House of Cards, the critically acclaimed Netflix political drama, typically releases new seasons in February or March. In 2017, the fifth season is set to premiere much later on May 30. (No binging over Memorial Day weekend, unfortunately.)
Rather than going over the ebbs and flows of Season 4 to get ready for the new season, Netflix has provided a handy recap video that we can all look through to catch us up or refresh our memories so you don’t have to go into Season 5 completely cold.
Let’s take a look back at the tape. Think of this as the “Previously on House of Cards” prologue:
The big overlying storyline of the upcoming season will be the presidential election race between Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman). Underwood is running to be elected president for the first time as the Democratic candidate with his wife, Claire (Robin Wright), running as his vice president. Conway is on the Republican ticket, as the current Governor of New York. His running mate is Ted Brockhart (Colm Feore), a decorated military veteran. A Democrat from South Carolina running against a Republican from New York is curious to compare to what’s happening in the real-world political climate.
Season 4 ended in the months leading up to the election with Underwood and Conway campaigning hard against each other. Each candidate has landed pretty good punches against his opponent, but Frank’s may have been more damaging. As seen in the video recap above, Underwood played Conway into screwing up a hostage situation so that it would hurt the Republican’s campaign. With one of the hostages dying, how Frank uses that as the election approaches should be interesting to follow.
The election will probably play out quickly in the early part of Season 5 so the show can keep moving forward with Frank as president (assuming he wins). But it also seemed like Season 4 would end with the election results, so maybe this story will continue for a while. Regardless of how long that storyline goes, the election figures to be close. Here’s a screenshot from the Season 5 trailer which shows an electoral map.
According to that map, the election will come down to Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those two states respectively carry 18 and 20 electoral college votes, meaning at the point where it’s 255-245, Underwood would need just one of those for the 270 necessary to win the election. I have a feeling, though, that Conway will win either Ohio or Pennsylvania to pull ahead and then Underwood will win the other to close out the race.
The election will probably be the springboard for the rest of the season. If Frank were to lose, he and Claire would be jobless and have to fight their way back into a position of political power. If they lost, the show theoretically would have to fast-forward multiple years to the next election cycle, something I doubt producers want to do.
But besides the election, another key storyline will be the ongoing feud between the United States and Russia. The feud goes back to Season 3 and looks like it could pop up again in this new season. At the beginning of Season 4, a Russian who President Petrov (Lars Mikkelsen) believed was part of a coup to overthrow him sought asylum in the U.S. Was the planned coup set up by the United States, as Petrov believed? Of course, that wasn’t true — or so we think.
If House of Cards really wanted to be like the real world, we know how this feud with Russia would end up, but sadly the show doesn’t want to be that similar.
Filming for Season 5 reportedly began in July 2016 and ended this past February, so it all occurred while the real-world questions about the current administration’s involvement with Russia were developing. Let’s hope House of Cards didn’t mimic that as a result, which Robin Wright hints didn’t happen in the video above.
Speaking of Wright, Claire is a crucial figure in the Russia storyline as she helped broker a major deal with them in Season 4. During the previous season, she was also in the prison cell of an American who committed suicide. With Claire and Frank becoming closer again and Claire being the VP, will she try to take over control of the Russia situation for her own political gain?
But besides those two primary storylines, here are a handful of others that fans of the show should keep in mind for Season 5:
Former supporters turning their backs:
Towards the end of Season 4, Remy Danton (Mahershala Ali, now an Academy Award winner)and Jackie Sharp (Molly Parker) seemed to be turning their backs on Frank and Claire. Will they end up helping the Underwoods or continue to go the other way? Also, Jackie left her husband at the end of Season 4, so the two could end up being a public couple finally.
Will Conway:
Assuming the expected happens and Frank wins the election, I highly doubt Will’s character will go away. Here’s a bold prediction: Frank wins the election and names Conway to his cabinet in some sort of military role. Conway was in the Air Force before becoming a politician.
ICO:
This is the make-shift ISIS on the show and will be extremely important moving forward. Season 4 ends with ICO decapitating a United States citizen in the U.S. as the Underwoods stare blankly into the camera. The terrorists are who Frank and Claire are depending on to help them instill “fear” in the United States. Sound familiar?
Tom Hammerschmidt and the Underwoods’ scandals:
Starting way back with Zoe Barnes in Season 1, Frank and Claire have been under the microscope of various journalists throughout the show. First, it was Zoe. Later, it was Lucas Goodwin (who tried to assassinate Frank), and now it’s Tom Hammerschmidt (Boris McGiver). The former editor of the Washington Herald, Hammerschmidt started to go public with allegations against Frank at the end of last season, but wasn’t as successful as he hoped. I doubt he’s silent in Season 5.
Season 5 of House of Cards premieres on Netflix next Tuesday, May 30.
