House season 7 (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Supposedly next season is the last season for Hugh Laurie, so unless they spin off to another show, it'll be the last season for House as well.


http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2011/05/11/6624525-hugh-laurie-the-next-season-of-house-is-my-last

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I went into this week's episode thinking it was going to be the finale for some reason - so I was completely thrown off-guard when they announced a preview to next week.

First off, I'm glad that this wasn't an episode about, "The rats in the lab died, therefore House might die" as kind of a season finale cliffhanger. We know House isn't going to die; the show is called "House", afterall. But I liked how they used it as a catalyst, a means to explore the character and have him face parts of himself he had long avoided doing, instead of it being an eyeball-rolling, completely unbelievable, drama-free episode where they tried to convince us that House was going to die, as if we'd all go on summer vacation wondering if he would live. So glad that that wasn't what they intended to do at all.


I think it was actually a really good episode, maybe the best they've done all season, certainly one of the best. I don't think House has ever really hit bottom before; even going to rehab, that was low, but it wasn't his bottom. Being alone in his bathtub, trying to perform surgery on himself - that's bottom. Having to call Cuddy because no one else picked up the phone (some people were busy, but I think the point was more that on their day off, the people closest to House for the most part weren't really into spending more time with him than absolutely necessary). I like how Cuddy refused to do the surgery for him and took him to the hospital, that we saw him waiting his turn in the ER - after all these years of getting away with everything, and acting like he was above it all and deserved to be treated differently, to see House being treated as just another patient must have been really humbling to him. I think that it was important that something like that happened to him, not that he should have needed to put himself in that situation, but that he wasn't given special treatment for once. And the other thing was that moment where he begs Cuddy to supervise the surgery - she was one of the people responsible for his initial leg surgery, and he hadn't trusted her at that time and was furious at her - so to see him in a similar situation, telling her that he trusted her, I think that was important. I think there was some absolution there for both of them.


All of the characters really had great moments like that - Thirteen and Chase both being given the opportunity to have someone to talk to about the horrible (but completely understandable) things they had to do. Taub showing interest in becoming a father and having a new relationship - even if he didn't do it for all the right reasons, the charade with his ex-wife really needed to stop in order for him to be able to move on, and maybe this will be the thing that gives him the chance to do that.


I was really moved by the final moments of the show with House and Wilson, where Wilson tells him that this can't go on, living this way, and that even though every instinct in House's body and mind probably has him wanting to make some sort of wise-ass remark there (if not an outright dismissal of the concept), that he simply said, I know. That was a great moment.


I hope whatever happens next week (which looked pretty over-the-top and melodramatic from the preview, although the previews rarely show things how they are) doesn't take away from this episode. I loved how this was a quiet, unusual (in that it wasn't set in the hospital) episode, where many of the characters had to really look at themselves and into themselves and find a way to start coming to terms with who they are. For this hour, it didn't seem like I was watching a bunch of actors on a TV show - they disappeared into their characters wholly, and I was really moved from start to finish. I really think this would have made a fantastic season finale.

 

[NeilO]

I am a little confused as to what happened. House rammed his car into Cuddy's house before leaving for some tropical area, but why was there an ambulance there at the beginning some N hours after House did that? Why was Wilson injured?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Shh... you're not supposed to think about stuff like that.

 

[David Norman]

Well, that was interesting!


I'm assuming the ambulance and firetruck were there because of possible gas (?Natural or Gasoline) leakage -- Cuddy and all were having dinner after work so assuming by the time the firetrucks/ambulance/police were around it would likely have been near/after sunset.

When House swerved Wilson's car into the driveway, Wilson appeared to dive out of the way and looked like he hurt his right arm. The Paramedic was wrapping Wilson's arm and he can be seen cradling his arm when House walked past on the way down the sidewalk.


Poor Taub -- now what --- "I .... didn't expect that!"

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Well, I'm betting Princeton Plainsboro will find Cuddy more expendable than House, so he won't have to worry about being arrested for walking back into her hospital.


And, yeah, they made it kind of obvious that Wilson injured his hand when he fell.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Foreman is gonna laugh for days when he finds out about Taub's abundance of baby riches.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Originally Posted by Patrick Sun

Foreman is gonna laugh for days when he finds out about Taub's abundance of baby riches.

The only way to go is to have Taub propose having one of those two wives marriages.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I didn't really think of Taub's issues in terms of relationship. Though his ex-wife continues to sleep with him, she wanted to be free of him. They weren't going to remarry. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't care that he's seeing someone else in addition to her. What I think about is Taub went from struggling financially (despite all his income) to now having two babies on the way.


