In Which The House Of Cards Is All Up In Here

The following screed contains spoilers for the second season of House of Cards. Reader discretion is advised.

Frank In All Directions

by DICK CHENEY

We admit with all sincerity that our first duty is within our own household.

- Teddy Roosevelt

Robin Wright's face is entirely composed throughout the second season of House of Cards except in two instances: the first is during a hard cry she has at betraying the trust of brunette friend; the second occurs before a climatic ménage à trois. The first is understandable, the second is a bit of an odd smile.

Is it cool to throw your main secret service agent a hot bang for his considerable loyalty? Agent Edward Meachem was in on the plot from the beginning, firing a "stray" bullet at Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) early on in the series. His skeptical yet turgid handsomeness is familial in nature. Wright's Claire Underwood decides against children; they are entirely too much of a temptation. She was chosen for something different.

You darling piece of chocolate. Would you like some bourbon? Kiss my hand.

Many have lost their lives in the Underwoods' King's Quest, but no murdah was felt as deeply as that of the precious Zoe. Sure, her apartment was a bit shit at times, and the erotic portraits Frank took of the Zoester as insurance only get me excited when my face is in a plastic bag, but she was a fantastic cub reporter.

On occasion it even felt like Frank had penetrated an actual bear cub, for the Slugline reporter developed claws. Her texting was subpar at best, however. The only emoji she knew how to use was the yellow face of a very scared man displaying his teeth.

Claire, I can't believe that androgynous reporter touched your favorite dress. She also said the word 'now' more often than was necessary.

The hammy and unexpected nature of her death astonished my wife Lynne, who loudly exclaimed, "The bear cub is down! DOWN!!!" I rushed in the room wearing only my Valar Morghulis tee-shirt and a cock ring. I had a similar reaction to Rachel's brave murder of Douglas Stamper in the deep woods, except I was substantially more judgmental of everyone involved. You let a prost overpower you with a pebble just because her voice sounded like Heaven?

Someone needs to drape a lacey veil over his bald head, as is appropriate for each of us who perishes.

The somewhat grating Stamper probably met his end in the Virginia countryside, although there have been internet rumors that he will turn out to have an identical twin who is able to consume a glass of scotch without falling apart. Stamper's bizarre enjoyment of Charles Dickens and Jewish women reading the New Testament is completely understandable. What he did that I could absolutely never forgive is contradict a man with hair.

"You know what I should do? Get an eskimo pie."

It is hard to know exactly how sers to take House of Cards, since the actual easiest route to The White House is just to become the sitting vice president/puppetmaster of a guy who doesn't give two fucks. House of Cards oscillates from comedy to drama at a consistently rapid pace, but what is more difficult to discern is where the satire diverges from reality. Frank's hamfisted commentary through the fourth wall got old right after he sold out his only African-American friend, and it got downright tedious when he started giving as many looks in that direction as Adam Scott does on Parks & Recreation. To get away with that, you need a shirt like this.

She hitched her wagon to the wrong train smh

Sometimes the show touched a really emotional nerve. You don't even know how many times I tried to get Lynne to say she had been r'ed on national television. I even wrote her a poem about how it was the key to all our hopes and dreams. That moment, and others, allows us to sympathize with the Underwoods even when we logically know it's absurd. By the end of the second season I had enough of Garrett Walker (Michel Gill) and his wife Patricia (Dani Englander): they reminded me of Home Improvement, which was terrible.

My most hated character in the Cardsverse was former Washington Herald reporter Lucas Goodwin (Sebastian Arcelus). The way Lucas melted before Zoe seriously charred my ballsack, and his treasonous acts merited a long stay in federal prison. In addition, I did not care for his hair.

Catherine Durant is one fine piece of foreign policy expertise. Ttyl Secretary Durant.

Let's face it: Zoe probably deserved a far worse fate than she received — in a more just America, she would have been abandoned to a hopeless existence like that of an anchor at CNN.

Frank's final manipulation of the president was his most farfetched. His wife encouraged him to cut his own heart out in order to get Garrett to resign, and the weepy letter that followed was not Frank's finest work. In the end all it accomplished was getting the president to rescind Tusk's pardon — but a Democratic president backed by China would never last anyway, and Frank shouldn't have gotten by on luck alone, even after he raps his ring on the table for it.

