Honestly, the Underwoods are incredibly self indulgent in that they allow me to do not only my favorite thing in writing them but my favorite thing in writing in general: exploring contradiction. I love subverting tropes, I love toying with audience expectations, I love interweaving seemingly opposing things. The Underwoods are fundamentally a story about love not as something beautiful or healing, but as something destructive and damning, that sometimes is still the best we can do. Grim, but I'm here for it.