Press coverage after makes it seem like a win for Conway, but it also pissed off his running mate even more, so who knows?

He absolutely spun it as a win, because that's what he does. He's essentially a Fox News type candidate (a spin candidate). He's the Trump before Trump showed up. They were trying to go really out there with the guy, from an opportunistic standpoint, but reality has proven to be far more surreal than the show. It was absolutely not a win, makes it look like he will negotiate with terrorists in the White House, and made people close to him not like him as much (also exposed him as who he really was). The theoretical reason why you don't negotiate with terrorists is that they will do this kind of thing all the time. He opened himself up before even being put in office solely because he was leading in the polls...lol. HOC has tried to go balls out crazy with this season, but reality again trumped it (pun intended).

after claire dropped the divorce bomb and there was a 'we gotta do something to contain this' and a 'get meachem' I was thinking woah, FU's gonna get meachem to slip her pills in texas or something, make it look like a suicide.

5 minutes later, mechem is dead. so, bad read on my part i guess.

What was up with the kid shooting himself? It seemed to come out of nowhere.

THE organ donor

In the last scene where Frank says "we don't submit to terror, we make the terror", I got the vibe that maybe the whole terrorist attack on the millers was orchestrated by Frank. Is it too far fetched?

Wait, are you saying that this random kid, who we've never seen before, decided to kill himself in order for FU to get his liver? Or he just deicded to kill himself for whatever reason, and they were just showing the circumstances of how a liver became available?

If the former, that seems ridiculous. How would the kid know his liver was even a match?

Also, when FU was meeting with all of the people who received organs, wasn't the donor the husband of one of the women there? I'm confused.

I had started to wonder that myself but decided no. It required too much to go right.

my biggest problem with this season is that none of the threats to Frank ever seem dangerous. As he was rising to power, it was always like a puzzle of how he was gonna backstab and manipulate and what would he gain.

But now, its just, ok hes gonna backstab and manipulate, then this will go away. The threats aren't sufficiently credible to really give an impression of real danger. It never occured to me for a second that Dunbar was going to win the primary instead of Frank, so when they decided to just write her off the show one day, seemed perfectly natural to just move on with the story.

Now with the reporter breaking the story at the end, even this doesn't really seem like anything much will happen because the guy is just to small and weak to bring Frank down.

The republican candidate - it's never been a question of whether or not FU will beat him, just when and how.

So on FUs rise to power, the interesting part was not just how Frank would do it, but what he would gain each time. Nowadays, the what is gone, just the how is left. so a lot of the entertainment value has gone with it.

The show needs a credible opposition to Frank to bring this sense of risk back. I think they've tried to create this, but have so far failed.

Sounds like you should be a defense attorney, because I think they're purely effed. The scary part is how much Frank might lash out now that he's a cornered cat. This dude cares nothing about collateral damage.

Part of the allure of the show to people like me is that we want to see how he gets taken down. As it was beginning to happen, my wife was almost like "oh no", and I said "you're rooting for the bad guys?" She said no, but she doesn't want it to happen. It's a unique position for a show to be filled with such bad people, and while you may want them to go down, you kind of don't want them to as it's actually happening. What should be a fist pump for the audience ends up not being that for some reason.

Maybe it's cheating - but I'm assuming that the show effectively ends when frank dies or gets impeached, killed, defeated in election. So, the lack of 'Season 4 is the final season of house of cards' or 'season 5 will be the final season' sort of gives it away that he's gonna be fine. i could be wrong, and there may be some dynamic where he gets dethroned and has to try and climb back - but that really seems incredibly unlikely - a president that's commited murder - how do you take him down in a way that he can ever climb back up?

I figured out a way to explain what i'm looking for in the show. Kavanaugh. The Shield Season 5 I think it was. Vic had pretty much always gotten away with everything - until Kavanaugh came along. He was a worthy adversary. It wasn't just the pile of things he'd done catching up with him...it was 1 guy putting it all together. House of Cards has a bunch of things...but no person yet identified as the one to bring him down.

of course kavanaugh didn't end up taking down mackey. but i think the argument still stands that it is more satisfying to see a giant take down a giant then to watch death by a thousand cuts.

I think it would be a mistake for the show to go more than 5 seasons. I hope this will be the last one.

I have a feeling we're about to meet Frank's biggest adversary...himself. I can't remember if Rachel Pozner is still in play. Doug's really going to be the one to sink him, since he allowed himself to get personally involved in two really bad situations. We always have to remember the show is called House of Cards. Everything is built in a very fragile way, and once you pull the right card, it's all over. Any way you slice it, this show is great hyperdrama, the gold standard for any show trying to work in this genre. I think the only people who don't like the show are ones who take it too seriously. It's a beautiful show with great acting and technical, but it's a campfest from start to finish. The "legit" version of this show is Madam Secretary, a pure bore fest from start to finish.

Frank is now President.

having his wife kill him