House 3x09 - "Finding Judas"
Nov. 29th, 2006 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicGoing to bed on time Tuesday night instead of fleshing out an episode review? Doing work at work Wednesday morning instead of perusing people's posts? It's a turvy-topsy world, as Willow once oh-so-cutely quipped.
Tritteriana
Tritter claims that this isn't personal anymore, that it's about House breaking the law and putting a stop to doctors covering for doctors. A decent argument, even though he's only rationalizing vengeance against House for his own humiliation. What's sad is that he's gained a victory: Cuddy dispensing single-dose Vicodin. Pills in a cup, and House has to ask every time he needs more. She's got complete control over him in that arena. That's humiliating. It must also be terrifying. Imagine being in chronic, agonizing pain when only one person—a person who knows you need the medicine but also believes you're addicted—will give you painkillers, one or two at a time, and you don't know when she'll decide to cut you off. At which point you'll be immediately cut off; no few-days'-notice, finish-off-the-bottle cushion that comes with a prescription. I imagine that's a shade sharper than the fear that led him to stash all those pills when Wilson refused to prescribe.
I…think Tritter's argyle socks are kind of cute. And he made me laugh when he said, "The man is unhinged." I do so enjoy David Morse's screen time, even if the arc is at times confusing. He makes great faces, whether comical or threatening or anything in between.
The repeated "You're angry at the wrong person" did a much better job of convincing me that Tritter operates like House than "Everybody lies" did in "Son of Coma Guy," where Tritter's delivery seemed too knowing for it to have been a coincidence. That, and his declaration to Cuddy that he gets what he wants by putting pressure on people. And his keen observational skills. And his ability to hit people where they're vulnerable.
Nothing really startling about the progression of the investigation and Tritter's methods otherwise. He did find one of Cuddy's weaknesses and silence her with it, as I suspected he would back when I lamented the lack of Tritter-Cuddy interrogation in "Son of Coma Guy"; he did sow mistrust amongst the fellows, more skilfully than Vogler managed; he did exploit people's personal lives; we did get someone's backstory, even if it was the wrong person (grumble grumble). I was impressed that explicit references were made to the Vogler storyline, both the acknowledgment that Chase had ratted House out to a higher authority before and the way that fact was worked into the plot, with Tritter twisting Chase's history to his own advantage and maneuvering Chase into that lose-lose position. Everyone's been thinking it; well done on the writers' part for acknowledging how they are at once repeating and diverging from their own previous plots.
House's Decline
Echoes of "Detox" too, of course: House not getting enough pain meds, getting distracted, lashing out, nearly killing his patient. Only he wasn't detoxing voluntarily. And he didn't save the patient, Chase did (although House may have come to the correct conclusion after the amputations failed to cure the illness). And instead of being decked by the patient's father, he decked Chase. And he'd already admitted he was an addict as well as a chronic pain sufferer. And the focus of the episode seemed to be all over the place instead of staying close to House as it did in "Detox"; I felt as if we were jumping around between the patient, the investigation, the fellows, and whatever else, while House sort of hovered on the sidelines suffering through his pain. Perhaps that decision was made because, presumably having seen "Detox," we know what he's going through and we don't need to be shown it again up close and personal, or because it would be wasteful to spend so much screen time on a character in stasis. Still, I think the episode suffered from the loss of intimacy with him there, especially when this wholeshow arc is supposed to be about House and it's hard to sympathize with him or know what's going on in his head if we aren't seeing him enough.
Yow, that insult about Cuddy's lack of maternal instincts cut deep. Worse than his remark in "Lines in the Sand" that she'd be a crappy mom because she makes empty threats. It's fantastic, if extraordinarily painful, proof that he knows where to hit people the hardest, and when he's upset, or frustrated, or in pain, or afraid, he'll "go there." And then Wilson showed up to say as much. Cuddy knows this, but as they sort of discussed, knowing doesn't really help when you're on the receiving end.
(TMI time: My ex-boyfriend had the same, er, skill, and he really could (and did) hurt people with it when he wanted to. I keep refraining from making comments about how similar House is to him because it's not really appropriate. Even after "Son of Coma Guy" when House said he used to go rock climbing, of all things; L. was into that too, though that's probably the least significant thing they have in common. But I'm really not going to get into this, even if my resolve has weakened enough to leave this rambly paragraph in the review.)
Patient/Family & Medicine
The girl had some cute lines, and she looked adorable, but enough's enough. She was like a living chibi cartoon, a big pathetic woobie-face. No personality, just sentimentality: the poor, sick, sad, innocent widdle girl, victim of a broken home, who needs saving.
Obvious from the opening scene that the parents were divorced and the dad was doing his not-often-enough visitation. Didn't know whether they'd go for the parents-reconcile-over-the-sick-child plot or try for something more typically cynical. Didn't expect it to get dropped entirely.
