The last season of House of Cards was pretty much doomed before it began. Its star, Kevin Spacey, was accused of unwanted sexual advances by several young men last year, after the show had already filmed two episodes of its final season.
The showrunners responded decently, however – they fired Spacey and killed his character, Frank Underwood, off-screen. Robin Wright would finally take her rightful place as the show’s star, which is how it should’ve been from the start, tbh.
Since the premiere of the sixth and final season last week, the show has been plagued by negative reviews. Unfortunately, not even my girl Robin Wright could save a show that had lost track of itself a while back.
The most interesting part of the show’s final season is what they decided not to include; namely, Underwood’s death. In an interview with Vulture, co-executive producer Jason Horwitch ran through the scenarios the writers considered using to kill Frank off:
“Claire snuffing out Frank with a pillow over the face. An act of God, or karma, hit by a train, or an air conditioner falling out of the sky. These were all just flights. We pretty quickly settled on poisoning of some kind.”
Poisoning? How… mundane. Being squashed by an air conditioner is a much more dramatic way to kill off a character played by a guy who’s effectively become a pariah.
It would have made for unforgettable television. And frankly, considering how badly the latest season is doing, they could have done more to reestablish their legacy post-Spacey. A falling air conditioner would have been just the thing they needed, and it would have been a fantastic example of karmic justice.
We’ll always have the mental images, I guess.