(Heavy Spoilers Ahead)

Season 5 of Netflix’s Emmy/Golden Globe winning drama House of Cards premiered last week and like all seasons of House of Cards this season was absolutely nuts. So many crazy moments and developments happened and for the most part they were all jaw dropping, but also most of them sort of came out of nowhere.

Kevin Spacey (who some of you may know from cinematic masterpieces like The Usual Suspects, Seven, and Nine Lives) is fantastic as always as the ruthless Francis Underwood, who at the start of season 5 finds himself battling for the Presidency against Governor Conway (played by Joel “Yo Linden” Kinnaman. Robin Wright is also fantastic as always as Claire Underwood, who early on in this season finds herself in the Vice President’s seat struggling to get Francis to stop Underwooding everywhere. Francis eventually wins the Presidency after staging some crazy election fraud stunts that leave the country without a president for months (If you don’t take into account Claire as acting President while in the VP seat). Throughout the season the Underwood’s dirt seems to catch up to them, and by the end of the season Francis resigns as President before anyone can crack down on him and Claire becomes President. Claire also addresses us as the audience for the first time declaring she’s “known about us all along” and that she doesn’t really care about us, another indication she may in fact me the stronger more devious Underwood(her devious side i something we truly get to see towards the end of the season…).

As I said before, there are tons of insane developments that happen this season. I really don’t even know how to get into it. Almost every character in the House of Cards universe seems to flounder in the wake of the Underwoods.

By the end of the season 5 Doug has set himself up to take the fall for Zoey Barnes’ death out of pure loyalty for Francis (and probably some guilt from killing Rachel). Francis concocts the scheme with Claire to set up Doug claiming “Doug is so unlucky”… Poor Doug, poor murderous Doug. I question whether or not his loyalty will hold out by the time season 6 comes around. We also get to see Doug, Francis, and even Claire spying on all kinds of people including each other using webcams, secret cams, phone cams, all kinds of cams. Doug taking the fall also coincides with Tom Hammerschmidt getting closer and closer to all the dirty truths behind the Underwoods rise to power.

Aidan Macallan (the NSA hacker with all the dirt who helped Francis steal the elections) ends up Snowden-ing all over the place and ultimately ends up dead, murdered and staged as a suicide. We also find out the truth behind the nature of his relationship with Leann Harvey played by Neve “Is it could if I hang out in your pool Matt Dillon” Campbell, who also goes on a roller coaster career ride getting dragged in and out of the White House until also dying via road rage murder. Another loose end cut off and somewhat out of nowhere (at least thats what it felt like for Neve Campbell’s case).

Francis goes to a weird ass Eyes Wide Shut party with no girls allowed (prior to his win and his ultimate resignation). Francis also pushes Secretary Durant played by Jayne Atkinson down the stairs inside the White House so she won’t testify against Francis and Claire and now Durant is in a coma or something, I don’t even know, quite frankly I thought it was random as fugg. I had to pause it and rewind it and watch it again and then paused it again to pace around my living room asking myself “What the fuck?”. It was random and insane and I can’t imagine this not catching up to Francis and it definitely came out of nowhere, but goddammit was is great. Shocking, devious, and evil, very Underwood.

Francis also has a fling with his personal trainer (the civil war actor guy from season 2 or 3) but this dude takes it way to seriously and starts to fall in love and of course Francis is like dude get out of here I’m Francis mother fucking Underwood I don’t have time for your nonsense. Then, in a very brief, very shocking moment, we see this dude (I’m pretty sure it was him, didn’t go back and check but I’m pretty sure) in a crowd of protestors in front of the White House leap over the White House fence and he gets shot on the White House lawn. Totally out of nowhere and totally shocking, like many things this season, and another “Underwood dirt” loose end tied off.

Claire struggles with her love for Tom Yates, falling for him and opening up to him before casting him out of her life and discovering he’s clearly got tons of Underwood dirt, then totally seducing him and killing the fuck out him with poison mid-bang, showing us the vicious lengths Claire will go to hold onto her power and the Presidency, something she’ll fight for just as deviously as Francis would. Although once again, another loose end tied off, not as random as the other deaths this season, but it was without a doubt seriously shocking.

The end of this season has setup the Underwoods with some serious challenges. Claire has some snakes in her inner circle in the form of Jane Davis played by Patricia “Tammy One” Clarkson, and Mark Usher, a man who now knows about Claire murdering Tom being that he cleaned it up and it was in his house and he now wants/demands to be at Claire’s side as the Vice President. While Francis, now outside of the White House finds himself on his own in the private sector. Will he prosper or will he perish? He is Francis Underwood so we know he’ll get to the top even if he has to claw is way there, and she is Claire Underwood so we know she’ll goes as far as she needs to in order to hold onto the power she has…

Season 6 is surely going to be insane. There’s really no telling where it will go. I could’t have ever guessed where Season 5 would go, anyone would have guessed that Francis would have won the Presidency but I don’t think anyone really foresaw this roller coaster of a season. Francis and Claire showed us once again in glorious fashion how evil and devious they can be in order to climb the ladder and hold onto their power. Sure some of it was random and insane, but that’s House of Cards chief…

House of Cards Season 5 gets… 4/5 Stars

I’m sure I forgot to mention tons of things for this season so let us know your favorite Season 5 moments and let us know what you think about the new season overall, and thanks for reading…

Photo Credit: Snagged from theatlantic.com

Nine Lives