End of the Thought Process

Wow.  Well here it is one year later.  I started this journal just before the season premiere last season and here we are, less than a week from the premiere of season 4.  This community has grown to more than 60 official members (63 at last count) and I think a few more who regularly bop by here to read my reviews and/or fanfiction.  Thank you all for your support, and especially the folks of Hugh Laurie:  Too Handsome for Paperwork message board.  

So many of my friends here have also been regular posters on the House Board of Television Without Pity.  At least until two months ago when something quite nasty began happening there.  Regular and insightful posters began to disappear (was it a plot by Tony Soprano?).  People began to get warnings after years of untarnished and unscathed posts.  Posts began to be mysteriously edited in the still of the night by people named Nikita, Strega and Barnes; whole posts vanished in the wind.  How disappointing that the best place on the internet to have an intelligent conversation about this intelligent and complex show was being demolished right before our eyes.  

I'm living out the last days of my banning from that site.  Observing (but not posting, since I'm banished), I've noted even more folks gone--either voluntarily or un-.  Sad.  On the bright side, DIY Sheep over on the other side of the planet from here (in an entirely different season, actually) and some of her friends have started House's House of Whining as an antidote to the TWOP blues.  So you all might want to check it out if you haven't been there yet.  It seems to be having some technical difficulties today, but if you stop by there, you'll see some  famliar faces and thread names if you are TWOP refugee.  I actually wrote to the TWOP PTB last week expressing my disappointment at the way the site is now being handled (sorry for the random return to the previous topic). NEver heard back.

Anyway.  Onto season 4.  

When last we left Dr. Gregory House, he was home in that wonderful flat of his playing his new/old Gibson acoustic guitar, refuting Dr. James Wilson's assertion that Dr. House was averse to change.  So is he?  I think the beginning of this season might spend time exploring House as fighting the idea that he has to hire a team, preferring to remain a solitary figure.  I think that House found himself drawing too close to too many people and that exposed (in his mind) too many cracks in his solitary fortress.

What do I wish for Season 4?  Thanks for asking.  I'm an angst whore, so angst is always a good thing.  A brooding Dr. House is just fine by me.  But angst counterbalanced with his rapier wit (rather than some of the more juvenile stuff--although that, too, is good in small doses).  Above all, House is smart.  The smartest kid in the class, even when that class is an adult class filled with other smart people.  And House hurts inside.  And even if that never expresses in the dialogue, we need more of those scenes lacking toward the end of season 3 where we see House, alone, reflecting, brooding and ...well....hurting a bit.  Although he hurt an awful lot for the first half of the season so, I'm not really complaining.

I liked the idea of Chase and Cameron, and I didn't find it out of character last season, so yeah.  I like them together.  Much moreso than the notion of Cameron with House.  Now House and Cuddy.  Yeah.  One time.  I can see it now.  It's late at night and House is alone at home after something very bad has happened to one of them (or to Wilson).  It just happens.  And then the next several episodes deal with the fallout from realizing how big a mistake it is for them to have gotten together.  And then the remaining episodes of the entire run of the show reflect and are shaded by it.  Works for me.  Get me my word processor.  Now. ; )

I want Wilson to stop badgering House.  I want Wilson to be the Wilson of Insensitive, not the Wilson of Meaning, Cane and Able and Top Secret.  I want him to understand that House finds himself trapped in a terrible position, with no good way out.  And understand that House is who he is, and let him be the empathic and sometimes compassionate doctor he can be without saying:  "see I told you that you were a good guy."  House doesn't want that image, he needs to hold onto that defense of being a cold, calculating "I'm all about the puzzle" sort of guy without Wilson constantly trying to point out to him that he's not.

Foreman?  Meh (as my kids would say).  I'd want him to realize that he's as far out of House's league (both as a physician and a healer...and a person) as he really is.  Not gonna happen.

Newbies?  I'm not opposed to new blood, new docs.  I only hope that House does not become an "ensemble" show.  This is Hugh Laurie's show.  This is the story of Dr. Gregory House.  And may it always stay that.  For as long as Hugh wants to do it.

Sidenote:  HL was robbed at the Emmys



 

David Shore has said on a couple of occasions that before the actors return for the summer of filming at the end of June, the story people meet extensively and plot the outlines of the season to come:  where they want House (the character) to wind up at the end of the season.  It’s a mere sketch, of course, and can only have been possible in the past two seasons, since no one could have foreseen the endpoint of season one (for the uninitiated, the original order was  10 (after the pilot) episodes (Detox would have been the finale—and you can really see that from the final scene of Detox—a semi resolution to why House is who he is); then three more; then five more, and finally three more.  I think that’s how I remember it.  So it would have been through Detox; then through Control; then through Kids and finally through to the season 1 finale (I think that adds up, I was never good at math).

