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bironicHouse season premiere tonight.
First of all, let me get this off my chest: Wilson, you manipulative bastard! I get the tough love thing, I get what you were trying to do in "Detox," but convincing Cuddy not to tell House that his patient actually made a miraculous recovery thanks to his not-so-wild guess accomplishes nothing; House will find out—after all he did for them, the wife will be contacting him to say thank you—and it's not gonna be pretty. I don't like your patronizing-chummy arm-over-her-shoulders move and I don't like how you're hiding behind Cuddy like you did last time.
I also don't like how Cuddy gave in to Wilson so easily at the end, as if she needed someone to tell her what to do after the exhaustion of holding out against House. I suppose I ought to have seen it coming; Wilson and Cuddy's collusion was set up right at the beginning when they sat in her office deciding how to present their cases. And as noted back in May, it was foreshadowed in "No Reason" when House caught Wilson lying about how he agreed with Cuddy's decision to use ketamine while he was unconscious. See also "Detox" and more innocuous scenes like Wilson saying "I'm on it" to Cuddy at the beginning of "Need to Know." Not new behavior, not by a long shot, but this...this is upsetting. Even though I like when Wilson upsets me. Keeps us on our metaphorical toes.
Most of Wilson's screen time tonight was love, though, and there was quite a bit of it to chew on. My little notes from the first half of the episode include things like "W♥," and that scene in the middle in Wilson's office needs to be re-watched to pick out all that was going on between them, as well as the part where he tells House to send the guy home, because I think there's something to be learned there about Wilson's approach to his own patients. Slashiness throughout the hour, of course: Wilson staring at House's groin in Cuddy's office, predicting what he'd say for each case file, hanging out on their new indoor balcony and taking the fall for the grape-pegging, wincing at House's skateboard antics, and delivering lines like "Keep working it—feeling will come." Plus, this had to be one of the show's best transitions ever, if not the best: Wilson starting to describe levels of happiness, saying "I'm not going away" when House tries to leave halfway into the first one, and then we cut to the surgery observation room and hear "...the fifth level of happiness is..."
On a completely unrelated note, who was I talking to about ear bleeding on this show and how we were due for some? Whoever you are, vindicated!
House/Cameron. I'm not militantly pro- or anti-H/C, so I didn't mind when House started in on whether she wanted to have a drink with him, etc. However, I did not like Cameron's response—"Are you serious or are you just trying to change the subject?"—because that line is pure Wilson and does not belong in her mouth. Cameron cannot turn into Wilson to win House over. Unfair, writers. Unfair.
It was interesting to see House and Cameron's roles reverse from early Season One, with House trying to downplay the risks of the test to the patient's wife and Cameron correcting him over his shoulder to prevent the woman from experiencing false hope that her husband might recover.
What else, what else... Cameron's big smile when House asks what she did over her summer vacation and the ensuing crumble when he turns away to continue his coversation before she has a chance to reply was just priceless, as was House bouncing his big tennis ball off the back of Chase's head. (Lots of House/Chase lovin' too;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synn, you were in my thoughts.) Brilliantly delivered lines from Cuddy ("His pancreas is gonna explode because his brain is on fire!") and Foreman ("He's bleeding in his brain!"). And tired!ducklings in the hall and two-thirds!mutiny in the scans-viewing room are love. And the college girls checking House out.
Am digging the new color scheme, too, all brown and green and beige and peach.
Uh, but what was with the Hugh Laurie porn at the beginning with the running and sweat and crazy music and then again at the fountain? I laughed through most of it; I didn't know what else to do. That stuff contributed to my suspicions that we were being presented with another hallucination-ridden trick of an episode, up to and including Wilson's incisive little speeches that echoed the ones he made in "No Reason," everyone's offhand references to House's hallucinations, the hospital's sudden balconied atrium, late night visits to Cuddy's bedroom, and of course the thigh being fine.
Speaking of which: Someone please explain to me how House can run eight miles daily and walk without a limp and hop off stools onto his right leg and kick doors open and slide right-side-first into patients' rooms (okay, adorable) without a problem when a significant portion of his thigh has been removed. I was under the (mistaken?) impression that part of the reason he needs his cane is that there isn't enough muscle left in that leg to fully support him. What we saw tonight suggests something else entirely: that his handicap is entirely due to pain. That if it weren't for the pain of walking/running/standing/jumping/whatever on his damaged leg, House could do whatever he wants with it.
