Let’s look at the facts: Garrett Walker was fundamentally unsuited for the presidency, and his administration was a ticking time bomb regardless of Frank’s sabotage. While Frank certainly accelerated his downfall and engineered the impeachment, Walker lacked the core traits needed to survive a four-year term in the House of Cards universe. 

Here is why he was never going to succeed: 

• He was Raymond Tusk's puppet. Long before the feng shui money scandal broke, Walker’s decision-making was entirely tethered to a billionaire outsider. A president who freezes out his own Chief of Staff to take midnight orders from an energy mogul is inherently fragile. Tusk’s corporate conflicts of interest were bound to blow up in the administration's face eventually. 
• Zero political backbone. Walker couldn't handle pressure. When the teacher strikes hit in Season 1, or when foreign policy got tense with China, he consistently panicked. He didn't have the stomach for the brutal, transactional nature of D.C. politics. 
• Abysmal judge of character. Even if we take Frank out of the equation, Walker’s political instincts were blind. He trusted blindly, delegated poorly, and isolated himself. If it hadn't been Frank manipulating him, another slick operator in Washington would have easily walked all over him. 
• The "Maybe not impeached" caveat. You can argue he wouldn't have been impeached without Frank actively leaking data and whipping votes. But he absolutely would have been a paralyzed, one-term lame duck. Congress would have eaten him alive, his legislative agenda would have stalled, and he likely would have faced a brutal primary challenge from within his own party by year four. 

Frank Underwood didn't break a great president; he just pulled the rug out from a weak one. What do you guys think? Would Walker have survived four years, or was he doomed from day one? 

would you support it, Yes or No

Obviously replacing Kern with a close ally like Kathy helped Frank manipulate events overseas in the long run, but in the moment it seemed like too much exposure for too little gain. The politics of S1 are largely focused on domestic matters, and Frank did not yet know of Raymond’s involvement with Walker and Frank losing out on Sec of State, so there was no reason yet to target the Chinese.

He was already extending himself by leaking Donald Blythe’s bill to Zoe. This further exposed both him and Peter, who Frank already seemed to be setting up for the gubernatorial run. It

Frank clearly isn’t above petty revenge, but most of his actions in the first two seasons have some utilitarian logic behind them. Is there a more definitive gain for Frank going after Kern in the first season that I’m missing?

I'm currently rewatching the show and am up to s5. I don't understand why Claire is so popular with the public within the show. I understand she ran a clean water ngo but she genuinely did nothing else. She has people bending over backwards just to do her bidding when she has done nothing,

I’m rewatching right now and it’s become my favourite show ever, so it sucks to me that some of it is objectively complete garbage, and it’s such a shame that there’s no other show quite like it, nor are there many characters that are as interesting and addictive as Frank Underwood. The show’s premise seems like it would be pretty generic (a politician scheming his way to become the president), yet afaik no other stories with a similar premise really exist? Except of course the original UK show and the novels (which I’ve read and honestly didn’t think were as good, maybe the UK show is though).  

I love this world that Beau Willimon created. The soundtrack by the amazing Jeff Beal is some of the greatest score ever written, I’d even go as far as to say it is the greatest television soundtrack ever produced. 

I love Frank’s ruthless rise to power and descent further and further into evil. I even think that S3-5 are pretty underrated, and that the slower tone of S3 was a good choice (The more character driven season has so many beautiful moments like the FDR memorial scene and the Doug scenes in the first episode.  Chapter 30 is one of my favourite episodes of TV ever and Frank is super entertaining to watch as president). 

I totally get why Season 5 generally isn’t liked that much, and it was sort of crazy and all over the place, though I think HOC was at its best when it was stretching the imagination. Pushing Cathy down the stairs was maybe a little too far, though I think a lot of the crazy things Frank does (i.e. give away the presidency) is out of desperation rather than everything being part of his genius plan. 

