Season 6 is widely considered the worst 'House of Cards' season, and near-universally maligned for reasons more than understandable. Personally absolutely agree with this consensus and the reasons given for the bad reception, and this is coming from somebody who felt this way before reading any reviews to begin with but didn't know how to articulate them. That was before reading some and seeing how they felt the same way and don't have much to add.
Was hugely underwhelmed by all the previous three episodes of Season 6, but, while most of the next four episodes managed to fare even worse, for me up to this point of the season "Chapter 69" managed to be the worst yet. None of the flaws in the previous three episodes, all the same pretty much are improved upon and are actually even worse here. And it further manages to be a bloated, claustrophobic, dull and ridiculous episode with no cohesion or complex character writing in sight.
As almost always for 'House of Cards', "Chapter 69" is a slick and stylish looking episode. The odd nice bit in the music.
The only character here to semi-intrigue and be remotely plausible compared to everybody else is Petrov. And it is Lars Mikkelsen who gives the best performance, posing more of a threat in this episode alone than Claire and the Shepherds did all season.
On the other hand, everything else pretty much doesn't work. The dialogue continues to be the complete opposite of the writing in Seasons 1-4, the worst of it really risible. The staleness and awkwardness has not only not gone away it pretty much intensified here. Claire is a flat character who has yet to make a decision that progresses the plot or is logical and Robin Wright continues to look out of her depth. The episode tries to do too much, with too many ideas, none original and none really going anywhere, while also feeling slow-moving and flimsy. When there is any attempt at moving anything forward it comes over as contrived and silly.
Furthermore, there are too many characters, even for the type of episode it was meant to be, and too many of them are superfluous to what's going on and have no development to them, also like the writers had forgotten what they were like in previous appearances. Only Petrov properly rings true here. "Chapter 69" also feels incredibly convoluted with nothing making much sense, absolutely agree that we are four episodes in this season and understanding what's going on is practically impossible. The main plot line by the end is truly far fetched, in a way that really insults the viewer.
In summation, another very weak episode sad to say. 3/10