I did like the twinge of returning pain and Wilson's reference to House being middle-aged. I mean, obviously the pain will come back, because the writers aren't stupid, and obviously all this cheeriness is temporary, as House and Foreman established in whatever episode came right after "Euphoria" and as Wilson repeatedly asserts in the beginning of this show ("I've changed." "No you haven't." "No I haven't."). Agh, so much to read into this: that Wilson needs House to have not changed, that House fears the return of his pain so much that he's willing to risk losing his medical license by stealing a page off Wilson's prescription pad, maybe even that House is running so much because he knows the ketamine won't last and he wants to get in as much activity as he can before he loses mobility again.
Oh! another quibble. Aside from the "needing to learn the meaning of the word 'no'" reason, Cuddy claimed not to want to inject the cortisol into the brain tumor guy* because House was working from an unsubstantiated hunch. But House works from hunches all the time! He makes huge leaps of faith that involve much worse procedures than cortisol that horrify his team and colleagues until he turns out to be right. Cuddy's reasoning rubbed me the wrong way; it felt like the plot device it turned out to be.
* Who looked like Mark Warner, yes? Sort of like how scurvy girl resembled the heart transplant's daughter in "Sex Kills"? Two more instances of the casting team's tendency to bring in actors who look the same.
I was actually kind of hoping the guy wouldn't get up after the cortisol injection. The writers had broken the show's formula just enough with the pair of patients and House being kind and Cuddy steadfastly refusing to give in to him that I thought they might show him reaching for the high of the solved puzzle where there really was no puzzle, and having him deal with that. Only...they didn't, because there was a puzzle after all, and House solved it, and he's going to find that out. It's good in the sense that House hasn't lost his touch as he'd feared and it propelled him to forge Wilson's signature on a Vicodin prescription to get the high he thinks he needs in the only other way he knows how (another thing that'll blow up in his face), but disappointing in that the formula still holds. Pain or no pain, House is still (almost) always (eventually) right.
Wow, that turned out longer than expected. I also don't think I've done an episode recap with so many House fans on my f-list. It's a little scary. Except, come to think of it, most of you don't live here and won't see this ep for months, so I suppose it's kind of the same as before.
ETA: Note to self - other people's episode commentary & discussions - thewlisian_afer, daasgrrl, captain_tulip, usomitai 2 3, firestorm717, Pru, stephantom & 2, catalase, m_butterfly.
First of all, let me get this off my chest: Wilson, you manipulative bastard! I get the tough love thing, I get what you were trying to do in "Detox," but convincing Cuddy not to tell House that his patient actually made a miraculous recovery thanks to his not-so-wild guess accomplishes nothing; House will find out—after all he did for them, the wife will be contacting him to say thank you—and it's not gonna be pretty. I don't like your patronizing-chummy arm-over-her-shoulders move and I don't like how you're hiding behind Cuddy like you did last time.
I also don't like how Cuddy gave in to Wilson so easily at the end, as if she needed someone to tell her what to do after the exhaustion of holding out against House. I suppose I ought to have seen it coming; Wilson and Cuddy's collusion was set up right at the beginning when they sat in her office deciding how to present their cases. And as noted back in May, it was foreshadowed in "No Reason" when House caught Wilson lying about how he agreed with Cuddy's decision to use ketamine while he was unconscious. See also "Detox" and more innocuous scenes like Wilson saying "I'm on it" to Cuddy at the beginning of "Need to Know." Not new behavior, not by a long shot, but this...this is upsetting. Even though I like when Wilson upsets me. Keeps us on our metaphorical toes.
Most of Wilson's screen time tonight was love, though, and there was quite a bit of it to chew on. My little notes from the first half of the episode include things like "W♥," and that scene in the middle in Wilson's office needs to be re-watched to pick out all that was going on between them, as well as the part where he tells House to send the guy home, because I think there's something to be learned there about Wilson's approach to his own patients. Slashiness throughout the hour, of course: Wilson staring at House's groin in Cuddy's office, predicting what he'd say for each case file, hanging out on their new indoor balcony and taking the fall for the grape-pegging, wincing at House's skateboard antics, and delivering lines like "Keep working it—feeling will come." Plus, this had to be one of the show's best transitions ever, if not the best: Wilson starting to describe levels of happiness, saying "I'm not going away" when House tries to leave halfway into the first one, and then we cut to the surgery observation room and hear "...the fifth level of happiness is..."
On a completely unrelated note, who was I talking to about ear bleeding on this show and how we were due for some? Whoever you are, vindicated!
