'Behind every detail ... there's a detail.'

In "House of Cards," Lexus showcases its buttery engine and vibration absorbing capabilities with not one but many houses -- and towers and turrets and a single Parthenon -- of cards.

The mini-monuments are built over and around a jet-black Lexus, with final flourishes added by a concentric figure in jeans and wavy hair -- the kind of guy you'd expect might know something about cardplay -- just to prove the work is legitimately fragile.

As the narrator sets the stage ("What happens when you take one of the smoothest engines anywhere ... and add 88 separate measures to absorb vibrations?"), the engine starts, underscoring the punchline: "Absolutely nothing."

Point made, the voiceover smugly concludes, "Behind every detail, there's a detail" -- a simmering, fairly elegant tagline, until the last frame invites users to "Watch how it all went down at Lexus.com/cards."

Wince. Sounds like someone back there thought his puns were all too clever to kill. In general though, that's the problem with Lexus: its cars are everything the ads can only aspire to be.

Put together by Team One and production firm MLZ.