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House of Cards Boss Predicts Hashtag That Will Trend Tonight, Gives Prospects of Another Threesome

Executive producer and creator Beau Willimon spills details on what to expect

By Kristin Dos Santos Feb 26, 2015 8:13 PMTags
House of Cards, Season 3Netflix

Tonight at midnight PST, President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) returns to Netflix and holy hell, you better buckle your dang seatbelt, fellow fans.

House of Cards' latest batch of episodes is not to be missed, based on the ones we've seen. And don't worry, we aren't going to spoil a thing, but suffice to say: This expertly crafted thriller has outdone itself once more.

We chatted with executive producer  Beau Willimon about  the hashtag he believes will be trending, the likelihood of another "Meechsome" sex shocker, and that "accidental" leak...

David Giesbrecht for Netflix

Season three was leaked early, everyone flipped out, and the episodes were taken down. Were you panicked? Or did you plot out the whole thing?
Beau Willimon:  
Some people were guessing that we pulled a Beyoncé. I wish I could take credit for that. Frank Underwood would have taken credit for it. He would have said something like, ‘If you take credit for chaos, it suddenly becomes order.'  But if we did it on purpose, I wouldn't even admit it to you, so you would never know!  But the most encouraging thing was how excited people were. 

If you could predict a hashtag that will be trending as people watch season three, what would it be?
I mean, it would be fun to see the hashtag "FU." It's just the main's initials, after all! Also I would love to see #JeffBeal, who's sort of the silent but deadly hero of House of Cards. Jeff Beal composes all of our score, and I don't think, you know, there would be no House of Cards without Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, but I certainly don't think there would be a House of Cards that feels as impactful and strong as it does to those that like it if it wasn't for Jeff's music, and I think he has outdone himself with season three.

READ: 13 shows we hate ourselves for loving

David Giesbrecht for Netflix

We've seen in the trailer that Claire is having some serious reservations about what she and Francis have done, and what it has all been for. 
It's only natural that after climbing a hill for so long, that is so difficult, with so many casualties along the way, when you get to the top, you would look around and say, ‘Where are we? What was all this for?'

Frank and Claire Underwood have become so despicable as the show has gone on. They are murderers. In this new season, are you expecting anyone to root for them? 
You don't write it from a point of view of how the audience might respond. You can't. There are plenty of great characters that you won't necessarily root for all the time but you want to know what they're going to do, and you want to know more about them. Frank and Claire, in each of their own eyes, they're justified in what they do, and that's the most important thing. 

Netflix

Are you aware that there is a ton of fan fiction about Edward Meechum (Nathan Darrow) and the season- two threesome with Claire and Frank?
Oh yes. [Laughs] We call it the "Meechsome." I believe the scene was less than a minute.

It was short but memorable! Are we going to get another surprising sex moment like that?
Anyone who's still alive in House of Cards has the potential to return. The only people we're not going to see are Peter Russo and Zoe Barnes. Everyone else is still alive and kicking. Edward Meechum has become an intrinsic part of the solar system that is Frank and Claire Underwood so it's a reasonable expectation to see him but I can't make any promises. We have a pretty general overall rule about that, which is that sex is part of life, and it's a part of every character that we portray, but we only investigate it if it's revealing something new about the character. If the scene isn't pushing the character development forward, then it doesn't belong in the show. Sometimes, sex does that, it does push the characters forward. But what we're not really interested in is pure salacious value of sex scenes, because I actually find that to be distracting from the story. When it reveals something new, then it becomes very interesting. And why would we want to compete with the over 50% of web traffic devote to pornography anyway? There are people who do that much better than we do!

David Giesbrecht for Netflix

How nervous are you about how people will react to season three? Did you feel pressure going in to writing it, given how huge the first two seasons were?
If you're ever feeling less pressure, then you're doing something wrong. You're becoming lazy. I kind of go by the dictum that my dad taught me a while ago, which is:  ‘Any job you know how to do is not a job worth doing.' So our goal with every season is to make that season a job we don't know how to do.

House of Cards season three hits Netflix tonight at midnight. Enjoy. Every. Minute.