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“House of Cards” recap (2.1): Find the Links

Are you ready for intrigue and mayhem? You know you are. Spiritual uplift and life-changing glimpses of the pure joy that sparks the human spirit are all very well and good, but every now and then we need to see human beings clawing for power and occasionally doing things so appalling that we must squeeze the hands of our viewing mates for reassurance and then look at them with a tiny sliver of suspicion for the rest of the night.

And that is when we reach for House of Cards.

You ready to get nuts? Let’s get nuts.

It’s a dark, crickety night in D.C. You can practically feel the humidity squicking up the back of your neck. Two joggers approach: Or at least they could be joggers. They look like innocent joggers, but they could also be fleeing a murder scene, which pretty well sums up this show. It’s the Underwoods, our favorite Washington power couple. I cannot wait to see what these two crazeballs have been up to.

I love it that this season got released on Valentine’s Day, because the Underwoods were made for each other. Or possibly they carved each other into compatible interlocking forms with dragonbone knives and no anesthesia. Either way, it’s a lasting bond.

Photo by Nathaniel Bell. Image courtesy of Netflix

Oh, lord, I forgot that this show films everything in Murky. House of Cards should have a dark-off with Pretty Little Liars.

It’s night, as usual, and two of Underwood’s flunkies are discussing Congressman (and new Vice Presidential nominee) Frank Underwood’s upcoming birthday. Meechum, the driver, the one who has the bigger crush, says he got Underwood cuff links, but Frank’s right-hand man, Doug Stamper, tells Meechum to be cool and return them.

I hope you finished Season One immediately before starting to watch Season Two, because the show is about to name-check every single character without explanation, which is mind-blowing but also how real people talk, so point to you, show. But for real, Netflix, send out a handy chart next season.

Underwood walks up and learns that they’ve found Rachel. (No, you don’t have to look her up. Rachel is the mostly-ex-prostitute who can tie Underwood to the murder of poor doomed Congressman Russo from last season.) There’s some mild concern about Underwood’s former media mouthpiece/lover Zoe, but really not a ton. Ouch.

Doug and Underwood go inside, into a room that is hilariously full of lights that do not cast any actual light into the room itself. Each fixture is apparently tasked with casting a little pattern backwards onto the wall that suggests the possibility of light, but that’s it.

Doug says Rachel is safely at home, which is not so much a red flag that Rachel is about to become a major problem this season as a big red banner with bells and sirens on it unfurling across the horizon.

Doug also reveals that Slugline reporters Janine and Zoe have been asking questions. Underwood says he’ll handle Zoe. Uh-oh.

Underwood moves into another room-this one completely dark-to have a think and a smoke, and Claire appears with the water he needs to announce that she’s taken away the tobacco he wants. She explains that he’s another year older on Tuesday and we can’t have a Vice President who smokes. Claire out. Goddamn, the way this woman can use her quiet power to make Frank Underwood use a rowing machine or give up smoking with just a few words.

I know people love to compare Claire to Lady Macbeth, but I submit to you that Claire Underwood is actually Grendel’s mother from Beowulf. You think you have a handle on what kind of evil you’re dealing with and what straightforward things you need to do to fight it and then suddenly what the FUCK is in the back of that cave?! Robin Wright is everything in this show, layers and swirling depths of calculation and darkness. It’s a sure bet Claire picked all those wall sconces.

We cut to some doggy-style sex that is boring Zoe senseless. She says the three little words that every lover yearns to hear: “Are you finished?” Lucas tries to reassure her that she’s safe and he’s nothing like Underwood while she turns on the shower and tries to Silkwood the disappointment off her. It’s kind of a great moment, encapsulating both Zoe’s damage and distrust after Underwood, but also the fact that she’s maybe grown accustomed to some better sexing.

Underwood slithers into his office to meet with Congresswoman Jackie Sharp. He suggests that she could succeed him as Whip, even though she’s a junior Congresswoman. Jackie is sharp not only in name and she knows who’s really next in line here – and that the two senior candidates will draw votes from each other. Underwood also offers her the computer files full of dirt he has on the two top names. Oh, and also a file with the dirt he has on her. Jackie clicks on a file and her eyes grow wide.

