House of Cards II

For my second weekly blog post I decided to take another look at House of Cards. I was intrigued by the first episode that I watched last week and I decided it would be good to give the show another try and see if other episodes kept up the quality that I saw in the first show.  After reading about mise-en-scene in class and from the book I thought that since it's such an important part of House of Cards I would write about that this week.

I was not disappointed after finishing "Chapter 2" of House of Cards. The second episode continues the plot from the first episode, but spends much less time building up the characters and can jump right into the action.

The biggest plot element I found in this episode was the use of settings. Often times throughout the show the setting shifts based on what the show's writers were trying to convey. From what I could tell there were three main types of settings used in "Chapter 2."

Official Business

The first setting that was commonly used was a business scene. This was seen whenever Frank Underwood is attending to official business. These meetings usually are set in a official business, office, or government buildings. Whenever Frank is in one of these settings it seems like he puts on a facade for whomever he is interacting with. Often times this facade is broken for the viewers as asides where frank will talk to the camera/audience directly. These official settings include very professional attire and usually do not have any illegal activity. These meetings seem, at least in this episode of House of Cards, to be focused on Frank manipulating his colleges and gaining more control over his environment.

Unofficial Business

There are many unofficial meetings in the world of politics and there's no exception for House of Cards. These meetings usually take place somewhere outside of an official buildings and tend to take places in homes, or most commonly in restaurants. Theses meetings are usually off the book meetings that are known to have less than legal methods. These meetings tend to help you get an idea of what a characters truer motives are, but without an intimate setting it becomes hard to tell whether their intentions are true or whether they are simply manipulation.

Intimate Meetings

Intimate meetings are the meetings that take place in a more personal setting. These almost always take place in a hotel room or a home. These meetings are usually above the board and are between two people in a personal relationship. This is where you tend to see the characters with the least amount of facade. In these settings the characters seem to be themselves and are not trying to hid their true intentions from others.

Throughout the show these three settings are used to elaborate on certain characters and to give the viewer a more in-depth view of the motivations behind some of the characters like Frank Underwood and Zoe Barns. If the show writers were to use only one the of these types of settings than you would only get to see a part of a character's development and a lot of the subtlety of politics and the characters would be lost. It takes all three of these to make a show with deeper meaning and do adequately develop the characters of the show.

I hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you think!

Blaine