Cuddy rips House’s head off after sex

Last year, I complained a lot about House in season six. Though I love the character interactions, forgive me for being selfish, but I want compelling cases too. No, I don’t care if the disease itself is compelling or weird. I want complexity and suspense about the patient. I don’t know whether House got itself some new writers or brought back some old ones, but tonight, we got both. There were so many good quotes tonight that I couldn’t write them all down. I’m going to save some of them for the Quotation Marks post Aryeh will write later this week, but here are a couple. Wilson refuses to believe that House and Cuddy are actually dating, so House gets Cuddy to kiss him to prove it to Wilson.

Wilson: I’ve been more passionate with my great aunt.
House: Mabel? Up high!

Then, House is characteristically crass to the Human Resources guy that they go and report their relationship to:

Human Resources Man: How would you describe the exact nature of your relationship?
House: Have you ever seen Wild Kingdom? Those insects that rip their partner’s head off after copulating.

Of course, what House and Cuddy are starting to realize now — which they didn’t realize when they first went back to work — is that their relationship isn’t broken. The way they have always interacted with each other created the respect and the sparks that brought them together to begin with. It ain’t broke, but they are trying to fix it by ceding to each other constantly in order to try to please each other. That seems like a normal, respectful thing to do when you’re in a relationship. I understand the impulse, but their arguments have been years of foreplay. And if they stop fighting now, their relationship is going to become boring. House does not do boring.

Did you notice how greatly acted this episode was? Taub did a great job of trying to fight for the guy he wanted to work with: the risk-taker. And the scenes between House and Cuddy were cautious, flat, and a little dry until their fight. Did you feel the sparks flying between them? I’m surprised we didn’t get to see them having sex in the elevator!

The case was actually heartbreaking. Sophie’s Choice heartbreaking. Della selflessly ignored the symptoms of sickle cell until they started to kill her, because complaining when her brother has a fatal diagnosis seemed … selfish. Even when the two siblings tearfully agree to let Hugo give Della his marrow and half of his lung, the whole scenario is just, inescapably, shitty and awful. When Hugo says, “Don’t make me live without you,” I thought, “She is going to have to live without you.”

But that’s his point, isn’t it? She was always going to have to do that. The one compensation he has for being dealt a horrible hand is that he has Della there with him. That is it. Take that away from him, especially if he knows he could have saved her, and he will die of grief. I really liked the kid actors in this episode, and I hope we get to see more of them. Hugo has a speech impediment, and I honestly couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or just amazing acting — like his face muscles are starting to weaken. I know this sounds stupid, but I found myself hoping this kid doesn’t actually have muscular dystrophy.

Last year, I was convinced that House should be canceled, that it was finished. Tonight they showed me I was wrong. Well done.

Clacked by Jen Creer
on Sep 27, 2010 @ 22:43 EST5EDT