House of Cards

I think you're crazy if you think Claire would side with anyone else over Frank, or that she gives a fuck about Russo's suicide.

So I just started to watch season 2 and one thing stood out so bad, that I decided to risk seeing spoilers in here to post about it. Maximum Over-rustle! When the cop shows newspaper boy the video of the red head "tripping / jumping" that same camera, based on the angel, would have shown her leaning against the fence talking to someone and then, in a hurry, running around the fence.

Now I can suspend my disbelief that Lex Luthur could have timed the push perfectly with the on coming train but having the cops not see the obvious is a little shitty.

It certainly should have made them suspicious but she could have just been taking to herself working herself up to jumping. The bigger flag is how the hell did Frank avoid all other cameras.

Selix_sl said:

It certainly should have made them suspicious but she could have just been taking to herself working herself up to jumping. The bigger flag is how the hell did Frank avoid all other cameras.

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I wondered about cameras as well, but accepted that he did not walk back towards the camera that caught the act, and there were no other cameras in the other direction as it seemed to be the end of a platform. Having never been to DC, I have no idea if that's how it works, but assumed Frank put a tiny bit of thought into it and it wasn't just a heat-of-the-moment shove.

I assumed a few things. Frank went there planning that he would probably have to murder her... he may have set the meeting specifically to murder her. The disguise, the construction zone. It didn't strain my disbelief that he did a little bit of homework and found an area with minimal camera coverage (the construction). With the footage I assumed that the cops weren't looking for a murder case that had 0 leads when they could rule it a very simple suicide and only 1 dude in the ENTIRE WORLD, who was starting to go nutters, was going to claim that it wasn't. Think The Wire. Jimmy. Our job is to make names on the board go black. You have put up 2 dozen red names on my board. You, sir, are an ass fuck and you'll be riding the boat for the rest of your life.

If you watch the surveillance footage, she was not visible until she flew out in front of the train. He goes through it frame by frame with the reporter. There was nothing in the video to point to anything other than "she fell in front of a train". The fence was set up in such a way that there was an area behind it not visible. I assumed he had Doug set up the meeting place or something, it is hardly reasonable to think the VP is out casing DC Metro stops for camera blind spots.

I went through the two seasons in three days so it's fair to say that I definitely like the show but it bothers me that not a single person up until now has thought to just record a goddamn conversation yet. The show did a great job early on of being all tech savvy and current but no one has tried to cover their own ass with a recording? Fifteen year old street toughs are smart enough these to use their phones to record shit in their dealings with the police but these educated journalists never once tried to protect themselves. Hey, I'm about to go talk to Frank and I'm pretty fucking scared. Let me first record a video explaining how we've been having an affair, that he's got nudies of me that he took, why I think he's responsible for the death of that idiot drunk, why I'm scared, our evidence thus far, and a copy of all of the texts I've sent and received. If I turn up dead at the train station or disappear he did something.

I understand that you can't write the kind of dialogue this show has if everyone is walking around with a tape recorder because it would instantly derail the plot. You can't have "and I'm prepared to let your baby wither and die inside you" get recorded. You can't have "the only thing you're getting today is my cum on your face" recorded. I get that. But someone should have tried something over the course of these two seasons. The hooker girl should have tried to record something. Anything.

Only other complaint is that I'm less interested in the season two subplots than season one so the season was weaker for me overall. And Frank talked to the camera less. I like when the show feels like it's you and he.

And Frank talked to the camera less. I like when the show feels like it's you and he.

Felt the same.

Yeah I felt the same as well. On both the season 2 plot being less interesting and the talking to the camera less. I read a review that tried to said the breaking the 4th wall thing was not effective and did not create a bond with Frank. I really disagree with that.

Hopefully the season 3 sideplots will be more engaging. I don't know what it is but everything with Major Dad and the Chinese guy was ok, but not fully engaging.

Those asides are what made the show something different. It made it stand apart. S2 did suffer for the lack. Working those in probably forces the writing to be a little bit tighter, because they can SO easily go wrong and turn into something to complain about.

He was major dad, wasn't he? I hadn't put those two together. Here I was thinking that Deadwood plucked him straight out of some theater full formed.

Those asides are what made the show something different. It made it stand apart. S2 did suffer for the lack. Working those in probably forces the writing to be a little bit tighter, because they can SO easily go wrong and turn into something to complain about.

He was major dad, wasn't he? I hadn't put those two together. Here I was thinking that Deadwood plucked him straight out of some theater full formed.

chaos_sl said:

I read a review that tried to said the breaking the 4th wall thing was not effective and did not create a bond with Frank.

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That review sounds like it was written by a crazy person. The whole thing that hooked me was the strength of the first two episodes and the loads of 4th wall breaking conversations. If those early episodes were like many of the S2 episodes I never would have cared to keep watching.

Arbitrary_sl said:

I went through the two seasons in three days so it's fair to say that I definitely like the show but it bothers me that not a single person up until now has thought to just record a goddamn conversation yet. The show did a great job early on of being all tech savvy and current but no one has tried to cover their own ass with a recording? Fifteen year old street toughs are smart enough these to use their phones to record shit in their dealings with the police but these educated journalists never once tried to protect themselves. Hey, I'm about to go talk to Frank and I'm pretty fucking scared. Let me first record a video explaining how we've been having an affair, that he's got nudies of me that he took, why I think he's responsible for the death of that idiot drunk, why I'm scared, our evidence thus far, and a copy of all of the texts I've sent and received. If I turn up dead at the train station or disappear he did something.

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Between their affair and believing a journalist on his side would be important to him, she probably didn't think Frank would ever kill her. As far as getting away with it, they really should have addressed it. It would be easy enough to say something about knowing where the cameras are or that the meeting place wasn't random, etc.

There's also something to be said about starting that kind of investigation. Without some very serious evidence or sound reasoning you don't dare start an investigation like that.It's a total one shot career ending possibly lawsuit starting move.

No one who has survived in law that long would tackle the vp on a murder charge case unless the evidence was clear.You wouldn't even hint that you were considering thinking about pursuing something like that in the power mad world that is Washington politics.

What will be interesting is to see how they make it interesting. Meta.

They may fail. S2, while I maintain the flaws are reasonable and didn't detract from my enjoyment of the show, is inarguably of a different quality than S1 was. I'm not gonna knife a person who says the quality was less. I can see it -- something abstract that isn't quite tone and isn't quite pacing shifted... and it shifted noticably.

The writers may not be able to pull of a Frank Wins story. The actors will. But S1 was the entire package, masterful acting and masterful writing. S2 the actors carried it.

It would be nice if in S3 the writing carried it... but I don't see how that's going to be possible given the troupe they've assembled. There's a real danger that the writing is going to become too stylized for the actors to be able to carry past the absurdities. This is not NCIS -- where I expect Mark Harmon to be everything that is fatherly and good, and I expect McGeek to be the butt of every joke, and I expect Tony to have hidden depths, and I expect that Argentinian woman to deliver every line she's given so poorly that I am constantly amazed there is anyone in the world pretty enough to be able to land a job like that, and I don't care too much about the writing. I have higher expectations for HoC.