I enjoyed the first season of House of Cards despite the fact that it did seem remarkably polished but yet distant. I had heard some negative things about the second season, but I had liked the first enough to come back for more. And indeed more is what we get, although mostly it is more of the same – which I am not saying is a bad thing. The plot continues on from the first season and, with some early dramatic plot developments, we soon enough start another round of politics – this time with Frank given a specific adversary in the middle of other characters, to give the show a bit more back and forward that it has when it is just him trying to move.
This does work as a device, although it moves slowly and like the first season there is surprisingly few dramatic twists and turns, with a lot of the plots not really going anywhere particularly quickly. It remains very polished and accessible as a piece of television, which is good because I do think that without the high production values and big names, perhaps the material would not be good enough to draw the viewers on its own merit. I don't mean to sound overly critical but it does take its time and you can see most of the developments coming – they are still delivered very professionally and properly, but it is hardly amazing writing. The thing that it does do better in the second season is that it allows characters rather than just events, to drive the narrative. In particular it allows us to see characters broken unfairly, to really see the ruthlessness of the Underwoods rather than just hearing him tell us about it. This aspect held me more than some of the actual plotting at times.
The cast remain classy throughout, with plenty of talent and plenty of technical and production skills to give them an aesthetically strong stage to do it from. It is still not as great a show as it looks and as others say, but it is professionally made to a high standard, has a lot of talent involved, and does provide a reasonably engaging narrative. I still say that it lacks teeth and real cynicism, but it was good to have some significantly darker edges to characters and events this time round.