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Season 4, Episode 12: ‘Chapter 51’
Episode 12 is not a bottle episode. But having the Conways and the Underwoods cohabitate, briefly, under the White House roof makes this chapter of “House of Cards” occasionally feel like one.
It also makes for what may be the most preposterous offering of Season 4. When an American family gets taken hostage, the American ICO sympathizers holding them captive say they won’t release them until, among other things, they speak directly to Will Conway instead of President Underwood. So Will gets an honored chair in the Situation Room and an invitation to stay at the White House with his family, which gives his wife Hannah an early opportunity to decide how to redecorate the Lincoln Bedroom after they win the election.
It is difficult to imagine a sitting Democratic president asking a Republican governor to be so involved in such a sensitive matter. But the idea that a president seeking re-election would invite his opponent to do is unimaginable. In one of his straight-to-camera monologues, Frank acknowledges that the hostage takers have insisted on talking to Conway because, “They know I won’t compromise. No president would. But a president like Conway: he might.” It’s a thin attempt to justify Frank’s decision to bring Will into the fold, and it doesn’t feel at all consistent with his character. The Frank we know would never want to imply that his authority had been undermined. Neither would Conway, a fact that’s becoming increasingly clear. What’s really happening here is that the writers are trying to force the Underwoods and Conways into the same physical space for an extended period of time, just as Frank and Will were during their closed-door meeting inEpisode 9. This time, the results aren’t quite as successful.
Conway, who is leading in the polls, is becoming increasingly arrogant. He initially seemed like an appealing alternative to Frank, but eventually came across as a different kind of politician who still shares many of Frank’s qualities. Here, especially during their exchange in the kitchen, Will just seems like Frank with blonder hair and a younger, taller body.
“What kills you is that I’ll make a great president,” Will says after opening the White House residence refrigerator without asking and taking a beer, a beverage the man with a newish liver is still unable to handle. “The kind that will be remembered. Isn’t that worse than dying, Frank? Being forgotten?”
“You’re a pretender, Will. And if you win, you’ll go from pretender to fraud,” Frank counters. In case it’s not clear that these two men are acting like little boys, Will’s son Charlie underlines the point by stealing Frank’s prized tiny soldiers from his desk. Initially Frank looks primed to go ballistic on the kid like Will Ferrell’s obsessive brick-builder from “The Lego Movie.” Instead he softens and tells the boy to keep them because, again, he’s thinking: “What Would Will Conway Do?”
Claire and Hannah, Will’s wife, don’t fare any better, initially seeming chummy until the subject of family comes up in conversation. “Do you ever regret not having children?” Hannah asks, then immediately apologizes for being so forward. If she’d been paying close attention to the way every hair on Claire’s neck stood at attention when she saw Charlie jumping on a bed, she’d already know the answer. But Claire coolly responds with: “Do you ever regret having them?” It’s one of the few truly sharp moments in this episode, one that highlights the differences in these characters’ priorities and also serves as a reminder that society rarely asks women the latter question, even though it’s just as valid (and overly personal) as the former.
As this penultimate episode of Season 4 winds down, it appears that two key issues are about to collide. One is the hostage crisis; after being made to feel small by Will, Frank strikes back, not just flipping the script but taking away the one Will was supposed to read to the captors. “I’ll be doing the talking,” Frank tells his rival during the second meeting. “I’ll let you know if I want you to participate.” We also see police and FBI agents scouring the woods near a location where the ICO sympathizers have been spotted, suggesting that a potentially dangerous attempt to retrieve the Millers, the family being held prisoner, will unfold in the season finale.
The other is Tom Hammerschmidt’s big story about Frank Underwood’s dirty deeds, which, with former President Walker and Jackie Sharp now onboard as on-the-record sources, is set to land at the same time the hostage crisis is escalating. “Let’s hit him while he’s distracted,” says the Washington Herald publisher Margaret Tilden, a.k.a. the Katharine Graham of “House of Cards.” Frank’s ability to withstand hits and survive is incredible — almost as incredible as the notion that two rival presidential candidates would become White House roomies for a couple days. We’ll have to wait and see if the newspaper’s punches actually result in a knockdown.
