House of Cards - S1 on Netflix - Spacey & Fincher - *UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR ALL OF S1*

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Just finished

I foresee Underwood having a lot to do with Russo death, Can't wait to see season 2!

Good show so far, glad they spent the money. Hopefully this pans out so they buy and develop more hopefully good shows in the future
 
leading up to the premier, i saw quite a few ads on netflix for this. But now, I hardly see anything related to House of Cards when I log on. They dropped the ball on marketing this.
 
Just finished--I quite enjoyed it, although it does very much feel like only part of the story. I have no doubt this would have been a well-received traditional cable show, so in that respect it was a good 'get' for Netflix.

My one disappointment is that the show didn't surprise me as often as I liked; a lot of what happened felt very safe and predictable. The entire arc of the season (so full-season spoilers, obviously)
seems to be setting up a bunch of misdeeds that will come back to haunt Underwood in season 2. It's not bad, but it's exactly what you're expect to happen in a show where the basic setup is "Congressman uses shady tactics to get ahead, uses young reporter eager to make a name for herself." Even Underwood faking Russo's suicide wasn't surprising--it was more or less a given the moment Russo tried to turn himself in that Underwood couldn't risk keeping him alive. So it's entirely unsurprising that things culminate with Underwood attaining newfound political success while being very, very close to being exposed.
It makes a lot hinge on season 2 to deliver something worthy of the amount of setup done this year.

It also means I'm going to have to go and watch the UK original to see what it was like.

woodchuck said:
leading up to the premier, i saw quite a few ads on netflix for this. But now, I hardly see anything related to House of Cards when I log on. They dropped the ball on marketing this.
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It is pretty weird that it's missing from the New Release categories. On 360 it popped up once after release as its own thing, prior to getting to the different categories, but after that to find it I had to actively search for it. O the one hand I appreciate Netflix not trying to cram its original programming down my throat, but on the other it is pretty weird.
 
Watched episode 4-5 tonight
I can't help but chuckle at the PS Vita marketing. On one hand its so blatant and in your face that you have to laugh, on the other its sort of a bizarre reaffirmation of the character that he knows what the device is. The audience is told a few times that he "reads everything", and the guy would literally have to read everything to know what the hell a Vita is. He always gives the impression that he could speak intelligently on just about anything if he wanted to.

The Sony marketing in general is pretty apt given the name of the show. :P
 
itwasTuesday said:
Not really a spoiler but I'll tag it anyway. Goes with the difference in direction between directors.
Was not ecstatic how they went from the pop up text notifications of the first few episodes (which I thought was pretty slick) to just doing a close up on the phone getting a text message on latter episodes.
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That bothered me as well. I thought that that was really clunky and it lacked cohesiveness with previous episodes for sure.

shagg_187 said:
All I know for sure is that there's going to be a PS4 in Frank's home next season.
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Naw, it's gotta be a Vita. And he has to be playing it in his car.
 
Oh nooooooooooooooooooo
Wow on episode 6.
frank is blowing it holy shit
 
Question about how other people see something in episode 11:
You think there's any chance the show will use Frank's wipe-down of the car against him next year? He went to town wiping down the steering wheel, door handle, etc. I get that he did it to hide his prints, but if the steering wheel or door handle actually got checked for fingerprints you'd think their complete lack of anybody's including Russo's would be a huge red flag that Russo's suicide wasn't a suicide. I'm pretty sure, given how much time the rest of the season covered with nothing coming of it, that it's not going to amount to anything, but I really thought Frank was screwing up huge there when I first saw it. He could easily suppress further police investigation, but it's exactly the sort of thing our plucky reporter team could extract from their sources.
 
iammeiam said:
Question about how other people see something in episode 11:
You think there's any chance the show will use Frank's wipe-down of the car against him next year? He went to town wiping down the steering wheel, door handle, etc. I get that he did it to hide his prints, but if the steering wheel or door handle actually got checked for fingerprints you'd think their complete lack of anybody's including Russo's would be a huge red flag that Russo's suicide wasn't a suicide. I'm pretty sure, given how much time the rest of the season covered with nothing coming of it, that it's not going to amount to anything, but I really thought Frank was screwing up huge there when I first saw it. He could easily suppress further police investigation, but it's exactly the sort of thing our plucky reporter team could extract from their sources.
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You'd think Russo being in the passenger seat would be enough to rouse suspicion.
 
DrBo42 said:
You'd think Russo being in the passenger seat would be enough to rouse suspicion.
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Entire season spoilers.

Precisely. Not to mention the driver's side window was down and not the passenger's. I suspect we'll see more on this in the next season, not to mention Zoe will be led this way through her investigation.

