House of Cards showrunners explain the series' shocking end

Entertainment Weekly

Executive producers Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson discuss the shocking final scene with EW, with Pugliese saying: "I think the show’s had a very unique relationship with the audience, and the show had been speaking to the audience and that’s partially the themes of the season that we played with, the sort of reckoning and the complicity that we’re playing with. But ultimately, the finale is not final until it’s experienced by the audience and plays out after that last scene in the imagination of the audience. So, there was a choice to do that — to let whatever happens afterward to be played out or figured out in the mind of the audience." ALSO: Producers wanted the ending to feel surprising but inevitable.