This is what House of Cards now looks like without Kevin Spacey

'I love that woman. I love her more than sharks love blood.'

If you’ve been following the House of Cards saga, then you’ll know that the next and final season is going to be a tense one now that its lead Kevin Spacey has been axed from the show. Well, we’ve been treated to a little glimpse of what a post-Spacey White House looks like - and Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood is leading the charge.

As the show revolves around the dark underbelly of American politics and Spacey’s character Frank was - well - the president, it raised huge questions about what was going to happen once he exited the show.

It prompted massive rewrites of the show and now it’s believed that his onscreen wife Claire Underwood would be moving into the Oval Office. And the latest stills from Netflix seem to confirm that.

The photographs were posted to a Netflix Twitter account and were a look behind the scenes of the set. Kevin Spacey was nowhere to be seen and Robin Wright was the main focus of the pictures, however it was the backdrop of the second photograph though that really gave us pause.

The second still appears to have been shot in the show’s faux Oval Office, judging from the tall draped windows, heavy documents-laden desk and the iconic flag standing just behind Robin. And given that she’s standing literally right behind the desk as though she’s just stood up from the chair, we’re assuming she was occupying the president’s seat - both literally and figuratively.

Though nothing’s been confirmed yet, a teaser for the new series heavily hints at the same idea. It features Robin as Claire Underwood sitting at Frank’s desk and for the first time ever, she talks directly into the camera and says, ‘We’re just getting started.’

It was followed by the text ‘Hail to the chief’. Chief Claire Underwood? Gosh, we hope so.

Spacey, who played both the lead character Frank Underwood and served as a producer on the show, was fired following a string of sexual assault allegations kickstarted by actor Anthony Rapp.

Anthony claimed that he had been sexually harassed by Kevin Spacey as a fourteen year old and following other allegations from others including Bristol Old Vic students (where he served as artistic director), Netflix decided to cut him from the show.

It’s unknown how the show will explain away the character’s sudden absence, but we’re assuming it’s probably going to be a death of some kind. In all honesty, we don’t really care as long as Spacey’s out.

The new series of House of Cards will hit Netflix later this autumn.