No one is ever unhappy when they get surprised with an elliptical.

Now that President Underwood has taken his oath, given his wife and Ed Meachem soft kisses on the mouth in front of everyone, redonned that ring from his entirely homosexual ways at The Sentinel, and hit his desk with the ring, the show would ostensibly seem to be over. Or is it meow? Frank's new adversary is likely to be a Putin-esque figure portrayed by the brothel owner from Deadwood, since House of Cards seems so keen to cast the denizens of the Old West in fractured roles in the New One.

Then again, more House of Cards could offer a bevy of unexpected surprises that were impossible when the Underwoods are so singularly goal-oriented in their plan to become the leader of the free world. Other than much-needed sexual assault reform in the military, it is unclear what actual policies the Underwoods plan to pursue. Perhaps it is best, Beau Willimon seems to believe, when politics is an incestuous but self contained orgasm directed or controlled by outside forces which ultimately know better. I for one welcome our new overlords.

Raymond Tusk killed a parrot, but he was only doing what we were all thinking.

It was never really explained to my satisfaction why Frank had to leave Peter Russo alone in that carbon-monoxide filled car. Possibly his attraction to the man got a bit out of control? Christina too turned out to be nothing more than a red herring, although her return in Season Three as Jackie Sharp's lesbian fling is much anticipated. The two can stroke each other's tattoos and continue to dye their hair opposite colors. Grow up everyone.

Washington used to be full of adults. Bob Woodward's book Obama's Wars describes the president-elect pulling up for a meeting with the top brass in the C.I.A., where he was set to learn all the gory details of the agency's torture methods. When Obama approaches the two men, the first thing the president says is, "They just arrested Governor Blagojevich for trying to sell my seat!!!" like a thirteen year old girl describing the decor at the Kimye wedding. I'm not entirely sure that Frank and Barack Obama are not saints compared to Lyndon Johnson.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. He returns next week when Game of Thrones does.

"Heartbeat" - Alan Brando (mp3)

"Heartbeat (instrumental version)" - Alan Brando (mp3)

In Which We Celebrate The Return Of Hot Pie With The Same

you incredible selection of man

Kidney Trouble

by DICK CHENEY

A matinee idol can emerge from almost anywhere. His charismatic energy infiltrates every aspect of a scene; his raw sexual charisma pervades each moment. The more that he explains how it is best to take the kidney from the cow when it is very young, the more an elongated shudder of pleasure makes its way through my entire body, stopping at the tip of my penis, what the French call a pènis.  

Oh Hot Pie, you returned to me you swarthy little devil, you culinary genius, you measure of a male chef!

missed u so much. what have you been up to? Will I see you later? Is it really ethical to eat veal? Lots of questions Hot Pie. Let's talk later on your cot in the kitchen.

One of writing's greatest clichés is to have people arguing over what exactly they should call each other. There was famously a Jesse Stone novel where the only dialogue consisted of people calling the main character Mr. Stone, and him correcting them and muttering, "Call me Jesse." There is really nothing in a name, unless the entire point of a name is to explain who someone is because it is too much work to create an actual character.

"Do you know how much syndication revenue I am losing by perishing in a few minutes you ginger scallion pancake!"

Often in real life things are named for other than what they are. This is appropriate unless it is done ironically, like when you call your tall, slim drug dealer Shorty. Don't do that - nickname him after a civil rights leader or a basketball player as God intended. Nicknames, actually, are just as lazy a form of nomenclature, and Thrones has given up on them almost entirely, refusing to make The Onion Knight happen, or to allow Bran to go by his soporific nickname in the novels: Jewbits.

In real life people don't say each other's names very often, except if they are having wintercourse with Jon Snow in a cave: then it's just a given.

Bob Arryn was a super nice guy. He brought donuts to work every day.

The pace of events in the Eeyrie was accelerated by a scene that did not really seem provident for Littlefinger's plans. I don't really know why the absurdly named fellow permitted Lysa Arryn to view him pressing his lips against her alliterative niece's, but considering the Arryns tend to hang out exclusively around the Moon Door, that bit of murder probably could have been accomplished at any time.

An appropriate twist would have had one of the Targaryen dragons swooping in to save her. Daenerys and Lysa could then consummate a turgid romance based on how both of their husbands were poisoned. Twinsies.

Could you not just have run water on the burn?

