By the end of House of Cards’ season four premiere, Frank is closer than ever to his inevitable downfall, and it can’t come soon enough.

In “Chapter 40,” the excellent debut of the show’s fourth season, President Underwood faces an opponent more formidable than even Viktor Petrov himself. Claire has gone rogue, abandoning her husband and making moves for the Texas governorship at the expense of the Underwood campaign, and although a marriage in trouble becoming the driving force of a political drama might not sound compelling, Frank once again has a clear adversary. This plot turn should elevate the new episodes over last year’s somewhat muddled outing in which there was no longer an obvious antagonist for Frank, who had achieved his goal of becoming leader of the free world. Frank is at his most watchable when everything is falling apart around him, not when he essentially has everything he wants, and for that reason, season 4 is an immediate improvement.

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