Found myself hugely let down on first watch by the previous episode "Chapter 66", which happened to be 'House of Cards' near-universally maligned Season 6's premiere. An episode that already showed exactly what went so horribly wrong (almost everything) and what made Season 6 so bad.Watching it again a year or so later to be kind to it and hoping for it to be better than remembered, it still was just as bad and perhaps worse.
"Chapter 67" is a minor improvement. At least there is a little story progression and also that it is not quite as uneventful as the previous episode. Personally still didn't find it a good episode and consider it one of the show's worst if one of Season 6's least bad marginally. With it containing almost everything that didn't work in "Chapter 66", almost as badly with no real improvement. Despite a little more advancement, it all still felt dull and strange with the writing and characterisation all wrong.
The photography is slick at least, it was only in the season's last two episodes where this aspect didn't impress all that much. The music has its moments, having presence without being overbearing (though generally it could have been more subtle, later episodes did this worse though).
Michael Kelly brings his usual intensity and pathos to Doug, even if the character was more interesting and better used in the previous seasons. Diane Lane gets as much mileage as she can out of her odd material.
On the other point of view, Claire is no longer a compelling or well-written character, pretty much the complete opposite of that. She was great as a co-lead and pitted against such a meaty character like Frank, but she lacks gravitas and is out of her depth and lost on her own. There is no fire or nuance here now and there is just nothing really to her development-wise. Robin Wright does not look comfortable and has completely lost her charisma, taking Claire's demeanour of the previous five seasons to extremes and making her too much like a cold fish.
Again the character writing has lost its meat and is instead very one-dimensional and like ciphers. Did think that a few didn't add an awful lot, like Seth for instance. The Shepherds are neither compelling or menacing and their motivations are very vague and not making sense, we don't even know what their real intentions are yet. The story is pretty thin and vague, with any progression being awkwardly written in and rather head-scratching. Seth's, a very limited character too, role is not particularly revealing and Janine's is pointless. The relationship between Claire and Annette is truly bizarre to put it politely, especially that horribly awkward "I slept with him once" exchange. That is just one example of the episode's, and season's, terrible dialogue, which is just so forced and banal, reeking of fatigue and cheese.
Summing up, very mediocre episode if a slight improvement. 4/10