Photo by Nathaniel Bell. Image courtesy of Netflix

Lucas drives while Zoe texts Janine and notes that the strip club isn’t open yet. Lucas is going to track down Kapeniak (the conspiracy theory blogger) and Zoe decides to go see Rachel at home and get in her face. Neither of these plans rank highly on the Not Getting Your Life Ruined guidelines in the House of Cards universe.

Underwood takes a meeting with President Walker to discuss possibilities for his replacement as Whip. (For readers in other countries: The Whip is tasked with making sure his or her party has the votes lined up to pass important legislation. Whips have been unofficially understood to use cajoling and threats, which is why Frank Underwood was so invaluable at the job.)

The President and his advisors suggest the two senior members in the caucus, the same ones Underwood is planning to trash. Underwood blandly supports each, then suggests letting the caucus itself decide and keeping the President and veep out of it. Frank likes himself a clean pair of gloves.

At her dank, woody restaurant, poor Rachel walks up to Doug’s table and realizes that her plan to go straight is about to burn harder than a grease fire in the back kitchen. Doug tells her to quit and get packed because she’s about to get found again. She gets one suitcase, he gets the shepherd’s pie to go. Surprisingly, Rachel does not just whack him in the trachea with her tray, but since that probably keeps her alive for a little while longer, it’s probably a good call. That fucker had better tip.

In Claire’s Office of Well Manicured Evil, we learn that Gillian Cole won’t listen to reason and wants to go to trial. (Gillian got fired last season after demanding that Claire’s Clean Water Initiative stick to doing real good instead of taking gobs of money from giant corporations and adopting a more bendy definition of “good.”) Claire’s lawyer wants to talk Gillian down into a settlement, but Claire is all “How soon can we get a trial? Like ten minutes? HOW SOON?” Turns out six months. Claire thinks that sounds just fine and sends the lawyer away to agree to a trial and then cut off all communications. RUN, GILLIAN, RUN.

Claire’s assistant walks in with a list of every single doctor who served in East Africa during the last three years, plus some information on contacting an HMO. RUN, DOCTORS, RUN.

Zoe hits the restaurant too late and ask for Rachel, who left so fast the door to the kitchen is still swinging back and forth. The restaurant manager does not give a rat what happened to the 15th flaky waitress he’s had to deal with this month alone, but Zoe lies that Rachel texted her that she’s maybe suicidal and has a history of mental illness. The manager notes that he doesn’t even have real contact info beyond a P.O. box, but he’ll see what he can do.

Frank arrives in the office to hear that the influx of birthday cheer has started. Frank’s assistant Nancy knows the drill: Expensive gifts go to the conference room, cheap gifts go to the interns, cards go straight in the trash.

Balloons get tied to homing pigeons from overseas, cake gets put on the chairs of recalcitrant Senators, Facebook greetings are called up onto cheap laptops and then sledgehammered. Singing telegrams are impaled on stakes outside the Capitol.

Doug says he’s moving Rachel to Maryland, just north of Baltimore. Jesus, Doug, have you not heard of Alaska or Morocco or Gary, Indiana? Doug says sure they want her to disappear, but, hey, clean gloves, Frank. Doug gives Frank a prepaid burner phone and says “Happy birthday.” Nancy rushes in, grabs the phone, and hurls it into a passing circus train. That was close. Doug says he’s also on the case with Christina Gallagher, poor Peter Russo’s ex-assistant/girlfriend. Say what you will about Doug being evil: His time-management skills are amazing.

A woman leaps out of her car to confront Gillian as she is walking home with her eco-friendly canvas bags. (Nice touch, props department.) Gillian doesn’t know the woman, but she knows her husband, David Applebaum… And has known him in the Biblical sense as well. Goddamn, Claire. That was some fast diming out. Mrs. Applebaum offers to show the pregnant Gillian pictures of her children, the ones that she had with her husband first. Gillian says she’s sorry, that it was a mistake, that David doesn’t even know she’s pregnant. Guess which three arguments Mrs. Applebaum does not wish to hear today.

After making sure Gillian is good and humiliated in front of the neighbors, Mrs. Applebaum departs with “Use a condom the next time you fuck somebody’s husband.” Well played, Mrs. Applebaum. Let’s hope that Dr. Applebaum is in for an equal helping.

