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.
Well shit.
It seems we've moved on from sneak-attack cancer handjobs and straight into The Ballad of Doug Stamper, and I'm just not sure how I feel about it.
Stamper, only mentioned once previously in any of these reviews (and even then not by name), takes center stage as he tries to help out the same prostitute we last saw by putting a wad of paper money in her mouth. Kudos to the show for pivoting away from the extortion plot that I assumed this would turn into, but points deducted for having it blossom into a different kind of cliche altogether.
Michael Kelly's work as Stamper has been consistent this season, if a bit unremarkable, but he does a lot here to add some much needed definition to his character. His monologue in the AA meeting was really wonderfully rendered without betraying the sort of brusqueness that we've seen from Stamper all season. The show benefits from Stamper's relative blank slate here, though I'm not sure we do.
Whose idea was it to have this woman say her name was "Sapphire"? Because they, along with whoever put the line "No, what's your [real] name?" in Doug Stamper's mouth should get out more. Watch some more television. Go see a movie. Because my god, what a groan-inducing moment.
Show of hands if you were waiting for her to button that scene with a timid, but defiant, "Why are you being so nice to me?"
I should say my frustration with these scenes (that piece of dialogue aside) comes only from looking at this show in a larger context and its position as a weird parenthetical to the proceedings I assume we all care about. Taken on its own, I thought it was sort of sweet, in an indie-darling, Sundance-2006, Oscar-bait sort of way. As someone who watched Garden State every night for an entire semester of drama school, I can confidently say that I would watch the hell out of that movie. But not when it interrupts the story of a closeted congressman and his weaponized handjob of a wife that I'm already watching.
Whether or not Stamper's relationship with Rachel gets fleshed out further, it's clear she'll have more to do later on in the season now that she'll be living with Nancy, who I'm a little surprised they're using this way. When Stamper named dropped "Nancy" on his phone call with Frank, I truly believed "Nancy" was code for a hitman, or maybe the name of a Pitbull he uses to scare people. Nope! Turns out it's just Frank's admin who has an empty bedroom.
Crazy twist.
To be honest it feels a little disorienting that they would hand a huge chunk of an episode to two characters who up until now have been Girl Who Put Wad Of Cash In Her Mouth, and Man Who Put It There. No one was clamoring for more time with Doug Stamper. Not when all you give Robin Wright to do is learn origami off-camera. I'd rather watch Claire read an entire book about origami than watch Doug run around Washington trying to find a place for Rachel to sleep, which is essentially all this plot amounted to.
Another new character we meet here is the previously unseen Vice President Jim Matthews. Not given too much to do here other than stamp around petulantly and sneak into the Oval Office, it seems VP Matthews is the only person in America who doesn't know that "Vice President" is a total chump gig. His little trip behind the President's desk is obviously meant to imply that he has his sights on bigger things for himself, but as the President himself has been such a non-entity so far, I'm not really sure if this is good or bad for Frank.
Listen up, nerds: I understand, I truly do, that this is a serialized piece of fiction and not every puzzle piece is going to fit together immediately, but seven episodes into a 13-episode season, it still appears as though their writing strategy is to throw a bunch of hats up in the hair and hope that a few land on their head. I have no doubt that they'll tie much of this together, and I'll pull out all of my hair piece by piece while I scream about what a fucking brilliant masterwork this show is, but I have my doubts on whether or not they're going to stick the landing on all of these threads.
Either way, give us something consistently engaging to watch from episode to episode. More handjobs and less origami!
Seriously though, poor Claire. At least we devote some time to talk about her menopause again here.
The other large chunk of the episode is spent focusing on Frank and his team prepping Corey Stoll for his upcoming run for Governor. Really the only thing the show can expect us to be truly invested in at this point, it nevertheless felt like they were treading water a bit here. Of course Peter was going to run, regardless of his past. And while his scenes with the creepiest research guy in the history of politics were fun, I'm not sure we really learned anything new about Corey Stoll other than that he's big on sexual tourism (ick) and that he's never hooked up with a dude, a fact I was personally devastated by.
As a twist of that particular knife, we see the inevitable return of Peter's 50 Shades girlfriend. This move comes courtesy of Frank, of course, who gives her the nudge she needs to give Peter the nudge he needs to dive into the Governor's race so he can nudge whoever he needs to nudge so Frank can destroy the president or whatever else this show is about.
(Note: It was brought to my attention a few days ago that this is not the actress from the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey movie, a mistake I made because I refuse to Google anything regarding this show. I would stop calling her that, but alas, I've made my bed here and now I have to lay in it. "50 Shades" she shall remain.)
Rabid jealousy aside, I like this relationship. With all the scheming and moving pieces this show has put on the table, it's nice to sit back and watch them tell a relatively conventional relationship drama. Though something about how well things are going for Peter is making alarms go off in my tiny little brain. Is this the twist, guys? Is something going to happen to my precious little baby Corey Stoll? Don't you dare.
As Frank meddles in Peter's relationship, things take a particularly gross turn in his relationship with Zoe.
Pro-tip: Please never tell your lover to call her dad on Father's Day if you're old enough to be the guy on the other end of the phone. Seriously, the whole final scene here is a laundry list of things I never really want to see on my television ever again. It's especially tiring because these moments undo a lot of the definition I liked from yesterday's episode. Remember when Frank was ignoring Zoe's calls? Why is he now getting uneasy when he sees her smooch a former coworker outside of her apartment? Take your own advice Frank: insecurities bore me.
Truth be told, I might prefer it if Frank kept his mouth in Zoe's crotch when they share the screen together, because somewhere along the way both of these very fine actors decided that their scenes should feel like a community theatre production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Cunnilingus and vague visual metaphors aside (that spider!), they seem to be alerting us that the Presidential pen Frank gives Zoe at the start of the episode is very important. Either that or they thought we needed approximately twenty five close-ups of a pen because we had all collectively forgotten what a pen looks like.
Overall, much of this episode felt off to me. I like that they experiment with form from episode to episode, trying on different narrative styles, but it's starting to feel a little messy. Frank's direct address moments feel like almost an afterthought here, with only two real moments of one-on-one Frank time. To be honest, if it gives the show more space to work with a few other characters, I'd be happy if they grew out of this conceit altogether. Of course, knowing my luck, we'd get an entire episode devoted to the Vice President sneaking into various rooms in the office and trying out everyone's chairs, with various shots of Claire cutting out paper snowflakes.
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Photos: Everett Collection
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