Stamper is struggling with the thwarting of his once-unquestioned control of Underwood’s underlings, with even his violence against Seth not being enough to hold him in line. Hammerschmidt is pulling at threads that could reveal Frank’s killings.
The move he just pulled was very risky.ĭeath also suffused the other plot lines this hour. Yes, he immediately said he was just joking about Lucas’s accusations being true, but everything else about his Oval Office interaction with Cathy-the letter opener, the blithe statement that he would have killed people had it been necessary-amounted to a death threat. Death has long been a weapon in their arsenal, and Frank accessed that fact in this episode in a way that we hadn’t seen before: by alluding to his murderous past as an intimidation tactic. It’s fitting that the Underwoods would realize their insane dream of running together only by taking advantage of death. Or maybe seeing this as profane is too square: A yearning for love has been reawakened in Claire, no doubt, and Frank certainly isn’t going to fulfill it. Of course, Cards will allow no moment of genuine human feeling to go by without profaning it somehow, and so Claire and Tom then abscond upstairs to have sex. Watching Elizabeth go was wrenching, in part because it happened at the hand of her daughter and in part because Ellen Burstyn had done such an incredible job conveying the lifetime of sadness and struggle that had preceded that moment. Elizabeth certainly would have applauded as Claire (with Tom’s help) then fabricated an entire deathbed conversation for a national audience the next day. The issue was simply how much of an effect it would have, which in turn was an issue of timing. Elizabeth dying was going to matter to the election regardless of whether she and Claire acknowledged that fact. And on yet another, it’s simply a statement of the obvious. On another, it’s a demonstration of Claire’s moral lineage-no wonder she is the way she is. On another, it’s a touching indication of Elizabeth wanting to reconcile and help her daughter after so many decades of clashing with her. But then Elizabeth argues that her death will help Claire politically. Claire resists her mother’s request for assisted suicide, at first.