It's never vasculitis, it's never lupus, but apparently it's no longer never porphyria. Anyone guess the diagnosis by virtue of the fact that porphyria was conspicuously absent from the differential scenes? (I didn't, although I suspected when it appeared a second time that the laser pointer would play a part. Only got a few moments' jump on Chase's realization.) Nice that did Chase did get the epiphany moment (tm)—while sitting in House's chair and playing with his toy, no less. Fits in well with the statistics that he pegs the diagnosis more often than the other two.
We'll see what politedissent.com has to say, but I think there are lab tests you can run to confirm a diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis before operating. IIRC*, it's the time it takes most doctors to think the flesh-eating bacteria might be the culprit in combination with the swiftness of the infection that ends up killing the patient. Aside from which, the girl's supposed infection last night didn't look that bad; I'm pretty sure the surgeon could have excised tissue with a comfortable margin without amputating both limbs. And I think it's unusual for necrotizing fasciitis to infect two different sites on the same person. But then House specializes in the unusual, and I could be wrong on all these points because I am at the moment too damn lazy to look it up properly.
*Basing this mostly on the memory of a fascinating chapter in surgeon/medical writer Atul Gawande's book, Complications.
Misc. Fellows Stuff
Foreman. All right, they got me; when we saw him sitting across the desk from Tritter, checking his nails, I thought we had our Judas scene. "The pompous bastard," thought I. But no. He held firm. And that's good. Because I still don't understand Foreman well enough to have known what to do if he'd been the one to agree to testify.
Cameron. Loved her "Don't go there" to Tritter, and that she didn't cave when he (rightly) pointed out that House has changed her and not necessarily for the better.
Chase. Confirmed, then, that he was cut out of his father's will. It would have been more interesting if he'd refused to accept his inheritance out of some sort of guilt. I wonder why Rowan didn't leave him anything after the quasi-attempt to reach out to his son before he died.
I forgot to mention last week how much I enjoyed House's little game of Train the Ducklings. I love teacher!House. And we got to see it again this week, albeit with House in absentia, when Foreman, Cameron and Chase gathered in House's office with the scans to do a differential. After "Whac-a-Mole" I wondered whether House was pushing them harder than usual, testing them, because deep down he suspects he's heading for real trouble and he wants to make sure he sends each of his protégés out into the world as cynical and mistrustful and observant and otherwise well-prepared as he can manage before he gets sent to prison or loses his license or what have you. But he didn't continue the game this week, which is a shame.
Wilson
Two Wilsonful episodes in a row, and now we're back to not having nearly enough of him. A girl gets spoiled, y'know?
The scene with Wilson and Cuddy in her office might be my favorite of the episode. Less dramatic and more moving than the one in the shower. Excellent acting on Lisa Edelstein's part, with the quiet tears and hurt and insecurity and still that professionalism fighting the breakdown. A little bit of well-written meta there with Cuddy's "I've never seen him be mean for the sake of being mean" (qtd. from memory), addressing what a lot of people have been saying about the change in House's character since the first season, and then Wilson's "Really?", implying that House has always acted that way, and wouldn't he know, because he's been House's bosom buddy for a decade, give or take. And then came some more wonderful on-screen evidence that Wilson calms people down and offers a sympathetic ear to weeping women. And yet… And yet he maintained this aloofness throughout the conversation that forced back any Wilson/Cuddy overtones that could have been read into the scene. Something in his face, or rather something absent from it. It's not that he's the "cold to the core" bastard some fans see—he does care—it's just, he never turned that conversation personal, kept that professional distance, and it was a bit of a dash of cold water to watch, a reminder that he isn't the super-sensitive, emotions-on-his-sleeve fanon!Wilson who offers his heart to everyone in need either. And finally, the much-anticipated reveal about what's been going on with Cuddy's infertility treatments. Two failed implantations and a miscarriage. Could House have chosen a worse time to snap at her?
So Foreman has a brother in prison for something drug-related. I want(ed) to hear more about Wilson's brother, dammit. What's neat about this, though, is how it connects the two of them without either knowing. Each has a problem brother* he doesn't talk about and who's been cut out of his life, one brother jailed and the other most likely homeless, both also probably involved somehow with drugs. But Foreman never found out about Wilson's brother during or after the events of "Histories" and chances are Wilson doesn't know anything about Foreman's either.
*And why doesn't anyone seem to have a sister on this show?
Oh, oh, the pain of House aiming the laser pointer at the back of Wilson's head. The scene had already been set up to recall the one in "Meaning" when the two of them gathered up there to lecture/joke around, House tossing grapes at the janitor. He lasered the same janitor for a second last night. Now House is up on the balcony by himself, sullenly refusing to admit that he's not enjoying his playtime, while Wilson toils below, making it a nice, succinct illustration of how their relationship has changed in the last couple of months. It will be nice when they reconcile so Wilson can hang out above the mortals too, even if it means taking the blame for whatever House does to them. Unless that's what changes after Tritter.
