Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Episodes: 13
Duration: approx 50 min (per episode)
House of Cards: Season 5 (Blu-ray) – Series Review
When we took a closer look at the previous season of House of Cardds, Obama was still in office, and now Trump has taken up his mantle as the next president of the United States, to the dislike of many. Nonetheless, just like Obama, Trump would make an interesting subject to star in a show that revolves around his day-to-day tasks as the president. We can’t help but feel as if the fifth season of House of Cards also tries to take a few events of the last election under its wing and star it in the show, albeit a bit different and more abstract. As always, we were quite entertained by this serious, political game of chess that defines the series.
With the Underwoods back as a united front, this season focuses on the oncoming campaign where Francis (Kevin Spacey) tries to become the next president of the United States, this time officially, without having a president having to die so he can take up the mantle. He chose Claire (Robin Wright) as his running mate, thus making her the vice president if the couple would win. Of course, Conway (Joel Kinnaman), the young presidential candidate for the republicans gains a lot of popularity and things seem to be heading towards a very tight race. Due to this, Francis has to become rather creative to find loopholes to stall the actual elections, or to even cancel them altogether, forcing the voting to run via a different path.
While there’s of course more going on than the elections, we want to keep things spoiler free when it comes to the Underwoods. Nonetheless, in the meantime Tom Hammerschmidt (Boris McGiver) is doing research on the Underwoods, and their staff advisor Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), who he thinks is behind the murder of a young girl. While clues are scarce to come by, Hammerschmidt decides to pursue this case with all the means he has at his disposal. Other than that, there’s a lot going on with Russia, the relationship of Claire with Thomas Yates (Paul Sparks) and Francis’ interest with a character he has seen at one of his rallies.
Just like the previous seasons, House of Cards is a fairly slow moving series that revolves around politics and perhaps the abuse of having power. While this season is still very much a duet between the president and his wife, Conway’s character evolves a lot and you’ll also see more snippets of his personal life surfacing in this season. Overall the pacing might be slow, but you’ll have to keep your wits about as it’s easy to miss some of the dirty games that are being played here.
Acting performances are once again topnotch with the massive cast that supports this series. Of course Kevin Spacey wholeheartedly steals the show, and has been doing this for five seasons in a row, not only by his perfect poker-face during all of the episodes, and the ruggedness of the plans he comes up with, but also the intermezzos where he speaks to the viewers are done in such a great and entertaining fashion that you can’t help but admire this somewhat evil character, who only seems to be looking out for himself, as many politicians tend to do.
Just like the previous season, the Blu-ray edition of the fifth season comes with no special features, which is just a shame. It would have been great to hear some of the concepts of the episodes, and if they are based on actual events, or even sometimes are not-so-subtle winks at the current political situation in the States. While in some cases ‘less is more’, we would have liked a bit more in the extras department.
Conclusion
With the Underwoods back as a united front, this season feels a lot different than the previous one, where internal conflicts reigned supreme. This time the series picks up its very political, and dirty, story where the next elections stand tall, be it everything that doesn’t go by the books. If you’re interested in political series, House of Cards is probably still the best around.
House Of Cards
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