Season three of House of Cards hits Netflix Friday, and I will bet you a plate of ribs you can hardly remember where things wrapped up at the end of season two. The show tunneled into some seriously wonky stuff to get Frank into the Oval, and there's no shame in brushing up on it before you hunker down with a luscious crop of new episodes.
Exactly how the action ended:
Frank is President. Two knocks on the desk.And how did that happen, again?
It's the final piece of fallout from the China/PAC scandal that stretched throughout season two. With impeachment brewing, poor sad-eyed President Walker (Garrett to you, Tusk) resigned, resulting in Frank's swearing-in.
Yeah, I've completely forgotten what the Chinese thing was.
Basically, egged on by Frank—who's great at stabbing everyone in the back without getting a drop of blood on his hands—Walker's administration got caught taking money from the Chinese (foreign campaign donations are illegal). Feng—the guy who was into nice gardens and kinky stuff—oversaw a laundering operation that sent rich Chinese guys over to an American casino, where they'd spend lots of money. Then the casino would funnel that money into a Democratic Super PAC. Incentivizing Feng to participate was his business relationship with Tusk, who enjoyed major off-the-books influence in the White House. Under pressure to avoid harsh punishment, Tusk threw Walker under the bus during a congressional hearing, saying that the president knew about the scheme when he actually didn't.
In more straightforward and pressing matters…
Doug is dead. And I loved Doug, so I'm very sad about it. But what did he expect when he drove Rachel out into the middle of nowhere and refused to say why? Anyway, when the finale wrapped, Frank was vaguely aware that Doug was missing, but we'll have to deal immediately with the business of his body being found and Rachel going on the run yet again.