I guess we're also supposed to think it's ironic that House doesn't shoot Wilson in the back of the head, it's Wilson who stabs House in the back by going to Tritter, but I don't buy the deal-making as a Big Huge OMG Betrayal. More on that in a minute.
Woo! First ever Wilson-and-Chase scene! With dual-action passive-aggressive peanut butter sandwich-making! …Jeez, Chase likes a lot of jelly when he's mad.
Back in "Clueless," Wilson joshed House for having nothing to eat in his apartment other than canned soup and peanut butter. Countless fics have followed in which House makes peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut butter sandwiches have become associated with House. Yesterday Wilson made peanut butter sandwiches on two occasions. There must be more to choose from than that for a snack, if for no other reason than in a hospital staff lounge there'd be non-peanut-containing products (they even made that connection with House's unconventional patient allergy test). And Wilson usually eats more healthily than that. Therefore I smile to think that he is turning to House-related comfort food in his time of stress.
I wish he hadn't launched into lecture mode straight off, though. And that his shirt and sweatervest had matched his pants. Let's pretend he was pissy because that pink shirt used to be a white shirt and he accidentally washed it with the red vest along with his now-pink lab coat (hence not wearing it despite being on duty in the clinic) because he's not used to doing his own laundry because his wives and the maid and the dry cleaner did it but now he can't pay for that kind of service because Tritter froze his accounts, and all this was clearly the last thing he needed with everything else that's going on, and dammit there wasn't enough peanut butter left, and House was not only an ass, he was a whiny ass in denial, and the only solution was to plead with Tritter for amnesty. (Even though that laundry logic's totally shot because Wilson is clearly the kind of guy who knows to separate whites and darks.)
And last but not least, the Judas thing. The hyped-up, overemphasized Judas thing. I wish the title and spoilers hadn't had everyone buzzing about who'd "betray" House (no matter how hard you try to avoid spoilers, it's impossible not to catch the drift of what's being discussed), because it was distracting, sort of irrelevant, and had very little payoff in the end. But with a title like that, you had to wonder who would work with Tritter. Gotta hand it to the writers: everyone had a motive. While hindsight's 20/20, it does make the most sense for "Judas" to have been Wilson. He's the closest one to House. He's doing it for love of House, even if House may see it as a betrayal (which I'm not sure he will). Ironic, too, that his own wry allusion casts House in the same God-role he was trying to knock him down from in the beginning of the season.
In sum: I liked it overall, but the last couple of episodes have yet to emerge from "Son of Coma Guy"'s shadow.
Right—off to read other people's thoughts. In a friends-list-cruising sort of way, not an experiment in ESP.
Well, actually, work first. But I'm looking forward to reading other posts ASAP.
* * *
Commentaries: Noydb666 (with additional comments here), nightdog_barks (discussion in comments), Firestorm717, stephantom, daasgrrl (w/JCS Judas lyrics), usomitai
Post-ep fic: "Indemnity" by kalimyre (H/W gen/pre-slash), "Words to Live By" by pwcorgigirl (Tritter gen), "Lines" by uarazy2 (Wilson / H/W gen), "Bruises" by k_haldane (Chase, Wilson)
Tritteriana
Tritter claims that this isn't personal anymore, that it's about House breaking the law and putting a stop to doctors covering for doctors. A decent argument, even though he's only rationalizing vengeance against House for his own humiliation. What's sad is that he's gained a victory: Cuddy dispensing single-dose Vicodin. Pills in a cup, and House has to ask every time he needs more. She's got complete control over him in that arena. That's humiliating. It must also be terrifying. Imagine being in chronic, agonizing pain when only one person—a person who knows you need the medicine but also believes you're addicted—will give you painkillers, one or two at a time, and you don't know when she'll decide to cut you off. At which point you'll be immediately cut off; no few-days'-notice, finish-off-the-bottle cushion that comes with a prescription. I imagine that's a shade sharper than the fear that led him to stash all those pills when Wilson refused to prescribe.
I…think Tritter's argyle socks are kind of cute. And he made me laugh when he said, "The man is unhinged." I do so enjoy David Morse's screen time, even if the arc is at times confusing. He makes great faces, whether comical or threatening or anything in between.
The repeated "You're angry at the wrong person" did a much better job of convincing me that Tritter operates like House than "Everybody lies" did in "Son of Coma Guy," where Tritter's delivery seemed too knowing for it to have been a coincidence. That, and his declaration to Cuddy that he gets what he wants by putting pressure on people. And his keen observational skills. And his ability to hit people where they're vulnerable.
