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This Valentine’s Day not only saw romance and disgusting amounts of chocolate, it also saw the triumphant return of hit Netflix series House of Cards.
Fans’ anticipation has been running high, after the end of the first season saw Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) reach his goal – the vice presidency – but with more than a few loose ends for him and his team to cut off.
The first episode wastes no time getting us back into the political race. Frank introduces a new pawn in his game, Jackie Sharp, an interesting, photogenic and ambitious congresswoman wonderfully played by Dexter actress Molly Parker.
Still, through the first 30 minutes what we really want to know is whether or not journalist Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) will be able to connect Frank Underwood to the death of Peter Russo.
After 30 minutes, we discover she won’t be doing much ever again. One of House of Cards most shocking moments so far, sees cold-blooded Frank push her in front of a train – and that’s that.
While it is a great plot device to kill of one of the most beloved characters with such malice, we hope that there won’t be too many more of these “necessary” deaths.
The VP is leaving a trail of bodies behind him and it is starting to seem more like a lazy way of getting rid of worn out subplots than anything else.
Hopefully the rest of the season will see him using other means than murder, which could quickly get old.
We are left with a fumbling journalist who swears revenge on Frank, but it soon becomes apparent that this plot is not meant to last.
But what does become painfully obvious is that Frank and Claire Underwood are set on winning the presidency – and want it right now. This will seemingly be the over arching plot for the rest of the season.
The second season also introduces a range of new and interesting characters, mostly male.
While it would be naïve to hope that a TV-show depicting the political machinations of the White House would feature scores of women, we do get introduced to a couple.
House of Cards Season 2, despite a few bumps in the road here and there, does not fail on Netflix’s goal to be quite, well, awesome.
The plots are interesting, the camera work and editing as beautiful as ever, and comes with such a strong cast it is hard to resist the urge to applaud at your screen.
Netflix have put a lot of thought into devising a clever releasing schedule (or rather, lack thereof) which means that viewers will attempt to spend every spare moment getting further through the season.
The acclaim on social media proves just this, as it has been the talk of the town all weekend, getting comments from people like Shonda Rhimes (award winning creator of shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal) who said: “I have so many things I am supposed to be doing but I just can’t stop watching @HouseofCards.”
Shonda, you speak for all of us.