Filming on the sixth and final season of House of Cards resumed yesterday, with the newly-added Diane Lane and Gregg Kinnear playing (according to the N.Y. Times‘ John Koblin) a brother and sister. In a 1.31 post, Vanity Fair‘s Yohana Desta wondered if Lane and Kinnear will play “a pair of elite D.C. spin doctors ushered in to smooth out the kinks of [President Frank] Underwood’s disappearance.”

Have I missed something? Where has it been hinted that Kevin Spacey‘s chief executive might vanish? That would be an odd way to go, no?

If I were running House of Cards, I would keep it simple. Just as Spacey became an instant dead man last fall in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, Frank Underwood needs to succumb to a heart attack. Nothing tricky or complicated — he just drops dead. (An act that can’t be performed, of course.) Start the season with a funeral procession down Pennsylvania Avenue. Flag-draped casket, muffled drums, the clop-clop of horses.

I for one would love to see House of Cards continue beyond a sixth season. The saga of the presidency of Robin Wright‘s Claire Underwood, and whether or not she can put forth a vision and a way of governing separate from her late husband’s. Priorities, finaglings, battles and challenges. What does she have to hide, and what do her enemies have on her?