House of Cards - Season 6 (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Creator: Beau Willimon
	Actors: Robin Wright (The Congress), Michael Kelly, Diane Lane
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: February 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The start of this new presidency is not easy, and it is ever so difficult to know the motivations behind the country's first woman.
Review: I concluded my review of the season 5 with the sentence "I fear the series will have to find a totally new angle to keep being attractive in the future". It turned out that events forced the series to an angle. Indeed the multiple scandals around Kevin Spacey's sexual harassments ejected him from the cast while he was obviously the central member of it together with Robin Wright. We may be thankful that a last (short) season was nonetheless produced, in order to try and bring the series to some sort of closure, this is appreciable. But given the conditions in which it was done, major rewriting in a short amount of time, one can wonder whether it has any interest at all. It IS nice to see a story come to an end, but that end is bittersweet. Maybe something like that was intended all along. I would love to know what were the original plans for concluding the series. You can notice the will to make several storylines converge (the reporters, the president, her entourage, Doug) but it feels a bit rushed (it probably was), short on ideas and cast (the sets do feel empty). The President's motives are often fuzzy, even when you see the ending. Oh Robin Wright still depicts very well the cold Claire, but she does seem lost without her husband to rely on or fight against. The magic of the show really was in this pair. An nice original addition to the season, which we haven't seen in the previous ones, is the influence of rich powerful families on politics. I guess that was a plan all along for that season. Really too bad this successful show had to end that way.
Rating: 3 /10

House of Cards - Season 5 (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Creator: Beau Willimon
	Actors: Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty), Robin Wright (The Congress), Michael Kelly, Joel Kinnaman (Robocop)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: June 2017, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The Underwood couple (Spacey, Wright) make use of every possible trick to stay in power.
Review: I have unfortunately the feeling that with this fifth season the series finally slows down, and I am starting to loose interest. Oh it is still very tense in the line of the previous seasons, but may be suffering from a the lack of the novelty that I praised in season 4. It takes until Ep 9 - Chapter 61 to resolve the cliffhanger from the previous season and this is almost too much time to convey the message that Frank's opponent (Kinnaman) is not enough experienced nor determined. During that time I also had enough of the romance with Tom Yates, and the press scandal orchestrated by the character of the journalist Hammerschmidt which seems to lead nowhere. I could see attempts at re-using elements that were popular in the previous seasons (Frank's ancestor, a retreat in the forest...) but I didn't find many new things to like, apart from the two characters of Mark Usher the campaign manager and Jane Davis who befriends Claire, as they seem both very clever and hide their secret agenda. The manipulation of people is much less clear as in the previous seasons, and I would say sometimes even confused (at least to me) so that I miss simpler times when Frank was calling in favors and making threats. Also not much seem to happen in this season in terms of decisions for the country or world politics, apart from a shy conflict with the ever-likeable Russian president Petrov. The episode 12 - Chapter 64 does offer some surprises and the last one Chapter 65 spends more time reflecting on everybody's situation, leaving the presidency in a new state, but I fear the series will have to find a totally new angle to keep being attractive in the future.
Rating: 6 /10

House of Cards - Season 4 (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Creator: Beau Willimon
	Actors: Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty), Michel Gill, Robin Wright (The Congress), Michael Kelly
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: November 2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Frank Underwood (Spacey) is fighting on all fronts in his presidential campaign, against external and internal enemies.
Review: I am amazed how this series keeps on re-inventing itself season after season, making them very different from one another thanks to new challenges for the character of Frank Underwood and the others. I was thinking that character evolution was also a key to this attractive (and addictive) series, but after some thought I realized that almost only the character of Claire (Wright) is rapidly changing in fact. From the others you know more or less what to expect even though their reactions are continuously pushed to the extreme. After the cliffhanger at the end of the third season, I loved the way the Underwood couple is rebuilding itself (I was expecting something very different) until the turning point (more like the top of the hill) at the key Episode 4: Chapter 43. Many characters from the previous seasons make a come-back either in dreams, flashbacks or truly come-backs, which is a nice touch for those who follow the series assiduously and loved such and such character. We are also finally introduced to the Republican opponent of Frank, a surprisingly young man, married with two children, loved by many, and played by Joel Kinnaman seen recently seen in the Robocop remake. The conclusion of the season is fully satisfying although it seemed scary and unrealistic when I saw it, but since then the true story of the White House future has appeared to be no less scary.
Rating: 8 /10

