To put how I feel about the second season of “House of Cards” simply, I would say season one operated at 100 percent and the second, well, only operates at 97 percent.

The Netflix original series’ second season was released Feb. 14 on the online streaming service and goes to show if you’re going to keep doing what you’ve always done, you have to change little things here and there to keep the show from becoming monotonous.  But in the case of this Golden Globe nominated drama, some of those changes weren’t little. I should say now that the rest of this review will contain a few spoilers.

The season two premiere episode did a good job of providing context to the current situation, considering season one was released over a year ago. We find Frank Underwood, portrayed by Kevin Spacey, and his wife, Claire, portrayed by Robin Wright, preparing to be voted into the Oval Office and assume the roles of  Vice President and Second Lady. Lucas Goodwin, portrayed by Sebastian Arcelus, Janine Skorsky, portrayed by Constance Zimmer, and Zoe Barnes, portrayed by Kate Mara, continue to meet in secret, still trying to piece together any possible connection between Frank and the startling death of Rep. Peter Russo, portrayed by Corey Stoll.  Claire continues to fight Gillian Cole, portrayed by Sandrine Holt,  over a looming  court battle over   Cole’s   termination from Claire’s environmental nonprofit organization. So basically, everything’s fine until Frank pushes Zoe in front of an oncoming subway train and you get to watch her get sucked under the bus frame by frame while Lucas reviews the security footage.

This understandably freaks Skorsky out and she retreats, ignoring Goodwin’s repeated pleas for her to stay and help put Frank behind bars. Goodwin slowly descends into all-consuming paranoia with no one to turn to until a hacker called “HEROnonymous” comes along.

In addition to Gavin, we are introduced to other new characters as well, most notably Jackie Sharp, portrayed by Molly Parker. Frank approached Sharp early in the season to assume his former role as the House Majority Whip.

While I could talk about the plot line of season two for a while, there are a few things to say before wrapping this up in relation to my first few statements.

Don’t get me wrong, this season was great. But I still stand by what I said: season two just doesn’t measure up to season one.

For instance, Frank doesn’t turn and give one of his famous, fourth-wall-breaking monologues until the very last minute of the first episode—which, I’ll admit—absolutely terrified me. But throughout the rest of the second season he rarely turns to the audience, and when he does, it’s either a sarcastic eye roll or a five-second jab that is sometimes just too cliché to take seriously.

I was also disappointed in how little journalism played a part in this season’s plot. After Zoe’s death, Lucas and Skorsky dropped off the face of the earth, leaving Lucas to get arrested only a few episodes later. By taking journalism out of the picture, there wasn’t a race to see who would beat who to the punch, although the season-long fight between Frank and billionaire Raymond Tusk provides some much needed conflict within the show. Overall, I was very pleased with this season and it provided me with more entertainment and emotional stress than I could’ve asked for.

Netflix has announced that “House of Cards” will be renewed for a third season, which will be released in 2015.