Reporter meeting! Our intrepid investigators, shrouded in gloom and shadows, are aware that Underwood is moving faster than they are. Zoe’s reduced to maybe staking out Rachel’s P.O. box, while Lucas is waiting on the police report for Russo’s “suicide.”

Zoe has a text from an unknown number suggesting a meeting Monday at 3 pm; she picks the spot. I cannot wait for the Pretty Little Liars crossover episode they’re clearly teasing here. Lucas says it’s obviously a set-up, and Zoe says she can handle Underwood, and maybe she’ll learn something, and oh, such a nice day here in D.C., shame to waste it and after all, she gets to pick the spot.

Lucas counsels against this plan some more and Zoe vaults right onto the back of the elephant in the middle of the room, grabs its ears, and says “I’m not going to fuck him, just talk to him.” Lucas is aware of the odds of that statement being false, even if Zoe isn’t, and Janine is so skeeved out she has to head to the john for some discreet purging.

White House Chief of Staff Linda Vasquez is interviewing Christina for a hell job where there’s no life and a workload that three people can’t handle and a good chance she’ll get fired in the first month and P.S. darts come shooting out of the walls sometimes, we’re not sure why, can’t get that fixed, and Christina is all “I’ve been singlehandedly running my dead boyfriend’s Congressional district. Bring it on.”

Darkness. Real, complete, pitch-black darkness. The show has achieved its true vision. A door opens into the darkness, and it’s Doug looking for Rachel. Rachel has a very big kitchen knife, she wants her waitressing job back, and she doesn’t feel like leaving today, thanks.

Doug pulls the old hurting-her-while-claiming-to-be-her-only-protector game favored by abusive creeps everywhere, wrenches the knife away, and tells Rachel to start packing. Yikes.

Ah, the Underwood kitchen. Claire says she’ll cook Frank a nice birthday dinner at home, no fuss, no gifts, definitely no cake. What could be better?

Back in his office, Frank turns down an immediate increased security detail because he’s not the Vice President yet and he’ll have no privacy once the confirmation happens and P.S. he may need to fuck a reporter and murder a former sex worker, or, you know, maybe just some light skullduggery; he likes to keep his options open.

Frank also refuses to move into the Vice President’s house in the Naval Observatory, and instead demands glass-proofing and lasers and magic Dick Cheney Google Earth blocking for his own personal townhouse. Dear god, what have they got hidden in that townhouse that they don’t want to dig up? Doug, who is everywhere, always, says he’ll contact the Secret Service directly about the plans. Oh, and one more thing: Frank wants his driver Ed Meechum assigned to his security detail. Secret Service dude’s last nerve has just been strummed and he starts in on the accelerated training and Jesus Christ, the paperwork, but Frank does that very calm thing where he says one polite sentence and the argument is suddenly over and his opponent’s feet have somehow swiveled around backwards and are marching him out the door before he can even object.

Frank gets a text that says “Rock Creek Park” and nothing else, so I guess he and Zoe will just wander around all 1,700 acres until they catch each other’s scent.

Lucas paces around a dimly lit room with the air of a man who knows the woman he loves may soon be either getting kidnapped or climaxing in a rocky creek. Lucas gets his autopsy report, but his contact is not helping with Russo’s magical disappearing arrest record, and the contact is double not helping with a cover-up that members of Congress are in on, on account of he is done with handing over stuff that can get him fired or killed, so take a hike.

Lucas texts Zoe that Russo was found dead on the passenger side of his car, which is an excellent passive-aggressive cockblocking attempt, so ten points to Lucas.

Zoe, busy covering acre 1,587 in the park, notes that this doesn’t really prove anything, then gotta-gos Lucas because Frank’s car is pulling up. Frank asks Zoe to delete her entire cell phone history with him, and she’s all “Dude, I’m not the one looking at jail time.”

Frank tries to sell Zoe on how he was just trying to help everyone and then oops! Vice President! Zoe isn’t having it, and she whips out the dead-man-in-the-passenger-seat information on him. Frank says Russo was probably just having second thoughts and trying to get out of the car, and if there was even a hint of foul play, wouldn’t the police be all over it? Zoe brings up Russo’s disappearing DUI, and keeps asking questions. Frank says that, yes, he got his buddy Peter Russo out of a DUI jam, and OK, maybe he sent Russo to talk to Kapeniak, and OK, fine, maybe one little turn of one little key in one little ignition, but why, oh, WHY wouldn’t a good reporter just trust him?