 

( Read more... )

Housetraining

3x20

So we begin the final run of season three episodes.  Before I dive into this review (and for my own sense of sanity) I want to take a peek at the final run of episodes from the previous two seasons and where they built and to what.

Season 1, the final five episodes saw:  Babies and Bathwater, Kids, Love Hurts, three Stories and Honeymoon.  A brilliant and wonderful ending to the first season.  It was impossible to see where we would wind up (and certainly House) by watching any of those until Love Hurts.  All five episodes were emotional, and featured major reveals of Dr. Gregory House:  Babies and Bathwater (the final vogler episode) revealed House’s incredible bedside manner and his compassion.  Who could forget his final conversation with Sean; his honesty with Naomi; is relentless drive to figure out what was wrong with Olive, even after he knew he was going to be fired?  Kids was a bit of a throwaway, and a breather, but again, who could forget the image of House gazing longingly into the healing family and his broken “I know” when he was told that she would be OK (physically, but House knew she would be “ok” emotionally as well, and that’s what broke my heart as he looked from the outside in)—and OK, I did love the two scenes with Cameron and House’s stunned response to the idea that all she wanted was to have dinner with him.  Love Hurts showed us something else about House.  He’s a secret romantic.  The final scene of that episode—the emotions brought out by the date and his finding a small picture of Stacy that he STILL kept in his wallet years later—keenly missing Stacy (we didn’t know then, but know now).  House’s nervousness at getting ready for the date; knowing that he’s hopeless at this sort of thing and wanting to get it right (corsage?).  The final song:  “I’m broken, don’t fix me” said it all about this episode.  And once again, with the patient.  The final scene, when the dominatrix explains that it’s about trusting someone so deeply (something that House did and was burned for it)—but also the patient’s plaintive question about whether his parents visited.  And House unable to answer him, he’s pretty emotionally turmoiled at that point (maybe his own parents—or at least dad) acted much the same way?  From what we know about papa House, maybe that’s not so far from the truth.  Those episodes leading to the remarkable 3 stories and the big reveals about the infarction and Stacy and finally the emotionally draining Honeymoon, leaving House in great turmoil—old emotions brought very close to the surface as we learned just how capable of real love House is and how much he still hurts and yearns and feels.  Nothing could have prepared me for that episode from say B/Bathwater. (Yes, I do have a point to this exercise, be patient ;)

 

Season two concluded with the following five episodes:  Euphoria I and II, Forever, Who’s Your DAddy,No Reason.  Of course nothing could have prepared us for House getting shot in No Reason, and ending the season with the surreal and revealing episode was a fabulous way to end season 2 and make us long desperately for season 3.  House’s “Tell Cuddy I want Ketamine” after briefly regaining consciousness left us all to speculate, write fanfiction (Floating took me all summer!) argue and debate.  Like this season Episode 20 was Foreman heavy.  (Caveat emptor:  I am not a huge fan of either Forman, who I think is a self-righteous, judgmental jerk, and not at all, contrary to conventional wisdom anything like House.  I also think Omar Epps, while a good actor, tends to voraciously overact.  He’s good in small doses, but hasn’t the depth or subtlety IMHO FWIW, to carry an entire episode).  I hear in the winds (though I’ve seen nothing to substantiate it) that beginning with Housetraining we’re up for an arc of three Foreman-heavy episodes.  I’m not opposed to that so much as fearful that we’ll get more Foreman to the elimination of much of what I watch House for—the emotional goings-on of the main character.  I liked Euphoria I (although not on first viewing)—showing us how handcuffed House can be when the patient is someone in whom he has an emotional stake.  We learned about House through Foreman’s problems. And that is always the best use of the secondary characters.  We learned that House needs to distance himself to remain the coldly objective and fearless doctor that solves and treats the most difficult of cases.  Unforgettable was his blowup in the first part at Wilson, who pontificates to the stumped and handcuffed House.  “Let’s have this conversation again when one of your fellows gets sick because of somewhere I sent him.”  Part II was even better.  I adored the exchange between Foreman and House when House tells him that pain “makes us make bad decisions.”  It showed us a self-awareness in House in a way we’d never see to that point.  And that final sequence with House (you could feel himself literally cursing himself for his clumsiness in trying to catch that bird) so desperate to not subject Foreman to the very, very dangerous biopsy.  When he begged Cameron (who had the power of attorney) to give him the hour to try his last desperate measure and then went off without wasting the time to put on protective gear –as if he didn’t really care about the risk to himself if it meant losing time.  Powerful and it told volumes about House within a Foreman-heavy episode.  Who’s Your Daddy and no reason—again—big emotional episodes for House, following the pattern of the year before by focusing on House’s emotional well-being and his physical issues. 

