Quote (stupidkid282 @ Jun 25 2017 03:55pm)
The problem I have is.....Season 1 and season 2 showed an incredibly strong relationship between Francis and Claire. It was an unbeatable team like no other...and then we see a weakened Claire taking all shorts of shit, but she was stronger than that.
Are we to believe that, either Claire as been using Francis as a means of achieving presidency the entire time, or are we to believe that she was holding Francis accountable for all the verbal abuse he gave her in previous seasons.
Do we as an audience want to see Francis fall hard and be buried with all his dirty secrets? Or do we want him to overcome EVERYTHING and succeed?
I don't want either of them to succeed. I want them both to exit stage right in a blaze of fucking glory.
I believe what's happening is that she legitimately loved Francis and would have done anything for him. However, it was always obvious that her desires/wants were secondary to his. For a long time I don't think she knew that was true, she always felt they were equal partners. After these last few seasons it became painfully apparent to Claire how insignificant she was to him and that he would sacrifice her in a moment if it meant obtaining his end goal. If there's one truth in the world, it's that absolute power corrupts absolutely. She is now in that position and she can no longer be held accountable for her actions by Francis or anyone. There's no possible upside in pardoning the former President, it only hurts her image and makes her chances of winning the next election significantly worse. While of course it completely fucks over Francis and it could possibly mean he'll end up serving jail time (lets be honest, that would NEVER happen in the U.S.A, pardoned or not, a President isn't going to jail.), she doesn't have to care anymore. He's out, she's in, his political career had ended in flames and her's is only beginning as she's managed to convince the public that she's squeaky clean and unaffiliated with the crimes of her husband.
She's making the most logical move available to her. I still think Frank is going to murder the shit out of her for this, which would make it not such a smart/logical move, but it gave her the best chance of a 5 or 6 year presidency, I forget how far in they are right now.