Frank also points out that if Zoe can just overlook a few teensy murderyish things, she’ll have a direct line to insider information to the Oval Office, so how about a new start and a clean slate, eh? And that is the moment where you can see Zoe’s ambition uncoil up her spine like a Kundalini serpent, and it keeps uncoiling until it can reach her ear and start whispering rationalizations and possible Pulitzer Prizes into it.

Oh, holy crap. Claire is in a doctor’s office talking about blood and hormone tests for her and her husband, and then moving on to genetic testing for them both. Just a little thing she hasn’t mentioned to Frank yet, no big.

Claire mentions that she’s also been doing some Internet research and the doctor gets exactly as irritated as your doctor does when you say that, but they talk about post-40s pregnancies and drugs that can help keep the placenta nourished and stable. The doctor says that’s putting the cart way before the horse, but if you look carefully at Claire’s eyes there aren’t carts or horses in there. Instead there are sleek black cars that you never hear coming, not until they’re right up behind you, and then it’s too late.

Back home, Claire turns off the light fixtures that cast no light and joins Frank in bed. Frank says he’s fully prepared, and has been for some time. Claire says she knows he’ll do what’s best. Which thing? WHICH THING?!

Reporter meeting in the Very Dark Diner. Janine wants to push forward, Lucas wants to step back, and Zoe wants to get the hell out of this diner for some thinking. She knows it’s full of bad ideas, but that serpent just won’t stop whispering.

Frank is back at his rib place, rejoicing in how extra-tasty this latest batch is. Freddy admits that he tried a new butcher: one who illegally slow-bleeds his hogs. Freddy – who has dealt with the cutting and preparing of meat for decades – doesn’t think he’ll go back because a glimpse of that process was too horrific. The pigs scream as they smell death coming and then go through ten minutes of excruciating pain. Freddy prefers a quick, humane kill. No warning: Just a shovel to the base of the skull and no screaming. Frank thinks on that.

Back in the halls of Congress, Frank claims he wants the best man to win the Whip position and won’t endorse anyone. The President’s advisor knows Frank is never on the sidelines, but doesn’t feel the need to inquire beyond that. Good instincts, sir.

Zoe gets a text asking for a fresh start. Janine, in the background, sees her rushing off and absolutely does not trust what’s happening. Good instincts, ma’am.

Gillian rushes in to Claire’s CWI office to confront her. Gillian’s insurance coverage just got canceled, even though it was supposed to continue for a year under her severance package. Claire thinks it is sweetly amusing that Gillian believes that she, as Gillian’s former employer, would lift a finger to rectify the situation, things being what they are.

Gillian mentions that she needs medications to keep her pregnancy healthy, as Claire damn well knows, what with her little chat with the doctor and her peek into Gillian’s HMO records and all.

Holy. Shit. Claire tacitly acknowledges forging Gillian’s signature on a consent form to release private medical information, and then for good measure drops Mrs. Applebaum’s name just to give Gillian a taste of the life-ruining that is in store.

Gillian says this will all come up when they go to court, and Claire notes that court will be six months from now, and Gillian is due in four. And then Claire Underwood says, out loud to another human being:

“I am willing to let your child wither and die inside you if that’s what’s required.”

Grendel’s mother, y’all. Do not go in that cave.

Photo by Nathaniel Bell. Image courtesy of Netflix

Claire cheers things up with hey, no one really wants this, it’s just the way things have to be… Unless Gillian is willing to accept a little bargain. Claire suggest that Gillian takes over CWI. Claire resigns, and Gillian runs the whole thing, no strings attached. Gillian clarifies, “No strings?” and Claire confirms: No strings. RUN, GILLIAN, RUN.

Claire drives home, a day well spent, and takes a call from her doctor’s office. Oh, no thanks, she says, no kids for her after all, but thanks for being my pawn, er, I mean thanks for trying to help me spawn. Goodnight!

Zoe heads into the Metro station and looks around warily. She finds Frank looking all incognito in a fedora and glasses as he lurks near some construction fencing at the far end of the platform. On his request, Zoe deletes their text history and then deletes Frank as a contact, even though he can’t really see her do that, just hear the beeps. What the hell, Zoe?