 

OK.  All of that to bring us to the same point for season 3.  Here’s my wish.  That the last four episodes bring the emotional focus back onto House, where it should be.  Let the other storylines be revealed as part of a “C” or a “B” storyline.  House’s story should never be the “C” or peripheral story.  I enjoyed parts (actually most) of Housetraining.  I did not enjoy the overlong and overacted Foreman monologues at the end.  I also did not enjoy the trend we seem to be in (with some exceptions) of House’s disconnection from the patient being treated, the diagnosis and the treatment.  Looking at the last several episodes: Half-wit (big House episode); Top Secret (lighter episode—House distracted—lovely to look at—little emotional impact); Fetal Position (big impact on House); Airborne (not so much); Act Your Age (not so much).  So of the last six (including last night), only two have given me the emotional impact on House that I’m always looking for.  Not that I didn’t like the others…  Just sayin….

 

The episode started out with great promise.  And I absolutely adored House’s stunned jealousy at the fact that Wilson has asked Cuddy out again and that she can’t go to the theatre with him because she’s going out with House.  He’s getting absolutely bolder in showing his attraction to Cuddy (to Cuddy, but not Wilson, who’s clueless that House really, really likes Cuddy).  He goes about finding out what it is that attracts women to Wilson like flies, only to have him dump them when he’s won.  I get the impression from House’s concerned expression at various points that he’s actually quite concerned for Cuddy…and quite concerned that Wilson, who’s so much better at “this” than House is, is going to get Cuddy, and there’s no way for House to compete with him. For all his bravado, House lacks a lot of self-confidence with women that he’s interested in.

I completely loved that House knew who Thomas Aquinas was and that he referred to him in a conversation.  The throwaway line spoke much to my contention that House is far from the low-brow, nearly red-neck persona that he chooses to project (act, in my estimation as a protective device) and is really quite cultured, literate and literary, enjoys good art, beautiful music, appreciates a fine piano and antiques as well as books.  One of these days I’m going to speculate on House’s enormous books collection (and his record collection) and write a blog entry just on that!  On the other hand, I do think that his comment to the team to leave him alone to download porn was really his opportunity to google David Hockney and tease Cuddy.

 

Loved the conversation between House and Cuddy as well.  That one’s going to get a lot of replay.  Their conversations are almost (?) like sexual foreplay.  He teases; she knows that he has a crush on her (ok, more than a crush)—but more than lusts for her as well; he knows that she knows.  Wilson’s “safe” and that means that House is “not safe”—going out  with House would lead to places Cuddy’s not sure she wants to go.  Is this a parallel to the Chase/Cam scenario?  Maybe. 

The fact that House is willing to go to the extreme of seeking out Wilson’s ex-wife to find out Wilson’s magic is endearing and funny. Wilson is preying on HIS Cuddy.  And it has to be stopped!

I do think there were some character reveals in the episode about House, but (for a Doris Egan script) you had to work harder for them than I would have thought.  Are we to pick up from this episode that House, trying to come out of his shell, becomes distracted?  Too distracted to really focus on the case and rein his sometimes overzealous team in?  He seemed completely indifferent to the DDx and the case.  He was so focused on Cuddy and Wilson that he virtually ignored the case under his supervision.  He trusted the team to do its job…and they’re just not ready.  This is House’s main culpability in the patient’s demise.

Once it’s determined that Lupe is dying and there’s nothing they can do about it, I would have liked to see more of what House was going through.  What the impact was on him…not just on Foreman.  Although it was Foreman’s decision, House didn’t make him go further.  Was House too distracted to force it further?  We did see glimpses as the mood of the entire episode makes a 180 degree turn.  House broods in his office, clearly upset about the patient.  When Bonnie comes in, House is no longer interested in pursuing his knowledge of Wilson through her.  He hasn’t returned her phone calls.  I think it’s because the impact of his being distracted has hit him quite hard.  Again, we get that scene with Bonnie where’s he’s clearly not up for the conversation (or getting anymore Wilson info), and comes up with that anagram “Huge Ego, Sorry.”  Does that anagram express his sentiments regarding the patient?  His last conversation with Lupe suggested an arrogance that House often promotes but rarely actually expresses.  Here, his arrogance contributed to Lupe’s death.  The fact that he took the dog…. Only one explanation for that:  atonement.  Atonement for Lupe?  Atonement for his arrogance and neediness that may (or may not) have led to the demise of Wilson’s marriage(s)?  I did love that he took the dog.  The other brief glimpse at the impact of the event on House came in the montage scene where House, sitting, staring very upset (maybe for hours and hours) into space is interrupted by Wilson bringing a cup of coffee.  It’s a truly caring act.  And it spoke volumes about how Wilson feels.  Maybe it’s his bit of atonement for the wrongs he’s done to House this year.  Probably not.  But House sitting waiting for the death of a patient is something we’ve never really seen.  What they did hit him hard.  More than in a “oh, well Iost a patient” manner.  I have to believe that House sent Foreman to Wilson to learn how to cope with the patient.  He knew that Wilson gets “thanked” for dealing bad news.  I do also think that House could very much have told Foreman how to deal with the patient and would have done so differently, but just as effectively.  If it was Foreman’s choice or House’s that he consult Wilson, we’ll never know.

