House of Cards Review: Frank Underwood’s Insatiable Hunger For Power

In one of Frank Underwood’s many asides, delivered with great aplomb by Kevin Spacey, he breaks the fourth wall to say, “Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after ten years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries.” Those two sentences capture the essence of the main character and great antihero of a dark, almost sinister political drama.

• • •

The Americans: FX’s Cold War Drama Delivers

If one thing is clear after two episodes of FX’s new 80s-era drama, the quality of scripted television has never been better. The Americans, created by CIA officer turned screenwriter, Joe Weisberg, is a cold war drama about covert Soviet KGB officers living as American citizens. The show stars Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings and Matthew Rhys as Phillip Jennings. They are a married couple with two children and living the American dream in 1981, they also happen to be Soviet KGB agents.

• • •