As Netflix mulls whether or not to continue production on House Of Cards' sixth and final season, there's been renewed chatter of a possible spinoff either focusing on Doug Stamper, played by the ever-reliable Michael Kelly, or most likely continuing on with the series without Kevin Spacey's character at all.
Considering that Kevin Spacey's character was effectively sidelined and written off the show by the end of the fifth season, it seems like Netflix was planning all along to end the series with its sixth season. However, the problem with a spinoff from House Of Cards isn't just that the allegations against Spacey are so monstrous as to taint anything that's even remotely connected with him.
There's also the fact that House Of Cards as a concept is spent, creatively. Even before Donald Trump's ascension to the presidency and before the utter shitshow that was the last US General Election, the series was suffering a deficit in both believable storylines and characters that audiences could either connect with, or at the very least understand their motivations.
By the fourth season, it seemed clear that the premise was beginning to lose steam and that the supporting characters - especially Kelly as Stamper and the underrated Derek Cecil as Press Secretary Seth Grayson - were becoming far more interesting than the central dynamic between Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. If anything, the story felt sluggish and forced whenever it flicked back to either one of them.
The fifth season, however, underlined all this - even when it tried to ratchet up the craziness as a direct response to the Trump presidency. Rather than trying to effectively demonstrate what an alternative world could look like, it instead tried to out-crazy the current world by turning Underwood into a screaming lunatic. Indeed, the opening scene of the fifth season saw him roaring at the top of his lungs - just like Trump - on the floor of the Congress. It was a powerful image, sure, but how do you possibly top the madness that is reality?
It's a recurring joke that satire is effectively dead under the Trump administration, but the same goes for any kind of semblance of a political comedy. Hell, even Veep is starting to feel the pressure from the current political landscape. It's telling that both showrunners - Beau Willimon and Armando Iannucci - stepped away from both of their creations after Trump came into the picture. How can you make things funny when you've a clown leading the free world? Nobody's laughing anymore. How can you make politics seem Machiavellian and the preserve of impossibly devious characters when a cheap hustler is sitting in the Oval Office?
Whether or not a spinoff actually comes together remains to be seen, but it now seems increasingly unlikely. Just yesterday, Netflix moved to sever all ties with Kevin Spacey and decreed that the series would not continue with his involvement. Today, another man came forward to accuse Spacey of unwarranted sexual contact. Spacey has also been accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year old. His agent and his publicist have both dropped him as a client. House Of Cards cannot and should not continue, as Spacey is too close to it - even after his removal - and any further continuation of the series would only serve to remind of the same.