I completely understood why House needed to find out where they went wrong.  His outburst in the hallway to Foreman spoke of more than “just finding out the answer to the puzzle.”  He needed to know because, in their business finding out how they could have made such a simple error could prevent it from happening in the future.  It seemed cold, but I don’t think it was—nor  that House intended it that way.

House knew, in the  end, that it was his job to talk about it with Foreman…to be the teacher and mentor.  I thought it was interesting that Wilson told House (who was clearly having trouble with Lupe’s death himself) that he would be waiting outside (for support if he needed it?).  I loved how House handled it.  Starting casually---you lost a patient.  You have to move past it and do better the next time.  We know House does not follow that dictum himself.  And Foreman knows this.  Their job is to look for Zebras.  The horses aren’t supposed to land in House’s office.  “You will kill a patient,” House says in 3 stories to the 3^rd year med students.  “If you can’ live with that,” he goes on, “find another profession or finish medical school and teach.”  Death is part of what they have to deal with.  The loss of a patient by a mistake, included.  But House is right when he says that the patients they save have been left for dead by other doctors—good and reputable doctors—by missing a difficult diagnosis.  They look for the difficult and therefore missed something that Occam would have admonished about.

The Cuddy thing was dropped second half, so the episode felt almost like two mini-episodes in one.  I didn’t like the pacing of it therefore.  I do only hope that the final four episodes get back to the crucial involvement of the main character and land us by the end of May in a place of longing desperately for September to come.

Episode 3x19

Act Your Age

First, apologies for being so absent these past couple of weeks.  Real life has been insane, with Passover and a quick, but fun—and exhausting-- trip to Israel in the mix and exams in three weeks for a profession accreditation.  Just simply overwhelming.

 

I know I missed commenting on both Fetal Position and Airborne, and I will get back to them.  Promise.  Both of those episodes, however continued to build on the growing restlessness House feels with his life—both the emotional black hole he’s in and the relentlessness of his physical pain.  I think we’ve seen a not-so-steady progression of House considering and taking small steps to try to change the hopelessness he was feeling by the end of Merry Little Christmas.  In Fetal Position, House’s worldview was challenged not by a philosophical debate; not by rational argument, but a moment of wonder and awe.  I have to believe that the surficially cynical House has not had a “wow” moment in many, many years.  The Gregory House that plays Bach so beautifully, that can get lost in the melancholy moodiness of blues and jazz, that has a biography of Beethoven sitting on his piano (in Honeymoon), cannot be as cynical as he wants the world to believe he is.  But I also think that House has had years of gut-punches thrown at him from the time he was a kid, the knockout blow being Stacy’s betrayal regarding his leg.  

 

House, romantic, the idealist—became ultimately and irredeemably disillusioned and cynical.  Who is a cynic but a disillusioned romantic.  House ceased believing in anything, at least in his mind.  But the romantic was always there, lurking.  We saw it when Stacy returned.  We saw it in his singing from the Student Prince after House and Stacy spent the night together.  We saw it through Cameron’s eyes when she acknowledged that House had a huge capacity for love—that he wasn’t too screwed up to love—and that he expressed that love by curing the husband of a woman he still loved—thus sending her back into his arms:  a act of pure selflessness, done out of love.  We see it here and there, but for the most part, House is the master cynic.  The world sucks; people are evil who sometimes accidentally do something good. 

 

OK, so I digress. Back to  our story ;) 

 

Fetal Position.  House is moved to awestruck by the fact of the microfingers of a fetus reaching out and instinctively grabbing, curling its fingers, around the nearest object—in this case, House’s index finger.  House is frozen in this moment, moved and captured. A “wow” moment.  A moment of wonder; maybe an opening for him to see the daylight of hope…or something.  Whatever it is, he sees it for what it is:  something extraordinary.  This moment stays with him, more than lingers, as it comes back to haunt him hours and hours later.  This is the same man who argued with the nun about “the miracle of birth.”  This is in the same episode that has House planning some time off.  Where does he plan for this time off?  Places (that for me, anyway) are places where one can easily experience a “wow” moment.  The Galapagos Islands; Vancouver Island; the Andes Mountains.  These are the places where in every direction you look, you can’t help but be moved and awed.  These are places of immense serenity and power.  Is this what House is looking for?  He gets that moment, and maybe in so doing, his disappointment that his physical limitations preclude him from finding places of wonder except in the guise of the Travel Channel, is mitigated.  It’s so telling to me that House, the self-promoted image of a low-brow, uncultured jerk, would, instead of booking a week at an Atlantic City Casino or Las Vegas, instead opts for places for which, in my religious tradition, require one to say a blessing (they are such awesome wonders of nature).