I enjoy the underlying things that are happening through out the series, which is only appreciated by having it all available at once instead of over the course of 9 months. For instance how Zoe and the whole blog type of journalism of getting great quick leads that go poof after the cycle eventually matured into actual investigative journalism ironically under a new blog style website.

There is also the little quote about how Remy went for money instead of power was a mistake, at least he thought so. Now he has to contend with actual money in the coming season, Tusk has the President's ear while Frank is now in a less powerful position than before. It'll be interesting to see how money vs power goes.
 
iammeiam said:
Question about how other people see something in episode 11:
You think there's any chance the show will use Frank's wipe-down of the car against him next year? He went to town wiping down the steering wheel, door handle, etc. I get that he did it to hide his prints, but if the steering wheel or door handle actually got checked for fingerprints you'd think their complete lack of anybody's including Russo's would be a huge red flag that Russo's suicide wasn't a suicide. I'm pretty sure, given how much time the rest of the season covered with nothing coming of it, that it's not going to amount to anything, but I really thought Frank was screwing up huge there when I first saw it. He could easily suppress further police investigation, but it's exactly the sort of thing our plucky reporter team could extract from their sources.
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He's been on a multi day bender, he's in a terrible mental state with his life having fallen apart and his kids recently told him that he has ruined their lives. It's a slam dunk suicide, they aren't gonna put any real effort into the investigation since there isn't anyone out there with motive.

Prints being smudged could easily be explained by him getting out and moving to the passenger seat
 
iammeiam said:
Question about how other people see something in episode 11:
You think there's any chance the show will use Frank's wipe-down of the car against him next year? He went to town wiping down the steering wheel, door handle, etc. I get that he did it to hide his prints, but if the steering wheel or door handle actually got checked for fingerprints you'd think their complete lack of anybody's including Russo's would be a huge red flag that Russo's suicide wasn't a suicide. I'm pretty sure, given how much time the rest of the season covered with nothing coming of it, that it's not going to amount to anything, but I really thought Frank was screwing up huge there when I first saw it. He could easily suppress further police investigation, but it's exactly the sort of thing our plucky reporter team could extract from their sources.
Click to expand...

Dont forget with the police commissioner in over his head with things he has done for Frank, he could easily squash any further inquiry into the case or even destroy what little evidence maybe collected at the site. Who knows, maybe he has on the scene at some time given it was a congressman's death and he steered the investigation to suicide before anyone was able to question the scene fully. The commissioner stands to fall if Frank does and given all the time he has put into his life with the police force, he isnt going to risk being disgraced from the force, losing his pension and reputation as well.

Thats the problem with trying to bring down Frank, almost anyone in the position to bring him down is tied to him, so they will fall as well and the ones who arent are in some way controlled by Franks people. The title fits in so many ways, if one piece falls the whole thing stands to crash, but removing one card doesnt always cause everything to fall apart.

The reporters could possibly find some thing, but cops really stick together and very few are willing to blow the whistle. The ones that do, usually end up dead as well as the people looking into high profile cases like this. No idea how true it holds for real life, but that is normally how it plays out in shows like this.
 
Some good articles for those interested in the production on the series:

DGA article on the directors and the final cut process: http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1301-Winter-2013/House-of-Cards.aspx

American Cinematographer article about the shooting process: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ac/ac0213/?ap=1#/20

Some of the technology behind the shooting/editing: http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/house-of-cards

The first article in particular is a great read, since it goes into detail about Fincher's involvement across the series, the contributions of each individual director, and the unique production process this series has compared to normal TV stuff.
 
I've just finished the second Episode and I think this is the best performance I've seen from Spacey in a while.
 
Netflix needs to place it up front when you log-in.

If I didnt read about it and listened to NPR last week I wouldnt know about it. I had to do a search in Netflix to find it.
 
Pkm said:
Netflix needs to place it up front when you log-in.

If I didnt read about it and listened to NPR last week I wouldnt know about it. I had to do a search in Netflix to find it.
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I can imagine why they aren't pushing it down everyone's throats. They don't want to set the precedent of putting their original content ahead of the streaming deals that they've already made. That's a whole 'nother can of worms there.
 
Plus, it's a slow burn. They don't need to get people streaming it straight out of the gate for it to be a success. As long as people keep coming back to it and tell more people about it, etc., it will be a success.
 
watching this with the missus. It's quite cool. some hilarious lines though. Also, American shows make their politicians sound a lot more interesting and clever than the reality.
 
There's definitely going to be fallout in season 2 for the whole
parking lot situation, especially with Zoe and co. unraveling his machinations
.
 
polyh3dron said:
Came in here expecting to be safe from spoilers per the thread title. Guess not.
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I've been keeping an eye on it over the weekend, and I don't think anything major has slipped through. People are doing a good job self-policing for the most part. If you see something that's overtly spoilerish, your best recourse is to ask the person to tag it or to PM an online mod to get it taken care of. Duckroll and Stump are both pretty active in here.

