Sometimes my sister Rebecca will mention a hugely popular movie or a television show and I’ll say, “What’s that?” and she will smack her forehead and roll her eyes and say, “You are unbelievable.”
A good example of this was La La Land. We were walking along a few months ago and La La Land was apparently what every last person on the planet was talking about but I had literally never heard of it. When Rebecca discovered this, she groaned. “How is that possible?” she said, shaking her head. “Are you like in the world?”
Yes, but I just don’t see many movies and I don’t have a television. And though I definitely consume visual media, it’s not super mainstream media most of the time. I love to watch documentaries. I very much enjoy watching lectures and educational content on YouTube while I sew. Oh, and I’ve seen every episode of The Great British Bakeoff at least twice. But the big shows like Game of Thrones, Scandal, or [insert show here], I just sort of don’t get sucked into that stuff.
Except. Except for this one dark, gripping, tension-filled, beautifully rendered, twisty-turny, Shakespearean blinkin’ show called… House of Cards.
Mercy, that show is good.
It was all Claus’s fault. A couple years ago, he started watching it and wouldn’t stop talking about how incredible it was. From the opening credits to the storyline(s) to the cliffhangers, he just went on and on about it. I finally decided to give it a chance, even though Mom said she and Mark tried to watch it but couldn’t get past a couple episodes because “the characters were just such awful people, honey.”
Yeah, no kidding. Murder, treachery, mutiny, little lies, big lies, enormous lies — the characters in House of Cards are more dastardly and dirty than the meanest Blackbeard-ian pirates that ever sailed the high seas. But they’re fascinating. I don’t know when I’ve ever been more into a television program than House of Cards. Kevin Spacey is irresistibly wicked. Robin Wright is terrifying and beautiful. I’m in love with the character of Doug Stamper, which, if you know the show, is super weird. But what can I do? He’s so wrong, he’s right.
The reason I’m bringing this up now is that Washington, we have a problem: Season 5 is starting at the end of this month.
This means I am about to be obsessed with watching a television show again and I was enjoying not having to deal with that, honestly. It’s kind of stressful. You see, I started watching the House of Cards when there were nearly four seasons already made and available to stream on Netflix, so I started at the beginning and watched episode after episode after episode until there were no episodes left to watch. I watched that show like it was my job. I’d start in the evening and I would watch it until 2:00 a.m., then dream about the show when I fell asleep! It was crazy.
Now, since I’m caught up, I have to see the show and then wait?? For an entire week??
Rebecca, this is why I don’t do this kind of thing. But if you want to get caught up on House of Cards, I would love to come over to your place and watch it together. We can eat popcorn and watch the pirates run amok!