 

In House’s growing restlessness over his life, he has opened himself to being affected by people and events.  No one more so than Lisa Cuddy.  I’ve always seen the relationship between the two of them to be one of mutual respect and slightly grudging admiration—that conceals a deeper affection between them—something warm with the potential to be ignited at any moment.  That slow simmer has certainly cranked up these last several episodes. 

 

In Act Your Age, it reaches a quicker simmer.  Will it begin to boil?

 

I've watched the episode twice now. By the end of the first half, I wondered why we saw so little of House. It was much more focused on Chase and Cameron and the POTW. House was in it less than anyone in the cast. With the next two episodes rumored to be focused on Foreman, I was wondering if the PTB were trying to edge the show to a more ensemble feel. A move, by the way, that in my opinion would be regrettable. We had more of House in the second half of the episode, and I confess I did feel bad for Chase as he tried to pursue Cameron rather sweetly.

The idea of "work smart not hard" came up a couple of times, as first Chase (successfully) and Foreman (who simply left as payback to Chase) tried to "work smart." Chase followed closely what House had said about not needing any more information except what would come out of surgery and let Foreman and Cameron work all night. Chase waltzes in refreshed, having picked up the path report (something right out of House's playbook) and had the results that Foreman and Cam for all of their efforts did not get. Of the three fellows, Chase seems to "get" what House does and has learned how House thinks, or least follows his thinking better. As a result, Chase---much more than Foreman---has developed as the sort of thinker House is trying to develop amongst his staff. I like this Chase, and he's been quite redeemed from the sniveling brat he was in season 1. I really felt bad for him for the way Cam treated him. His statement: "You dumped me, you don't get to be mad," was a terrific line and JS really delivered it perfectly.

I did love the House/Wilson/Cuddy triangle. Poor House. This is a man with no social skills. He falls in love and doesn't know how to deal with it. maybe it's because he was not loved as a child and was bounced around from country to country with parents who emotionally (and physically) abused him. He has no coping mechanism for dealing with love. He's stuck back in Jr. High. I think that with Stacy, he sort of fell into that relationship. With Cuddy, things are much more complex: his feelings for her are confused and confusing for him. He is in love with her, but she's the devil; He loves her, but she's his boss and controls their relationship. He wants her, but has no idea as to how to go about getting her. On the other hand, no one else can have her either.

So House has tickets to a play. I actually wonder if the whole play thing was a set up. He bought the tickets; he gave them to Wilson, knowing that he'd ask Cuddy; shocked (a little) that he actually did ask her and went with her (and seething jealous) and not happy that Wilson had a good time (and believes that he may have actually slept with Cuddy). So House pushes Wilson, by buying flowers in Cuddy's name, pushing Wilson forward to the point where House knows that Wilson won't really go (since Cuddy's not needy enough for Wilson). But Wilson becomes wise to the game (and He's always known that House has a thing for Cuddy) and mindfu**s House right back. And House returns the volley. Anyway, I wonder if this wasn't a House-experiment in which he wanted to see how Cuddy reacted to an overture by Wilson to learn better how to approach Cuddy on his own. Maybe not. But maybe yes.

Wilson comes in and tells House that he can't stop thinking about Cuddy. House, by the way looks positively gorgeous in those reading glasses all rumpled and relaxed. On Wilson's words, House immediately tenses and a worried expression crosses his face. "In what way?" House asks warily. House is maybe thinking: "Shit, what have I done?" House does not believe that Wilson is really interested in Cuddy (and I think the flowers were intended to be a move to put off Wilson -- who craves neediness and not aggressiveness). House encourages Wilson, knowing that Wilson has no interest but wants Wilson to clarify it for himself. House is beside himself with glee that he's provoked Wilson. I simply adore House in this scene. He is mischievous (sorry, can't spell it) and, at the same time, concerned. when wilson comes stomping back into House's office, realizing that House has pranked him (maybe he knew it all along and was yanking house's chain back) and then says to House that he's still interested in her anyway. This is when House once again looks spooked and worried. Then Wilson tells him he's not interested (W has no clue that House is really quite as smitten with Cuddy as he is, I think), much to House's relief. The expression on HL's face at the end of that scene is priceless and so very rare that we get House looking relaxed and actually happy!

Now that final scene: Totally cool that House and Cuddy are just hanging out together. I wonder if House had already thought of asking her out and the conversation simply offered the opening for him. House takes Cuddy's words and I think sympathizes with her. Watch his hands as he decides and then asks her about the play. His hands tense in that way they do when House is really nervous about something. He doesn't look at her, just casually (not so casually) mentions the play. House only then turns his head towards her. His eyes (what we can see of them are pretty sincere in High Def)--no smirk, no snark. I think he's totally serious and hopes that Cuddy will pick up on that.

Cuddy looks at him, completely stunned ("where did that come from?"). She's probably sure that it's a jab regarding her date with Wilson, but then she looks at him and sees the sincerity and gives him that very shocked expression.

