EPISODE 405: “Chapter 44”
It’s becoming eminently clear that the 4th season of House of Cards is a season in which the quality of episodes can go up and down at complete random. It’s a tradition of this series for seasons to begin slow, then grow in intensity as things go on, making each episode more and more gripping. After this season’s sloppy, mismatched, and yet extremely stale 2nd episode, and the crazy, but excellent “Chapter 43” that preceded this one, it looks like anything goes, as “Chapter 44” falls somewhere in the middle.
I’m not old enough enough to remember a time when a U.S. President was incapacitated, but I imagine it would be something pretty close to what goes on in this episode. It’s interesting to see both the positive and negative effects that a President in a coma has on the campaign/election, the foreign affairs mess, Frank’s personal relationship, and most of all, the inner workings of the White House — with Donald Blythe sitting in for Frank to figure out the oil crisis with Petrov, Stamper, and Cathy Durant (and Claire, in secret, of course), Conway (Joel Kinnaman) rising through Dunbar’s dust in the election, and Frank’s staff scrambling to keep things in order in Washington, this episode sees a total, sudden shift in the direction the story takes in the wake of an unforeseen disaster. The multi-layered power structure that’s held this show up for so long is beginning to tumble, and it’s (partially) gripping to see the dominos finally start to fall.
One thing that drags the episode down unfortunately is the lack of details given to the oil crisis situation. The existence of a conflict is established, and a solution is found, but it’s never clarified what exactly the problem was. When Petrov returned the series earlier this season, it already seemed like his involvement was beginning to grow stale, and if there’s any confirmation of that, it’s this story arch, and the messy, lazily tied bow that’s been put on top of it. So there’s an oil crisis involving the US, Russia, and some middle eastern nations that’s causing American gas prices to skyrocket – seems like a realistic dilemma. In another character return viewers likely didn’t expect, Remy Danton (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali) seeks out nuclear power specialist Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney) to propose a partnership between Chinese and American energy companies. On the surface, this sounds like a tangible solution, but the audience is never given enough details to know exactly what pieces should go where, and while our characters are debating whether or not this proposal in agreeable as a solution to problem, we’re left scratching our heads trying to what on Earth they’re trying to solve. How does this agreement with an uninvolved nation lower gas prices and give Russia more resources? Normally, in fictional storytelling, too much exposition can cheapen and devalue a narrative — in this case, it probably would have helped.
The sour icing on the cake of this episode is Frank’s coma. In a formula taken right out of the 6th season of The Sopranos, Frank begins having very hallucinatory, almost Lynchian nightmares in his newly incapacitated state. These sequences are stylishly filmed, and pretty cool to look at, but they add nothing to the story of the episode, other than giving Kevin Spacey, who has not a single line of dialouge, something else to get paid for besides laying there.
Meh.
OVERALL RATING: 6/10
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