Nothing really startling about the progression of the investigation and Tritter's methods otherwise. He did find one of Cuddy's weaknesses and silence her with it, as I suspected he would back when I lamented the lack of Tritter-Cuddy interrogation in "Son of Coma Guy"; he did sow mistrust amongst the fellows, more skilfully than Vogler managed; he did exploit people's personal lives; we did get someone's backstory, even if it was the wrong person (grumble grumble). I was impressed that explicit references were made to the Vogler storyline, both the acknowledgment that Chase had ratted House out to a higher authority before and the way that fact was worked into the plot, with Tritter twisting Chase's history to his own advantage and maneuvering Chase into that lose-lose position. Everyone's been thinking it; well done on the writers' part for acknowledging how they are at once repeating and diverging from their own previous plots.
House's Decline
Echoes of "Detox" too, of course: House not getting enough pain meds, getting distracted, lashing out, nearly killing his patient. Only he wasn't detoxing voluntarily. And he didn't save the patient, Chase did (although House may have come to the correct conclusion after the amputations failed to cure the illness). And instead of being decked by the patient's father, he decked Chase. And he'd already admitted he was an addict as well as a chronic pain sufferer. And the focus of the episode seemed to be all over the place instead of staying close to House as it did in "Detox"; I felt as if we were jumping around between the patient, the investigation, the fellows, and whatever else, while House sort of hovered on the sidelines suffering through his pain. Perhaps that decision was made because, presumably having seen "Detox," we know what he's going through and we don't need to be shown it again up close and personal, or because it would be wasteful to spend so much screen time on a character in stasis. Still, I think the episode suffered from the loss of intimacy with him there, especially when this whole
Yow, that insult about Cuddy's lack of maternal instincts cut deep. Worse than his remark in "Lines in the Sand" that she'd be a crappy mom because she makes empty threats. It's fantastic, if extraordinarily painful, proof that he knows where to hit people the hardest, and when he's upset, or frustrated, or in pain, or afraid, he'll "go there." And then Wilson showed up to say as much. Cuddy knows this, but as they sort of discussed, knowing doesn't really help when you're on the receiving end.
(TMI time: My ex-boyfriend had the same, er, skill, and he really could (and did) hurt people with it when he wanted to. I keep refraining from making comments about how similar House is to him because it's not really appropriate. Even after "Son of Coma Guy" when House said he used to go rock climbing, of all things; L. was into that too, though that's probably the least significant thing they have in common. But I'm really not going to get into this, even if my resolve has weakened enough to leave this rambly paragraph in the review.)
Patient/Family & Medicine
The girl had some cute lines, and she looked adorable, but enough's enough. She was like a living chibi cartoon, a big pathetic woobie-face. No personality, just sentimentality: the poor, sick, sad, innocent widdle girl, victim of a broken home, who needs saving.
Obvious from the opening scene that the parents were divorced and the dad was doing his not-often-enough visitation. Didn't know whether they'd go for the parents-reconcile-over-the-sick-child plot or try for something more typically cynical. Didn't expect it to get dropped entirely.
It's never vasculitis, it's never lupus, but apparently it's no longer never porphyria. Anyone guess the diagnosis by virtue of the fact that porphyria was conspicuously absent from the differential scenes? (I didn't, although I suspected when it appeared a second time that the laser pointer would play a part. Only got a few moments' jump on Chase's realization.) Nice that did Chase did get the epiphany moment (tm)—while sitting in House's chair and playing with his toy, no less. Fits in well with the statistics that he pegs the diagnosis more often than the other two.
We'll see what politedissent.com has to say, but I think there are lab tests you can run to confirm a diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis before operating. IIRC*, it's the time it takes most doctors to think the flesh-eating bacteria might be the culprit in combination with the swiftness of the infection that ends up killing the patient. Aside from which, the girl's supposed infection last night didn't look that bad; I'm pretty sure the surgeon could have excised tissue with a comfortable margin without amputating both limbs. And I think it's unusual for necrotizing fasciitis to infect two different sites on the same person. But then House specializes in the unusual, and I could be wrong on all these points because I am at the moment too damn lazy to look it up properly.
*Basing this mostly on the memory of a fascinating chapter in surgeon/medical writer Atul Gawande's book, Complications.
Misc. Fellows Stuff
Foreman. All right, they got me; when we saw him sitting across the desk from Tritter, checking his nails, I thought we had our Judas scene. "The pompous bastard," thought I. But no. He held firm. And that's good. Because I still don't understand Foreman well enough to have known what to do if he'd been the one to agree to testify.
Cameron. Loved her "Don't go there" to Tritter, and that she didn't cave when he (rightly) pointed out that House has changed her and not necessarily for the better.
Chase. Confirmed, then, that he was cut out of his father's will. It would have been more interesting if he'd refused to accept his inheritance out of some sort of guilt. I wonder why Rowan didn't leave him anything after the quasi-attempt to reach out to his son before he died.
