House: "Who's Your Daddy?"
May. 16th, 2006 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicYeah. So, uh... wow.
Not wow as in "House vs. God" wow or "All In" wow, but pretty impressive, especially considering how little I expected from this episode after last week's preview. There's too much to process from the meatier scenes, and a paper to finish, and a shower to be had. How about we do a three-things type post?
First, plot summary for the unfortunates:
Young African-American Katrina survivor shown on a plane with a white man who looks like Stephen Rea who's learned from her within the past day or few that he's her father. They're in the middle of bonding when she hallucinates that the plane is being flooded and has a heart attack.
Cut to House pacing in his apartment at night, in pain, trying to walk it off, Vicodin supplies running low. Transition to morning; still pacing; giving up, he grabs a syringe from a box at the top of a bookshelf—morphine, someone said on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
house_md Whiteboards, and I like the sound of that, since people have been saying for a while that Vicodin isn't gonna cut it for long, shouldn't actually have cut it for this long—and is about to inject himself when Cuddy calls and leaves a message about the girl that intrigues him enough to put it down and go to work.
When he comes in, we find out that not-Stephen-Rea, whose actual name I've forgotten but started with "Cr" and should have been just "R" and so kept making me say "Craisin!", is an old friend of House's; he hilariously calls House "G-Man!" when he catches sight of him by Diagnostics, leading me to expect House to pull a Giles and retort, "Don't call me that." (He didn't.) We immediately learn that Craisin's Achilles heel is his gullibility, which House gleefully exploits to his face throughout the episode. Backstory: Craisin and House were friends when they were about 20, they both idolized a jazz pianist who was this girl's grandfather, Craisin wrote a biography about the grandfather and got intimate with the mother, the book got published and turned out to be an exposé and hence neither grandfather nor mother ever told him he had a child by her. House is convinced the girl is scamming Craisin and tries to coerce him into letting him run a paternity test, but maybe-daddy won't have it.
Meanwhile, the team tries to find out what's wrong with the girl, Cuddy asks House to give her her fertility injections (in her, um, posterior, which didn't play as you might expect, but did involve House rubbing disinfectant on a bit longer than necessary), and House goes through Cuddy's sperm donor paperwork (at her request) trying to find a worthy candidate, which leads to a personal interview that's way funnier than this week's clinic patient.
Whew. Okay. Three things:
- House scaring the bejeezus out of Katrina Girl by stabbing her twice with a needle and breaking her finger? Terrifying. Like, beyond sexy-scary and straight into nightmarish. Which I'm assuming was the point, but my God, his face when she was sobbing was (a) much more frightening than when the admittedly creepy flesh-dropping FX kicked in and (b) an excellent illustration of how House is becoming increasingly nasty beyond justification. Eh,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elynross? There was no sign of discomfort in his expression at causing so much pain in a little girl; he even told her it wouldn't hurt. It was like the toe-cutting scene from "Paternity," only this wasn't a dream. His behavior can't be excused as a necessary evil to help in the diagnosis, nor as a way of siphoning off his own leg pain. He was downright cold. Why weren't the Fellows more disturbed? Why did anyone let House alone with her later in the episode? Why for that matter did no one speak of reprimands, or worse? Just because his strategy worked in inducing a hallucination? *shudder*
- O the Wilson love: taking over in the radiation lab (even if he proves incompetent once again by not noticing that something is going wrong with the girl being treated), taunting House about his lunch ("Twenty-one savory spices!") (House used the same fork!), bringing his lunch to House's office in the first place so he can ask how House knows Craisin, walking in on House and the massage therapist ("Oh, sorry—" "It's not what it looks like!" "Oh, Ingrid. Hi."), leaving a message on the answering machine and knowing House's greeting was different (well, gone, but still).
- It's too bad the "House is going to figure out part or all of the key to the case from listening to her grandfather play piano" was so predictable and wasn't covered earlier in the episode to get it out of the way, but it was still nice to have more logic in the diagnosis than the sheer coincidence-inspiration they've been going for lately.
Great lines: [Wilson's isn't quite right, but that's the gist of it]
Cuddy, upon hearing that the patient's father knows House: "I thought I've met all your friend."
Wilson, when House tells him at lunch that the girl is pooping out of her mouth: "You're trying to gross me out? I'm an oncologist, half my patients have skin that's sloughing off."
During a discussion about how House told Craisin back in the day that he would "talk" to Craisin's unstable girlfriend and try to convince her to stay with him:
Wilson: You blew it.
House: Actually... [reverse motions that had to suffice for a verbal "She blew me" because it's network TV.]
(Did/does anyone else think the girl in question was Stacy?)
And about that preview for next week's season finale...
