What I’m Watching: House of Cards

House of Cards: Season 6, Episode 3 “Chapter 68” (B-)

It’s hard to describe what this show has become, since in an instant towards the end of this episode, the music changed and the entire tone shifted from a drama far too heavy with scenery-chewing to an outright thriller in which the president is freely asking people to kill. It’s hard to keep track of who her allies are at this point, since I thought that Jane was long gone and didn’t remember that Leann had died in a car crash that doesn’t appear to have been an accident. Claire also told Doug to kill Cathy but then hatched a side plan to have him killed if the need arose. Annette doesn’t hate Claire nearly as much as Bill does, unless it’s that she doesn’t want to sabotage her simply because she’s a woman and more because of the person that she is. The journalists are likeliest to be the ones who bring the bad guys down, if they’re able to survive long enough. Athena Karkanis, who plays Grace on “Manifest,” has a much better part here as Melody Cruz, who is baiting Claire on behalf of Duncan, who got Tom a plum job that’s going to help him cause trouble for Claire. Cathy dying makes me wonder what would happen if disgraced cabinet members and presidential aides ended up dead in Trump’s administration, a far closer and more unavoidable incident than a Saudi journalist in another country, which once again makes this show feel like too much to take since it’s just so over the top.