I forgot to mention last week how much I enjoyed House's little game of Train the Ducklings. I love teacher!House. And we got to see it again this week, albeit with House in absentia, when Foreman, Cameron and Chase gathered in House's office with the scans to do a differential. After "Whac-a-Mole" I wondered whether House was pushing them harder than usual, testing them, because deep down he suspects he's heading for real trouble and he wants to make sure he sends each of his protégés out into the world as cynical and mistrustful and observant and otherwise well-prepared as he can manage before he gets sent to prison or loses his license or what have you. But he didn't continue the game this week, which is a shame.
Wilson
Two Wilsonful episodes in a row, and now we're back to not having nearly enough of him. A girl gets spoiled, y'know?
The scene with Wilson and Cuddy in her office might be my favorite of the episode. Less dramatic and more moving than the one in the shower. Excellent acting on Lisa Edelstein's part, with the quiet tears and hurt and insecurity and still that professionalism fighting the breakdown. A little bit of well-written meta there with Cuddy's "I've never seen him be mean for the sake of being mean" (qtd. from memory), addressing what a lot of people have been saying about the change in House's character since the first season, and then Wilson's "Really?", implying that House has always acted that way, and wouldn't he know, because he's been House's bosom buddy for a decade, give or take. And then came some more wonderful on-screen evidence that Wilson calms people down and offers a sympathetic ear to weeping women. And yet… And yet he maintained this aloofness throughout the conversation that forced back any Wilson/Cuddy overtones that could have been read into the scene. Something in his face, or rather something absent from it. It's not that he's the "cold to the core" bastard some fans see—he does care—it's just, he never turned that conversation personal, kept that professional distance, and it was a bit of a dash of cold water to watch, a reminder that he isn't the super-sensitive, emotions-on-his-sleeve fanon!Wilson who offers his heart to everyone in need either. And finally, the much-anticipated reveal about what's been going on with Cuddy's infertility treatments. Two failed implantations and a miscarriage. Could House have chosen a worse time to snap at her?
So Foreman has a brother in prison for something drug-related. I want(ed) to hear more about Wilson's brother, dammit. What's neat about this, though, is how it connects the two of them without either knowing. Each has a problem brother* he doesn't talk about and who's been cut out of his life, one brother jailed and the other most likely homeless, both also probably involved somehow with drugs. But Foreman never found out about Wilson's brother during or after the events of "Histories" and chances are Wilson doesn't know anything about Foreman's either.
*And why doesn't anyone seem to have a sister on this show?
Oh, oh, the pain of House aiming the laser pointer at the back of Wilson's head. The scene had already been set up to recall the one in "Meaning" when the two of them gathered up there to lecture/joke around, House tossing grapes at the janitor. He lasered the same janitor for a second last night. Now House is up on the balcony by himself, sullenly refusing to admit that he's not enjoying his playtime, while Wilson toils below, making it a nice, succinct illustration of how their relationship has changed in the last couple of months. It will be nice when they reconcile so Wilson can hang out above the mortals too, even if it means taking the blame for whatever House does to them. Unless that's what changes after Tritter.
I guess we're also supposed to think it's ironic that House doesn't shoot Wilson in the back of the head, it's Wilson who stabs House in the back by going to Tritter, but I don't buy the deal-making as a Big Huge OMG Betrayal. More on that in a minute.
Woo! First ever Wilson-and-Chase scene! With dual-action passive-aggressive peanut butter sandwich-making! …Jeez, Chase likes a lot of jelly when he's mad.
Back in "Clueless," Wilson joshed House for having nothing to eat in his apartment other than canned soup and peanut butter. Countless fics have followed in which House makes peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut butter sandwiches have become associated with House. Yesterday Wilson made peanut butter sandwiches on two occasions. There must be more to choose from than that for a snack, if for no other reason than in a hospital staff lounge there'd be non-peanut-containing products (they even made that connection with House's unconventional patient allergy test). And Wilson usually eats more healthily than that. Therefore I smile to think that he is turning to House-related comfort food in his time of stress.
I wish he hadn't launched into lecture mode straight off, though. And that his shirt and sweatervest had matched his pants. Let's pretend he was pissy because that pink shirt used to be a white shirt and he accidentally washed it with the red vest along with his now-pink lab coat (hence not wearing it despite being on duty in the clinic) because he's not used to doing his own laundry because his wives and the maid and the dry cleaner did it but now he can't pay for that kind of service because Tritter froze his accounts, and all this was clearly the last thing he needed with everything else that's going on, and dammit there wasn't enough peanut butter left, and House was not only an ass, he was a whiny ass in denial, and the only solution was to plead with Tritter for amnesty. (Even though that laundry logic's totally shot because Wilson is clearly the kind of guy who knows to separate whites and darks.)
And last but not least, the Judas thing. The hyped-up, overemphasized Judas thing. I wish the title and spoilers hadn't had everyone buzzing about who'd "betray" House (no matter how hard you try to avoid spoilers, it's impossible not to catch the drift of what's being discussed), because it was distracting, sort of irrelevant, and had very little payoff in the end. But with a title like that, you had to wonder who would work with Tritter. Gotta hand it to the writers: everyone had a motive. While hindsight's 20/20, it does make the most sense for "Judas" to have been Wilson. He's the closest one to House. He's doing it for love of House, even if House may see it as a betrayal (which I'm not sure he will). Ironic, too, that his own wry allusion casts House in the same God-role he was trying to knock him down from in the beginning of the season.
