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President Claire Underwood Takes Over in the New 'House of Cards' Teaser

Hail to the Chief.

Netflix strategically dropped the first teaser trailer for House of Cards during the Oscars on Sunday evening, a night that featured Frances McDormand's rousing speech about female voices in the entertainment industry and saw a trio of Harvey Weinstein accusers address the #MeToo movement—a movement that ultimately removed Kevin Spacey from the show he starred in.

Now, it's finally Claire Underwood's turn. The last season of House of Cards ended with Claire taking over the presidency from her husband, Frank, and ignoring his desperate calls for a presidential pardon. According to the first teaser from season six, it looks like she's doing pretty well on her own.

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"We're just getting started," Claire tells the camera, as the teaser cuts to a title card reading, "Hail to the Chief."

Netflix removed Spacey from the head of its once-flagship political drama last year, following a string of sexual misconduct allegations against the disgraced actor. The future of House of Cards was up in the air for a few months, but the streaming service opted to rewrite the final episodes to center on Claire instead of Frank and not just replace Spacey with Kevin James, no matter how many people may have wanted that.

Although the trailer doesn't reveal much about the twists and turns that are likely to come in the show's sixth and final season, the absence of Spacey's Underwood speaks volumes. According to Netflix, the last run of episodes—a slightly abridged, eight-episode season—will offer a "good, creative conclusion" to one of its first successful original programs, following Spacey's firing. It's not clear yet how the show plans to address its main character's absence, but we can only imagine what creative methods Claire might resort to in order to hold onto power.

There's no word yet on when the final season of House of Cards will drop, but the teaser at least proves that Claire can be as powerful and terrifying as Frank Underwood ever was—if not more.

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