'House of Cards' cast discuss their female-powered final season

Francis Underwood is dead but one powerful woman is alive, well, and doing things her way on "House of Cards."

The final season of "House of Cards" imagines the country under the leadership of Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) in the aftermath of her husband's sudden death.

Even before the forced departure of Kevin Spacey from the series, the plan had been for Wright and Claire to take center stage in the final season. Season 5 ended with the character's declaration that it was, "my turn."

"It was always going to be the exploration of that for Season 6, and what that would mean is being a soloist. And what kind of adversity she would be up against and how would she handle it?" Wright told CNN. "How does she make friends to then make them enemies?"

Without her partner in deception by her side, the show clears the way for the audience to see Claire's leadership in its purest form -- from her unconventional methods (a fake depression) to her appointees (an all-female cabinet).

"You do see there's a lot of powerful women in the show," new cast member Greg Kinnear told CNN. "And they're represented a fairly -- although, I'm not sure you're going to find your hero in Claire Underwood or Annette Shepherd, in the sense that they are about as devious as any two women I've ever seen on screen together and formidable."

Annette Shepherd is played by Diane Lane. Lane, also new to the fold, plays Kinnear's sister on the series, together forming a duplicitous duo with a clear agenda.

Despite Annette's underhanded ways, Lane agreed that images of female leadership as seen on the show carry weight.

"Sometimes if we don't see the representation coming at us through the screen, we don't believe that we can project that going forward," she said. "It's interesting how that works, isn't it? We told the fairytale, therefore you can dream that big."

Michael Kelly, who has played Doug Stamper since the show's first season, thinks reality would be even better than fiction.

"I've said it many times before, I think we'd been a lot better shape with women running just about everything," he said with a laugh. "In all sincerity, it is power. The show has always been power. It's set in the political world, but this show is about power and then you see women having this power, And, I don't know, I thought that was really cool."

"House of Cards" is streaming now on Netflix.

Let's block ads! (Why?)