In sum: I liked it overall, but the last couple of episodes have yet to emerge from "Son of Coma Guy"'s shadow.
Right—off to read other people's thoughts. In a friends-list-cruising sort of way, not an experiment in ESP.
Well, actually, work first. But I'm looking forward to reading other posts ASAP.
* * *
Commentaries: Noydb666 (with additional comments here), nightdog_barks (discussion in comments), Firestorm717, stephantom, daasgrrl (w/JCS Judas lyrics), usomitai
Post-ep fic: "Indemnity" by kalimyre (H/W gen/pre-slash), "Words to Live By" by pwcorgigirl (Tritter gen), "Lines" by uarazy2 (Wilson / H/W gen), "Bruises" by k_haldane (Chase, Wilson)
no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 08:37 pm (UTC)"Wilson saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness." House said (http://ninefics.livejournal.com/14420.html).
Sorry. Couldn't resist that!
Maybe the red was actually tangled up in something else. A red tee-shirt stuck inside a sweater. Red... underwear? Or it was a sock static-clinged to something.
I hated Tritter so much that I wanted Cuddy to kick him in the balls. The character makes me physically ill. Which is major credit to the actor and the writers, but still....
Tritter claims it's not personal, but he's conducting illegal interviews (he tells Cuddy he's on vacation) and ... is he living at the hospital?
A lot of people are complaining that House was needlessly angry. I think the thing people are missing is that House is in more pain than he's ever admitted. He blocks it with medication and it still hurts on top of all that. It hurts way more than he lets on -- has ever let on -- and if he'd ever admitted it to anyone he wouldn't be in this mess. They'd know he needs a much higher dosage to help. Of course he's angry. Tritter is upsetting his team, Wilson, Cuddy, and on top of it, House is detoxing and still in pain. I think anyone would be a little snappish.
Cuddy almost broke my heart when she was in her office. Brilliant acting. Much much more powerful and moving than the scene with the little girl in the shower. That was too over-the-top, I think. But the quieter, more unexpected scene in her office was really strong.
I agree that even then, Wilson was distant. He didn't make a move to hug her or anything that most people would have done. He's physically closed off from her.
And randomly, maybe Cameron has a sister? We know she's not an only child, but nothing's really been said about her family.
no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 08:41 pm (UTC)Wilson/Cuddy scene: I did get a sort of vibe from the scene, mostly b/c we didn't see all of the conversation so we don't know how it concluded. and I'm curious now whether they're going to take them into a relationship (I'd really prefer they didn't).
Chase put so much jelly on his sandwich b/c there was too little peanut butter and he wanted *some* sort of substance to it. I admit, my first reaction to the chase/wilson scene was: there's going to be an explosion of chase/wilson fic in the near future.
I didn't see any spoilers for the episode, but I guessed it was going to be wilson -- it was too hyped, and they showed house punching chase, and it just makes *sense*.
Didn't house yell at the ducklings something about none of them having the guts to rat him out to tritter? it was so fast and loud that I may have misheard the line... but that's what I thought he said, and no one I've talked to yet has mentioned it at all.
I loved tritter's tactic w/ chase though, and more than that I really loved that 1) chase didn't do it and 2) he got the answer! (jumps up and down, squeeing). What I still don't know/get, is whether chase has developed a fondness/respect for house, or if he really does still not care and just wants to protect his job (I like to think it's the first, obviously, and tritter's line about chase just getting another job is always true, but I still just don't know.)
*end chase-centric ramblings.*
no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 08:43 pm (UTC)Hah, Wilson knows best when it comes to House being mean for the sake of being mean. That line to Cuddy was just cruel. So many people have been pissed at the cop this arc, I've been more leaning toward giving House a solid whack. Am surprised no one has tried to yell him down yet. Everyone's probably too tired of it to bother, plus they've got many other issues to deal with.
Adding on to your TMI, though perhaps not as painful, the teacher!House scenes actually brought back bad memories for me, because I used to have a high school American history teacher who taught just like that; generally, aggressive and hard-line and downright bitchy at times (especially around lunch), and trampling all over everyone's answers because no one could come up with the one he wanted. Absolutely hated him and his class, though I will admit I did learn something from it. Interestingly enough, he was recently found guilty for drug possession - got caught by police with a hefty store of meth at his apartment. Yeah, too bad it wasn't Vicodin, eh?
