Beau Willimon, the show’s creator, became the go to name for spectacular contemporary TV writing. The man is trained in stage playwriting.
Reflections at the end of Season 4:
- David Fincher’s stylistic legacy carries on - framing, camera movement, blocking;
- colour scheme is at its most precise ever, the apparent affinity of the palette, the dominant pale shades of blue, together with the costumes and props, create a sort of reversed intensity. There’s menace and suspense in this, almost inhuman, calm and ordered visual arrangements;
- Willimon, who’s bound to leave the show, abandons his characters at their lowest, most difficult imaginable point, adhering to the traditional school story design, by bringing the values at stake for the characters to survival levels -» (throughout the seasons, the values have an arc of their own. The values at stake for Frank begin with influence - power - absolute power - personal freedom - survival - destiny of America);
- Frank Underwood becomes the modern day Nero, as Willimon brings the show on the brink of REAL, nightmarish American ideological battles. (Twitter was buzzing with people expressing real feelings of discomfort with the show’s characters. That’s really something.
- Frank’s cynicism reaches unprecedented high notes, I almost anticipate a real backlash in terms of numbers of audience:
Wife: “I’m done trying to win people’s hearts.”
President: “Let’s attack people’s hearts.”
W: “We can work with fear.”
P: “Yes we can.”
- You are left contemplating that for the past 4 seasons you have actually rooted and felt deep sympathy and attachment to a pathological cheater, a lying, egocentric, megalomaniac, manipulative, murderer of a politician. It’s a rush of Stockholm Syndrome.
P: “We don’t submit to terror. We make the terror”