Alert!! The next article could contain SPOILERS. If you don't want to know anything about the fifth season of House of Cardsplease don't read on If you continue, it will be under your sole and exclusive responsibility.
It took me three days to devour the new, but not the last, season of one of the best series that has been made in recent times, House of Cards. The previous installment set the bar high, very high, will those responsible for it have been able to overcome it?
A fifth season that meets expectations
I'm not going to beat around the bush. The fourth season of House of Cards It turned out to be tremendous, with an ending so enigmatic and terrifying that it was hard to imagine where the shots would go. And sometimes when the bar gets so high, the expectations are such that you can't help but feel true. "Bittersweet taste" in the retinas. The fifth season of House of Cards It is, in my opinion, excessively detailed, with a rhythm that can sometimes slow the viewer. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that they have tried to stretch it somewhat artificially, if this is possible in a fictional product. Faced with this, some moments appear to us as coming out of nowhere, or perhaps we would not have liked to attend the process that leads to the election of Claire as interim president of the United States? One of lime, and another of sand. But even so, the megestuosity of most of the interpretations, a photograph that allows you to almost perceive the sensations of the moment, and a script elaborated with an enviable meticulousness, elevate House of Cards, for the fifth consecutive year, to the Olympus of the History of Television Series.
From conspiracy to treason: towards the "Underwood Nation"
Please, if you ignored the first notice at the beginning of this post, do it now: SPOILERS ALERT !!
During the first four episodes we witness the countdown to Presidential Election Day. Francis and Claire Underwood continue their strategy of print terror among the population as the best asset to ensure an electoral victory. And although the plans do not always follow the path projected by our Machiavellian protagonists, Francis leaves no room for us to harbor the slightest doubt about his intentions: "I will never give in".
Since the beginning of the season we see that the story is more real than ever, and although the terrorist organization is the imaginary ICO, the scenarios are taken from reality (Syria, Russia), Victor is more Putin than ever, Conway shows us his true face, and when you see Frank, you forget Kevin Spacey, You don't see the actor, you see the most credible Francis Underwood, a character you love and days in equal measure, who you would not want as president but who, nevertheless, you want him to go ahead with his plans.
Come Election Day, we will witness a throttle of Underwood machinery of deception: manipulate an entire electoral result, and it is that Francis is clear that it is much easier to manipulate interested politicians who can be seduced, subdued or blackmailed, than a huge mass of citizens.
"I have managed to reduce a national election to a single state," he will come to affirm in episode eight. But this was his true objective in the face of the obvious one of elections lost beforehand? Earlier, in episodes five and six, we witnessed a nine-week jump in time, a period in which the United States has a sitting president first, and an interim president later. Yes it is Claire Underwood and her ephemeral first step for power will be decisive. From that moment nothing will ever be the same again, not even in House of Cards, nor in the imaginary United States? that it represents, nor in the bosom of a marriage moved by the lust for power.
Claire Underwood will demonstrate, as if I had not done it before, what pasta is it made of, that he does not tremble when facing characters like Víctor (in my opinion, Putin's alter ego) and that, if necessary, he is also very capable of causing death and looking directly into her eyes.
Yes, the fifth season of House of Cards ends with a twist that is glimpsed at the beginning but that until its equator we cannot believe: the United States is already a nation prepared to have a first woman occupying the oval office, a woman who is already also a murderer and who has not hesitated in betray the partner of your life: "My turn." Hereinafter, House of Cards will be more feminine than ever.