“I just had a House moment. I diagnosed transverse myelitis from a cold sore. How cool is that? Patients really eat that crap up.” – Wilson
I can’t believe it took six seasons for the powers-that-be to do a Wilson-centric episode! Now that they finally did, it was certainly worth the wait. This was not a throw-away episode where we just get to spend a cute 45 minutes following around Wilson on his rounds to discover what a wonderful doctor he is and that he’s been so wrongly overshadowed by House all these years.
Instead, we learned a little bit about what makes House such a good doctor, through Wilson’s foibles. And while we’ve been enjoying watching Wilson aid House in his growth this season, House finally got to return the favor in this episode.
Wow, we know Wilson tends to get too close to his patients, but this was really out there. I get that Wilson felt totally responsible for Tucker’s impending death because he gave him the double dose of chemo, but where do the ethics of a patient who asks his doctor for his own liver stand? It was interesting that when Wilson tried to do what he thought House would do, give the double-dose of chemo, that it just didn’t work out for him, because he cares about his patients too damned much. Is there something to House’s detachment after all, and not just a way for him to be a gigantic ass every week?
So at the point where House tells Wilson he won’t be there for the surgery “because if you die, I’m alone,” I was thinking that we just saw the main difference between House and Wilson: House is selfish, and somehow, House looked at Wilson’s ethical dilemma and subsequent guilt-inspired liver donation as all about him … way to be a good friend there, House. But then when he showed up anyway, it was clear that House really did want to be the friend that Wilson needed.
Jump to Wilson’s big growth moment, if not slightly displaced. Instead of getting angry at Tucker for being a “self important jerk,” Wilson gets mad at Cuddy for hurting his friend House. OK, so I guess it really wasn’t displaced. Why should Wilson waste his time on Tucker, who never really was a friend, and only took what he needed from Wilson? House just proved that he really is a friend to Wilson, and that’s where Wilson focused his energy, a good move.
Other things:
This episode paved new territory for House — did it work for you? I loved what the writers did this week and I’m anxious to see how they follow up the ever-changing friendship between House and Wilson.
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Nov 30, 2009 @ 21:48 EST5EDT
I actually hated this episode. lol
The ending was nice with evil Wilson. :)
I enjoyed this episode. We got hilarious glimpses of House’s cases (usually the team flying through the hallway with a patient dying of ridiculous symptoms).
I don’t think Wilson’s closeness to his patients is a negative. He saved a patient’s life because he noticed that the patient wasn’t talking about his grandkids. Would House have noticed something like that? Possibly. But in order to notice it, he would have had to spend enough time with the patient and listened to the grandkid stories enough times to recognize that something was amiss. Detachment, I imagine, would work against Wilson.
Fun episode, though very different.
What I liked most were those brief glimpses of House’s cases and the team’s efforts in trying to solve them from an outsider viewpoint.
Usually, the show is tossing us so much into the thick of things that it’s easy to lose sight of how bizarre some of what they do must seem to others around them.
Arguably, it also provides some further perspective as to why, despite all of his successes, so many of the doctors at Princeton-Plainsboro are so reluctant to get involved in anything House-related.
*POST AUTHOR*
Ruby and Ushizo, you both are so right — the glimpses we got into House’s cases in this episode were awesome, I don’t know why I didn’t mention them!
Ruby, you have a point about Wilson, but in closeness, I meant his inappropriate closeness, not his endearing bedside manner. Romantic relationships with his patients, his too-close friendship with Tucker, clearly just because he was a patient, b/c Tucker had nothing else going on as a friend — those are the places House would never go that compromise Wilson as a doctor.
I think that patient with the grandkids was thrown in there just so we could see how inappropriate the other relationship was, how Wilson crossed a line.
You’re right, he gets so drawn into their personal lives and doesn’t establish any boundaries. His strength is also his weakness. But that’s true of House too. Wilson’s caring has no boundaries, and House’s manipulation (or whatever you would call his defining characteristic) has no boundaries.
*POST AUTHOR*
Oh, absolutely! House is far from perfect, which is pretty much what the show is based on! :-) But it is interesting to note that since his “vacation,” House has been better about the boundaries.
Tucker also served to show that no matter how big an ass House can be he is still Wilson’s friend. Not just calling him by the right name, but he is upfront with Wilson. While thoughtless about things I do not think House is thoughtless about his friends (I won;t go so far as to say people in general!) Tucker is thoughtless about people, especially those he is supposed to care about.