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House of Cards S3 |OT| Available now on Netflix! - *Spoilers for all of S3*

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Turin

Banned
Oh, and after he actually recovers, through his time with his family and the realization that Rachel is alive? All that time attempting to make him an understandable and relatable character, fully-realized and sympathetic? Eh, who gives a fuck? Let's have him murder Rachel, for no reason whatsoever.

Frankly, that entire sequence was pretty disturbing. We watch Rachel, perfectly happy in her new life, no chance of being found or noticed by anyone...and Doug just ends that. Why? He wasn't even going to kill her at the end of Season 2. Why now? Why freak out like the world was ending when you "found out" she had been murdered, if you don't really care?

Shock value. I think that's the real reason anyway. It was a pathetic move by the writers.

And I think Doug could have been one of the more intriguing characters in the show but they're mostly just interested in constantly showing him in an angsty rut.
 

antibolo

Banned
Season 3 would've been so much better had Doug really died from that CLEARLY FATAL injury. Seriously I refuse to believe that they really intended him to survive when they wrote Season 2. That must be some contractual bullshit going on here.
 
Season 3 would've been so much better had Doug really died from that CLEARLY FATAL injury. Seriously I refuse to believe that they really intended him to survive when they wrote Season 2. That must be some contractual bullshit going on here.

Absolutely. When I started S3 I was all, "Oh wow, he's alive? Didn't expect that. Let's see where this goes, I guess."

*hours later*

"Please drink yourself to death, Doug."
 
My wife and I finished this last night.

Apparently Claire decided to completely abandon their shared goal: Frank becomes president, then her. All of a sudden she decides she's tired of the facade? IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ELECTION?

I still enjoyed the series despite the Stamper filler, which should only be administered via carefully measured syringes.

I was banking on an assassination attempt organized by Claire or maybe even Frank himself to garner sympathy and votes.
 

KooopaKid

Banned
Super late, but finally caught up on this.

Yeesh. What a stinker of a season.

Doug Stamper. Doug fucking Stamper. This entire storyline felt like a lesson in "how to not fill your season with padding". Watching his story unfold was a lesson in misery, and not in a good way. His recovery, his attempts to come back, his mourning over Rachel, his awkward exchanges with his family, his alcoholism, his redemption through family, blah blah blah. All of it felt so "IN CASE YOU DIDN'T REALIZE, THIS MAN IS SUFFERING".

Sorry, but I just don't care about Doug Stamper that much. He's a nice ancillary character but I don't want to spend half the season on him and his mourn-porn crap.

Oh, and after he actually recovers, through his time with his family and the realization that Rachel is alive? All that time attempting to make him an understandable and relatable character, fully-realized and sympathetic? Eh, who gives a fuck? Let's have him murder Rachel, for no reason whatsoever.

Frankly, that entire sequence was pretty disturbing. We watch Rachel, perfectly happy in her new life, no chance of being found or noticed by anyone...and Doug just ends that. Why? He wasn't even going to kill her at the end of Season 2. Why now? Why freak out like the world was ending when you "found out" she had been murdered, if you don't really care?

And that's just Doug, not even mentioning the other lackluster B and C plots. This reason could have been 6-8 episodes without all the filler that added little.

My thoughts exactly. All this development for nothing. Doug is now impossible to relate to. Franck's redeeming qualities are wearing thin as well. It was impossible to root for them this season. I want to see them lose. What's the point then now? I don't think I'll bother with Season 4.
 
My thoughts exactly. All this development for nothing. Doug is now impossible to relate to. Franck's redeeming qualities are wearing thin as well. It was impossible to root for them this season. I want to see them lose. What's the point then now? I don't think I'll bother with Season 4.

See, I actually like that about both of them.

They both got exactly what they want, but they feel like they still need to be in control.
 
See, I actually like that about both of them.

They both got exactly what they want, but they feel like they still need to be in control.

For me, I think they just went too far.

Take Frank. It's almost impossible for me to tell when he's being sincere vs when he's playing someone. I get that that can be a fun game for the viewer, but it's almost meta in the way that EVERYONE within the show has caught on.

