A dark portrait of power

 The much-awaited third season of House of Cards became available on Friday on Netflix, with a mix of intrigue, sex and power in its portrayal of a city filled with ferocious ambition and rivalry.

“If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog,” US president Harry Truman (1945-53) once said – and the series gives dramatic illustration of that truth.

Indeed no series – or full-length movie, for that matter – has quite shown the darkest, most cynical side of the US capital as has “House of Cards”, where power-hungry politicians jostle for dominance.

Inspired by a 1990s British series of the same name, “House of Cards” shows a city that is more like the 1962 drama film “Advise and Consent” than the idealised presidency in the TV series, “The West Wing”, which aired from 1999 to 2006.

During the presidency of Republican George W Bush, many dreamed of having Josiah Bartlet, the West Wing’s fictional Democratic president played by Martin Sheen, in charge at the White House.

Bartlet’s character was reminiscent of senator Jefferson Smith, the character played by James Stewart in the Frank Capra 1939 satire “Mr Smith Goes to Washington”.

But “House of Cards” carries to extremes the opposite, darker image of Washington that other recent American television series like “Homeland” and “Scandal” also portray, with the message that it is best not to trust anyone.

In “House of Cards”, actor Kevin Spacey portrays Frank Underwood, and Robin Wright plays his equally ruthless wife Claire. The cold, calculating Underwoods will let no one and nothing get in the way as they seek to attain their goals.

The scathing pragmatism and merciless wheeling dealing of Underwood, a Congressman from South Carolina, gains him the Democratic whip position in the House of Representatives. When the president fails to appoint him secretary of state, he conspires in such a way that by season 2 he is vice president and by season 3 he is the president of the United States.

However, is Washington really like it is portrayed in “House of Cards”? As many series and films say, “any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.” For starters, most of the scenes have not in fact been filmed in Washington, but at studios in the town of nearby Joppa, Maryland, and the streets of Baltimore.

Kevin Spacey notes that many experts on Washington politics acknowledge that the caustic, sinister political class addicted to power portrayed in the series is not far off from how politics really work.

Screenwriter Beau Willimon, who worked in the 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat Howard Dean, knows the backstage of politics full well.

While “The West Wing” is probably closer to what we would like politics to be like, “House of Cards is more like the real thing,” Willimon said last year at an event in Washington’s Warner Theatre. For him, being a candidate for the president of the world’s most powerful country is in itself “a form of insanity.”

US President Barack Obama, frustrated as a Republican-dominated Congress keeps blocking his initiatives, has expressed his admiration for Underwood’s “ruthlessly efficient” ways.

“It’s true. I like Kevin Spacey. Man, this guy’s getting a lot of stuff done,” Obama joked in 2013 in the presence of Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

Spacey responded to Obama on Twitter: “To help achieve ruthless efficiency, a copy of Frank’s [Underwood’s] new book ‘How to Kick Ass and Influence Congress’ is on its way.”

At the 2013 annual White House correspondents’ dinner, the journalist audience was treated to a filmed spoof on “House of Cards” that included not only Spacey, acting as Underwood, but also real-life Washington officials like then-White-House spokesman Jay Carney and then-New-York mayor Michael Bloomberg who wheel and deal with him.

At the end, the spoof fictional Underwood camera looks in the camera and says: “I may lie, cheat and intimidate to get what I want, but at least I get the job done.

“So I hope some of you were taking notes,” the fictional character tells reporters and politicians in the room.

In fact, the whole country seems to be taking notes on the series – especially the binge watchers, some of whom just had already raced through some of the episodes by Friday afternoon.

“Let me apologise to @CourtneyMLopez now because I’ll be busy binge watching the new season of #HouseOfCards #ILoveU,” tweeted TV reality show host Mario Lopez to his co-host wife Courtney M Lopez.

In the trailer for the newest series, Claire Underwood sums up their evil deeds to her husband, the president: “We are murderers, Francis,” she declares.

“We are survivors,” Frank Underwood corrects.

 WATCH IT 

IN THAILAND

 n “House of Cards Season 3” premieres in Thailand tomorrow at 8.55pm on RTL CBS Entertainment HD (TrueVisions Channel 337).