After suspending production following sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey, Netflix announced today that House of Cards is indeed continuing on for its sixth and final season, without its star.
Well, without its male star at least. The series will now focus on Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood.
Production on the final season will be resumed in early 2018. The season will consist of eight episodes, down from its original planned 13. As for Frank Underwood’s offscreen fate, we’ll have to wait and see, but in the Michael Dobbs novel that inspired both this series and the original U.K. miniseries, the main character (Frank Urquhart in those versions) dies. So that might be in the cards, as it were. Or, perhaps he’ll just be in jail. He’s no longer necessary anyway as–spoilers for those not caught up with this most recent season–Claire is now president of the United States, meaning this series may end with its own Cersei Lannister on the throne.
Kevin Spacey was accused by Star Trek: Discovery star Anthony Rapp of making sexual advances on him when Rapp was just 14 years old. Netflix also canceled plans for its Gore Vidal biopic starring Spacey, and, of course, Ridley Scott made some very creative decisions to excise Spacey from his film, All the Money in the World, entirely and replace him with Christopher Plummer. While it would be pretty amazing for season six of House of Cards to carry on with Christopher Plummer as Frank without so much as a mention, we’re pretty content with The Claire Underwood Show.