Frank was this sleazy but smart politician in the first two seasons. Now, it's like everyone tells him "no" before he even has a chance to speak, because everyone is tired of his shit. I can see how that might be entertaining, in concept, but I don't think they pulled it off as well as they believe. He ends up looking cold-hearted AND pathetic, which isn't a good combo for a character we're supposed to invest our time in.
 
Don't know about you guys but i want to see Frank dominate completely with an iron fist, he seem to be struggling and not as cunning as he usually is...i want to see what he can do with his full throttle power.
 
Just finished this. I enjoyed it way more than season 2. Petrov and Heather Dunbar were such great additions to this show, because it felt like for the first time Frank wasn't completely steamrolling everyone with no effort. It was great to finally have some actual conflict against Frank that he couldn't wave his magic wand against and make disappear.
 

Guess Who

Banned
Super late, but finally caught up on this.

Yeesh. What a stinker of a season.

Doug Stamper. Doug fucking Stamper. This entire storyline felt like a lesson in "how to not fill your season with padding". Watching his story unfold was a lesson in misery, and not in a good way. His recovery, his attempts to come back, his mourning over Rachel, his awkward exchanges with his family, his alcoholism, his redemption through family, blah blah blah. All of it felt so "IN CASE YOU DIDN'T REALIZE, THIS MAN IS SUFFERING".

Sorry, but I just don't care about Doug Stamper that much. He's a nice ancillary character but I don't want to spend half the season on him and his mourn-porn crap.

Oh, and after he actually recovers, through his time with his family and the realization that Rachel is alive? All that time attempting to make him an understandable and relatable character, fully-realized and sympathetic? Eh, who gives a fuck? Let's have him murder Rachel, for no reason whatsoever.

Frankly, that entire sequence was pretty disturbing. We watch Rachel, perfectly happy in her new life, no chance of being found or noticed by anyone...and Doug just ends that. Why? He wasn't even going to kill her at the end of Season 2. Why now? Why freak out like the world was ending when you "found out" she had been murdered, if you don't really care?

And that's just Doug, not even mentioning the other lackluster B and C plots. This reason could have been 6-8 episodes without all the filler that added little.

Do none of the writers realize Doug came off as creepy and fucked up and terrible and ultimately unlikeable during all of S2 and S3? Why would anyone feel bad for him? He's a shit-tier human being.
 
FINALLY got done watching this. I'm fuming.

This is the worst fall from grace of any series I've ever seen in my life. Good God. If Season 1 was 10/10, Season 2 was 9.5, then Season 3 was 0. Yes, that's right. Big fat ZERO. I'm disgusted at myself for wasting 13 x 60 minutes watching this As The World Turns daytime soap opera. Seriously people, if I wanna watch a show about marital squabbles I'd watch lifetime channel. What a fucking disaster. It's so bad that I don't give a flying shit about Season 4. Like at all.

Lets start with "President under siege" narrative. Guys, I thought we were talking about Frank Underwood here, not Garrett Walker. I know that Presidents are restricted by other branches of the government, but we're talking about Frank here. The authors should have read Robert Caro's "The Passage of Power" if they want to learn how a president can dominate the entire congress (LBJ) through intimidation. Don't try to force us to sympathize with Frank. He's a murderer and a ruthless asshole. The season actually tried really hard to make us forget that he killed that slugline reporter chick and Ephraim from the strain with his own hands, and instead try to make us feel bad for him. Bad start.

Doug fucking stamper. Like, his entire arc amounted to nothing and it was a waste of everyone's time pure and simple. No one cares about Doug. He is a henchman. Why the hell did they try to work out his story? I mean really guys. I don't care if he went back to alcohol, broke his dick or became buddy with his brother. Why should I? The whole obsession with Rachel was so dumb I didn't even flinch when he killed her. I was numb by then.

