So, House of Cards Season 5

[KnightShade]

That was really bad. Terrible frankly. I was enduring the boredom knowing everything usually kicks off at the end of the season, but even those rewards were completely nonsensical. This show used to be good, right?

[Doivid]

eh, first 2 seasons were p. fun. 3rd was kinda eh. Didn't bother with 4th. Watched 5th with 0 expectations and it had already passed the point of no return and become kind of self-parody, so I could enjoy it on those terms.

>It's the "Claire I planned this entire series of convoluted events that just so happened to oust me from the Presidency! Don't you see? It was all on purpose so I could do what I really wanted!!!!!" episode

[KnightShade]

eh, first 2 seasons were p. fun. 3rd was kinda eh. Didn't bother with 4th. Watched 5th with 0 expectations and it had already passed the point of no return and become kind of self-parody, so I could enjoy it on those terms.

>It's the "Claire I planned this entire series of convoluted events that just so happened to oust me from the Presidency! Don't you see? It was all on purpose so I could do what I really wanted!!!!!" episode

@Doivid

Agreed, I enjoyed the first 2 seasons. They're the only bits of the show I remember that well. That, and whenever Claire and Francis had troubles, but that was patched up pretty quickly. Season 4 was pretty bad but the ending was very compelling still.

I should probably spoiler some of this

Frank's 'plan' was the worst part in so many ways, especially because he had absolutely no reason to not tell Claire and if he should have known there was no way he could pardon him even if he had told her the truth. But it was also just the final nail in the coffin.

This season was trying so damn hard to get a cerebral feel, the lighting ends up constantly grey and events are the focus on ambiguity was annoying as fuck. They work so hard to make character motivations ambiguous that they can rarely be called character anymore. I could barely recall the names of a lot of the new characters. And then there's the reluctance to actually show anything happening, events are just talked about appropos of nothing. Frank even points this flaw out when he closes the laptop on Leanne's death. Did we even see what happened to Kathy Durrant after Frank pushed her? Is she dead or in a coma from a two foot fall? If not, why isn't she telling people what happened? How did Frank react to his lover's death too?

Tom Yates is probably the height of this pretentiousness. Who hires a novelist as a speech writer? What politician would give them that kind of access. We waste so much time rolling around with his self insert ennui. Oh yeah, and the random widow Doug has been fucking knows what he did. Really? But she still slept with him out of hate? I get that hate sex is a thing, but sleeping with your husband's killer? It sounds meaningful but actually makes no sense.

They've ruined most of the good characters too. Doug Stamper's loyalty has been taken beyond breaking point, so that it's actually cartoonish. Tom Hammerschmidt has turned kind of dumb too. Claire becomes distant from Francis for no particular reason other than to recycle a storyline we've already been through.

Ugh, I'm so done with this show.

[SleepingSilence]

@KnightShade I enjoyed season 1, really liked the opener of season 2. Next couple episodes were really boring. Looked up what others thought, got spoiled to what happened, sounded not that fun. So stopped watching and hearing how it got worse, only makes me glad I stopped when I did.

[KnightShade]

@SleepingSilence I think I expected better things of this season because, you know, Donald Trump is the President now. That opens the field of possibilities right up. Combined with an audacious end to the last season this series had a lot of potential. They really could have taken far far better advantage of that.