“I’ll tell you this Francis,
when they bury me it won’t
be in my own backyard.”
Payback can sure be a b*tch. Or a Claire Underwood.
When we last saw Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) as the end of Season five on the Netflix series, House of Cards, the Vice-President had taken over the presidency of the United States while husband and ex-president Francis (Kevin Spacey) toiled away in a country house. You see, Frank decided to resign so he could could avoid going down for the murder of Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara). His new devious plan was to control the White House from outside.
Was is the operative word here.
After breaking the fourth wall in the S5 finale by turning to viewers and stating,”My turn,” Claire and the producers left us with many questions – How will Francis regain power? Is LeAnn (Neve Campbell) dead? What other nefarious sh*t is Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) up to?
Yes, all good questions. And we now know one answer for sure.
Francis ain’t regaining power. Francis won’t have a teary-eyed reunion with Claire. Francis won’t even be able to enjoy a cigarette on the couple’s balcony again.
Francis is dead. Dead as they come. And if there is any question about it, watch the :25-second teaser below:
We don’t need to rehash the Kevin Spacey debacle. It is well-documented by now. And I had a suspicion that this was the way (really the only way) for Netflix to handle Spacey’s firing from the series.
What I do question more is if Claire without Francis will work. At the center of all the deception on Pennsylvania Avenue is Francis and Claire’s marriage. They can screw everyone they want, but they never screwed each other. Yes, she left him at the end of S3, but she returned in S4 for her own trajectory.
HOC was also on the verge of cancellation, even when Spacey was still a part of the series. After five seasons, contracts were up and the show was expensive to produce. Eight sexual harassment suits against Netflix later didn’t help either. So, it is somewhat of a miracle that Wright and showrunners Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson were able to convince Netflix to bring it back.
I do have hope for Claire succeeding Francis. The way Wright plays her is as a complex, diabolical and possibly more manipulative than Francis ever was.
“Your turn, Claire.”
Contact Colin Costello at colin@reelchicago.com or follow him on Twitter @colincostello10.
