SYNOPSIS:

HOUSE OF CARDBOARD is an 8-episode Dramedy series that asks: what happens when the thing you love becomes currency? - Pete Andrews (37) has spent his life obsessed with Beastlings trading cards. What began as childhood passion became his livelihood—he owns P.S. Andrews Packs, a struggling card shop that barely pays rent. His financially-minded girlfriend Claire constantly reminds him that "pieces of cardboard" aren't real investments. When Pete blows their rent money on a vintage card box that turns out to be fake, Claire kicks him out. He crashes at his parents' house, defeated and ready to close the shop forever. - Then the world breaks. - A catastrophic FedCoin cryptocurrency glitch sends the U.S. dollar into negative value. Panicked citizens desperately seek "physical stores of value," and for inexplicable reasons, trading cards surge to the top. Overnight, Pete's $100 boxes are worth $350,000. His struggling shop becomes ground zero for a financial revolution. - Pete and his crew—longtime friend and secret admirer Melissa, hustler Calvin, and teenage financial genius Martin—suddenly find themselves as the architects of a new economic system. They create FIAT (accidentally named after cute cars), a currency backed by cards. Pete buys a mansion, a car dealership, and finally has the wealth he never dreamed of. - But the new Cardboard Standard brings chaos: violent riots demanding "redistribution of booster boxes," a dystopian Bureau of Centering and Margins (BCM) staffed by bored teenagers who determine fortunes with arbitrary grades, and Agent Penny Grabber—a government auditor more concerned with collecting fees than preventing fraud. - When Pete discovers counterfeit cards flooding the market through streamer-mogul Pogan Laul's casino, he launches an investigation. The crew infiltrates the BCM, executes a massive short squeeze to expose the fraud, and plans an elaborate heist to steal Pogan's vault codes. Along the way, they discover that Martin's "embarrassingly hot mom" is actually the original creator of Beastlings—and she's been living under their noses the entire time. - As the investigation unfolds, Pete realizes Pogan isn't the counterfeiter—his cards are authentic. The real villain is Claire, Pete's ex-girlfriend. Driven by childhood trauma (she lost her fortune on Beanie Babies, which became worthless), Claire has been flooding the market with fakes to sabotage the arbitrary value of collectibles altogether. It's personal revenge disguised as economic warfare. - In the finale, Pete exposes Claire in a public confrontation. She's arrested—not for counterfeiting, but for tax evasion (she didn't pay grading fees on the fake cards). The dollar is reinstated. The Cardboard Standard collapses. Pete returns to a simple life working at the car dealership with his father, while Melissa runs the card shop they both love. - But in the final moments, Pete's mom drives past in a Ferrari. On her dashboard: a Beanie Baby. The economic cycle begins again. - THE BIG SHORT meets IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA—a smart, absurdist comedy about value, passion versus profit, and what happens when your childhood hobby becomes the basis for civilization.

HOUSE OF CARDBOARD