When House of Cards initially hit Netflix, it didn’t just seem like a hit—it seemed like a revolution. Streaming originals weren’t just possible anymore; they were a must-watch. With Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood speaking to the camera and Robin Wright’s Claire keeping pace with him beat for beat, the series rapidly became the standard for prestige political drama. But when its sixth and last season came around, House of Cards was a cautionary tale—a reminder of what goes wrong when a show not only loses its main actor but also its direction.
The abrupt firing of Kevin Spacey in the wake of serious sexual assault allegations moved the series into uncharted ground. The initial trajectory was supposed to conclude with an intense showdown between Frank and Claire, a power struggle between two ruthless equals. Instead, Frank was murdered off-screen, and the writers were left reeling.
What ensued was a disjointed and hastily constructed final season, with characters reacting to a never-revealed protagonist. As Vox explained, “Its eight episodes are a centerless, ham-handed kludge of a season… attempting to get you to believe that everything that’s happening is Important.”
Claire was front and center during House of Cards in Spacey’s absence. The show attempted to reinvent itself as being about her presidency, positioning her against patriarchal power structures represented by the Shepherd brothers and other long-time political players. There were glimpses of something intriguing here, an exploration of power, gender, and the cost of ambition. Claire’s quest to shatter the glass ceiling and be as cunning and ruthless as Frank could’ve been real-time commentary. But those moments were few. The show tended to short itself, collapsing into contrived territory, particularly with Claire’s spontaneous pregnancy, a development that was more of a hedge than an organic aspect of character.
One of the season’s central conflicts was Claire’s breaking with Doug Stamper, Frank’s loyal chief of staff. On paper, their relationship had the potential to center the season. Doug’s stubborn devotion to Frank and skepticism toward Claire might have been a satisfying, character-driven conflict.
Instead, the story disintegrated into indecipherability. The climax of a brawl in the Oval Office attempted to create closure but resulted in muddled motivations. Doug’s surprise that he had killed Frank to save his reputation came across as forced and dramatically stagnant. As Vox noted, the exchange boiled down to emotional whiplash: friends one minute, sworn enemies the next, in a matter of lines.
And for all this, the show was still fixated on Frank. The series was haunted by his ghost every week. His legacy, his will, and his power hung so large that it was apparent the series never quite knew how to proceed. While the original British show offered a scathing commentary on power and corruption, the American adaptation appeared to lose its thematic compass. By the time it was done, the message wasn’t so much how power corrupts—it was how power only counts if you’re able to maintain it, no matter the expense.
And then there was the body count. What was initially a dark tool for storytelling—Peter Russo’s downward spiral, Zoe Barnes’ sudden demise—would become a budgetary gimmick by the end. The show’s willingness to kill off major characters grew more and more frequent season by season. Claire’s poisoning of Thomas Yates, the manipulation of political opponents’ deaths, and finally Doug Stamper’s death all were part of a sense of diminishing returns.
As Screen Rant pointed out, the Underwoods had a tally of victims that included Peter Russo, Zoe Barnes, Elizabeth Hale, Thomas Yates, LeAnn Harvey, Tom Hammerschmidt, Catherine Durant, Jane Davis, and Doug himself. But seldom did the show ever stop to reflect on the moral significance of these deaths—it simply continued to advance the plot, consistently pursuing the next plot twist.
By its conclusion, House of Cards had devolved from biting political drama into a series attempting to top itself at every turn and confusing shock with substance. It couldn’t shake the shadow of Frank Underwood, and it never really settled on what it wished Claire’s period to mean. What resulted was a finale that was empty, featuring much ado about nothing.
All six seasons are still streaming on Netflix. For those who wish to rewatch the show that started the streaming age, it’s an interesting time capsule. But for many fans of long-standing, the actual drama is how House of Cards—once a trailblazer—ended with such an uncertain, unsatisfying whisper.