If we are getting to the point that a lot of people are finished up and want to discuss unfettered by tags, someone can throw together a spoiler thread and they can take the conversation over there. In the meantime, I'd ask that people please be considerate and keep labeling and tagging spoilers. The majority of people aren't finished with the series yet and would appreciate the effort. Full details are in the OP if you need a refresher. Thanks again for your help and enjoy the show.
 
UltimaPooh said:
Entire season spoilers.

There is also the little quote about how Remy went for money instead of power was a mistake, at least he thought so. Now he has to contend with actual money in the coming season, Tusk has the President's ear while Frank is now in a less powerful position than before. It'll be interesting to see how money vs power goes.
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Frank isn't finished with his climb, yet. He'll be working on how to remove Walker from President, to become President Frank.
 
I think a better tactic than dumping this show all out at once is to have an episode out a day or 2 out a day fo a week or so. I feel that would make talking about this show easier because so far its been messy :/

Episode 7
that ending was so creepy. It wasn't even the fact she was talking to her dad but Francis wanted her to call him father. He was jealous when Zoe kissed that boy so he ate her out...? I'm sure that tease at the end wasn't meant to be creepy but that Francis did have a kid but the delivery...bleh.
 
Watched the first two episodes so far; I thought the writing in the first episode was pretty bad to be honest, and as good as Spacey is his accent is a tad distracting. Would have preferred his actual voice.

But the second episode was very good, and both of them have looked gorgeous. Can really tell its a Fincher production so far.
 
(end of episode 5)
Stumpokapow said:
As of the end of episode 5, the coolest filmed shot I've seen is when
Spacey is intimidating the cokehead congressman into compliance. When he delivers his "I need your absolute loyalty" line, he's hunched over, leaning into the congressman's personal space. What it actually reminded me of was another famous Southern Democrat... Lyndon Johnson, who was well known for making use of his height in political negotiations. Spacey doesn't have half Johnson's height, so the shot is framed with the other congressman sitting down so the effect still holds.
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Hilariously, I'm watching episode 10 now, and they explicitly make this connection. Hahahah. I promise I didn't know that when I talked about it to begin with! (this is not a spoiler at all, don't worry)
 
duckroll said:
Some good articles for those interested in the production on the series:

DGA article on the directors and the final cut process: http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1301-Winter-2013/House-of-Cards.aspx

American Cinematographer article about the shooting process: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ac/ac0213/?ap=1#/20

Some of the technology behind the shooting/editing: http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/house-of-cards

The first article in particular is a great read, since it goes into detail about Fincher's involvement across the series, the contributions of each individual director, and the unique production process this series has compared to normal TV stuff.
Click to expand...

Great articles, thanks.

As for self-imposed parameters in kicking off the series, Fincher describes shooting his own episodes as a study in scaling back his usual movie preparation approach, but not foregoing working methods he knows are well-remarked upon within the industry. "A lot of people had a smile in the corner of their mouths when they said to me, 'Dave, if you think you're going to get 20 takes, you're just not going to make your day.' But I think I averaged somewhere around 35 setups and 14 takes per setup. It's about how you manage your time. Obviously, shooting digitally helps, [House of Cards was shot using the RED camera] because I never had to cut. I could say, 'Go back out and come in again,' and it's amazing the pace you get. It's a Frank Capra trick from way back. Because he could only print so many takes, he used to say, 'Keep it rolling, go out and come in.' What he found was people were more energized, and it gave this effervescence, and I ended up having to do that. But I had three more days [per episode] than the other directors in order to set the tone."
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not getting to do 100 takes must've killed him
 
Episode 11:
The Jeopardy! episode playing on TV (Jeopardy is produced by Sony, BTW, does this surprise you???) is an actual Jeopardy! episode. 2012-06-01. The woman who answers the clue on the TV ends up winning the game. Nice touch that they pulled archival footage with a topical category ("Presidential Campaign Slogans") for the episode
 
Last Episode
Did anyone else feel like they didn't earn that cliff hanger? I really enjoyed the rest of the show, but man that cliff hanger really bothers me.
 
I don't understand why this show has such hyper-exaggerated plot lines, like the "peach" story in episode 3. I can't tell if it's trying to be a subtle parody or a serious drama.
 
SteveWinwood said:
Episode 5
I definitely didn't expect him to actually sleep with zoe. Just thought he'd keep playing her like a fiddle. I guess that is what he's doing though.

Okay nevermind his wifes response was worth it.
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I really liked this, they are some ruthless folk.

A bit deeper into episode 5 and damn this dude doesn't fuck around.
 
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