Not only does Friday, Feb. 27, mark the final week in February, but it marks the return of the Netflix hit House of Cards, which arrives in one big 13-episode bundle for those who love to binge watch the political drama starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.
Well, at least those in the U.S. can do the binge starting today and over the weekend as apparently House of Cards fans in Australia can't.
Those fans will have to wait until some point in March. Some of them at least.
One reports notes some die-hard Australians, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 -- who clearly can't wait that long -- are already using some software trick to access the U.S. Netflix system.
Anyway, back to what's happening as Spacey's character, Frank Underwood, takes on the role of president as season 3 begins. Many fans have already had a peek at what is to come for Underwood and his First Lady, Claire, a power couple unlike ones we've seen before in Washington, D.C.
The peek earlier this month resulted from a misstep by Netflix, which released episodes ahead of schedule. Twitter, of course, exploded and alerted Netflix powers-that-be about the boo-boo, and the streaming content provider then shut it down within half an hour. That's the power of 50,000 tweets in an hour apparently.
Given the show's massive popularity and fans' ability to watch an entire season in 12 hours, it would be of little surprise if today didn't result in one of the biggest "sick outs" in U.S. workforce history.
So, if every other cubicle at work today is empty, there's little mystery. Then again, thanks to earbuds and dual monitors in most workspaces, maybe it'll just be more of a work slowdown.
We digress. Shifting back to season 3 of House of Cards, the Underwoods find themselves living in the White House and roaming the Oval Office, exactly what Frank Underwood was coveting when season 1 kicked off. The 56-year-old Harvard graduate is the 46th U.S. president, assuming the office following the resignation of President Garrett Walker in season 2.
Underwood has finally attained his political aspiration. Who cares if he had to kill a few people during the first two seasons to make it happen? He's now the supreme ruler of the biggest democracy in the world.
At some point in episode 1, he will knock his ring twice on a wood desk and indicate in his southern drawl voice-over how he intends to fulfill one of his most prophetic statements of the last season:
"For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is but one rule: Hunt or be hunted."