The disgruntled former patient who SHOOTS HOUSE OMGhehaditcoming point-blank in the chest in his office is totally familiar-looking but I couldn't place him and need to watch it again, only I'm taping something else and can't check, and can't look him up for fear of spoilers, so if any of you watched and know the actor's name and/or where I might know him from, help a girl out?
ETA: Dude, I just realized after I turned out the light, it's Elias Koteas! From "Exotica" and "The Prophecy." All soft brown eyes and ambiguity. I'm psyched now.
I'm not sure whether I want Wilson to tackle the gunman or drop to the ground and see if House is okay.
And the clip that's on everybody's minds: House punches Wilson. Okay. There are two obvious explanations, neither of which I'm sure will be the case: House, having been shot, is not doing so well mentally, and hauls off and socks his friend in a moment of frustration; or Cuddy and/or Wilson tell him that Wilson didn't actually fail the paternity audition and has impregnated her, leading to anger and jealousy. I hope it's the former, combined with something episode-specific. Actually I kind of wish it hadn't been in the preview, because that would have been a real shocker, but I'm sure the context will compensate.
Discuss!
Not wow as in "House vs. God" wow or "All In" wow, but pretty impressive, especially considering how little I expected from this episode after last week's preview. There's too much to process from the meatier scenes, and a paper to finish, and a shower to be had. How about we do a three-things type post?
First, plot summary for the unfortunates:
Young African-American Katrina survivor shown on a plane with a white man who looks like Stephen Rea who's learned from her within the past day or few that he's her father. They're in the middle of bonding when she hallucinates that the plane is being flooded and has a heart attack.
Cut to House pacing in his apartment at night, in pain, trying to walk it off, Vicodin supplies running low. Transition to morning; still pacing; giving up, he grabs a syringe from a box at the top of a bookshelf—morphine, someone said on the
house_md Whiteboards, and I like the sound of that, since people have been saying for a while that Vicodin isn't gonna cut it for long, shouldn't actually have cut it for this long—and is about to inject himself when Cuddy calls and leaves a message about the girl that intrigues him enough to put it down and go to work. When he comes in, we find out that not-Stephen-Rea, whose actual name I've forgotten but started with "Cr" and should have been just "R" and so kept making me say "Craisin!", is an old friend of House's; he hilariously calls House "G-Man!" when he catches sight of him by Diagnostics, leading me to expect House to pull a Giles and retort, "Don't call me that." (He didn't.) We immediately learn that Craisin's Achilles heel is his gullibility, which House gleefully exploits to his face throughout the episode. Backstory: Craisin and House were friends when they were about 20, they both idolized a jazz pianist who was this girl's grandfather, Craisin wrote a biography about the grandfather and got intimate with the mother, the book got published and turned out to be an exposé and hence neither grandfather nor mother ever told him he had a child by her. House is convinced the girl is scamming Craisin and tries to coerce him into letting him run a paternity test, but maybe-daddy won't have it.
Meanwhile, the team tries to find out what's wrong with the girl, Cuddy asks House to give her her fertility injections (in her, um, posterior, which didn't play as you might expect, but did involve House rubbing disinfectant on a bit longer than necessary), and House goes through Cuddy's sperm donor paperwork (at her request) trying to find a worthy candidate, which leads to a personal interview that's way funnier than this week's clinic patient.
Whew. Okay. Three things:
- House scaring the bejeezus out of Katrina Girl by stabbing her twice with a needle and breaking her finger? Terrifying. Like, beyond sexy-scary and straight into nightmarish. Which I'm assuming was the point, but my God, his face when she was sobbing was (a) much more frightening than when the admittedly creepy flesh-dropping FX kicked in and (b) an excellent illustration of how House is becoming increasingly nasty beyond justification. Eh,
elynross? There was no sign of discomfort in his expression at causing so much pain in a little girl; he even told her it wouldn't hurt. It was like the toe-cutting scene from "Paternity," only this wasn't a dream. His behavior can't be excused as a necessary evil to help in the diagnosis, nor as a way of siphoning off his own leg pain. He was downright cold. Why weren't the Fellows more disturbed? Why did anyone let House alone with her later in the episode? Why for that matter did no one speak of reprimands, or worse? Just because his strategy worked in inducing a hallucination? *shudder*- O the Wilson love: taking over in the radiation lab (even if he proves incompetent once again by not noticing that something is going wrong with the girl being treated), taunting House about his lunch ("Twenty-one savory spices!") (House used the same fork!), bringing his lunch to House's office in the first place so he can ask how House knows Craisin, walking in on House and the massage therapist ("Oh, sorry—" "It's not what it looks like!" "Oh, Ingrid. Hi."), leaving a message on the answering machine and knowing House's greeting was different (well, gone, but still).
- It's too bad the "House is going to figure out part or all of the key to the case from listening to her grandfather play piano" was so predictable and wasn't covered earlier in the episode to get it out of the way, but it was still nice to have more logic in the diagnosis than the sheer coincidence-inspiration they've been going for lately.
