Getting a show's last season right is a lot like performing brain surgery while juggling chainsaws. One faulty, erroneous miss-step and viewers will never ever forgive. Just ask the creators of "Seinfeld," “Dexter,” "The Sopranos," and “Lost.” Not exactly the biggest travesties in television history, but also not the water-cooler high-notes of say, "Friends," "M.A.S.H.," “Six Feet Under” or “Cheers.” "Breaking Bad," which ended with the highest comity of all, was brutal and fun to watch, remaining true to its pledge, turn and prestige until the day it died. With the #MeToo movement effectively knee-capping Netflix’s prospects of a reunion with Spacey however, the lauded one-hour drama “House of Cards” was suddenly thrown into disarray, and the only remedy for said logistical nightmare was to have Frank’s wife, Claire Underwood, finish what he and the show started years ago. It was suddenly Wright’s turn to carry the mantle and right the ship back to its former state — with an impassioned Season 6 that imagines a bizarro world where Hillary is President, Bill is either dead or incapacitated, and Donald Trump is just a bad dream we’re all still trying to wake up from.
Ask any “HOC” fan and they’ll tell you Claire was hands down the series’ best secret ringer — yet here she is more ruthless, more conniving and even more bloodthirsty than her late husband — which comes at a stiff price. The soul and legacy suffers in the midst of her cruel, unapologetic mendacity, and it feels as though the creators of the show decided to punch down rather than punch back. Which is not to say its use of feminism is uninspired or un-impactful, but there remains an uneasy compulsion in Claire’s political malfeasance that never explains itself or is argued in a thoughtful, coherent way. F.U.’s shadow looms large, but instead of countering his apparitions, the series leans into them harder than ever, without leaving any clear objective or motivator in its wake. If there’s one thing Claire taught us, it was that behind every great man was an even better, more thoughtful and capable woman, yet the perspicacity to which her gender is dispatched as a weapon rather than a tool for good does the show a disservice. It renders her Frank 2.0, without being liable for any of the misdeeds her monstrous husband may have incurred in (or out) of the oval office. In some ways, “Cards’” final season indicts the notion of having a woman in the White House, exploiting her gender to play geo-political brinksmanship as she battles unchecked, authoritarian influence.
Claire deserved better than to be Frank’s placeholder, and Wright certainly deserves her own show. But a just world is not the one we live in. Just look at this week’s midterms, where liberal Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams all lost bids for their respective political offices. Despite gerrymandering and widespread voter suppression, they came within razor thin margins yet still broke hearts across the nation. There was no Blue Wave to speak of, but a Blue Ripple — not a thundering crash of repudiation, but a quiet, wheezing gasp of final breath. Much like the final showdown between Doug and Claire, it was drawn out like a blade, slowly and interminably. And while the show managed to draw parallels between itself and real life in past seasons, nothing could have prepared it for the rollercoaster ride of the Trump years, which on its very worst days manages to make “HOC” look like “Schoolhouse Rock.” No show can truly navigate these troubled times; take “Curb Your Enthusiasm” for example, which was mocked for being tone-deaf in its long-awaited Season 9 return, looking considerably worse next to other HBO programming like “High Maintenance” which cleverly used the threat of Trump’s Presidency as one long, running joke of unnamed menace, something everyone fears yet also (miraculously) bonds over. “Broad City” ramped up the Obama years with aplomb, but suddenly Trump made everything a lot less funny, and the trajectory of the show was forced to change, before ultimately sputtering into its own demise. Everything Trump touches either turns to gold or shit, depending on your political preference, and he just might have ruined this for us too.
"HOUSE OF CARDS" Season 6 a.k.a. “Claire and Present Danger” on NETFLIX. Rated TV-MA.
