House of Cards

990 Words2 Pages

What lies in the world of politics is a world of fear. Or so for the ones who cross Francis Underwood, the main character in the Netflix original series, House of Cards. As season one starts off, Francis Underwood captures the true essence of what the entire show is about, “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”(Script: reddit.com). As he finishes this line he brutally kills a dog lying on the street, who had just been injured after being hit by a car. He continues on, “Moments like this require someone like me. Someone who will act. Who will do what no one else has the courage to do. The unpleasant thing. The necessary thing” (Script: reddit.com). Through persuasion, manipulation and down right corrupt politics, House of Cards displays a unique spin on the world in Washington, one that some may believe not to be far from the truth.
In the opening scene the writers of this script want to first capture your attention, and make you want to like their main character. By giving you insight to the type of per-son Francis Underwood is, along with many other tactics used, this scene gives quite the outline of what is yet to come. By strategically having other characters become distracted, it allows Francis to silently put the dog out of its misery. Francis has a persuasive mentality, and he displays it here by falsely giving hope to the dog’s owners and by con-vincing them to go inside while he “investigates”(Script: reddit.com).
As season one episode one continues, we see in the next scene a beautiful dress dazzling in the light from above. As the camera moves back we see it is Francis’ wife, Claire. By at fir...

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...hat the structure gives this series a strong backbone to work off of. Working to create an atmos-phere dedicated to the corruption of people in Washington, “House of Cards” is the epit-ome of how power and greed can bring the worst out of people. By strategically showing us Washington from a new point of view, your eyes are opened to the crude possibilities of human nature.

Works Cited

House of Cards. Dir. James Foley, Carl Frankloin, John D. Coles, Allen Coulter, David Fincher, Charles McDougal, Joel Schumaker, Robin Wright, and Jodie Foster. Perf. Kevin Spacey, Michael Gill, Robin Wright. Media Rights Capitol, 2013-. IMDB. Web. Feb.-Mar. 2014. .

"Script: House of Cards." Reddit. N.p., 18 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. .

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