Great lines: [Wilson's isn't quite right, but that's the gist of it]
Cuddy, upon hearing that the patient's father knows House: "I thought I've met all your friend."
Wilson, when House tells him at lunch that the girl is pooping out of her mouth: "You're trying to gross me out? I'm an oncologist, half my patients have skin that's sloughing off."
During a discussion about how House told Craisin back in the day that he would "talk" to Craisin's unstable girlfriend and try to convince her to stay with him:
Wilson: You blew it.
House: Actually... [reverse motions that had to suffice for a verbal "She blew me" because it's network TV.]
(Did/does anyone else think the girl in question was Stacy?)
And about that preview for next week's season finale...
The disgruntled former patient who SHOOTS HOUSE OMGhehaditcoming point-blank in the chest in his office is totally familiar-looking but I couldn't place him and need to watch it again, only I'm taping something else and can't check, and can't look him up for fear of spoilers, so if any of you watched and know the actor's name and/or where I might know him from, help a girl out?
ETA: Dude, I just realized after I turned out the light, it's Elias Koteas! From "Exotica" and "The Prophecy." All soft brown eyes and ambiguity. I'm psyched now.
I'm not sure whether I want Wilson to tackle the gunman or drop to the ground and see if House is okay.
And the clip that's on everybody's minds: House punches Wilson. Okay. There are two obvious explanations, neither of which I'm sure will be the case: House, having been shot, is not doing so well mentally, and hauls off and socks his friend in a moment of frustration; or Cuddy and/or Wilson tell him that Wilson didn't actually fail the paternity audition and has impregnated her, leading to anger and jealousy. I hope it's the former, combined with something episode-specific. Actually I kind of wish it hadn't been in the preview, because that would have been a real shocker, but I'm sure the context will compensate.
Discuss!
no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 03:44 am (UTC)When does he ever really suffer repercussions for anything? And yeah, for me the pins and finger thing was... I almost didn't finish watching. Hell, I almost deleted my Season Pass.
And I'm kind of appalled by the whole "House is the only one Cuddy trust to give her her fertility shots which just happen to require her baring her ass to the TV audience twice in the ep." It just doesn't make sense to me, and it really bothers me.
The highlight? The fact that Wilson wasn't at all put out by House's attempt to gross him out, but House's story about what happened with his friend's ex made him lose his appetite. I... don't think I'm having the reactions they want. Or maybe I am, and they're going to do some stunning turnaround on me and... Yeah. Maybe not.
no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 03:55 am (UTC)I get that Cuddy asked House, because she does consider him one of the (if not the) best doctors at the hospital. Last week she remarked to Wilson that neither of them has anyone to go home to, so we know there's no one in her life close enough to administer the shots. House happens to know about the treatments. Ergo... But of course they could have framed the shots so no skin was bared. I wasn't particularly bothered, though.
That's a nice point about what turned Wilson's stomach.
I... don't think I'm having the reactions they want.
Is there one reaction we're all supposed to have? They must know how varied their audience is, that different groups are going to enjoy or be disgusted by different things. Maybe that's too simplistic a view to take, but I can't imagine everyone is supposed to, for example, like House.
...Should really, really be in bed now.
no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 17th, 2006 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 21st, 2006 03:28 am (UTC)(Sorry for just posting in your lj like this.)
no subject
Date: May. 21st, 2006 02:56 pm (UTC)One of my problems with the show is that they do bring things up suddenly and let them drop as swiftly rather than letting them build and fade over weeks or an entire season. If Cuddy has been able to handle House for however many years he's been working there, why should she change her behavior in one or two weeks just because he found out she wants to have a baby? That's either irresponsible writing or (with more faith in the team) it's leading up to Cuddy realizing that she couldn't ask House to donate because it would compromise her effectiveness as the only check on the loosest cannon in the hospital. Don't mind my metaphor cocktail there.
You know what else is weird? Watching the MRI torture scene a second time, it's not even that scary. Like on first viewing you have Cameron's horrified reaction, and on second viewing you're more with House. Or maybe it's just me.
no subject
Date: May. 21st, 2006 06:13 pm (UTC)I just noticed that as well, actually. I wrote a whole long rant about characterization in my lj. The problem, I think, is uneven writing. Instead of giving us a little bit of everyone each episode, episodes focus on one or two characters and everyone else is ignored until next week, when two different characters get the spotlight and the previous characters were ignored.
Why wasn't Foreman having any trouble this episode? Why wasn't House wondering what Chase meant when he said he wasn't rich? Just a line or two to pull those plot lines through till the next episode would have been nice.
House is a far better show than Grey's Anatomy both dialogue-wise and acting-wise, but one thing GA does have going for it is characterization. All the characters have issues that span multiple weeks and they all get a bit of the limelight every episode.