At least everyone is Mereen is a grown-up. The Hound's pathetic whining about how sadsies his brother made him when he tossed the man into a fire really got on my last nerve, a nerve I had believed destroyed when Lynne informed me that Topanga was not, nor had ever been, a first-rate lesbian.

The Hound knows all about acting like something you are not. What kind of self-proclaimed tough guy sobs about a bite wound? Arya's transformation into a cold-blooded killer is just as unlikely. I mean, we all need to kick back, squeeze our direwolf Nymeria, and ponder why our father was such a naive idiot from time to time. Boy, the Lannisters are fucking terrible at killing Ned Stark's children, aren't they?

We get it, he's actually an inch taller than her so you had to shoot it from a weird angle. The same technique was used to make Patricia Richardson seem shorter than Tim Allen on Home Improvement. OK later.

In King's Landing, Tyrion's sulks have finally started to get to me. This guy has more visitors than Suge Knight. The man who once had a whole city doing his bidding as Hand of the King now has to lazily ask all his friends to fight to the death for him. How about a little self-awareness, buddy? Just nominate Cersei as your champion, two birds with one stone.

It's never too early to integrate pain into your lovemaking.

Benioff & co seem to have taken some of the prudes complaining about the show's excess nudity to heart. They somehow zipped right past an important scene where a recast Daario Naharis made the Queen of Dragons feel like a vibrant young snapchattress again. The old Daario had a sort of clean-shaven creepy thing going on - he even shaved his arms and scrotum for his Queen, which struck me as a courteous touch. The new Daario looks like someone who might approach your girlfriend at a brunch in Williamsburg and tell her that he loves anything that smells like radishes and shoot her a significant look.

"Dario, I remember your dick being a lot tanner. Let's meet at Spoonbill & Sugartown later. I want to pick up a copy of Night Film for Jorah. He's suck a fucking plebe sometimes."

Since we never actually see Daario disrobe and place himself into the Queen, I guess what actually occurs is open to interpretation. I imagine the following circumstances:

Daario leaned over Daenerys. "What are your thoughts on gay marriage?" she whispered to him as her rogue scent infiltrated his nostrils.

"I don't know if I really recognize marriage as a vital concept," he whispered back, rubbing himself against her thigh with slow, meaningful scrapes. "I mean, is God married?"

"God's not like an actual person," she said. "What are you saying?" She put the tip of her pinkie finger on the space under his pènis and wiggled it back and forth, muttering, "Moonwalk," as she did so.

"I know he's not an actual person," the sellsword said. "I just mean, if marriage was so important to him, he probably would have implied it was something he had done." He put her right nipple in his mouth and blew bubbles like you would on a baby's stomach. He hummed the chorus of a Phantogram song and Daenerys groaned.

this is the softest lighting I have seen since the blowjob scene in Buffalo 66

Daario repeated "Is this okay?" six or seven times while entering his Queen. Eventually she put her hand over his mouth and instructed him to rub her clit and stfu. His thrusts began to increase in intensity and depth, until he slowed for a bit and asked, "Do you want me to do to you what Brad did to Angelina?"

She looked at him a bit warily. "Go ahead," she decided.

He pulled himself out of her vagina and made a quick phone call. When he turned back to her, his pènis (PUH-NIS) was soft and dripping come. He wiped it off with an Emily Books t-shirt and said, "OK. My agent cast you in a Disney movie. You're welcome."

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. You can find last week's GoT recap here.

"Beauty Leads the Way" - Jeremy Casella (mp3)

"The City of the Lord" - Jeremy Casella (mp3

In Which We Put You All On Trial For Your Thronesing

You Will Have Been Thronesed

by DICK CHENEY

If there's one aspect of life at which I never fail, even for a moment, it is determining whether or not a thing is racist. (Everything is sexist, so it requires little discernment in order to detect this offense.) In response to vicious allegations about a lack of characters of color on Game of Thrones, show creator David Benioff has fought back. "Let's put an African gentleman in a bath with some Caucasian whores!" he cackled to his writing team. They nodded and took his comment as permission to include the word whores in at least ten more lines of dialogue in this episode.

A pirate who visits prostitutes? What will they think of next? This fantastic world contains such wonders!
The main thrust of things last night was the trial of Tyrion Lannister. No matter how many lavish trials I see depicted, they never get any stupider. Why there was an audience present no one will know, other than it served as a convenient excuse for Tyrion to lecture everyone on how good he was with those fire barrels. You saved the city one time, buddy, was it really a justification for murder?