I await the moment when House asks Chase why he didn't teach Taub about birth control. If he's really snarky, he could make a comment about it being inverse natural selection -- where the short, balding, unattractive one feels compelled to spread his seed.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

House plowing Cuddy's house will be remembered as the jump the shark point if next season tanks.

 

[Jeremiah]

I thought it was ridiculous what House did, he reminds me of David Hayworth on All My Children. I doubt anything happens to him, he keeps his job, and Cuddy is let go. Pffff, sure, whatever.

Waaaahhh-nobody wants to be with me b/c I'm such a fuking @sshole-waaaaahhhh

 

[Joe_H]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

House plowing Cuddy's house will be remembered as the jump the shark point if next season tanks.

I thought the jumping into the pool episode was that, myself.

 

[NeilO]

I thought that might be as good an ending for the series as they could have - House off on a beach somewhere.

 

[Doug Smith]

Yeah I agree. Over the past few years there have been a couple of good possible series enders. I assume next year is it - because of the "one" year contracts, etc.?

 

[Garrett Adams]

Since Lisa Edelstein didn't sign up for season 8, the house crashing might make the season opener easier. Cuddy wouldn't want to be anywhere near House.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'm guessing one of two things happens: either Cuddy makes Princeton-Plainsboro choose between her and House and it chooses House, or House takes up at an entirely new hospital, and his team migrates with him.

 

[Jeremiah]

I vote that the Hospital chooses House b/c building a new set would cost the show more money.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

I'm guessing one of two things happens: either Cuddy makes Princeton-Plainsboro choose between her and House and it chooses House, or House takes up at an entirely new hospital, and his team migrates with him.

Hasn't it been established before that House is a big draw for people who want to donate to the hospital?


Plus, as the Performance Artist showed last night, House is sort of famous.


So, who would the hospital choose... the famous doctor who brings in money, or a dime a dozen administrator?


And that's just in story terms. As was said above me, what production company would spend money building all new sets for the last season of a show?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Sigh... both liked and didn't like it.


I wrote last week that that episode would have been a great season finale - getting to see all of the characters outside of the hospital context we usually see them in, seeing Thirteen come to terms with her difficult year, Taub appearing to move beyond his ex-wife (in what was more of a lust-filled addiction than a reconciled romance), to House trying to fix himself and failing miserably at it - to Wilson telling him at the end that he couldn't go on this way any further, and House very quietly saying, "I know."


That was a season finale.


And then this week, every bit of growth and self-realization that came last week seemed to be negated. If last week's episode represented the best of what this season was, this week's was the worst. I still have a very difficult time, story-wise, really feeling the breakup between House and Cuddy: it felt much more like artificial drama concocted by writers who wanted out of the situation they wrote themselves into, than something natural to the character. I just don't buy that Cuddy, someone who's knowledgable in medicine and in all things House, would have dumped him for the reasons given. House is a recovering addict - he will always be a recovering addict. That's the nature of addiction as best we understand it today. I understand someone who's not familiar with medicine or clinical depression or addiction histories not understanding addict behavior, but Cuddy obviously would be someone who did. She chose to date House in spite of it. Throughout this series she had proven herself to be an intelligent, insightful, emotionally understanding character - I simply didn't buy that she would kick him to the curb for having a slight relapse. And in the grand scheme of things, House popping a couple bills because he was afraid the love of his life was going to die and couldn't deal with the pain of that in that moment, and wanted to be numb to that pain that he could support her in the way he knew she deserved (as an understanding, thoughtful, reassuring presence instead of a terrified-with-good-reason doctor), doesn't seem like a major sin to me. If House had come into the hospital as a normal boyfriend who was scared to death about losing his normal girlfriend, it wouldn't have been out of the question that whatever doctor was seeing to her wouldn't have given him something to calm him down anyway. I'm not making excuses for self-medicating, but I'm saying, what he did was nowhere near as outrageous as she portrayed it to be. And, if you willingly choose to date someone who's a recovering addict, those are the things you have to prepare yourself for. Addiction is an illness; for Cuddy to have left House when he was ill seems unreasonable beyond justification. Fight for an episode, sure, but to flat out leave him? That didn't seem at all like the Cuddy I've watched for these past seven years, so everything that came this season after that has been difficult for me to accept dramatically. If we're gonna talk jump the shark moments, I think that was the moment right there - when characters don't behave as we've known them to behave for the entire length of the show, when the writing betrays who they're supposed to be for the sake of narrative contrivance and artificially produced drama, that to me is "jumping the shark".


