House of Cards - Episode 2

The party conference comes to Brighton, and Collingridge arrives as a Prime Minister under pressure. For Urquhart it is a chance to take the measure of his rivals. He rates each of them to camera: Samuels as intelligent, sensitive and caring, all in one sentence, Peter McKenzie as an idiot, and Harold Earle as not worth a mention. Patrick Woolton is a lout, a lecher and a bully, but cleverer than he looks, and that makes him the real danger.

Urquhart's plan for Woolton uses Penny Guy, assistant to Roger O'Neill. Ian Richardson shows the steel under the courtesy when Urquhart asks for her help. She is to take up with Woolton again, for reasons that become clear later. Penny, played by Alphonsia Emmanuel, asks Roger if he is pimping her now, and whether he cares what she does. She agrees all the same, and Urquhart records the night in a scene in which he sits upright in bed with headphones on. It is insurance, to be used when needed.

He keeps working on the men who might help. Woolton, played by Malcolm Tierney, is persuaded that he would be the best choice if Collingridge stood down. The newspaper magnate Ben Landless, played by Kenny Ireland, is told that the Prime Minister is yesterday's man and that the press is a powerful weapon. Archive TV Musings reads Landless as an unsubtle mixture of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell, and notes how many of the story's parallels with real life still ring true.

Mattie Storin has a short encounter in the bar with Collingridge's brother Charles. James Villiers plays him as a drunk who tells her she is a pretty girl, apologises, and mentions that he has a daughter her age whom he never sees. The scene is brief, and Villiers makes it one of the best of the hour.

Meanwhile the fake financial scandal that Urquhart has set up comes out in full. It seems to spell the end of Henry Collingridge. The episode closes on the developing relationship between Urquhart and Mattie, which Elizabeth has already suggested is the way to guarantee her total loyalty.

Once again Seed stages the pair so that Urquhart stands over the seated Mattie. He pretends to be surprised at the way their conversation has gone and tells her he is old enough to be her father. She replies that perhaps that has something to do with it. After a moment he sits down and says, almost to himself, that he always wanted a daughter.

Her flash of real anger when Roger suggests dinner with Woolton quickly fades. It is a small moment that shows how the people around Urquhart are drawn into his plan, whatever they feel about it.

By the end Urquhart has a recording to use against Woolton and a press magnate on side. Collingridge is exposed, and Mattie is bound more tightly to him.