Season 6 is Season 6, what can I say. I’ll be honest, I’ve been trying to find ways to cope with it being “not as good”, and in my mind I desperately keep trying ways to like it. I think the hate for the ending is a liiittle overblown (but only by a little). I do think it was overly complicated and people got rightfully confused, but it’s not quite as open-ended as it seems, no? It’s clear to me that Claire WILL, in fact, get away with everything. There’s not going to be a nuke, that was Claire’s move to distract the press from Doug but now he’s dead, and in his case Claire is going to claim self-defence. If Janine does find Rachel, the only person that leads back to is Doug. Frank will probably posthumously go down for money laundering and the 2016 election stuff, but Zoe and Peter will never get justice. Claire is remembered as pretty much the greatest president ever.
I think Doug, Claire and also Frank all got fitting ends. But the dialogue in the last season is so terribly WEIRD, and the Shepards got far too much screen time. Also they should’ve just recast Spacey, but whatever. 

The final season looks so cheap and muddy and modern Netflix-y. Not even the last season of  House of Cards was able to pull off the look and feel of the first season of House of Cards, which every other show has been trying and failing to do since 2013. No other show has the exact same tone of House of Cards. The sinister, dreamy, sometimes biblical sort of vibe. No other show feels “productive” in the same way. 

The murders in House of Cards were so much more gripping than in other shows, especially when it comes to the deaths of Peter and Zoe. Those deaths had so much weight, and the way they were both built up as main characters to then turn out to be stepping stones and these incredibly compelling skeletons in the closet for Frank was masterful. No other show has had murders that I think about as much. Nothing, no other book or show or movie has managed to re-create the feeling I had when I saw Zoe Barnes get thrown in front of a subway train. I think the reason I’ve been so obsessed with this show is because I know that the ending doesn’t come close to evoking that same feeling either. Knowing that the final season feels clunky and cheap takes so much away from the show, even if I have managed to gain an understanding of what happens and what the writers were probably going for.

HOC, despite the flawed final season, is my favourite show ever, because there simply is no other show that scratches the same itch. It’s a terrible, terrible shame that it isn’t one of the best. 

TLDR : House of Cards is amazing and the greatest show of all time but it’s also kind of FUCKING TERRIBLE and my brain is having a hard time coping with that. 

I’m sure this has been discussed, but do you think Frank always planned to work his way up and sabotage the Walker administration (as we see play out in S1 & 2), or do you think he was happy to be Secretary of State and having it taken away was what started the whole thing?

I found franks character a little unbearable and unbelievable.

I am on season 4 and I fail to understand how are there no other ruthless politicians at play.

I’m not American so would maybe I don’t understand their thought processes

Zoe Barnes was raised for a terrible purpose like a farm animal in a barn

Peter Russo's last name is pronounced like Rousseau, who said that man must be forced to be free

Frank Underwood's deception to the other characters while pretending to be Frank

Viktor Petrov's initials basically identical profile

Doug's name's similarity to dig, as in digging Frank

Rachel and how her name is the same as the biblical give me children or else I die story (ie an example of the mother archetype) despite the show's character being, though through no fault of her own, oriented around sexuality.

have you noticed any of this? if so, what parts? thank you for responding to me.

I built a trivia app with about a 100 questions and so I wanted to share it with fans of the show..

I know not everyone likes downloading and app so for anyone who wants to check it out

https://triviagauntlet.app/app

No Logins
No accounts
Just Download and use the search at the top

Also Let me know if there is a problem with any of the questions either via the app or here and I will fix it asap

P.S also contains themed Wordle and word search games for people into that

Hi, do you havee the list of quotes from the tv show? I would appreciate if you would share not only 1 or 2 but the whole list ,

Hot take, I liked season 1 and 2, but enjoyed 3 much more. I was invested and didn't have too many spoilers. I have a few spoilers for season 4, but im on the first episode and the goodwin arc is interesting as fuck

Mom:Hey sweetie,did you take do the dishes like I said?

Me:No mom,I was out with my friends.

Mom looking back at me with seriusness so big It feels like malice:

I'm on the episode where there is an open convention to nominate a VP??

I thought the President picked a VP and ran with that person.

With Kevin Spacey now having been cleared of all his charges, could Netflix hypothetically call him back to pick up where s5 left off? Has a similar thing ever been attempted in television?

It created so much resentment in Claire that eventually boiled over. Without Zoe, no resentment, no issues. Frank is blind to how it hurt Claire, and continues on normally, while Claire (subconsciously maybe) is expecting restitution. She never gets it. Then she wants revenge. Eventually, she gets it.