I'm not suggesting that Cuddy deserved to have violence brought into her home (or more accurately, violence crashing into it) - but she wasn't an innocent victim here. She abandoned someone she professed to love. In the very first episode of the season, he warned her that he was difficult, that he didn't know if he could be the perfect boyfriend, or if he could be what she deserved - and she chose to be with him anyway, saying he was the most incredible man she had ever known and accepting him despite his faults. Except, now we're meant to believe, she didn't really accept him afterall - as long as he seemed fine on the surface there could be a relationship, but once he started acting like the man he had been for the entire time she knew him, she cuts and runs? How could someone in House's position not be totally devastated by that? House doesn't trust anyone, and for good reason - and when she finally convinces him to let his guard down and to accept vulnerability, she demonstrated exactly why he had such difficulty doing that in the first place.


How convenient that the morning after House's surgery, Cuddy would meet someone to date who conveniently was able to come over for dinner that night, and thus be spotted by House as he was doing something she asked of him (to return her hairbrush - a minor thing for sure), and set him off in rage of confused and painful emotions? When House said to Cuddy, "You wanna know how I feel?" I wanted him to say, well, you told me I could trust you and that you loved me, and then you abandoned me when I needed you the most - so screw you - you're as much of a sanctimonious hypocrite as anyone and how dare you act like you have some right to care or know me now.

More than anything, this episode to me felt like, "Hi, my name is Cuddy and I'm not going to be back next season, so let's figure out a way to write me out as quickly as possible." There were plenty of ways Cuddy could have been written out of the show without things getting this ridiculous, the easiest probably being offering her some one-year teaching fellowship somewhere else on terms she couldn't turn down. Not every entrance or exit has to be filled with drama just for the sake of drama. Yeah, the opening of the episode looked good, was well shot, and all that, but it seemed hollow, especially after the episode revealed what it was all about.


When this show was going good, I believed everything that happened in it - I didn't feel like I was watching actors on a scripted drama, I felt like I was witnessing real people; obviously that's the illusion that film and television is supposed to bring us. I was happy to see House and Cuddy get together - it had been obvious for so long that there were feelings there, and beyond that, that they actually worked for each other. They both take themselves too seriously; House helped Cuddy do things she could never do on her own, like, taking a deep breath and playing hooky for a day, because life is about more than just going to work every day; and Cuddy helped House, trying to bring him to a place where each case could be put in context and where he could let go and feel safe wanting more than what happened in his office. I know some people didn't enjoy the romantic subplot that the season began with, but I enjoyed it -- too often, television shows won't allow characters to get together because then they lose the drama that came from the "will they or won't they" -- but after being on as long as "House" has been on, I felt the showrunners had earned the opportunity to bring those two together. But somewhere in the middle of the season, for whatever reason, the characters disappeared and we got caricatures - House, the wacky crazy doctor who was obviously insane, and Cuddy, the frigid administrator who couldn't find the humanity and common decency in any situation. Last week's episode was a fantastic step towards having them all behave as real characters again. It was a great watch, and it would have been a great note to end the year on - all of the characters facing uncertainty, not knowing what their futures would be, but with a new resolve and desire to make themselves better. By comparison, this week was just silliness.


Clearly I don't have strong opinions on the subject It just didn't feel true to the characters, it felt like sloppy writing and sloppy plotting, and I think the actors, the characters and the audience all deserved better - and last week demonstrated that the writers and showrunners could do better, so it was disappointing to me to see that they didn't seem to care to. What's even worse is, where does this leave them for next season? Another season where there's a threat of House losing his license, losing his ability to practice medicine and facing jail? Been there, done that. I thought the overall character arc of the past couple years was far more interesting - this brilliant but damaged soul learning to be a human being again, or perhaps even learning to be human for the first time.


(In regards to the actual incident, I think some of the photography could have been done better to make it look more like evening - it really did seem like afternoon rather than evening, so seeing the Cuddy family eating dinner just seemed weird when it didn't appear to be dinnertime.)

 

[Patrick_S]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg
More than anything, this episode to me felt like, "Hi, my name is Cuddy and I'm not going to be back next season, so let's figure out a way to write me out as quickly as possible." There were plenty of ways Cuddy could have been written out of the show without things getting this ridiculous, the easiest probably being offering her some one-year teaching fellowship somewhere else on terms she couldn't turn down. Not every entrance or exit has to be filled with drama just for the sake of drama. Yeah, the opening of the episode looked good, was well shot, and all that, but it seemed hollow, especially after the episode revealed what it was all about.

I'm thinking that the episode was filmed before the actress made decision to leave the show. I would guess that if they knew she was not coming back they would have had an exit scene in the episode.