I Binge Watched House of Cards

Spoiler Alert.

I watched all 5 seasons of House of Cards on Netflix this past week. That's about 13 episodes per season and each episode runs for about 50 minutes for a total of about 3,250 minutes or a little over 54 hours.

House of Cards is an excellent series. The series is so good (because it's so bad) that I couldn't stop watching. It is a story about power, corruption, greed, loyalty, gamesmanship, hubris, self-destruction, human nature, and so many other dark things. I wondered how much of it was based on reality and found a Kevin Spacey interview where he says that it is 99% accurate. The only fictional part was that they would never pass an education bill that quickly.

Binge watching a series like House of Cards made me feel dirty. On one hand, I wanted the Underwoods to lose in every way for all their bad deeds. On the other hand, strangely but maybe not surprisingly, I found myself secretly rooting for the Underwoods.

A key element in the story was the use of the press. We are sheep and pawns in this world of House of Cards. So easily are we influenced by the media that we would believe and act on anything that is printed or is said on television/radio/internet. Maybe, because things have gotten so out of control that it's just easier to accept a defeatist attitude and submit than fight. Victory by submission is the ultimate form of asserting one's power over another. And power is the ability to make another do something they would not normally do.

Resistance is the antidote to power. It can start small but resistance does wonders against power. There were so many cases when the Underwoods could have lost only if those in their sphere of influence decided to resist.