“My head’s on your vagina.” – drunk House, with his head in Cuddy’s lap
Let’s just get right to the heart of this episode of House, shall we? It wasn’t about the case of the week (are they ever?), except for the fact that the patient died. That right there was the impetus for House’s breakthrough of monumental proportions. As Cuddy says, House is always right, and he definitely believes it when he says, “Love and happiness are nothing but distractions. The only thing my relationship with Cuddy has done for me is make me a worse doctor.”(But honestly, it’s not like that one moment of happiness turns you into an evil monster; you don’t kill the people on purpose.)
But he’s not completely right, because anyone who’s been watching this season knows that while House remains a delightful ass, Cuddy has been good for him in more ways than I could possibly write in one little post. He is right, though, when he says, “My happiness is being paid for with other people’s lives.” He’s got a point, somewhat.
The place where he’s hit it spot-on is when he visits Cuddy in his drunken stupor, admits all of this to her, then slurs, “It’s totally worth it,” and continues to confess that loving her and being happy is where it’s at. I loved that moment, except …
… Cuddy really didn’t look all that thrilled about his huge breakthrough. This is a guy who has been professing for six seasons that he doesn’t deserve happiness, and now he finally believes that he does. Is Cuddy thinking differently? I’ll admit, it would take a very tolerant person to accept House for who he is unconditionally, to embrace the fact that he’s finally allowed himself a basic human emotion he’s denied himself for years … at the expense of herself and her big night, but I think Cuddy can and I hope she will.
In some unidentifiable moment this season, I suddenly found myself feverishly rooting for these two crazy kids to make it work. She believes in him so completely, they’ve been having a totally normal relationship with the glitches that everyone experiences along the way, and it’s been a complete pleasure to watch House enter the human race. Don’t have it not work because that’s supposedly what makes good TV. Season seven of House is just as good as it was in the first few seasons, and the character growth has been so organic that we don’t need to go back to depressed, addicted, alone House. Allow the happiness to remain.
This and that:
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Feb 28, 2011 @ 22:25 EST5EDT
The episode SUCKED, truly horrible and boring until the end when House got drunk, then it was great. Chuddy was pissed because what she heard was “You make me kill people” and I wouldn’t look happy with that either.
I never could figure out what Cuddy said to House after he uttered the famous V-line …. what was her response? I replayed it over and over and it still was unintelligible… couldn’t have been more than two words or so.
I believe she said, “go to sleep House”.
I actually enjoyed this episode of House and it’s the first one I’ve really liked in awhile. As for the Masters/Chase thing, I kinda like it. I’m kind of crowing because I definitely picked up on this a few episodes ago when nobody else did. Ahem: https://cliqueclack.com/tv/2011/01/24/house-is-a-redeemable-sociopath-is-chase/#comment-50599
Why is it wrong? Is it the age difference? She’s young, but she’s not an adolescent or something. And in a weird way it makes some kind of cukoo sense to me.
The age difference is a bit weird. They’re at least 10 years apart, and she probably doesn’t fall in the divide by 2 and add 7 rule. The main problem for me is that Chase is a jackass (if anything he’s only gotten worse this season), and Masters, despite many viewers slight annoyance with her do-goody self, is a nice person.
I guess the age thing just mystifies me because to me age is just a number. As long as everyone is an adult, age differences in relationships have never struck me as odd and there are many successful couples with a large age difference between them. Also I actually have no idea how old any of the characters are supposed to be, but Chase looks about 36 and Masters about 25? That would make her squarely on your divide by 2 add 7 rule?
As for Chase, yes he’s a jackass right now. But he wasn’t always a jackass. He’s become a jackass because of his failed relationship with Cameron. It’s a coping mechanism. Hopefully time will help with that lol.
Fine I’ll give you a better explanation. It’s more about the emotional maturity of the characters. (I’m also pretty sure Masters’ is at best 21, she’s supposed to be some sort of super-genius who went to college at 16 and is now still technically in med school.) She’s basically a child. I’m pretty sure that she’s never had anything approaching a serious relationship in her life, while Chase has been married. And he’s always been the halfway to House character in the way he approaches his personal relationships in a somewhat utilitarian manner. (While Foreman aped House in the way he approached work.)
“I’m also pretty sure Masters’ is at best 21, she’s supposed to be some sort of super-genius who went to college at 16 and is now still technically in med school.”
Don’t know if ages were mentioned in the show but in reality Spencer is only 4 years older than Tamblyn.
Also, I believe it was mentioned that despite going to college early, Masters didn’t go straight from undergrad to med school. Rather she worked on and got post-graduate degrees (doctorates I believe) in a couple of other fields before eventually deciding to try her hand at medicine.
So, with that in mind, the character may actually be older (possibly mid-20’s) than what her awkwardness might suggest, an awkwardness which she herself attributes to her having spent more time working on academics than on interpersonal relationships or dealing with people in general.
*POST AUTHOR*
AH! Yes you did, Kate! :-) What bugs me about it is that I feel like we went there — Masters is just a Cameron replacement and it’s not a step forward for Chase, who’s got some growing to do. Plus Masters is really quite annoying! ;-)
Thanks, Kate… makes perfect sense./
Anybody else thinking that Masters leaving the show might be a fake-out, and we’ll have her for longer?
*POST AUTHOR*
I don’t know, you may have something there. I actually thought Olivia Wilde would be back by now, so maybe things have changed?
My understanding is that OW was on set this week.
I read somewhere that the producers offered Tamblyn a permanent role, but she declined it. There was no explanation as to why she wouldn’t want to stay on and it’s not like she’s busy doing anything else that I know of.
I both hate and like Masters. While she’s too damned meek, she has a way of challenging house in the wimpiest way, but she gets to him sometimes. Personally I think she’s a much more interesting character than 13, whether she’s likable or not. I find 13 to be too damned generic, at least Masters has some quirks that make her interesting even if annoying. That beats bland in my book any day.
David Shore said that while they really love Masters, she won’t be staying on the show. He said the same about Cameron and that definitely wasn’t Morrison’s choice to leave. Olivia Wilde will be back in episode 18 and since there is room for only one non-Cuddy female character on this show, I guess Martha has to go. (RSL let slip that they didn’t have room for Amber (Anne Dudek) because OW had already been hired.
I think they created Masters because they realized that having fired Jennifer Morrison, with Cameron gone there was no one left to challenge House on being ethical and all the “ethical dilemmas” of the show were falling flat. I like Martha but they created her weaker than Cameron (she’s younger, she’s still a medical student so she can’t confront House with any power, she doesn’t understand people as well as Cameron did) so House rides roughshod over her every time. Unless she’s a masochist, I can’t understand why she’s still at PPTH.