An analyst's Touchdown to Frank Underwood Character

Do you really wanna know what goes in Washington, to Capitol Hill, all the way to Oval Office? For someone who has now become an old-timer veteran carving footprints, deep, into something like constitutions and laws it may, somehow, look like all the fictional trivias spilled here and there but House of Cards really, intensely, makes a great story of diplomacy: politics in the US congress, of course of the Senate and that of the House. 

From the touch to the finish, intricacies are woven around an ambitious man Frank Underwood who was born in a suburb, completed a small time high school in Gaffney and went to Harvard for the law degree. That were all past, and the story begins when he is a whip from the democratic alliance. If there is something that frankly makes him, Frank, a strong protagonist for the serial is his formidable tactics to persuade, melt down, convince people, that is what is required while whipping votes when you have some bills that desperately needs to be passed in the congress, and which helps to leap your party ahead of others in midterms. It’s a survival game, but he strikes at the right time, with the sword of words, against the perfect target in his way to the Oval. For him, therefore, it’s a progress game.

He does offer everyone something, but they do have a price. The blocks of politics are not laid upon in the foundation of compassion and selflessness; it’s rather on the exchange of selfishness, protecting your own ego circle, and itching to have that credit for every good thing that happens around. And he proves it eventually by taking the greatest worth of the star spangled banner. He is very crooked and shrewd. But so is his wife. 

    

The ruthless pragmatism of Frank Underwood, as played by Kevin Spacey, a man who I invariably admire for his every performance that exists in the world, creates really a wholesome image that would, one day, become a president of the United States of America, in fact the 46^th, as is told in the last episode. So to tell, it takes to be a serial killer first to be the President of the most powerful democracy in the universe.

From Zoe Barne to Peter Russo, to Cathy to Jackie to Linda, Frank uses them all in his favor. When he uses people, he does not make them feel that they are being used. From the whip to become the VP, he overturns Jimmie so very surreptitiously. From VP to Prez, he ousts Garret Walker, only that Garret does not know its not the impeachment that caused his fall, rather it's Frank whose office is just 3 doors down his. He moves with scruples, and that’s his win-win each turn he makes. It's not natural for him to be feeble, look non-confident. He is that reckless cloak-and-dagger bastard who knows how to take time as opportunity. He is ferocious, he is discreet, and there is no such thing as second chance in his world of confederacies.   

No wife can stand her man philandering other women with her knowing it. But that’s just not Claire Underwood because she is more than a wife for Mr. Frank: a friend and an associate of all his affairs at office and at home. Similarly, no man can bear a wife who when pensive goes out to her ex and takes sexual adventure for days, every bit of which story is absolutely knowable by him. And that’s why he is Frank. Because he can tolerate everything. It takes that emotional insulation to build around you, and then only you would be a candidate to every powerful position of a major party and a nation. From being elect to the commander-in-chief, he steps his foot to all official desks that are important to steer the big cart of government. 

The personal, private to be accurate, charisma of Underwood couple is never understood when, unexpectedly, both show a relative liking to Edward Meechum. Inebriated Claire is attracted to their aides-de-camp indulging her husband even in the assumed trio night moments. Their orientation is hence blurred, the definition of trust and love extends to the unthinkable boundaries, and they show, in bluff unison, that there is nothing right or wrong in this world. Whatever you do should be right so long as you prove it right or unless it’s wrong. 

© Adhikary Rabindra 2016