Washington D.C. is suffering from a serious heat wave when we open on "Chapter 19." We know this because Rachel -- the most sexual character left on this show (for now) -- is rubbing ice cubes all over her body, turning on the A.C. and then turning it off when she sees her shockingly large electricity bill. We're in for a sweaty Episode 6!
But it's not just hot -- there's also an energy crisis, so normal folks, like Rachel, can't afford the A.C. on their electricity bills. Frank thinks Tusk is driving up prices and Tusk says it's just the market; this will continue to be a theme throughout the episode. Tusk wants to press on with the China refinery and asks Frank to talk to the President about how it would help, but Frank won't commit. He's almost shoved Tusk out and he's not helping him now. Instead, he advises that the U.S. stockpile their resources so they can put pressure on the Chinese. Tusk won't like this and we don't like it much either, because the writers are throwing around words like "samarium" and forcing us to stop and start while we Google words that only people who deal with nuclear power plants need to know. (Samarium is an element used in nuclear reactors and is found abundantly in China. The more you know.)
Meanwhile, Lucas is in an interrogation with his lawyer and it's looking like his goose is cooked. The feds have the Zoe Barnes photos that make him look crazier than his conspiracy theories -- the part where he hired a hacker and his plot to break into the FBI servers. He's dumb enough to utter the name Frank Underwood, but it's clear Lucas's story is resolutely a grim one, especially when he's about to ignore the plea deal the FBI is offering in order to hold out for Tom Hammerschmidt's conspiracy theory article he's agreed to write to prove Lucas's innocence.
While Frank's sabotage plan is running its course, Claire is just getting started. She plants a suspicious bug in Mrs. Walker's ear when she suggests that Christina sleeps with her bosses -- no just her last boss, Peter Russo, who she also happened to genuinely love. Claire says she's probably wrong to sense the air of a praying mantis, but the damage is done.
Because Tusk hasn't had any luck with Frank, he sends Remy to the Veep's house so that he might grease the wheels, as he usually does. The problem is that Frank's resolute: Tusk is trying to push the refinery for profit and while it will help, it will take three years before the help starts. Luckily for Tusk, Remy knows his old boss' BS and says this pissing match is about something else, so Frank lets him in on the "secret." He's trying to show Tusk that stubbornness will only be worse for him in the long run. Still, Tusk is pretty resolute in that stubbornness, so this isn't the last of this bickering we'll see in this episode or the . Isn't political life just so exciting?