm assuming (hoping, praying) that this turns into something cogent, but who knows. While they've done a serviceable job at presenting the Walker's growing issues to us now, you still have to remember that as far as we know this was all started with one innocuous comment from Claire about Christina. Does the fissure in their marriage help the Underwoods? Other than giving President Walker something awkward to bring up to Frank, I can't see how.
I hope they do. And if they don't, I hope you're reading this now and you're upset that they didn't and thought you would forget. Which you did. Until now.
The only outlier here seems to be Rachel's little corner of House of Cards. On the run from a junkie roommate, Lisa heads to Rachel's and things go exactly the way everyone in America knew they would the moment these ladies had their meet cute on the bus:
Looks like Doug should have waited another day before sneaking into her apartment and sniffing those sheets.
Guess the show has decided that this is his thing now.
No clue how any of this will tie into the schemes going on in Washington, but with another reporter sticking her nose into things that don't concern her, I'm sure Rachel will become important to the matters at hand quite soon. The show took some time to remind us today that Frank's backchanneling with the Chinese is less than conduct becoming of the Vice President, and with Zoe-lite closing in on those connections, Raymond Tusk, Adam Galloway and the still missing Cashew could soon become the least of Frank's worries.
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Photos: Netflix
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