The biggest offender this season is Claire, by a wide mile. She KNEW that she'd be married to the POTUS so why try to even attempt at "bubu we're equals" crap? Like it or not, Frank was the guy in the hot seat making the big decisions. He made the call, and he took the blame when things went awry. He whipped his party and poured heart and soul into AmWorks and even raided the FEMA funds despite knowing he will get his hair set on fire. Fuck he even pushed her nomination through recess despite her getting her ass handed to her in the confirmation hearing. So why does Claire want to take the "we're equals" canard to him? They're not. She's the first lady and a horrible, HORRIBLE UN ambassador. The writing in this season was probably done by 12 year olds. I mean, who couldn't see right through it? Also her peeing while talking to the Russian ambassador came off incredibly awkward and dumb. I know they were trying to ape LBJ (who famously spoke to congressmen while taking a dump, door open, as intimidation tactics). But Claire doesn't have any gravitas or even any charisma to pull it off. And then, please don't tell me Claire cares about gay rights inside Russia. Lol. Don't try to make her sympathetic. Goodness there are so many horrible scenes in this dumb season.

Which brings us to the best part of the season: President Petrov. He is a fantastic actor and went toe to toe with Spacey with ease. I liked all his scenes and is the only reason why you should even have an excuse to watch this season. I think I will give this season a point just because of petrov, so overall my rating is 1/10.
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
^ lol, I agree with all of that. Just accept it's a different show now and go on, I'm still entertained but, if S1 already was already inferior than the BBC one in terms of coherence and character development, S3 was definitely a fall from grace and the difference in quality became jarring. Now it's just another American show, but like I said, still entertaining to me. And I cant get enough of Robin Wright, who is just one of the most unnnnf women I've ever seen
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Just finished watching this.

This all makes sense... if the intent is to close the show out next season with their downfall.

4 seasons, 4 suits. 13 episodes per season, 13 cards per suit. 52 cards total, 52 episodes total.

Season 3 - the season where you totally fucking hate all the main characters.

Season 4 - the season where you gleefully watch it all come undone, and frank get his comeuppance.

That's poetic.

Anything else, and you'll be like... fuck you Netflix, you son of a bitch waste my time like that. I'm not watching Season 5, so you can just shove your festering shit of a season 4 up your ass (because any more of this incongruity between trying to make you care about these villains and memory of the stupid shit that they've done is total fucking ludicrous TV and an insult to people's intelligence).
 

pel1300

Member
FINALLY got done watching this. I'm fuming.

This is the worst fall from grace of any series I've ever seen in my life. Good God. If Season 1 was 10/10, Season 2 was 9.5, then Season 3 was 0. Yes, that's right. Big fat ZERO. I'm disgusted at myself for wasting 13 x 60 minutes watching this As The World Turns daytime soap opera. Seriously people, if I wanna watch a show about marital squabbles I'd watch lifetime channel. What a fucking disaster. It's so bad that I don't give a flying shit about Season 4. Like at all.

Lets start with "President under siege" narrative. Guys, I thought we were talking about Frank Underwood here, not Garrett Walker. I know that Presidents are restricted by other branches of the government, but we're talking about Frank here. The authors should have read Robert Caro's "The Passage of Power" if they want to learn how a president can dominate the entire congress (LBJ) through intimidation. Don't try to force us to sympathize with Frank. He's a murderer and a ruthless asshole. The season actually tried really hard to make us forget that he killed that slugline reporter chick and Ephraim from the strain with his own hands, and instead try to make us feel bad for him. Bad start.

Doug fucking stamper. Like, his entire arc amounted to nothing and it was a waste of everyone's time pure and simple. No one cares about Doug. He is a henchman. Why the hell did they try to work out his story? I mean really guys. I don't care if he went back to alcohol, broke his dick or became buddy with his brother. Why should I? The whole obsession with Rachel was so dumb I didn't even flinch when he killed her. I was numb by then.

The biggest offender this season is Claire, by a wide mile. She KNEW that she'd be married to the POTUS so why try to even attempt at "bubu we're equals" crap? Like it or not, Frank was the guy in the hot seat making the big decisions. He made the call, and he took the blame when things went awry. He whipped his party and poured heart and soul into AmWorks and even raided the FEMA funds despite knowing he will get his hair set on fire. Fuck he even pushed her nomination through recess despite her getting her ass handed to her in the confirmation hearing. So why does Claire want to take the "we're equals" canard to him? They're not. She's the first lady and a horrible, HORRIBLE UN ambassador. The writing in this season was probably done by 12 year olds. I mean, who couldn't see right through it? Also her peeing while talking to the Russian ambassador came off incredibly awkward and dumb. I know they were trying to ape LBJ (who famously spoke to congressmen while taking a dump, door open, as intimidation tactics). But Claire doesn't have any gravitas or even any charisma to pull it off. And then, please don't tell me Claire cares about gay rights inside Russia. Lol. Don't try to make her sympathetic. Goodness there are so many horrible scenes in this dumb season.