House/Cameron. I'm not militantly pro- or anti-H/C, so I didn't mind when House started in on whether she wanted to have a drink with him, etc. However, I did not like Cameron's response—"Are you serious or are you just trying to change the subject?"—because that line is pure Wilson and does not belong in her mouth. Cameron cannot turn into Wilson to win House over. Unfair, writers. Unfair.
It was interesting to see House and Cameron's roles reverse from early Season One, with House trying to downplay the risks of the test to the patient's wife and Cameron correcting him over his shoulder to prevent the woman from experiencing false hope that her husband might recover.
What else, what else... Cameron's big smile when House asks what she did over her summer vacation and the ensuing crumble when he turns away to continue his coversation before she has a chance to reply was just priceless, as was House bouncing his big tennis ball off the back of Chase's head. (Lots of House/Chase lovin' too;
synn, you were in my thoughts.) Brilliantly delivered lines from Cuddy ("His pancreas is gonna explode because his brain is on fire!") and Foreman ("He's bleeding in his brain!"). And tired!ducklings in the hall and two-thirds!mutiny in the scans-viewing room are love. And the college girls checking House out.Am digging the new color scheme, too, all brown and green and beige and peach.
Uh, but what was with the Hugh Laurie porn at the beginning with the running and sweat and crazy music and then again at the fountain? I laughed through most of it; I didn't know what else to do. That stuff contributed to my suspicions that we were being presented with another hallucination-ridden trick of an episode, up to and including Wilson's incisive little speeches that echoed the ones he made in "No Reason," everyone's offhand references to House's hallucinations, the hospital's sudden balconied atrium, late night visits to Cuddy's bedroom, and of course the thigh being fine.
Speaking of which: Someone please explain to me how House can run eight miles daily and walk without a limp and hop off stools onto his right leg and kick doors open and slide right-side-first into patients' rooms (okay, adorable) without a problem when a significant portion of his thigh has been removed. I was under the (mistaken?) impression that part of the reason he needs his cane is that there isn't enough muscle left in that leg to fully support him. What we saw tonight suggests something else entirely: that his handicap is entirely due to pain. That if it weren't for the pain of walking/running/standing/jumping/whatever on his damaged leg, House could do whatever he wants with it.
I did like the twinge of returning pain and Wilson's reference to House being middle-aged. I mean, obviously the pain will come back, because the writers aren't stupid, and obviously all this cheeriness is temporary, as House and Foreman established in whatever episode came right after "Euphoria" and as Wilson repeatedly asserts in the beginning of this show ("I've changed." "No you haven't." "No I haven't."). Agh, so much to read into this: that Wilson needs House to have not changed, that House fears the return of his pain so much that he's willing to risk losing his medical license by stealing a page off Wilson's prescription pad, maybe even that House is running so much because he knows the ketamine won't last and he wants to get in as much activity as he can before he loses mobility again.
Oh! another quibble. Aside from the "needing to learn the meaning of the word 'no'" reason, Cuddy claimed not to want to inject the cortisol into the brain tumor guy* because House was working from an unsubstantiated hunch. But House works from hunches all the time! He makes huge leaps of faith that involve much worse procedures than cortisol that horrify his team and colleagues until he turns out to be right. Cuddy's reasoning rubbed me the wrong way; it felt like the plot device it turned out to be.
* Who looked like Mark Warner, yes? Sort of like how scurvy girl resembled the heart transplant's daughter in "Sex Kills"? Two more instances of the casting team's tendency to bring in actors who look the same.
I was actually kind of hoping the guy wouldn't get up after the cortisol injection. The writers had broken the show's formula just enough with the pair of patients and House being kind and Cuddy steadfastly refusing to give in to him that I thought they might show him reaching for the high of the solved puzzle where there really was no puzzle, and having him deal with that. Only...they didn't, because there was a puzzle after all, and House solved it, and he's going to find that out. It's good in the sense that House hasn't lost his touch as he'd feared and it propelled him to forge Wilson's signature on a Vicodin prescription to get the high he thinks he needs in the only other way he knows how (another thing that'll blow up in his face), but disappointing in that the formula still holds. Pain or no pain, House is still (almost) always (eventually) right.
Wow, that turned out longer than expected. I also don't think I've done an episode recap with so many House fans on my f-list. It's a little scary. Except, come to think of it, most of you don't live here and won't see this ep for months, so I suppose it's kind of the same as before.
ETA: Note to self - other people's episode commentary & discussions - thewlisian_afer, daasgrrl, captain_tulip, usomitai 2 3, firestorm717, Pru, stephantom & 2, catalase, m_butterfly.
