10 Moments That Literally Stopped TV Shows
2. Claire Addresses The Audience - House Of Cards
House of Cards made a masterful narrative device out of having Machiavellian protagonist Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) break the fourth wall in order to speak directly to the audience.
The end of the fourth season seemed to confirm that Frank's wife Claire (Robin Wright) was also aware of the audience's presence, and in the fifth season's eleventh episode, Claire performed an all-timer TV monologue by confronting the audience totally out of nowhere.
In what seems to be a totally conventional scene, Claire enters Frank's empty office before suddenly turning to the camera and delivering this savage address:
"Just to be clear, it's not that I haven't always known you were there. It's that I have mixed feelings about you. I question your intentions, and I'm ambivalent about attention. But don't take it personally. It's how I feel about most everybody."
It's a moment that totally, brilliantly sucks the air out of the episode for its remainder, enough that you might struggle to pay attention to the scenes that follow.