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Marathoning 'House of Cards' on Netflix is the best way to spend your weekend

Have you watched the Netflix original series House of Cards yet? Well, what the hell are you waiting for?

Have you watched the Netflix original series House of Cards yet? Well, what the hell are you waiting for?

This week, it was revealed that David Fincher's dark and ominous congressional thriller series was the most watched thing on Netflix. Nearly all of the folks that watched the first episode continued on. And that's not surprising, considering the fact that Kevin Spacey's House Majority Whip literally smothers all of the unicorns and gumdrops out of your heart in the first two minutes of the series.

Seriously, he breaks down the third wall, stares directly into your soul, and warns you that you're going to have irregular heartbeat for the next 13 hours.

He's not wrong. House of Cards has everything you want in a political thriller:

  1. Sex

  2. Power

  3. A South Philly fist fight

  4. Back stabbing

  5. Powerful female characters

  6. Blackmail

  7. Sex

  8. Drugs

  9. More sex and blackmail

  10. Gratuitous overhead shots of Washington

  11. Kevin Spacey being a bawse

  12. Religious commentary

  13. More sex, drugs, blackmail, and power grabs

Plus, Netflix has realized television's manifest destiny by releasing the entire 13-episode first season at once so that you can hook yourself up to an IV and get that shit into your blood stream IMMEDIATELY.

An oft-used quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck goes, "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made." House of Cards proves that's true, but Fincher and Spacey make it so that you can't turn away.

And Spacey isn't the only one who shines in Cards. Robin Wright co-stars as Spacey's frighteningly ambitious better half. Kate Mara plays an aspiring young journalist scratching and clawing for a place above the fold (or at the top of Google News). Think a Lisbeth Salander with a healthy childhood, a J-school degree, and Jagged Little Pill on her iPod instead of obscure Danish electronica music. Corey Stoll plays a drug-addled Congressman from South Philly who spends his days fighting hangovers and his nights slangin' it around.

The only real knocks on the series is that it has remarkably few West Wing references to have portrayed the Hill accurately and the second season hasn't started filming yet, so you're going to get the shakes when you have to quit cold turkey.

In a world where everyone watches NCIS and the Internet can't stop arguing with itself about every episode of Girls, House of Cards is decidedly the best way you could spend your Presidents Day weekend.