'House Of Cards' Season 4 Is Here — Is It Still Good?
The fourth season of House of Cards arrives on Netflix on Friday. Frank Underwood has finally ascended to the presidency, but this being the show's topsy-turvy universe, it's hard to say how long he'll last. So, what do the critics think about the new season?
It's Back, Baby!
House of Cards Season 4 is defter, darker, and more terrifying than it's ever been before…. House of Cards has had to tweak its brand before, and these tight new chapters represent a course correction from Season 3.
[Slate]
[S]eason four is an enticing step in a new, albeit firm direction for the original Netflix drama. Knock knock, indeed.
It's a presidential election year in America, and this House of Cards — which is much closer to reality than many in Hollywood and D.C. will admit — is standing stronger than ever.
[Deadline]
House of Cards has never patronised its viewers, and demands attention, but this season rarely feels like work. As it pushes forward it presents richly drawn characters, both minor and major; questions the capacity for politics to ever play nice; makes us comfortable, makes us laugh, even – then rips the smiles off our faces. It's unquestionably back on form.
[NME]
Still A Guilty Pleasure, At Least
Who will stop them? How should they be stopped? Why would anyone vote for this terrible man? House of Cards creates a psychic space for me to wallow in my frustration, then directs me toward better, righteous ways for expressing it in the real world. It delights me, it indicts me, it is, on many levels, a true guilty pleasure.
Your enjoyment of House Of Cards should be roughly calibrated to match your patience with the concept that Frank is perpetually smarter than everyone else…. Thankfully, watching [Frank succeed] is usually entertaining, both because the writers are awfully clever at dreaming up new ways for him to escape, and because watching Kevin Spacey tear off words in a hammy Southern rage is always fun.
[AV Club]
Meh
[W]atching the show at a time when, just beyond your Netflix subscription, there is Donald Trump rampaging across the political landscape… well, President Underwood, for all his often malicious scheming, seems quaint and mannerly by comparison. Because of this, and because the previous season of Cards led itself down blind alleys of narrative that now require some escape, the new episodes… can frequently seem somber to the point of soddenness.
[Yahoo]
If, however, you think these narcissistic soliloquies were an important part of the pseudo-Shakespearean affectation of House of Cards, the thing that had it aspiring to be a sub-par modern take on Richard III, rather than just another West Wing knock-off, the lack of Frank-to-viewer conversation points to where the show has gone wrong for me over the past two seasons — and where it progresses in the new season.
Oh, And This Is Robin Wright's Season
Now, with Claire having made her decision to leave Frank, Wright becomes Spacey's match in every sense of the term: for the first time – well, in the first six episodes at least – she accumulates just as much screen time as the President or more.
As good as Spacey is — and the man is so good in a role he inhabits in the show and pop culture like a second skin — the again-magnificent Robin Wright is the metal in the marriage as the ambitious, estranged and equally calculating Claire Underwood.
[Deadline]
In a gutsy move, Wright doubles down on Claire's iciness and scores. She transfixes with her smoldering polar gaze, her Popsicle stick posture, her deceptive "I feel nothing" inertness, whether in still life close-ups or in frozen silhouette. She's the most perfect realization of the precise and chilly aesthetic minted by co-creator David Fincher. Wright frames many of the season's most striking images herself. Her direction of episodes 3 and 4 is magnificent, whether it's staging huge violence involving dozens of extras or small moments of surprising intimacy and odd, deadpan humor, like a scene in which we hear a thump off camera.
Verdict? Yeah, we'll probably be binging this over the weekend.
More Digg Roundups:
Just About Every Chris Christie Vine Gag
The Best Space Images From February
The Best Photos Of Earth's Strange Geography From Scott Kelly's Year In Space
For more Internet distillations like this, check out our back catalog of Digg Roundups. And for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
