The woman he’s grooming to replace him served up an old chum’s head on a platter. Compunctions? No, but thanks for askingįrank’s protege, Jackie Sharp, had dirtier work to do. Rumours of Underwood’s impotence are overstated. He induced the feeble Oval Office incumbent (sorry Mr President, but that’s what you are) to get tough over Beijing’s stance on cyber attacks and thus threaten Tusk’s business interests in China. The cleverest scenes here had Frank subverting Tusk’s favoured line on the Chinese summit while seeming to do the opposite. Frank dislikes Tusk (even though Tusk was instrumental in his elevation to Veep) because he has what Frank wants, sway with Potus. But not on him.” Has any couple had such ruthlessly efficient pillow talk? Where Hume argued we are slaves of our passions, Claire Underwood suggests passions should be tools to help us achieve our ambitions.īut who’s Frank going to use that hate on? Why, on Raymond Tusk, the billionaire businessman reptile with the ear of the president. “You’ll still feel the hate in the morning. The alternative is unlivable.” That shift into third person, with Claire objectifying her suffering self to make that suffering manageable, demonstrated the mature Claire’s chilly pragmatism perfectly.Ĭlaire counseled Frank to master his murderous rage. “Every time I think of her pinned down like that, Francis, I strangle her so she doesn’t strangle me. But when Claire spoke about how McGuinness, now Commander of US strategic command, had raped her in her freshman year at Harvard, her language became compelling. Rape as potboiler device is one of the lowest narrative tricks in the book. By using the deep web – somehow! – Lucas may be able hack Underwood’s phone records and prove that the veep not just murdered Peter Russo, but also threw Lucas’s lover, hot-shot reporter Zoe Barnes, under a subway train in episode one.įrank’s powerlessness came to its height in this episode when, he was obliged to pin a medal on the man whom he’d just learned had raped his wife – rather than, as he would have preferred, adding Dalton McGuinness to his rising body count. As if to prove the point Lucas Goodwin, the hitherto clueless editor, consulted the Washington Herald’s in-house geek who told him that there is this thing called the deep web where – astoundingly – 96% of internet activity takes place. If there isn’t a chapter in The Prince entitled “How to plot evil with Secret Service jerks on your ass 24/7” there really ought to be.īut here’s the twist: in the 21st century there’s no privacy, no wall high enough to do the job. Frank couldn’t even be alone in his garden without being monitored there by some plod.

He risks becoming as impotent as the other Veep in American popular culture, Julia-Louis Dreyfus’s Selina Meyer.īeau Willimon’s script for this episode dealt with the real powerlessness that comes with seeming power. But it brings only bad news: the political commentators think Underwood is just “a place holder until 2016”, an appointee “without the wow factor”.

But he can’t because the security drones detailed to make Frank’s domicile an impregnable fortress befitting his new station have disabled his internet connection.Īnnoyingly, though, the TV still works in this vice-presidential Guantanamo. The newly confirmed vice president of the United States just wanted to chillax with every ruthless Machiavellian’s favourite Playstation game, God of War: Ascension. Poor Frank Underwood – he’s been symbolically castrated in his own home.

Vice president house of cards