Sociopath as Protagonist

[DGS49]

After many years of hearing about it but not bothering to partake, I have finally started bingeing "House of Cards" on Netflix.

Watching programs in this way is different from the customary pattern, where you have to wait a week for each new episode, and it allows the viewer to explore things more intensely, see what the writers are up to, and analyze the characters and the plot more clearly. I have said previously in this space that most series deteriorate after two or three seasons. It seems that the original scenario provides a lot of good ideas at first, then it dries up, leaving the writers to contrive more and more absurd plot lines...it usually doesn't work. And there is the writer-turnover phenomenon where other producers pirate the writers of popular series, hoping that they can do the same for a different series later on.

House of cards is interesting for its close-up look at politics in Washington (assuming they have done their homework and know what they are talking about), but the bottom line is that the Kevin Spacey character ("Frank Underwood") is nothing more than a power-hungry sociopath, who has hired a couple other sociopaths to work for him.

Yawn.

Rather than having a "hero" protagonist who encounters bad guys every week and has to contend with them - the customary series form - here we have the sociopath protagonist who destroys the lives of good guys who get in his way. That is basically the entire story line.

And this is entertaining........how? Why?

I don't get it.

 

[Oddball]

Written for the generation that considers rap to be "music".

 

[gipper]

I believe House of Cards portrays our political class very accurately. Most politicians likely qualify as narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths. Just look at the fools elected potus the last hundred years.

 

[Gdjjr]

I prefer my drama and entertainment in written form- I gave up on/quit the visual entertainment (except live streaming World of Outlaw and All Star Circuit of Champions winged sprint car racing on Dirtvision and Floracing, respectively) last DEC, though I do subscribe to Netflix which I watch infrequently. There were (and I guess maybe still are) a couple of series I enjoy(ed) that I can't even recall the name of- I used to subscribe to Amazon (before they and I got cross ways) so I watched several seasons of Bosch- mainly because I liked the books by Michael Connlly of The Lincoln Lawyer fame- another good book- I watched a couple of good episodes (or movie one offs I don't really remember) on Netflix that were family oriented and they weren't bad- there is a plethora of rah-rah-rah- ciss- boom-bah movies and TV type shows from what little I've skimmed- I'll probably just spend more time entertaining myself with my guitar collection

 

[DGS49]

I also watched the Bosch series, cover to cover, and sporadically am reading the books. I think the Netflix series was better because it made him more human - especially with the daughter (who doesn't exist in the books). She was one of the best fictional daughters ever. Would that real teenage girls were like her.

To anyone interested, I am liking some of the off-shore based Netflix series. The one called, Borgen is both entertaining and a good education on how a parliamentary government operates, at least in Denmark.

 

[DGS49]

I have been able to analyze my distaste for "House of Cards" a little more closely since I am now in the final season, after Kevin Spacey got kicked off the show for his off-program antics.

In a typical fictional story involving "bad guys," by the end of the story the bad guy is punished or killed, and the balance in the universe is restored.

But with a running series, where the bad guy(s) is the main character, there can be no balance. He gets away with his nefarious deeds week after week, season after season. And seeing Frank and Clair Underwood getting away with every sort of crime - up to and including murder on several occasions - and never be discovered or thwarted is irritating as hell. Ultimately, the series insufferable; it would have been so even if Spacey had remained.

Who needs this shit?