Evelyn Baxter (Maryann Plunkett) is like the quintessential cog-in-a-wheel bureaucrat staffer, which made her an easy target for Claire, who she assisted in Seasons 1 and 2 at the Clean Water Initiative. Bulldozed in a round of budget cuts, there’s a particularly heartbreaking moment in Season 2 when she’s called on by Remy Danton to sell out her former boss: during their meeting at a Starbucks Coffee shop, Baxter says the treat is a “luxury these days.”
Agent Steve Jones (Chance Kelly) is seemingly a security guard place holder for future threesome-reveler Edward Meechum, but when this Capital Police guy was guarding the Underwoods in Season 1, he harbored a longtime love for Claire. While it was cancer that brought him to an untimely end, Wright gives an award-worthy speech at his deathbed about why her life with Frank is so much more fulfilling than pedestrian true love and honest living. “I know your truth, and now you know mine,” she says before leaving him to die. We know the truth, too: There’s stamina in evil, and Jones was no match.
Connor Ellis (the adorable Sam Page) is hired at the start of Season 2 as communications rep for the newly-installed Vice President and Second Lady. In a brilliant illustration of the subtle sabotage we imagine happening in real-life D.C., Seth Grayson (Derek Cecil) proves himself more valuable, undermining Ellis into the private sector and out of the seat of power — all at the behest of Claire.
Originally nominated as Secretary of State, Michael Kern (Kevin Kilner) proved an instant breakfast for Frank — who took him down with a controversial editorial on Israel written for Kern’s college newspaper in the 1970s — by someone else entriely.
President Walker’s Chief of Staff, Linda Vasquez (Sakina Jaffrey), is one of the few people to see Underwood’s manipulations for what they are, but she alone is too powerless to do anything about it, so she resigns her job instead.
An Underwood “ally” as much as anyone could be one, Underwood manipulated Catherine Durant (Jayne Atkinson) without her knowing, putting her up to big moves that ultimately bring about Walker’s resignation and Underwood’s ascension to the Presidency. While she’s sitting pretty in Frank’s favor, he put her directly at odds with then-President Walker.
Unwittingly drawn into the Underwood/Russo investigation by her former rival turned ally Zoe Barnes, Janine Skorsky (Constance Zimmer) ultimately fled D.C. after her colleague’s death, fearing for her own safety.
Another pawn in Underwood’s chess game, Chinese businessman Xander Feng (Terry Chen) was promised asylum for playing along- and then promptly disregarded as soon as the new President took office.
International photographer and heartthrob Adam Galloway (Ben Daniels) gets his head bitten off and chewed by former lover Claire when he’s implicated in a nude photo scandal he had nothing to do with.
Jackie Sharp (Molly Parker) gets an education in underhandedness when Frank makes her an unlikely but successful choice for majority whip. Slowly stripping away her morals and Army-given ethical code, Sharp tries desperately to cling to her identity in the long shadow of the Underwoods, but is ultimately herself whipped into handing him the presidency.
After they psychologically tortured and murdered her boyfriend/boss Peter Russo, the Underwoods put Congressional staffer Christina Gallagher (Kristen Connolly) on a collision course of her own, recommending her to become a special assistant in President Walker’s office — while filling the First Lady’s ear with whispers about how she slept with her last boss. Christina never stood a chance.
Missouri billionaire Raymond Tusk (Gerald McRaney) tried to play the game of deception and manipulation but was easily outplayed by Underwood, eventually ending up behind bars because he was stupid enough to let his opponent in on his more illegal dealings.
The owner of Frank’s favorite BBQ joint, Freddy (Reg E. Cathey) seemed like one of the politician’s true friends, but even he couldn’t withstand the harsh reality of campaign season and had his business ruined and his personal life leaked to the media for being close to Underwood.
In Season 2, Megan Hennessey (Libby Woodbridge) bravely steps forward as a victim of sexual assault at the hands of the same Army general who raped Claire. Always an opportunist, Claire makes a highly unstable Megan the face of a sexual assault reform bill, attempting to strongarm the armed forces with civilian oversight. Drinking heavily and self-medicating, Megan breaks under the pressure and Claire sweeps her under the rug with alarming agility.
Lucas Goodwin‘s (Sebastian Arcelus) only crime was falling in love — with Zoe Barnes. Her murder leads him on a paranoia-fueled goose chase (his conspiracy theories are correct, sadly) that lands him in federal prison for tampering with a cell phone carrier’s servers. Lucas knows the truth, or arrived at it independently. The Underwoods obviously had to hide him under a rock.
President Garret Walker (Michael Gill) and First Lady Patricia Walker (Joanna Going) — where to begin? Stealing an entire American presidency is a feat of unimaginable intricacy, and it still doesn’t even rank as the top Underwood offense. With Frank viciously leading Garrett Walker to slaughter and Claire planting seeds of suspicion and insecurity within Patricia at every turn — the massacre of the Walker legacy was perhaps the Underwoods’ most ambitious undertaking, and done with a deeply-felt satisfaction.
Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) played big and lost big. Her meteoric rise in journalism was soured by Frank’s increasing neediness and her undeniable ethical dilemma serving as his mouthpiece. And then she got tossed in front of a train. Literally.
Peter Russo (Corey Stoll) is one of the more tragic Shakespearean characters in this saga. Well-meaning but self destructive, and damn handsome for a bald guy, Russo was a false-start political candidate who ultimately helped Frank usurp the Vice Presidency. Frank lets him drink into stupor, then leaves him to be poisoned by car fumes in a closed garage.
