This morning, we sat on the back porch talking about Kevin Spacey, who has been discovered to be a groper of young men. Although groping people is a rotten thing to do, Spacey’s case seemed more complicated than that. For starters, he already plays the biggest villain on tv, Frank Underwood.
We’ve been binge-watching House of Cards this year, trying to catch up with the rest of America, as we grapple with a vision of American politics that’s darker than Shakespeare. The “hero” of this drama is not a likable guy. Frank makes ruthless deals. He has people killed and kills people himself. He takes advantage of people in every way — politically, personally, and sexually. And then he has the gall to turn to the camera, conspiratorially, to tell “us,” the audience, what we think and why we’re wrong. He brings us into his web of deceit and makes us complicit.
This started to make me uncomfortable enough that at some point in season 5, I found myself saying out loud — these people are so god-awful that death is too good for them. I think I was talking back to Frank. But that’s how good an actor Kevin Spacey is — he made me hate him.
Naturally, we found ourselves speculating about how Frank would buy it in the end. Would he be killed? Would he be taken out by scandal and disgraced? Would he somehow win the latest battle and live to fight another day? Somehow, walking off into the sunset didn’t seem to be in the cards for old Frank, but we didn’t rule it out.
And then, in one of those unexpected twists of fate, our question was answered in a most shocking and disappointing way. Frank would be taken out, not by any fictional device but by a real-world scandal involving the actor who plays him. Kevin Spacey has been accused of ongoing, serial sexual harassment of young men and boys. He is in utter disgrace, tossed by Netflix and his shows canceled. Law suits are sure to follow.
Meanwhile, evil Frank Underwood has met his fate but not one we would have chosen for him. Instead, he will just fade away. Viewers will not get the kind of dramatic closure that viewers crave. But perhaps it’s just as well. Maybe creatures as vile as Frank Underwood should not be allowed to live, not even in fiction.
