“I’ve spent my life caring, giving and searching for the profound. Now it’s time for selfishness, indifference and embracing the shallow.” – Wilson
Watching Wilson try to defy the very essence of who he is — and death — made for a fascinating ride. Yeah, there was a little pun intended there, since he tried to do it via a roadtrip in a shiny-new Corvette. He went for every cliche — an 80-ounce steak, even a threesome, and did I mention a Corvette? — and he just couldn’t get past the little old lady waiting for the bus that would never take her to Naples. You knew it and I knew it — there was no way Wilson could make the changes stick. Goodbye, Kyle Calloway.
I actually thought we might see the demise of Kyle a little bit sooner than we did. When House and Wilson were stopped for the funeral procession to pass, I thought that Wilson was going to be done; I expected him to melt into a little puddle of Wilson sap and lose it. It was fun watching him literally race death, surely no symbolic coincidence. But the puddle came on the bus ride home, and it was no surprise that Wilson didn’t want to face his scan — who would? And what did that face of House’s mean when he was looking at Wilson’s results?
The big change, the one that’s likely to stick, was Chase finally deciding to leave not only House’s team, but Princeton-Plainsboro. When the patient planted the seed that Chase has done nothing with his career, I didn’t really think much of it. Chase is Chase, and he’s made different choices throughout the years. He was able to surf while House was in prison. I didn’t see anything wrong with his life choices, because not everyone needs to be oozing with career ambition, and he didn’t seem particularly dissatisfied in his professional life. So in a way, it doesn’t make sense that Chase would leave. Now, if you look at it as a confidence thing — and throughout the episode, we slowly watched his confidence boost — then it was a huge step in the right direction for Chase. He’s always taken the easy road, and challenging himself with this step toward independence in his career might be the push he needs to get his personal life in order as well. I’m going to put this out there for the world to read: I’d watch a spin-off about Chase — anyone?
This and that:
I would absolutely watch a Chase spin off. I hear Jesse Spencer already has a staring role on a new show called Chicago Fire though. Chase has always been the most interesting duckling and the most like House. If anyone could run their own diagnostics department, it’s Chase.
Not sure Chase is quirky enough to lead a spin-off. He’d need one hell of a good set of supporting characters. Chase is more of a straight man, and he’d need a decent foil to make the show interesting.
*POST AUTHOR*
I would never write him off as heading up a great spin-off, b/c that is exactly what I thought when Frasier spun off of Cheers … and it was a great series for like 10 years!