Chapter 13
- Episode aired Feb 1, 2013
- TV-MA
- 51m
Frank scrambles to keep his plan on track. Gillian is planning to sue Claire. Zoe, Janine, and Lucas investigate Rachel Posner and her relationship with Peter Russo.Frank scrambles to keep his plan on track. Gillian is planning to sue Claire. Zoe, Janine, and Lucas investigate Rachel Posner and her relationship with Peter Russo.Frank scrambles to keep his plan on track. Gillian is planning to sue Claire. Zoe, Janine, and Lucas investigate Rachel Posner and her relationship with Peter Russo.
Storyline
Did you know
- GoofsWhen Zoe receives a message from Francis (19m41s into the episode), she holds up her iPhone and the screen image rotates from landscape to portrait, which shows that she does not receive an actual message, but is just looking at a screen shot of a message - the lock screen on an iPhone does not rotate.
- Quotes
Francis Underwood: Every time I've spoken to you, you've never spoken back, although given our mutual disdain, I can't blame you for the silent treatment. Perhaps I'm speaking to the wrong audience. Can you hear me? Are you even capable of language, or do you only understand depravity? Peter, is that you? Stop hiding in my thoughts and come out. Have the courage in death that you never had in life. Come out, look me in the eye and say what you need to say. There is no solace above or below. Only us - small, solitary, striving, battling one another. I pray to myself, for myself.
It continues this way through the first season, with plenty of turns in the narrative to engage and entertain. It is also expensively and professionally made, looking good across the board, with a sense of weighty quality about it – although perhaps too much. This sense of weight and importance doesn't help the show because it is never as thrilling as it should be, nor as taut as the games Underwood plays suggest it would be either. The show has an accessible feel to it and it wears its high-brow clothes, but in essence it is a weekly procedural, albeit one with political games rather than police investigations. The pace is surprisingly slow throughout as well; this is concealed somewhat by the sense of depth and quality, but it is concealed rather than compensated for.
As it is the show is carried along by such slickness and it benefits from it because the material is not always as compelling as it would have you believe – engaging for sure, but despite what some might say, it is possible to stop watching even when you have all the episodes at the touch of a button. The cast are part of the reason it compels and in particular Spacey very much enjoys his role and draws the viewer in well. Around him is a solid cast and mostly good characters in the shape of Wright, Kelly, Mara and others, but there are also weaker characters who perhaps should not be that way (the President for one seems the least political savvy one in the whole place).
House of Cards is a quality show; you can feel that yourself given how professionally it is made and how deep into all the corners the quality goes. That doesn't mean it is perfect though and, although engaging, I was surprised by how passive a lot of it was, with a slow pace and often lacking a real sense of tension, high stakes or danger. However, although it is not as good as it thinks it is, it is still engaging and entertaining.
- bob the moo
- Aug 10, 2014
Details
- Runtime51 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.00 : 1