When the show gets renewed—but the star is canceled

FOR A SHOW THAT’S BEEN UNHINGED FOR MUCH of its run, Netflix’s House of Cards can be eerily prescient. The pre-Trump seasons followed ruthless Francis Underwood’s (Kevin Spacey) ascension to the presidency as he weathered many scandals that seemingly should have ruined him. Months before Spacey was revealed to be an alleged sexual predator during a paradigm-shifting public reckoning with the sexual misconduct of powerful men, the show had put Frank in the crosshairs. As impeachment loomed, he ceded the Oval to his wife Claire (Robin Wright), trusting that she’d pardon him. But the show’s fifth season closed with the newly empowered Claire ignoring Frank’s phone call, turning her steely gaze to the camera and proclaiming, “My turn.”

In its sixth and final season, arriving on Nov. 2, House of Cards makes the most of its foresight, chasing the political zeitgeist more openly than