I mean “pyrotechnics” in the metaphorical sense. A big flash of drama from nowhere and then nothing afterwards. But that was a poor choice of words on my part. (It was late and I was tired, sorry).
I’ve discussed my thinking in the other responses so won’t go in-depth here. But to summarise:
The general story had real potential but was marred (in my opinion at least) with cliffhangers that felt jarring and unnecessary to the underlying story.
Didn't Kevin Spacey directly kill multiple people over the course of House of Cards to suddenly end a plot thread?
Yeah, there was at least the one lady he pushed onto the tracks right as the subway came in that I remember distinctly. Ice cold.
I think their point was that in HCF, the off the wall dramatic swings felt more like jumping the shark. In HoC, it felt totally in character for Spacey to do that. It was just better written and acted, despite the intensity of the violence being much higher, because it made sense in the context of the story, and it didn’t in HCF, at least not to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark