President Claire Underwood’s Reign Is on Shaky Ground in New House of Cards Teaser

Last we heard from her, Claire Underwood was burying her disgraced husband once and for all, but it looks like the skeletons in her closet might come back to bite her in the new teaser for the final season of Netflix’s House of Cards.

Robin Wright took over as the lead for the show’s final season after former star Kevin Spacey’s shameful exit following allegations of sexual misconduct, and the new teaser doubles down on scrubbing him out of the series’ narrative. Within the show, though, it looks like Claire Underwood’s new reign is on shaky ground.

“Here’s the thing: Whatever Francis told you the last five years, don’t believe a word of it,” says a steely Claire Underwood in one of her late husband’s signature addresses to the audience, but things aren’t quite as triumphant as her words make them seem. She’s a mess in her first 100 days as President, as her teary eyes and stained makeup reveal.

“The reign of the middle-aged white man is over,” she later declares, but that doesn’t free her from the consequences of ascending a system that’s made for and dominated by those forces. Claire, as with her husband, has made a lot of shady choices to get to this point, and she may be forced to reckon with them as the series wraps up. She tells her fellow Americans “it’s going to be different for you and me” at the end of the teaser, but we’ll have to see whether that’s a premonition of the reckoning to come.