House of Cards season 5 first-look photos tease Netflix drama's upcoming episodes

New details about House of Cards season five have surfaced with just over a month to go until the return of the popular Netflix drama.

The sneak peek was granted to Entertainment Weekly for whom Melissa James Gibson - one-half of the series' new showrunner team following the departure of Beau Willimon - revealed some tidbits of what to expect from the upcoming batch of episodes.

House of Cards has already echoed with real-life events, but this notion has reached a new height with the presidency of Donald Trump - however, Gibson is quick to separate the similarities between him and Kevin Spacey's Frank Underwood.

“Sure, the resonance sometimes feels eerie,“ she said, ”but Trump is an outsider who’s trying to blow up the system, and Francis is the opposite.”

She continued: “The battlefield for season five is the American psyche. That may be one parallel with our real world.”

Speaking about the current state of Frank and First Lady Claire's marriage, co-showrunner Frank Pugliese said: “The fun of the show is seeing how they negotiate their relationship.”

Returning characters include the Underwoods' advisers Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) and Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell) as well as their Republican rival Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman) and former biographer Tom Yates (Paul Sparks), the First Lady's affair with which will be addressed in the episodes.

The shape of the season will be the oncoming election with Underwood now running with Claire as his Vice President.

“That’s something the show has been building towards for quite some time now,“ Gibson stated. ”Francis wasn’t elected president, so this is the real test: What is the will of the people, and can he work his Machiavellian magic on them?”

On whether we'd see the outcome of the election in season five, Pugliese had just one word: “Possibly.”

House of Cards returns to Netflix on 30 May, a month which is shaping up to be an extremely strong season for the streaming service.