Photo by Nathaniel Bell. Image courtesy of Netflix

Frank says the slate’s clean, and now they can trust and help each other. Zoe is maybe cool with that, but would like one or two more assurances that Frank isn’t, you know, a cold-blooded killer. She knows Rachel was at the hotel when Russo was arrested. And she gets annoyed when Frank pretends not to know that Rachel has disappeared.

Frank plays all high dudgeon and offended honor with Zoe’s outrageous questions. She just wants to know that she wasn’t an accomplice to a murder. Frank starts to walk away in a huff, and then when Zoe moves to go after him he grabs her by the shoulders, spins her, and-NO!-flat-out shoves her into the path of an oncoming train.

The moment is so well done, such a perfect set-up, so quick and surprising and so exactly what he was planning all along. There’s just one little shriek and Zoe is gone, everyone in the station rushing and Frank moving slowly and calmly, up and out and away from trouble, gloves not so clean, true, but at least it was a quick blow to the base of the skull.

And thus House of Cards has issued the warning that all really good thrillers do at some point: Don’t get too comfortable: Any character can get killed off at any time. Well-liked, well-established character, one you thought would be a major driver of the plot this season? Too bad and fuck you: You’re not the one calling this game.

Lucas gets word of Zoe’s death in the newsroom and breaks down silently behind the glass walls of his office. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could ever have done. He knows it, but he’s not accepting it.

Frank comes home to his wife and one candle burning in his dark, dark cave, lighting up the cake he specifically did not want. Happy birthday, you lunatics. You know they’re going to have hungry angry dragon sex right on top of that cake.

Janine is frantically throwing all her things into a suitcase because she knows she and Lucas have nothing but targets on their backs. Janine accurately points out that Frank is not fucking around and that these are not death threats that are happening, this would be actual Death coming over for a drink and a back rub.

Janine found nudie pics of Zoe in her mailbox when she came home and she knows that Frank knows she exists and doesn’t know about Lucas, so the odds are distinctly not in her favor and she has had enough of this shit, and Lucas can take his journalistic ideals and scatter them all over Rock Creek Park for all she cares.

Claire hears the news report of Zoe’s “accident” and it flutters past her forehead like a moth, not troubling her for a moment. But then, maybe, as she finishes her makeup, a thought does.

Congresswoman Sharp meets with Frank to discuss the files he showed her – and the fact that her file was empty. He asks her if there should be anything in her file, and, after exactly the wrong beat of time, she says no. Frank’s not worried, because if he can’t find anything on her, she’s at least good at covering her tracks. I’m sure this will in no way become a problem later on. Just go about your business.

Sharp knows that if she loses the Whip fight (This show should have a whip fight!), the others will come after her – and that Frank could just be using her to shank someone else. She’s no dummy, Congresswoman Sharp. Frank dangles the 10-year wait she’ll have before she can try again for Whip if she sits this one out. Sharp cuts to the chase and asks why Frank would pick her.

Frank asks Sharp, a veteran, how many missile strikes she launched, how many women and children she must have killed. He knows she can carry out orders even if innocent people will die. And that’s why he chose her: She’s a ruthless pragmatist. And he likes the cut of that jib. Sharp smiles. She gets him.

Rachel wakes up in a dim (of course), mostly unfurnished little room to Doug bringing her a gift of Indian food. Oh, crap, Doug is doing that unsettling thing where he thinks they might be dating while he’s essentially holding her captive. Again.

Meechum gives his condolences on Zoe and offers Frank his birthday gift of cufflinks after all. Underwood thanks Meechum kindly. Terrifying Frank goes upstairs to his terrifying wife and proudly shows off the cufflinks he’s immediately put on, and then Frank Underwood, finally, looks at us through the mirror and talks to us directly just like we’ve been waiting for.

Frank tells us not to waste any tears on Zoe, a kitten who was growing up to be dangerous, and explains to us what the law of this show is and always will be: Hunt or be hunted.

We pan down to Frank’s new cuff links, safely tucked back in their box. Meechum has thoughtfully gotten Underwood’s initials engraved on them:

F.U.

Well launched, House of Cards. Looks like it’s going to be a tasty, blood-soaked season.

See you next week!

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