He's really overdressed for summer in King's Landing IMO

Moreover, was it really Joffrey's fault that Robert Baratheon was an abusive drunk and rapist? Did he ask to be born a child of incest? Did he have any choice but to kill that ginger girl's direwolf? What exactly did Joffrey do that was so bad? Did he incessantly ask rhetorical questions that made little to no sense? I submit that he did not. OK, he tortured a few women. If that was a crime, Vladimir Putin wouldn't be the president of Russia, and I would never have tried my first cappuccino.

The Braavosi live at Hogwarts, I believe this bit of trivia was established in "The Hedge Knight"

My hatred for Stannis Baratheon and his illiterate, complainy friend is well-known in these parts. I even wrote a fan fiction in which Stannis Baratheon has the voice of the parents on Peanuts; it was extremely biting and savage in a very subtle way. Stannis has to have his now semi-literate pal speak for him because Melisandre was only contracted for three episodes this season. She demands her own trailer on set and stays in character during meal times.

JK, but the thing is, I never really understood the idea of making Stannis Baratheon such a major character in Thrones. I'm not sure what he really brings to the table, other than a very understanding wife. I guess eventually his body will just get taken over by the Red God, kind of like Octodad: Dadliest Catch.

obama was lyke, "I have this random idea for a statue of myself talking to the Danish prime minister. You guys like it?"

Our first real look at the Braavosi indicates they are a group of very logical gingers. They trim their beards with porcelain knives, and they find Emma Watson grating at best. Every other Friday they take a day sail to Westeros in order to sample some of the local cuisine and make cutting comments to illiterate people about how their bank "has the most money" and other banks "might as well be across the Narrow Sea." Frankly, it's a bit overbearing after awhile, in a discernibly anti-Semitic way.

I seriously will never complain about those handsome bearded braavos, though, because anything that takes attention away from the most boring family in existence, the Greyjoys, is a fucking joy to me.

wow, what a council. Frank Underwood would make ground meat out of these buffoons.

The Theon Greyjoy storyline is so utterly stupid. Every single scene boils down to one inescapable fact: Theon no longer has a penis. I don't see what the big deal is there Reek. Neither does Timothy Geithner, and yet he was able to pen a bestselling book.

Moreover, the subject of the very next scene was how Lord Varys is also a eunuch. If it wasn't for the spicy accent of Prince Martell livening up the proceedings, I swear to God I would have played Hearthstone during this entire turgid sequence. It used to be semi-cool, you know, how Varys had all these children spies and how he was like the only logical one, but now that he has turned on Tyrion, I have no use for the bald fucker.

is this one of the roles they recast? I can't even tell anymore, every bearded guy looks the samesies.

Tyrion's lecture about the Battle of Blackwater was extremely illogical. It came entirely from emotion, reminding me that the little guy is such an ESFJ, just like other great individuals: Desmond Tutu, the Pope (no), and Alvin of Alvin and the Chipmunks fame. Normally able to keep his cool, Tyrion contorted his face into a sphincter of anguish. Peter Dinklage rehearsed this one in the mirror eleventy times.

He was actually fine with everything until they turned his GF against him. That's why people's wives can't testify against their husbands. There would just be too many long lectures by the accused. The point of getting married is that there is only one person in the world who can really get to you, besides like Ellen DeGeneres. She can get to anyone.

"The Station Agent" was a wonderful film, you bastards!

In one sense, Tyrion had a right to be angry. He did in general attempt to be moral and logical in his dealings as the Hand of the King. But in the end, he had only one job, and he did it. Whoop-de-doo. Excellence doesn't come in a day, it arrives over a lifetime. Twyin Lannister has done a thousand jobs. He engineered a revolution, he kept an insane boy king on the throne against a massive invading army, and he let his two hottest children have sex. This is a magical list of accomplishments when you really put it all together.

Why do I feel if Shae had combed Sansa Stark's gorgeous hair a lot more fervently none of this negative shit ever would have happened?

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in an undisclosed location. You can find last week's GoT recapitulation here.

"Never Been Alive" - The Avett Brothers (mp3)

"Another Is Waiting" - The Avett Brothers (mp3)