I think she said "yes."  Incidentally, having seen the script pages for the final scene, the dialogue was added. The final scene was simply a shot of Cuddy and House standing side by side on the balcony watching the family leave. No dialogue at all.

I think House's offer to Cuddy was very sincere and asked with such hesitation, it was almost like a high school kid with a crush on a girl, finally getting up the courage to ask her out and visibly cringing as he awaits her reply, fully expecting rejection, but unable to finally resist the risk. He could lose Cuddy to Wilson and he knows it. I think that's why he (especially since Cuddy was confiding so sweetly to House in that scene) finally got the courage to do it.

This scene is, perhaps, another toe in the water for House; like planning a vacation (even though he never went); considering joining his staff for a drink; buying a $900.00 vinterne's cane. House is getting restless with his life. He's trying to change the outcome: whether by finding a cure for his pain; or trying to dig himself out of the emotional dungeon in which he's locked.

I loved the continuity we saw with House reluctant to permanently damage the young girl and take an UNNECESSARY risk without any evidence regarding the brain surgery on the girl. As with last year's Euphoria, and a couple of other episodes this year, House is far more reluctant than his staff to simply cut into a patient's brain without just cause. Once again, Cameron is the one who wants to do brain surgery and House wants more evidence. What Cameron has learned from House is his manipulativeness, while Chase has learned House's creativity and unconventional thinking. But House can couple the two, Cameron cannot, and goes against House's wishes to get consent for the surgery, when it's not yet the last resort (in House's mind). Euphoria all over again. And House is disappointed that Cameron (and the others) have done the math, but not considered that the problem is in base 2 and not in base 10 as conventional wisdom would dictate. House isn't so quick to ruin a young life. And his creativity and open mindedness allows him to see (finally) the solution before Cameron does the risky surgery. I did like that bit of continuity of House's philosophy regarding invasive brain procedures.

I'm ready for a couple of angsty episodes, however. We really haven't had one for awile. Even those episodes that had great angst potential weren't really played that way. There have been moments, but brooding and melancholy House has been locked away somewhere, and I do want to see where this is heading.

The next two are potentially intense, but for Foreman, not House. There are five episodes left (not 4, HLL). With 3 being Foreman episodes (from what I've heard), that leaves only two to build to emotional cliffhanger that's sure to leave us for the summer. I only hope that the emotional cliffhanger or climax of the season has to do with House and not one of the others. Last year at this time, I wouldn't have even thought that possible, now I'm not so sure. If the season doesn't end with some sort of emotional bang for House, it will leave the summer very empty for me regarding the show. Maybe these feelings go along with what Sdemar said. I hope I'm wrong.

So, all in all, although I truly would have liked more of House in this episode, I did like it.

 

”A dream is an answer to a question we haven't yet learned how to ask”. --Fox Mulder.

This is probably my favorite quotation from the only other character on the only other television show with which I’ve been obsessed. In the fourth season episode Paper Hearts, Mulder keeps having very eerie and disturbing dreams that point rather obliquely to the solution of a series of child murders. They are disturbing to him, as I recall, because he thinks that perhaps this serial killer is the key to his long-missing sister. Although the situations are different, I couldn’t stop thinking about this quote for awhile after viewing this week’s episode of House, “Top Secret.”

Half-Wit

Episode 3x15

 

Since the beginning of season 3, Dr. Gregory House has been on a search. In the episode Meaning, the first episode of the season, House wants to do more than simply cure the illness that brought the patient to him.  House has always been more about the healing than the satisfaction for a return to the status quo.  It goes back to his philosophy argued with Foreman during DNR that “what (they) do matters.”  That  it’s more than doing your best and “what will be will be.”  It’s what makes the character heroic and a better doctor than anyone else on the PPTH staff.  

 

 

 

 

 

Insensitive

Episode 3x14

 

Those of you who read this review/commentary/blog/insert your own favorite descriptor here…Know that my interest in the show is the main character. My first episode was (really) Control back in season one, and I found myself drawn to this sarcastic, angry, hurting, troubled and deeply compassionate (as I saw it) character who would risk his medical career for a patient (more about that angle in a few paragraphs).

 

Needle in a Haystack

Episode 3.13

 

In a way, this is an easier episode to review than almost any other season 3 episode.  It was an on-the-nose episode:  POTW, medical mystery, snarkiness, banter, humor, clinic patient.  It would have been as comfortable in season 1 or season 2 as it is here. 

 

One Day, One Room

Episode 3.13

 

Our lives are a series of rooms that add up to who we are and why we are.  Everything that happens to us:  the events—personal, public and global; and the people who we encounter for good or evil, or some admixture of the two help frame the person we are, whether we’re 25 or 45.  Or 75.

