Review: House of Cards ‘Chapter 11’ – I’m Not Doing So Well

After a couple episodes of Frank facing some personal and professional challenges, he seizes an opportunity to turn the tides back in his favor in ‘Chapter 11’, adding  a new, disturbing wrinkle in his plan to take power in Washington. Unfortunately, Frank’s plan is presented so neatly (with numerous asides to the camera to remind us nothing surprises him) and is executed so cleanly it drains some of the dramatic tension from the episode, although the repercussions of his actions mostly won’t be felt until next season.

In my ‘Chapter 10’ review, I pointed out that continuous beat downs of Russo’s career and mental state wouldn’t be sustainable for the entire season – but he goes out with the mother of all beat downs, as the fallout of his drunken radio interview (orchestrated by Frank) took its toll on his political career and his family life. It’s fairly formulaic throughout, but Corey Stoll gives a damn fine performance in his final appearance as Peter, despite being in drunken stupor for the entirety of it. He tries to reach out to everyone around him, but everyone – even his own son – reject him, dismissing him as a failure and an embarrassment.

Of course, Frank is right there to pick up the pieces, having known this moment to be coming for months at this point. After Russo tries to get himself arrested so he doesn’t have to be out in the world anymore, Russo’s camp gets word and him and Doug go to pick him up. By this point in time, nobody’s heard from Peter in hours, and he conveniently threw his cell phone out the window in front of his ex-wife’s house. It’s just him and Frank, and after some ominous phrases from Frank (“just let it all go”), he leaves him in his garage with the car running, making it look like he committed suicide.

Was it a surprise? Not really – once Peter started spilling his guts and telling Frank he didn’t want his help, he was going to do it by himself, Kevin Spacey’s face pretty much gives it a way. Spacey’s performance as Underwood has very much been stage-influenced: he’s verbose, full of bravado, smirking and delivering the most obvious bits of exposition to the camera in the middle of important moments with grandoise faces – and it undermines a lot of the tension in the scene. About halfway through, we’re just waiting for Frank to do it already, and Peter’s last whimpers have a much smaller emotional impact.

Plus, his death wraps such a neat bow on everything he’s been trying to do this season, bringing back the issues from the first nine chapters. Of course Claire has to have an argument with Adam about Frank (and the fact they’ve never actually dated), that way she’s ready to go home when Russo dies. And of course his plan with the president goes through – he’s anticipated every single angle, and easily manipulates the president, vice president, and Linda (the chief of staff), without barely raising a finger (all while telling us “I have to gamble everything”, a desperate attempt to drum up dramatic tension for the moment). Initial hesitation by all three quickly bleeds away – even as Linda sniffs out Frank’s long-term plan, she doesn’t seem very concerned by it. Hell – even the watershed bill Frank just lost doesn’t seem to bother anybody, now that it’s served its purpose and destroyed Russo (seriously… not even mentioned).

And then there’s Zoe, who expresses hurt feelings by coming to Frank’s house, wearing Claire’s dress, saying she’d take it, and then taking it off and leaving when it was clear Frank wasn’t playing along. Even though Frank warned her, she still felt hurt, as she tells her new boy toy later… because she looked up to Frank? I suppose House of Cards is trying to play with some Freudian ideas here, but they certainly picked a weird (and extremely brief) scene to express them in, topped off by the reluctant sentimentality that plagues so many romantic films: new boyfriend (whose name I keep forgetting) tells Zoe that he’ll never hurt her, and she says something melodramatic along the lines of “you don’t know that.” Save  me the weepy romanticism – it doesn’t fit with her character, nor does it fit anyplace on this show.

Russo’s final scenes were terrific, but they were so heavy and ominous (checking off everyone in his personal circle, one by one) it kind of foreshadowed the ending. More so, Russo’s death seems to completely absolve Frank of any responsibility when it comes to A) ruining the guy, and B) failing to deliver on his last political promise, unless those repercussions come later. ‘Chapter 11’ is just business as usual for Frank, as effortless in executing his long con than he has been with his many short ones.

Grade: B-

Other thoughts/observations:

– the only person who knows that Russo’s death had something to do with Frank is Doug… he doesn’t look like he handles it to well, nor does Rebecca The Prostitute (her official name). The two of them could prove to be an issue later, if Doug doesn’t just show up and choke her to death in ‘Chapter 12’.

– Peter to Frank: “when has your helped ever help me?”

– Russo’s death just serves so many purposes for Frank: he gets the sympathy of the White House and his wife, and it puts a nice little lid on Russo’s possible concession statement. Plus now Matthews can run for governor no problem, now! Yay!

– Russo hugging a bottle of vodka was a super depressing moment.

– Claire knows Adam isn’t a man “I can love more than a week”. So…. what are you doing?

– the daughter’s phone conversation with Russo is the most melodramatic scene we’ve had on the show.