Anyway. Um. On to Wilson. I get the feeling, from all of the weepy-eyed women scenes so far (which aren't many to be honest), that the idea of cry-on-my-shoulder Wilson originates more from the image that people generate of him (these people who are emotionally affected at the time, so don't have the more objective viewpoint that we, as the audience, have from outside the dialogue) than any intrinsic nature itself. He's not Cameron. He doesn't oversympathize. What we've seen of him in oncology settings is almost always from a pragmatic POV, and he doesn't so much comfort as he does give people an avenue by which to pour it all out. He's good at projecting an understanding presence in a generally cut-and-professional environment that most of his patients take as being a sign of genuine caring. So no, I don't think he's a cold-hearted bastard, but neither do I think he's a saint either. Three failed marriages really takes that out of you.
Hehe, Wilson as Judas both to protect House, protect the people around House, AND achieve his goal all along which is to force House into rehab, all while coming off as the higher moral authority in this, doing "what needs to be done". Nicely played.
...Christ, this comment was rambly. Sorry ;;;
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 08:45 pm (UTC)Yes, pain can (and does) make people lash out at those nearby, and yes, I think House is in pain. However, there's a difference between lashing out and being deliberately cruel, and House crossed the line to the latter. I've known three people who dealt with horrible pain on a terminal basis, and none of them ever became as nasty as House. Thus, it's not a given that pain makes you a bastard.
Cuddy almost broke my heart when she was in her office. Brilliant acting.
Seconded. This was the best scene in the episode.
I agree that even then, Wilson was distant. He didn't make a move to hug her or anything that most people would have done.
I think he's being conscious of the fact that she is his boss and they are at work. He's very conventional and repressed about things like that. I don't think it's because he didn't care; you could see in his eyes how much he was hurting for her.
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 08:53 pm (UTC)Unless he's joking about making out in a stairwell.
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 09:00 pm (UTC)A quote from Oscar Wilde sprang to mind: "True friends will stab you in the front." But Wilson's confronting House didn't work -- so I don't see that he had any other choice but to go to Tritter. It seems that while Wilson will sacrifice himself for House, he won't sacrifice House for House.
P.S. Loved the laundry psychoanalysis!
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 09:10 pm (UTC)Anyway. I had something to say, and I forgot it. Oh! I bet Cuddy has a sister, just because she has what look like niece and nephew type photos on her desk, and I thought some of them had a woman in them too.
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 09:50 pm (UTC)Oops! I forgot about that!
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2006 10:01 pm (UTC)That's essentially what I'm arguing: House is cruel because he's a bastard sometimes, not because he's a Vicodin addict or because he's in a lot of pain. Pain is not an excuse for deliberate cruelty. Personality or character trumps everything.
I don't think he knows any other way to express how much he's hurting.
Agreed. He's incredibly dysfunctional when it comes to dealing with people. Unfortunately, I don't see how that can realistically change.
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 12:20 am (UTC)Yes! I had the same thought. That Wilson didn't agree with her that House normally censors out the just plain mean stuff because he doesn't with Wilson. So sad!
Therefore I smile to think that he is turning to House-related comfort food in his time of stress.
Or maybe House isn't that into peanut butter at all and just keeps it around for Wilson. ;)
The hyped-up, overemphasized Judas thing. I wish the title and spoilers hadn't had everyone buzzing about who'd "betray" House (no matter how hard you try to avoid spoilers, it's impossible not to catch the drift of what's being discussed), because it was distracting, sort of irrelevant, and had very little payoff in the end.
Yes, I hear you. (And this is why spoilers are so freakin' stupid, and I normally avoid them and was dumb to ask for them this time around) And yet, I'm still mad at Wilson. Some day I will have to accept that Wilson and I have very different morals.
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 01:22 am (UTC)Ha! I like your logic (and your story, which I neglected to comment on).
he's conducting illegal interviews (he tells Cuddy he's on vacation) and ... is he living at the hospital?
If Tritter hadn't locked House up in jail for the night, I'd be tempted to take your comment there and posit that he's actually a rogue cop. We haven't seen anyone besides him on the case. That'd be an easy way out of the arc: House ferrets out that Tritter's on probation from the police force or something, Tritter gets in trouble and House & co. go free.
He didn't make a move to hug her or anything that most people would have done.
Interesting phrasing there; resonates with what Cuddy said about not having touched the child. Difference being that he seemed perfectly comfortable with the bit of distance between them, whereas she was tearing herself up about it.
Cameron could have a sister.
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 01:26 am (UTC)True, Cuddy may have a sister we just haven't heard about yet. Sucks to think she looks at those photos, at her sister's children, and feels even more sorry for herself. But anyway,
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 01:34 am (UTC)(Random speculation...)
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 01:52 am (UTC)We don't know that Wilson doesn't have any sisters, either. In "Histories," House started to say that he'd met Wilson's parents and his brother, at which point Wilson cut him off with the comment that he has two. For all we know, House could have been about to say "and your sister(s)."