 

 

Words and Deeds

3.11

 

(note:  sorry it took me a couple of days for this.. On first viewing, I wasn’t sure how I felt about WAM.  It took me awhile to sort it out.  This, I think, was largely due to having spent the last month writing No Exit.  Writing a story of that intensity, surrounding the events that might have occurred at the same time as WAM surely altered the lens through which I viewed the episode.  It colored my expectations to a certain degree as well.  I liked the episode a great deal.  I felt slightly cheated with episode lacking any reference to House’s actions at the end of MLC.  I had also felt cheated by not having any reflective House-alone-thinking scenes, but I fee better about that, having viewed the episode again, and simply watching Hugh’s eyes during every scene. They told me all I needed to know.)

 

 

At the end of the last episode, House had nearly committed suicide (whether it was an active attempt or a passive “beyond-caring” self-destructiveness has been, and will continue to be, the subject for debate amongst fans of the show).  When WAD opens, House is appearing in court to respond to the new charges. 

 

When he returns to the office, it is clear, though he is in a great deal of pain and probably still detoxing, the impact of what I would consider to be a climax point of the arc is simply non-existent. 

 

House goes to Cuddy, who tells him to speak to Tritter.  And she gives him Vicodin.  So what has he been on since Christmas eve?  Nothing?  And how long has it been since he’s had no pain relief.  Wouldn’t the pain be incredibly intense?  Would he even be able to get out of bed at this point without taking SOMETHING?  Anyway, I digress (but I thought I would raise it, because it just now occurred to me).  No, this isn’t going to be a linear recap of the episode, but I thought it was an important element as to why this episode, more than any other in three seasons was disappointing to me.  I didn’t hate it; I’ve liked it better on subsequent viewings, but there was just something missing for me in it.

 

House and the POTW—House had no interaction with the patient, so there were no direct linkages.  After he goes through the EST, Cameron tells him that after awhile, he will start making real memories.  He’s been sort of reset.  After House finishes his rehab, will he be “reset” in a way unlike after the ketamine?  Will House learn something about himself, despite his resistance so that he won’t be quite so self-destructive?  Best I could do.  Anyone else?

 

House and the fellows: “If we had been better, we wouldn’t have had to do the EST” or words to that effect.  It was almost a throwaway line, but upon reflection, I think it said a couple of very important things.  First, the team handled the case by itself.  And they made some extremely big mistakes.  They neglected to speak with the family circle.  Chases’s “everybody lies” was correct, but the pursued the wrong path without House’s input; gave him incomplete information—saying as a fact that the partner and the brother were engaged, (and House completely not on his game, ill, preoccupied with maybe losing his medical license and going to jail doesn’t question them). 

 

So, the team, bright though they are, miss things when House isn’t their guide and mentor.  House was not being House during either in-rehab consult with him.  He (to Cuddy’s delight) was reasoned, calm and logical.  He didn’t call either the team or the POTW “moron.”  This is supposed to be a good thing.  It turns out, that had he actually been “House”-like, the team might have been called on the mistaken assumption and the EST might have been prevented.  Cameron, playing the romantic that she often does with patients, was the one to “discover” the romantic entanglement, and she’s the one who probably didn’t raise a flag to double check anything or raise with the family.  But the other thing that happened was that when House made the comment, it wasn’t a reprimand to the team, it was he, telling all of them, himself included, that they should have done better by the patient.  It was a quiet admission, but something very, very significant in its subdued way.

 

The team over the arc has been interesting to watch, with both Foreman and Chase having some sympathy for what House is going through (unexpectedly from Foreman).  In small ways, Chase has become House as House had become more and more distracted and withdrawn through the course of the arc.

 

Cuddy and House:  She owns his ass!  So, why did she lie for him? Yes, he is her best doctor.  He’s a flat out genius and his reputation probably brings the hospital honor and donations.  She has followed Wilson throughout season 3, going passively along with his attempts at manipulation, and probably feeling very guilty about where it drove him.  She was frustrated and angry at the beginning of the episode, and even after (to her surprise) doing everything she could have wanted him to do (apologize, admit himself to rehab, acting chastened) it made no difference to Tritter, who she perhaps saw finally for the bully he was (as did the judge). 

 

Wilson and House:  I’m still not overly fond of Wilson.  He’s sanctimonious and self-righteous.  His self-satisfied reaction to the apology and glee at it, despite how truly difficult it must’ve been for House to actually say it (actually as opposed to Tritter who acknowledged how hard it was to say for House), made it hard for me to love Wilson.  What about Wilson’s apology.  “I’m sorry House for trying to manipulate you from the moment you came back after the ketamine.”  “I’m sorry about doubting your fears about the pain returning.”  His “Yes, we all know how much pain you have…You’re here to deal with that and get on with your life…”  Struck me as insensitive as was his other comments.  He came off as smug and patronizing.  Until the end.  House has been able to get his vicodin – in rehab.  Whether he actually has, or whether he said it for Wilson’s benefit to give the impression that he’s taken back control of his fortunes, is a question for debate in my head and for later in this commentary.  It doesn’t really matter.  Was the entire thing a scam? He wonders about that.  But what about House’s apology.  It was an unnecessary part of House’s illusion, so was that real?  House’s words and expression tell us that it was.  Their relationship, dysfunctional as it is, is back to where it was pre-Tritter. 