Which brings us to the best part of the season: President Petrov. He is a fantastic actor and went toe to toe with Spacey with ease. I liked all his scenes and is the only reason why you should even have an excuse to watch this season. I think I will give this season a point just because of petrov, so overall my rating is 1/10.


fantastic post. i wanna shake your hand
 

danielcw

Member
Season 3 is gonna come to Netflix in Germany on the 28th of August.
Which is actually before the free-to-air premiere on ProSieben Maxx, which will air in September.
Season 3 can also be bought in Amazon Instant Video in Germany, and a DVD (& Blu-ray?) set will come in October
 

cj_iwakura

Member
How the hell did Rachel die, did he just run her over? But yeah, this season had a lot of cringe moments, and not the good kind.

I almost dropped it when there was tension between Frank and the writer. For god sakes.
 
Writers must have developed some serious hubris from all the praise lavished upon the show because the Doug Stamper plot is just absolutely chalk full of unintentional comedy and amateur hour writing.
Moments that are meant to be pivotal arcs in his character just come off as laughable, because the man is a fucking looney tune.
Like, the guy spent half of season 2 being a creepy, obsessive stalker and systematically destroying any shot Rachel had of living a normal life...so why in fuck's name are they shoving his physical rehab and emotional anguish in our face, as if we're supposed to overlook the fact that theyve spent a whole season making the guy the least sympathetic character ever.
Fuck outta here!
And I HATE his fucking serpentine voice too, the guy has zero likeable aspects while he's on screen.
 
FINALLY got done watching this. I'm fuming.

This is the worst fall from grace of any series I've ever seen in my life. Good God. If Season 1 was 10/10, Season 2 was 9.5, then Season 3 was 0. Yes, that's right. Big fat ZERO. I'm disgusted at myself for wasting 13 x 60 minutes watching this As The World Turns daytime soap opera. Seriously people, if I wanna watch a show about marital squabbles I'd watch lifetime channel. What a fucking disaster. It's so bad that I don't give a flying shit about Season 4. Like at all.

Lets start with "President under siege" narrative. Guys, I thought we were talking about Frank Underwood here, not Garrett Walker. I know that Presidents are restricted by other branches of the government, but we're talking about Frank here. The authors should have read Robert Caro's "The Passage of Power" if they want to learn how a president can dominate the entire congress (LBJ) through intimidation. Don't try to force us to sympathize with Frank. He's a murderer and a ruthless asshole. The season actually tried really hard to make us forget that he killed that slugline reporter chick and Ephraim from the strain with his own hands, and instead try to make us feel bad for him. Bad start.

Doug fucking stamper. Like, his entire arc amounted to nothing and it was a waste of everyone's time pure and simple. No one cares about Doug. He is a henchman. Why the hell did they try to work out his story? I mean really guys. I don't care if he went back to alcohol, broke his dick or became buddy with his brother. Why should I? The whole obsession with Rachel was so dumb I didn't even flinch when he killed her. I was numb by then.

The biggest offender this season is Claire, by a wide mile. She KNEW that she'd be married to the POTUS so why try to even attempt at "bubu we're equals" crap? Like it or not, Frank was the guy in the hot seat making the big decisions. He made the call, and he took the blame when things went awry. He whipped his party and poured heart and soul into AmWorks and even raided the FEMA funds despite knowing he will get his hair set on fire. Fuck he even pushed her nomination through recess despite her getting her ass handed to her in the confirmation hearing. So why does Claire want to take the "we're equals" canard to him? They're not. She's the first lady and a horrible, HORRIBLE UN ambassador. The writing in this season was probably done by 12 year olds. I mean, who couldn't see right through it? Also her peeing while talking to the Russian ambassador came off incredibly awkward and dumb. I know they were trying to ape LBJ (who famously spoke to congressmen while taking a dump, door open, as intimidation tactics). But Claire doesn't have any gravitas or even any charisma to pull it off. And then, please don't tell me Claire cares about gay rights inside Russia. Lol. Don't try to make her sympathetic. Goodness there are so many horrible scenes in this dumb season.

