I’m a sucker for political dramas and the Netflix series House of Cards is as good (or better) than any other series I’ve seen in the last 10 years. It’s fast-paced, intelligent and full of all the elements that make for good drama—scandal, sex and unexpected twists and turns. Neither did the highly anticipated second season, released Feb. 14, fail to deliver, this time with Indians thrown into the mix. It’s always surprising when Indians show up in a mainstream production like this because, if nothing else, it shows Indians as living peoples in the present as opposed to the usual relics-of-a-frozen-past. Look at it closely and you can see that in some ways Hollywood is improving the way they portray Native peoples, but in other ways certain familiar themes continually emerge, themes that go beyond the tired old Indian stereotypes.

House of Cards (starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright with Spacey as one of the executive producers) is the story of Frank Underwood, a pathologically ambitious Southern Dixiecrat congressman who stops at nothing to rise in the ranks of the political elite in his insatiable need for power. Beginning with his position as Majority Whip, the series takes you through his never-ending scheming and conniving his way up the political food chain, aided and abetted by his wife (played by Wright). Together they are as unstoppable as they are unscrupulous, committing every breach of ethics and crime possible to get there, including murder.

Underwood manages to manipulate his way into the office of vice president where he continues to use people as pawns in his own private chess game. Indians enter the scene when the president becomes implicated in a money-laundering and illegal campaign finance scheme involving a wealthy nuclear energy mogul and an equally as wealthy, powerful and corrupt Chinese businessman. The money is laundered through—you guessed it—a highly successful Indian casino.