 

House and the story arc:  The final chapter in the Tritter arc should bring to a close the events of the arc and set up the next story arc.  I believe the next story arc will (in dribs and drabs) address the impact of all the events and the rehab on House.  He cannot come out of this completely unchanged (even if it’s for a short time—something will have rubbed off or sunk in).  House was driven to a level of despair by the events of the season’s first half that had him on the brink of suicide.  What those effects will be, who knows?  Will he begin to deal in small ways with all that has happened to him?  Again, who knows.  The story arc began as simple harassment and snowballed as it swallowed up everyone in its path.  Some of this was through no fault of House’s and a great deal of it was his own doing.  Had he been willing to play Tritter’s game, things would not have spiraled out of control by FJ as they did.  On the other  hand, was House right?  Had they just left things alone, would the bully have gone away?  Would the judge, as she surely did, see Tritter for what he was?  Did anything that happened to House affect the judge’s decision?  No.  So, in a sense, House was right all along.  Leave the thing alone, weather the storm, and the bad thing will go away.  In a way, House trusted the legal system to back him up—and it wasn’t until Wilson and Cuddy started meddling that things got really bad (and he stole the oxy).  Cuddy would not have had to lie on the stand, and House’s background and medications history would have come out in court and the judge was just as likely to reprimand both House and Tritter.  

So when did House get his Vicodin back?  I think he was making a sincere effort (if only for show, but real).  I actually wonder if he did get the vicodin back, though.  Wilson assumes he did, and House doesn't deny it, but he says nothing really to suggest that he did (well, there was that "higher power" comment).  Maybe House wants Wilson to think that he has won his power play, to deflect from the reality that some of what he's learning in rehab is helping him.  It would be very House to internalize it.  I think even the first group therapy session made a very slight impression at the end.) But I'm probably wrong.  At the earliest, House made the effort to get his vicodin back after Tritter left him in art therapy.  Maybe House felt enough off his game that he saw the Vic as the only way to get back the mental acuity he needed to help the team with the case.  Since nothing he was doing was helping with Tritter, House may have thought it no longer mattered.  

What will the rehab do for House?  Will they help him deal with the pain?  Will they get him to begin to process some of his issues:  distant and not so distant?  That remains to be seen.  House hit bottom in MLC, he has to learn how to cope somehow or he will be right back there again, and sooner and quicker than the last time.

 

I did like this arc (better than most, I think), but liked its conclusion less.  Go figure.  For me the high points were Son of Coma Guy, Finding Judas and MLC. 

 

On a more shallow note, could Hugh Laurie have looked more spectacular (even gaunt, haunted and detoxing) than he did in that gorgeously tailored suit?  His jackets are always very English tailored, bespoke style…but that suit!  Hugh’s acting throughout the arc was never over the top, never histrionic.  He acted, as always, with great power and subtlety.  His eyes, as always, being his greatest acting tool-kit; his body language and use of his voice, not far behind.  If this arc accomplishes nothing but getting Hugh his well-deserved Emmy this year, it was all worth it, IMHO.

Merry Little Christmas
House 3x10

He said it all in his conversation with the dwarf mom.  “We’re freaks.  It makes us strong, but…”  It’s not something you choose as a positive.  When House talked wistfully about the buraku in Son of Coma Guy, we could see how he could see himself fitting in with society – surviving in society, even being “different.”  But he practically pleads with the mom to let her kid be “normal.”  This coming from the man who had in Lines in the Sand railed against “normality” and society’s definition of what “normal” is.  “You don’t want this for her,” he seems to be saying.  “Who would want ‘this’?  Embrace it if your cursed with differentness, but don’t ‘choose’ if you have a chance to live your life without such an obvious difference.”  No, I don’t think House is advocating “fitting in”.  But I do think House fundamentally wouldn’t wish “freakishness” on anyone.  He was empathizing with the girl and her mother on an elemental level. Despite the anguish he’s in, despite the fact that he’s high on the oxy; that he hasn’t slept in days, and is physically and emotionally at the end of his rope, he has a clarity and empathy that is stunning. House tells Wilson that even though he hasn’t slept, is puking his brains out hourly and is in stunning agony, he can still diagnose better than anyone. (leading to the wonderful accusation by House:  How can you think you can know what’s best for me?)  They all came to him to see his “freak show” see him work his magic, though they  were all willing to see him suffer.  It wasn’t an obvious connection.  But even in his state, off the case, privileges revoked, they still came to him, PPTH’s buraku.

 

( Read more... )

 

 

3x10

Finding Judas

 

<