Which brings us to the best part of the season: President Petrov. He is a fantastic actor and went toe to toe with Spacey with ease. I liked all his scenes and is the only reason why you should even have an excuse to watch this season. I think I will give this season a point just because of petrov, so overall my rating is 1/10.

don't forget that the secondary characters added to this season (the journalist and the autobiographer) to be a huge downgrade from the journalist characters from Season 2 and Season 1. I hated everything about Season 3's autobiographer + new journalist relationship barf, gingers barf
 

Ashhong

Member
Am I the only one that still roots for Frank and likes Doug? I was genuinely happy when he rejoined the team. There's a good relationship there, built on trust, that I don't think he has with anyone else except Claire.

Claire turned out like a typical female lead that you see in American dramas, which was disappointing. Wish the writers didn't turn her into some incompetent woman who later decides to stand up to her husband and do the right thing. Keep her the strong individual she was in the first season. All they had to do was make her a successful ambassador and that would get rid of so much of the junk imo.

Still enjoy the show though. The atmosphere and style of the show can't be found anywhere else and that's what I enjoy the most.
 

Hatchtag

Banned
Am I the only one that still roots for Frank and likes Doug? I was genuinely happy when he rejoined the team. There's a good relationship there, built on trust, that I don't think he has with anyone else except Claire.

Claire turned out like a typical female lead that you see in American dramas, which was disappointing. Wish the writers didn't turn her into some incompetent woman who later decides to stand up to her husband and do the right thing. Keep her the strong individual she was in the first season. All they had to do was make her a successful ambassador and that would get rid of so much of the junk imo.

Still enjoy the show though. The atmosphere and style of the show can't be found anywhere else and that's what I enjoy the most.

I still root for both, yes.

I finished this season last week. Still think it's a huge drop off from seasons one and two, but I think the backhalf of the season kinda redeemed it. Mostly by adding back things from the previous seasons (Remmy Danton and the black haired military chick being more of an enemy, writers who hate Frank, Doug being a total creep and on Frank's side, Frank and Freddy weirdly being friends, and murder).

And I don't really think Claire's trying to do the right thing by going against her husband. I think she's just realizing there's not a chance in hell she'll ever be in the position of power she wants if she stays with Frank, and since Frank doesn't care at all about that, there's no reason for her to stay supporting him.

However, Frank and Claire both being shit at their new jobs was probably the worst thing about this season, along with Doug struggling with alcoholism (at least at the start). It would've been much better if Frank and Claire were more successful at their jobs, and if Doug's dip into alcoholism didn't start until he started to believe that the prostitute was dead. Like, going from Frank finally achieving his goal since the start of the series of becoming the president to Frank having to become the president again just felt like a kick in the balls.
 
Just finished watching this.

This all makes sense... if the intent is to close the show out next season with their downfall.

4 seasons, 4 suits. 13 episodes per season, 13 cards per suit. 52 cards total, 52 episodes total.

Season 3 - the season where you totally fucking hate all the main characters.

Season 4 - the season where you gleefully watch it all come undone, and frank get his comeuppance.

That's poetic.

Anything else, and you'll be like... fuck you Netflix, you son of a bitch waste my time like that. I'm not watching Season 5, so you can just shove your festering shit of a season 4 up your ass (because any more of this incongruity between trying to make you care about these villains and memory of the stupid shit that they've done is total fucking ludicrous TV and an insult to people's intelligence).

The original British series was 3 series', and basically plot-wise they map like this:
Modern House of Cards S1=90% of BBC House of Cards S1
Modern HOC S2 = Final 10% of BBC S2 & 50% of BBC S2.
Modern HOC S3 = Latter 50% of BBC S2 with elements of S3.

If they're following the same sort of trajectory, it'd make sense to either end in this season or the one immediately after it. I will say though that the more time has gone on the more they've deviated from the source. I do hope they follow the BBC Original for the ending, though, because what happens to Francis in that and the way it plays out is perfect, imo.
 
gaf, anyone knows the music that is played in season 03 episode 4 when
Frank asks Dunbar to take Jacob's position
?
help me ;_;
 
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