Prior to his 'death' (written out of the show), Frank was forming an alliance with Industry/Private Corporations as a means of political support for Claire and his post-presidency (job, money, pension, presidential library).
Claire, however, refuses to work with those alliances (Private Industry, Jane Davis, Mark Usher and Seth who joined Shepherds foundation as a consultant/PR spokesman etc.) and sets about overturning those alliances and forging her own way.
Using her shady past, the Shepherds (the main private body in the film) constantly peddle references in the media to her husband as a means to undermine public support for Claire in an attempt to get her to support changes in policy (e.g. de-regulation).
Claire fully attempts to 'clean up' her past by having Jane Davis, Hammerschmidt and Cathy Durant all murdered. (Durant publicy gets to call out Claire/the Underwoods before getting to Switzerland who is then murdered).
In order to distract from all this; she then uses Tom Yates' body and his affair with the White House intern (who is named as Claire's PressSec) to start allegations of collusion with Russia which scuppers Usher's chances of invoking the 25th amendment when he attempted to remove Claire as president (she was literally in the Residence doing nothing for 23+ days as part as some master scheme to undermine Usher). Claire fires her entire cabinet as a result for treachery and replaces it with 100% women.
Claire also manufactures a crisis in the Middle East and ICO (despite Davis, ICO figures and her own military saying they're a redundant force), when being called out on this by her own generals and cabinet - she then goes into a scripted diatribe about the prevalence of misogyny and that they shouldn't question her ability as commander-in-chief because she's a woman.
Skorsky and Tom Hammerschmidt spend the entire season connecting the dots and Skorsky finally publishes an article that begins to get traction in the media.
By this stage; I was skipping episodes in 2-3 minute segments. But in the end;
- Using personal info, she undermines the Shepherd family and succeeds in bringing Mr Shepherd to trial for involuntary manslaughter which was exposed earlier in the season.
- Nathan Green (the FBI director) abandons Claire at the last minute
- Claire becomes pregnant (presumably Yates' child)
- We eventually learn that Doug has been attempting to undermine Claire for a while. However, it also transpires that he indirectly (but intentionally) killed Frank by taking his medication.
- Lots of deliberately inserted feminist lines about preconceptions of stereotypes, age of white men being over.
- At the end, Doug stabs Claire (or cuts her rather) in the jugular, Claire then stabs Doug in her arms - ** IN THE OVAL ** . Presumably Claire dies too.
