Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Episodes: 13
Duration: approx 50 min (per episode)
House of Cards: Season 4 (Blu-ray) – Series Review
While a series surrounding the day-to-day life of Barack Obama would certainly be rather interesting to see, especially if we could truly see what decisions he has to make on a daily basis, we’ll have to make do with the next best thing, namely House of Cards. The show has been renewed for a fifth season, but for the moment we’re going to revisit season 4’s physical release. The White House is slowly turning into a battlefield for the next political war, and also the struggles between the president and his wife are starting to look more and more like a true battle.
Truth be told, the story of this season will involve many cases of deception, corruption and marital problems, all while president Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is aiming for his second term in office, which would allow him to keep playing his power-game. Nonetheless, it seems his wife, Claire (Robin Wright) also has a plan up her sleeve, as she is also trying to run a campaign of her own, now that things have turned sour between her and her husband. Of course, even the press gets wind of things and they are trying to dig up the dirt on the couple, but for now both Francis and Claire are keeping up appearances, as it would be silly to have the current, rather vicious, president as an enemy. Nonetheless, when the president’s life is in danger, it seems the couple does regain something that was seemingly lost.
The rest of this story arc will revolve around Underwood’s campaign against Will Conway’s (Joel Kinnaman) rise to power. While Conway is the young, and charming competitor, Underwood has a certain amount of resources and a great analytical mind that counters Conway on every move he tries to make. Nonetheless, in many ways Underwood has found himself a match and he can’t win this race on his own.
As stated earlier, this season will revolve around Underwood’s campaign against Will Conway, but even then there is a lot more going on. Overall the flow of all episodes is rather slow, making sure the viewer understands fully what is going on, but at the same time there are many things happening all at once, drawing you closer and closer to see which scandal will be brought up next, or who will try to take the president down. Honestly, we never expected a series like this to remain this interesting for four seasons in a row, especially seeing you can only go ‘that far’ in a political series. Action sequences happen, or at least the series insinuates them, ‘what could happen’ when you mess with certain characters. All in all, things remain really interesting, and even viewers who haven’t seen the first few seasons can easily pick up the series from season four and they will understand what is going on after an episode or two.
While House of Cards has a massive cast of well-known actors and actresses, it’s pretty much a grand duet of/between Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, who both put down absolutely formidable acting performances. It’s a very rare feat that both play characters that simply should not be likeable, at all, yet they draw you in closer and closer with each passing moment. Both characters have a lot of skeletons in the closet and perhaps this is why you get sucked in without ever having the chance to resist the urge of hoping to learn what their next move, plan or action is. Even though it’s mostly politics in the series, both personas have a dark side, which even surprises the viewers in this fourth season. All supporting cast members, and of course the reoccurring characters (which are a lot) offer equally impressive performances, making this feel more like a high budget Hollywood flick, rather than a series.
This Blu-ray release of the fourth season of House of Cards sadly has no extra features whatsoever. While it probably won’t add that much value, a gag reel would have been rather amusing to shed a different light on the actors and actresses, as they have to be serious all of the time. Perhaps a piece about the sets or the topic they’re handling this season would have added a bit of extra value for the diehard fans, but all in all, the series still stands tall on its own.
Conclusion
House of Cards: Season 4 handles both a marital conflict, as well as Underwood’s new campaign, which involves many obstacles, not only future ones, but also the ones he ‘handled’ in the past. It’s only a matter of time before certain sidetracks are shut off, making sure that the president has to use his analytic mind to stay several steps ahead in this political game of chess, which is still going strong after four seasons.
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