Jackson Ball reviews the sixth episode of House of Cards season 2…
The ongoing battle of wits between Vice President Francis ‘Frank’ Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and billionaire industry tycoon Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney) begins to heat up, as both parties desperately try to sway the President’s favour in their direction.
Spoilers Ahead – You have been warned!
It has become clear that the real driving force behind this season’s opening half is the Underwood/Tusk saga; it had naturally intriguing origins, a shaky patch in the middle, but with this episode has now really come into its own. Sure, there’s a lot of easy-to-forget jargon that has little impact in the grand scheme of things (Subsidies, Rare earth initiatives, FERC), but the underlying feud is what has really pushed the plot from A to B.
I’ll admit, after Episode 6’s opening scenes, I was sceptical. Frank is asked to make the ceremonial first pitch at an upcoming baseball game which, following on from a disappointing Episode 5, had me bracing myself for an endless stream of obvious sporting metaphors. Fortunately though, it seems that the writers have spared me a second bout of force-fed analogies.
The reason the baseball plot works so well is that it gives us a rare and highly unexpected glimpse into anything inside of frank that remotely resembles vulnerability. At this point we’ve seen just about every character in the show vulnerable in some way or another (ironically it’s usually Frank making capitalising of that vulnerability). Even his equally-cunning wife Claire (Robin Wright) has had her helpless moments, particularly centred on her continuing narrative involving her sexual abuse as a teen. However, we’ve hardly ever seen this side of Frank who, even when things aren’t going his way, always seems to have a firm grip on the situation. It’s the genius of the writers to finally evoke these feelings and doubts within him, over something as mundane as throwing an adequate baseball pitch.
Of course, the real pay-off comes at the episodes climax, as Frank is finally about to make his pitch. The build-up is sublime; him walking out in front of the capacity crowd, the brilliantly delivered speech to the fans, it all adds up to create genuine tension for the most irrelevant of events.
And then, darkness.
An initial shock turns into a punch-the-air realisation that Tusk has finally got one over on Underwood. That briefest of vulnerability, that minute weakness that Frank finally bared is ruthlessly pounced on by his nemesis, as the billionaire uses his resources to cut all power to the stadium, just before the pitch. It’s a brilliant piece television, and marks a return to well-written, keep-you-guessing form for House of Cards.
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