Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Frank campaigns for re-election while Claire stays with her mother, Elizabeth Hale, and pursues a congressional seat in Texas. She hires LeAnn Harvey and leaks a damaging photograph of Frank’s father after Frank blocks her ambitions. Their struggle is interrupted when Lucas Goodwin shoots Frank at a rally. Secret Service agent Edward Meechum kills Lucas but is also fatally wounded. Frank survives, comatose and in need of a liver transplant, while Vice President Donald Blythe becomes acting president.
Claire guides Blythe through negotiations with Russian president Viktor Petrov. Doug pressures the Health and Human Services secretary to move Frank ahead of another transplant patient, Anthony Moretti. Frank receives a liver and, after waking, asks Claire to stay with him on different terms. Their reconciliation develops into a joint campaign against Republican governor Will Conway. During the Democratic convention, Claire helps her terminally ill mother die by administering an overdose, then begins an affair with speechwriter Tom Yates. Frank and Claire secure the party’s presidential ticket together.
Tom Hammerschmidt assembles a damaging investigation of Frank with help from Remy Danton, Jackie Sharp and former president Walker. Its publication in the Herald threatens the campaign just as ICO terrorists take the Miller family hostage. The FBI rescues the mother and daughter after the Underwoods negotiate, but James Miller remains captive. The Underwoods choose to exploit fear rather than concede to the terrorists’ demands. Frank announces total war with ICO. The season ends with the Underwoods watching Miller’s filmed execution in the Situation Room, having chosen fear as their answer to the exposé.