“There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong, or useless pain. The sort of pain that’s only suffering. I have no patience for useless things.” opening lines, House of Cards.

[Edited to add: Now that I have seen more episodes of this series, I need to tell you that this is very clearly for mature audiences. Around about episode eight or so, there is a scene that falls just short of being NC-17.]

I decided to watch the first episode of the new Netflix series House of Cards since I had loved the hypnotic British series upon which it was based.  It couldn’t be all that bad, I reasoned: yes, it was set in America and the political landscape is different here, but it was starting from good source material and had two amazing actors (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright) in the leads.  If the creators took the flavor of the original, and used the particulars of American politics to achieve the same cinematic ends, it would be very good indeed.

As I said, I watched the first episode. Halfway through, Railfan and the Red-Headed Menace came into the room.  They then insisted we watch the next two episodes. By the end of the day, we had viewed six of thirteen.

If you create a series with no action whatsoever, that mainly consists of people sitting around in offices talking to each other, which captures the attention of eighteen-year old and sixteen-year old boys, you have really done a day’s work.

“I love that woman. I love her more than sharks love blood.”

There is so much to love here: Kevin Spacey is mesmerizing as Francis Underwood, House Majority whip.  I thought no one could match Ian Richardson, who played the magnificent bastard in the U.K. series, but Spacey does.  Robin Wright adds depth to the role of Lady MacBeth, creating a portrait of a woman who is just as power hungry as her husband but who seems more vulnerable and human than he does. (In this regard, the Netflix series improves upon the original.)  Although she is no Susannah Harker, Kate Mara does a serviceable job as Zooey Banks, the young reporter who thinks she is using Underwood but who is actually in way over her head.  Harker brought a shrewd intelligence to her portrayal of the young reporter Mattie Storin, whereas Mara seems simply wide-eyed and rather naive. Corey Stoll — Ernest Hemingway in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris — is engaging as the troubled first-term Congressman from Pennsylvania, Peter Russo.

The writing is exceptional.  The asides Underwood speaks to the audience are filled with barbs and trenchant observations on the politicians, press, and ordinary folks around him. (His commentary on the events unfolding in Gaffney, South Carolina,* in his home district? Nasty, and pretty much on point.)   What he says to people to their face (with the possible exception of his chief of staff, who is just as ambitious and amoral as he is) is calm, understated and usually reassuring. (Edited to add: having now seen Episode 7, I take that assessment back.  Underwood’s Chief of Staff is ambitious, but a better human being than his boss.)  We know just how duplicitous he is only because we know what he has said to other people, and to us.

“Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone who doesn’t see the difference.”  

Francis Underwood is such a fascinating character because he is totally ruthless and completely amoral.  Underwood does take some what would otherwise be kind actions, except that he does them with an eye to his own ends, namely power.

His observations of both Washington and the human condition are both sharp-witted and, one suspects, right on the money.  He is able to control others not just because he is more intelligent and more ruthless than they are, but because in some cases they are more craven and more ideologically driven.  He has a master’s understanding of human nature, and is a virtuoso of manipulation.

You can develop a drinking game:  take a shot every time Zooey gets into an argument with her editor.  Take a drink every time Frank lies to the President’s chief of staff.  Take a drink every time he says “You might think that.  I could not possibly comment” to Zooey.  (Fortunately, he says this much less frequently than his counterpart in the British series did:  it was one of the few things about the production I found annoying.)  But not every time that Frank talks to the camera:  you would be drunk in very short order.

A much more interesting game is “What if?”  What if people didn’t act with the cowardice, mendacity, and stupidity Underwood attributes to them?  Suppose, for example, Peter Russo had taken the rap for his own transgressions rather than going along with Underwood’s agenda — and in fact acted in a manner that gets him out from Underwood’s yoke.  How would Russo go about this?  How would Underwood react to reassert his control or at least not get damaged by the fallout?  I could sit and write fanfic about this show for hours.

Okay, enough blithering on.  The Red-Headed Menace has requested that, since it is President’s Day and he is off school, that we go watch more House of Cards. He’s hooked, and so am I.**

*I have been to Gaffney, or, more accurately, driven past Gaffney on the freeway.  I have seen the water tower that figures in this plot.  I have had the same conversations about it that people in the show had.  I could not stop grinning.

**One thing I noticed just now about the House of Cards logo.  The flag in it is upside down.