Some lucky Netflix viewers benefitted from a glitch in the system Wednesday when episodes from the newest season of House of Cards were accidentally leaked on the service two weeks ahead of its scheduled premiere date.
Though the situation was rectified pretty quickly, those who were fast enough to tune into the premiere episode were able to finish watching it. The leak revealed a ten episode stretch but the official House of Cards Twitter account stated that Season 3 will actually contain thirteen episodes.
In true Frank Underwood dry humor form, the House of Cards Twitter account had a bit of fun regarding the accident, tweeting this message to fans:
This is Washington. There’s always a leak. All 13 episodes will launch February 27.
— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) February 11, 2015
House of Cards is a Netflix original series starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright as Frank and Claire Underwood, a U.S. congressman and his wife. The political drama follows the plight of Frank, who becomes disgruntled when he is passed over for a promised Secretary of State position. With the aid of his devoted wife, Frank schemes and plots his way up the ranks of the U.S. government in his quest to become President of the United States.
House of Cards has received much critical acclaim including multiple Golden Globe and Emmy nominations over the past two seasons and an Outstanding Performance Golden Globe win for Wright in 2014 and Spacey in 2015.
The intriguing plot lines and diabolical schemes of the Netflix original are also a hit with fans, with House of Cards being one of the streaming service’s most binge watched shows. Even Hillary Clinton stated she and former President Bill Clinton had a hard time watching just one episode at a time during the first season.
Clinton lamented how difficult it was to refrain from watching Cards episode after Cards episode because of the complete season’s availability at one time, “a little bit of the,’Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe we can just sit here and do this’ and ‘We’re only going to watch one episode, oh, let’s watch another. Okay, well, we have time, we’re not going anywhere, let’s watch a third.”
Season 3 of Cards has been a long time coming with Season 2 having come out in February of 2014. For binge watchers, it likely feels like an eternity since they’ve gotten to check in with the charismatic, power hungry, manipulative Frank Underwood.
If you weren’t one of the lucky ones to get a House of Cards fix this afternoon through Netflix’ error, perhaps playing the Season 3 trailer over and over will help calm your nerves:
http://youtu.be/yAk4ycJ2xTo
What do you think? Will this be the season that Frank Underwood’s carefully crafted house of cards comes tumbling down?
[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]