I think there is a bit of a 'missing moment' between Frank talking to Karen on the street, and them walking into her apartment. and im not talking about a scene, but emotionally, for them.
what did they talk about? did they talk? how did frank go from knowing that he left that Karen - probably the only person during the whole duration of his trial that wanted to help him just to get to the truth of things (tho I think he did sense that there was something in it for her personally, aside from her pitbull-like-personality when it comes to injustice and truth)  - to fend for herself during a cold night, when she had her arm hurt and she'd hit her head and had no car cause he'd totaled it--- how did he go from that to thinking 'I can go to he rand ask for help'. was that homeless man thing more than just a way not to scare her? was it to see if she really was all heart, still? did he have a bet with himself that if she didn't give him the money maybe he wouldn't ask for help? or is that too casual for Frank? I don't think he makes those kinds of decisions, tbh. that's a way of removing responsibility for his choices and I don't think he does that - leaving important things to chance like that just cause facing consequences of shitty choices he made is too hard. (when Karen says 'youre such an asshole' he says 'yeah u got that right'. he doesn't hide, there's no point). but I do think her stopping for him and handing him that change proved a point. that's why he was smiling. Â
did he apologize for that up there ^ ? did he feel like he had to? how did they go from their last conversation to that conversation in her house? there is a bit o a jump, from 'you're dead to me' /Â 'im already dead' - to them talking about calmly about him having unfinished business that he had to finish - not so much from her side, but from his.
Karen's side is a bit clearer to me. when she asks 'did you finish it', it implies an acceptance of what he had to do, how he had to do it. something she probably reached in the end of dd season 2, and that she mulled over all those months between this moment and when she last saw frank.
what, I think, requires unpacking (what I wanted to unpack, anyway) -Â is her point of view on herself, following what happened. on what she wanted to gain, prove to herself - to him - by getting him not to shoot Sconover. how she internalized that, what it meant to her that he didn't chose her way. that he chose vengeance over truth (I think that meant quite a bit to her actually). how she stopped superimposing herself to him, defining the value of her choices by using frank as some kind of standard. or rather, how that refusal in the end was the breaking point because it made her separate the two of them, stop conflagrating them. how he's not that essential to her self perception now.
all that process already happened and seems to lend itself to that calm that Karen seems to have when she's around frank in TP. she's more planted on her feet, she knows herself, her place, her way of thinking. she has made peace with whatever it was that in season 2 threw her for a loop - all that dialectic inside her sparked by frank, by the fact that she didn't feel she could stand up for herself and her own choices out loud, that they weren't defendable, not really. But she fueled that part of her that thought they WERE into her defense of frank. that when she stood up for him she was also standing up for herself (in a way)
(I find it very very interesting that she was very hesitant not to advocate for him too hard in front of others, that throughout the season she is relentless when searching out facts, but less so when it comes to justifying his actions. that she's a bit halting when she does that, as if not to give too much of herself away. and only reached the point of really 'putting her foot down' for what she believed in at the end of the second season - when she raises her voice in Eliot's office. 'HE IS NOT A PSYCHO MURDERER'. its an important journey of self acceptance, but also of self-definition - away from frank's person - that brings her to that point.) -
anyway, all that dialectic inside her has resolved itself. she's at peace now with what she is. and she also seems more confident, less fidgety.
I hope that carries onto DD3. I want to see that Karen dealing with Matt - no longer sort of trying to be someone she thinks is her 'best self' that doesn't quite match reality and only makes her feel not enough. Im not talking in terms of her refusing any self improvement of course, but rather of that lack of insecurity (about herself as a person, what she is deserving of - kindness, someone to stand up for her, goodness, patience love etc.), that she seemed to carry around in s1 and 2, and which became ever smaller as the story went on and she found herself.