House of Cards
People line up outside a "House of Cards" guerrilla marketing campaign in Greenville, South Carolina, February 12, 2016. Actor Kevin Spacey plays the role of Frank Underwood in the Netflix series. Reuters/Carlo Allegri

"House of Cards" season 5 is in pre-production and the strongest rumour going around involves Frank Underwood getting murdered.

There are a number of theories as to how Frank Underwood’s (Kevin Spacey) fate will end in the “House of Cards.” Given the theme and previous events in US Netflix’s political drama, the likelihood of Frank getting murdered is the most plausible scenario. Currently, two persons close to Mr President in the show are speculated to be the possible murderers.

One popular theory purports Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) as the killer. Doug has been a Frank Underwood loyalist and has always helped Frank to get the advantage in everything. However, in a show like “House of Cards” where alliances change so easily and power is the ultimate motive for everything, Doug will supposedly assume a treacherous persona and murder Frank. The motive of course has to do with politics, whether he’s in cahoots with someone else or he wants to be a main game player is being debated.

Another character rumoured to be the other most likely murderer is Frank’s wife Claire (Robin Wright). In “House of Cards” season 4, the couple officially separated as Frank supposedly gave his blessing to Claire and Yates’ (Paul Sparks) relationship. Even when the two are going their own ways, Frank still trusted Claire enough to support her in becoming the vice president. This trust however may get betrayed as Claire gets greedy with power. According to Movie News Guide, Claire will purportedly put an end to Frank’s life and reign so she can get to the top and have the presidential seat for herself.

Frank Underwood’s looming death is bad enough but the rumour of him getting murdered by his own people could definitely reflect the dark theme and tone of “House of Cards.” Aside from these murder theories, there is also one that assumes Frank’s death is simply due to an illness. In season 4, it was revealed that Frank had a liver disease and this will then be the cause of his death in the upcoming season. However, fans do not support the show writers opting for this natural and rather anti-climactic way to end Frank given the reputation of deaths in “House of Cards.”

"House of Cards" season 5 premiere date is yet to be announced.