Vacuuming Greyhounds

 – Spoilers for House of Cards, so tread lightly – 

So, I lost two weeks, thanks to my son asking, “hey, have you seen House of Cards?” I’d been about to head to town to write but hell, I’m weak. I figured, what would it hurt to watch while I have some cereal? As you can guess, I never made it to town.

In fact, I chowed down the first season in three days.

And the driving force behind my hitting play before Netflix could count down to the next episode, was Frank, the house majority whip who wants to be President and will do pretty much anything he has to to get inside the oval office. We, the audience, are swept along as he breaks the fourth wall to let us in on a strategy or throw a snide comment or look our way.

Characters have broken the fourth wall in the past, and in some cases, we expect it (I’m looking at you Deadpool) but when Kevin Spacey turned to the camera, at the end of an early episode and spat out, “what are you looking at?” I actually shrunk back into my couch cushions and squealed. And stayed glued to that spot for the next week and a half wondering what Frank was going to do next. And if he would actually get away with it.

Now, the downside of watching an entire season(s) in such a short span of time is that you see all the problems with the show much clearer than you would if you were going week to week. If this had been on network tv, I might not have noticed that Frank stopped confiding in me so much somewhere in season two and that the show had turned into a dry version of the West Wing.

But, because of the strength of season one, I kept at it and suddenly Frank was back, sneering at me and barking out, “where have you been?” I squealed and sunk into my couch cushions once more, giddy with high hopes that the Frank of old was back.

He wasn’t.

While he did take us into his confidence again, it was all too little, too late. The schemer from season one was gone and in his place was some guy trying to force a boring jobs bill through congress. I was still trapped in the West Wing. And without Sam, CJ, Toby and Josh, it just wasn’t a place I wanted to be.

A new season of House of Cards premieres on netflix March 4 and I’m not on pins and needles. Frank’s goal was to be President but they gave it to him much too soon. Once he was in the oval office, there was no more danger. It’s hard to have a late night meet up on a partially deserted train platform when you have a secret service detail.

For this show to have worked over multiple seasons, we needed to wait till the last minutes of the last episode for him to get what he wanted. Think of how much fun it would have been to see Frank, a newly minted President, pausing in the door to oval office to whisper to us, “now let’s have some fun.”

So, what have you lost days to on Netflix? I’m currently without anything to watch.
Recommend away and Write on,

Melissa

p.s.

What does a greyhound being vacuumed have to do with House of Cards? Nothing. But look at how happy that dog is. I’m partial to Greys. My Roxie was with me for 9 years and was the inspiration for Cyrano a Greyhound in the book I’m currently writing, How to Sex Your Snake. If you’re looking for a low maintenance, lazy-ass, sleep all day on the couch kind of dog. Greyhounds are the way to go.

p.p.s.

Yeah. That Grey is a tad chunky.