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 05:46 am (UTC)I think House is off the deep end, and I don't think it's just because of the meds. He's been acting off this season. I didn't see the beginning few episodes, so maybe they've dealt with this, but I think the latest near-death experience shook him hard, and he still hasn't properly gotten over it.
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 05:51 am (UTC)Unfortunately, I did read spoilers, so I knew about Wilson. I'm not sure my enjoyment of the ep was significantly diminished by that though, although I guess obviously the suspense wasn't there.
I have to say my fave eps of the series so far are 3x04 - 3x06. If I had to pick one, it would probably be 3x05.
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 02:23 pm (UTC)Here, you'll appreciate this -- the reason I noticed Tritter's socks is that the camera panned up his leg where it rested next to a box of Oncology files and I thought we were looking at Wilson.
I don't know whether being spoiled about the Wilson/Judas thing would have been a good or bad thing. If you knew, at least you weren't spending all hour wondering who'd go to Tritter and could pay attention to the rest of what was going on.
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Date: Nov. 30th, 2006 06:31 pm (UTC)Ditto! My keyboard and monitor had a near-miss experience with sprayed coffee when I read that bit.
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Date: Dec. 1st, 2006 02:33 am (UTC)I had a similar moment with Chase, actually - I think his back was to the camera and he was wearing a lab coat at the beginning of one of the scenes... and I thought he was Wilson. LOL. I'm afraid to speculate.
short, for once
Date: Dec. 1st, 2006 10:12 pm (UTC)Re: "TMI Time": I think we've all known someone with that capability. It seems like an all too... common trait in people. *sourly*
Loved the House-related comfort food. And, hey, if we wanna take the image too far, we can say that Chase barely used any peanut butter and stuck to the jelly because he didn't want any comfort from House no more. ^_~
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Date: Dec. 2nd, 2006 06:32 pm (UTC)I preferred seeing house falling apart in my peripheral vision (so to speak), it was more subtle, Someone pointed out elsewhere that House was physically and emotionally distant in the episode, so in that light it makes sense that he would be onscreen less than usual.
Chase put so much jelly on his sandwich b/c there was too little peanut butter and he wanted *some* sort of substance to it. Oh, fine, be all rational about it. But that was a *lot* of jelly. And I haven't seen any new Ch/W fics other than paperclipbitch's usual updates... but that could be because I really only hang out at house_wilson. The scene we got pretty much substantiated the basis of the majority of Chase/Wilson stories that've come before: they both want House's approval despite knowing they're not gonna get it, they can't have House himself, so they turn to each other.
Didn't house yell at the ducklings something about none of them having the guts to rat him out to tritter? Yeah, he called them cowards. Are you thinking that House will respect Wilson for doing what needed to be done and going to Tritter? 'Course, he'll still be pissed off.
I like your Chase-centric ramblings. :)
Re: short, for once
Date: Dec. 2nd, 2006 06:40 pm (UTC)I think we've all known someone with that capability. It seems like an all too... common trait in people.
Do we? Is it? That's unfortunate. I haven't met anyone before or since my ex who's been as sharp or as mean when he/she's hurt/angry/etc.
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Date: Dec. 2nd, 2006 06:52 pm (UTC)I didn't see the beginning few episodes, so maybe they've dealt with this, but I think the latest near-death experience shook him hard, and he still hasn't properly gotten over it.
That's the thing, though -- they didn't deal with it! When the season started, he was fully recovered and already feeling the first twitches of ketamine failure. By the third ep he was back on his cane. We never saw him embrace the post-"No Reason" search for meaning, though he referred to it; we only briefly saw him riding the ketamine high; the crash got condensed into two, maybe three episodes, and then BAM, all was back to "normal." And we're all, What? So yes, I do think the shooting shook him, and I do think he's still reeling from the ketamine failure, but it's all got to be deduced from common sense and bits and pieces of the earliest episodes, because they really dropped the ball on that plotline.
while my mom is talking my ear off about things I couldn't care less about....
Date: Dec. 2nd, 2006 09:25 pm (UTC)house screen-time = yes.
mmm... jelly. (bleh) yes, it was a lot of jelly. I'm surprised, since that last scene between ch/w could have been so easily continued into a good fic. Even if it played into fics that already exist, it was such a perfect set-up. *shrugs* but you're the house-fic expert, I'm just the snarry bi...brat.
I'm not saying he won't be pissed, I'm wondering if a big part of his rising anger during the episode was thanks to him wanting one of them to go forward, so that something could get accomplished w/o him having to lose face. I don't know that he'd show a sense of respect towards wilson for the action, but I'm curious.
oh good : )
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Date: Dec. 2nd, 2006 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 3rd, 2006 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 3rd, 2006 10:05 pm (UTC)Back on his cane? As in, he was off the cane? Seriously, he wasn't using the cane? WTF?
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Date: Dec. 3rd, 2006 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 4th, 2006 02:22 am (UTC)No, nothing of interest to say here. I just like hats.