House of Cards - Season 3 (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Creator: Beau Willimon
	Actors: Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty), Michel Gill, Robin Wright (The Congress), Michael Kelly
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: September 2016, VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: The Underwood couple (Spacey and Wright) have reached their target in the political landscape, but have to face new challenges that you would think they would have been ready for.
Review: The series is progressing faster than I had anticipated when watching the first season thanks to a never-sleeping Frank Underwood (Spacey) dead-centered on reaching his goals by any means necessary, and after a decisive second season one would think that so much change in the series (and the objectives of the presidential couple) would make it less appealing. The tone is in fact different and the crowd of characters in the landscape changes (from congressmen to presidents now). I found some excellent episodes at the very beginning of the season: Ep3: Chapter 29 staging a meeting with the Russian president and the real Pussy Riot band, Ep4: Chapter 30 has a strong religious message, and Ep6: Chapter 32 shows the return visit to Russia this time. I also found very tense the Ep9-10: Chapter 35-36 that put Frank in war times. I liked less the debates in the last 3 episodes that contributed to my disappointment towards the season ending. But to be fair this season is still pretty good, even if I don't like too much where it is going. Each episode is still very dense and sometimes even hard to follow for a non-American like me not familiar with the local political landscape and its jargon (what the hell is a causus??). Something I noticed since the first season is that it is a TV-series primarily aimed at an adults audience: it does not contain a single teenager love story although it would have been easily done by introducing the children of any of the politicians, but apparently if a younger audience watches the series it will be for its more mature message.
Rating: 7 /10

House of Cards - Season 2 (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Creator: Beau Willimon
	Actors:  Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty), Michel Gill, Robin Wright (The Congress), Michael Kelly
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: September 2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The Underwood couple (Spacey & Wright) keep on progressing towards their goal in the political landscape of the White House.
Review: The progression compared to the first season is obvious and the upscaling of the stakes makes that for once I found this second season as good as the first one, something rare with TV-series. We always enjoy watching Frank Underwood setting up his friends and adversaries alike, and now bringing those twisted schemes to the White House which seemed to work well before he got there. The destruction he manages to bring to even the most innocent people is the most interesting aspect of this second season. Also it is interesting to see how he applies his skills to foreign policy. This whole season is the theater to a conflict with an adversary worthy of him in the person of billionaire Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney). As I was hoping in my review of the first season, we get to know more about the character of his right-arm Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), although I found the whole Rachel story to drag for to long. As in the first season, one welcome episode takes us out of Washington for an opportunity to see Frank reflecting on his past (Ep5: Chapter 18) during the re-enactment of a Civil War battle. And of course on top of all that it is very interesting to see his wife (still wonderful Robin Wright) stand beside him at all times, although we get hints of dissension between the two.
Rating: 8 /10

House of Cards - Season 1 (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Creator: Beau Willimon
	Actors:  Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty), Michel Gill, Robin Wright (The Congress)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: August 2016, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Francis Underwood (Spacey) has backed the right man in the race for presidency of the USA. When he is refused the position of Secretary of State he was coveting, he has to revise his plans.
Review: I had heard a lot of good things about this series, tried to start it once, was not in the mood, but this time started again and devoured the first season in ten days, rather quickly but not so quickly as to be saturated by it. The TV-series is about power, power within the American government. It is shocking how much time of the congressmen and other politicians is used to gain or retain power, rather than doing the best for the people that elected them. Fortunately the series is only a widely exaggerated view of the truth (is it?). It seems to be based if not on true events at least in the true range of possibilities offered to politicians in the USA. For example I found shocking that big companies openly finance the parties in return for favors, even though of course those favors are never agreed upon directly but through mutual relations. Kevin Spacey is the boss in the show, playing wonderfully the extremely clever and manipulative politician. His wife is played by a no-less-great Robin Wright, and I found the rules of their relationship to be unheard of in the movie world. Such excellent writing immediately gives an advantage to this series compared to others. Another particularity of the series is that Underwood constantly breaks the fourth wall (i.e. talks to the camera) in a very skillful way (not as obvious as the reality-TV style of Modern Family), which takes the audience in a special relationship with him. All of the other and many characters encountered in this first season are very believable. I like in particular the one of Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) who is the right-arm of Underwood and seems to never sleep, doing anything required by his boss and never getting any thanks. I hope that his motivations are further developed in the next seasons. The series revolves a lot around the USA presidency so it is easy to anticipate an increasing tension over the next four seasons. Tension there is already in the first season, reaching a semi-climax in Chapter 6, and Underwood reveals his true endgame and nature in Chapter 10. Another episode to mention is Chapter 8 which takes the opportunity of a relief in tension to take place far from the Washington usual business and tell us more about the background of Underwood. It is hard to find arguments against this excellent first season. Maybe a few reaction from the characters are exaggerated or unrealistic. Anyway highly recommended.
Rating: 8 /10