House: "Half-wit." And no jokes about the production team.

[bironic]

Kind of bleh for a large part of the middle of the episode, but enough at the beginning and end for an overall favorable verdict.

The good stuff:

1. Dave Matthews in this role = adorable.


2. Abbreviated opening credits for the sake of just having the dramatic piano chord = funny but a little weird. Wasn't until the actors' names came up in subtitles in the next scene that we knew for sure there hadn't been an error.


3. Cameron/House kiss = hot.


4. Chase/House hug = really touching. With the massaging fingers and the tears. Especially after being set up for something lighter what with all of House's previous jokes to him and Cameron about Chase or Foreman kissing him or Chase grabbing his ass.


5. House/Cuddy ass grab and Make-a-Wish jab = hilarious.


6. Foreman’s attempt at making his peace with House = good effort.


7. How spectacular was the doorway scene, their faces all alight with joy at using their super diagnostic skillz to save their cantankerous boss and then moments later crumpling into horror and disappointment and embarrassment and disgust and hurt?

Wilson:

1. Needed way more screen time. His best friend supposedly had brain cancer!* Where was he? And why did he keep calling it "brain cancer" when he's an oncologist and would use the specific term for whatever kind House had?


2. Rolling his eyes while Cameron chased after him.


3. Conniving with Cuddy again, leaping to conclusions when it was so clear it would blow up in their faces later somehow.


4. Delivering that line about “Why didn’t you tell me?” with such brief but palpable pain. Ow, ow, ow, and *sniff*.


5. Still holding strong to their friendship even when House treats him, and himself, like crap.


6. The body language, the facial expressions, the heroin line, the holier-than-thou lecturing about pushing people away in favor of seeking artificial pleasure -- well, better to have annoying!conscience!Wilson than no Wilson at all.


7. That last little scene, with Wilson’s “please eat comfort food and watch movies with me because I love you, you idiot, we all love you”? Oh, House, why did you leave him to that stale, lonely hotel room and hang out with your fellows? Being social is a big step for you, we get that, but your older, closer and more earnest friend practically begged you for your company and you snubbed him.

*The fact that House didn’t have brain cancer was not only completely obvious, it was distracting. Maybe that was done on purpose, to reflect the way the fellows were themselves distracted from the patient case, but still, how could you be expected to engage emotionally in everyone’s reactions to House’s supposed condition when you’re sitting there shouting, “He doesn’t have brain cancer, you morons”? The interest there was in figuring out how House didn’t have cancer. (Switched samples? Patient’s info? Parent? Testing his fellows’ and friends’ reactions?)

So, Kurtwood Smith, a.k.a. Neil’s dad in Dead Poets Society, also a.k.a. a quietly heroic Cardassian on DS9. Too bad there weren’t any Smith/RSL scenes for the multifannish plot line combo possibilities. Doubtless the vidders will work some splice magic. He seemed like a decent enough guy and a good father. There was a minute -- when he and House were arguing about the hemispherectomy, and he said all those things about how his son is great and has a gift and is doing fine and he couldn't take away what makes him special -- when it became so very clear that House was dealing with a man who's the complete opposite of his own father. I wish they'd gone a little further with that. Also I was disappointed that he followed House’s advice and approving the procedure. Piano-playing was Peter’s “one thing,” and his father sacrificed that. Was greater self-awareness and the possibility of learning new skills worth the price? Will Peter’s brain somehow compensate so he can play piano again -- or will he slowly become conscious of the fact that he used to be a musical prodigy but can’t even play a simple melody anymore, making the ending to House’s sweet junior-high song Peter’s last composition? Probably we are meant to hope, since House took an important step tonight too.


Commentaries: Pru

Post-ep Fic: “When I See You There” by nightdog_barks, "Half-wit Ending Rewrite" by savemoony (drabble), "Halfwits" by daasgrrl
 

Comments

[saara-zaara.livejournal.com]

V. interesting remarks, but wanted to comment on this:

And why did he keep calling it "brain cancer" when he's an oncologist and would use the specific term for whatever kind House had?
Because Wilson never actually saw the file & he doesn't know what type of brain cancer House is supposed to have.
Wilson only knows what Cuddy told him, what she inferred from the Boston folks. The kids have the fake file, but because 1) they assume, as its a PPTH file, that Wilson has seen it & doesn't need to see it again (after all, they think are double-checking his depts work) and/or 2) Wilson isn't going to admit to them that he doesn't know what's going on as his friend had lied to him & won't go ask to see it, all adds up to Wilson having almost no info and stewing alone until the kids tell him about the lie.

Poor Wilson - he really got hung out by House this time and really got hurt. Notice he doesn't follow House & Chase when Wilson has to admit he told Cameron. He knows House is furious about that, after being furious for his first assumption that Wilson told Chase. Telling Cameron was foolish in a lot of ways (though dramatically necessary), & maybe triggers Wilson pulling back from her as well as House after being rejected like this.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, poor Wilson indeed. :( First he thought House hadn't cared or trusted or whatever-ed him enough to talk about having cancer, then he realized House had withheld important information and then let him believe a lie just so he could "get high" and possibly harm himself, and then his attempt to reach out was snubbed in favor of the fellows (which you know he'll find out about one way or another).

Because Wilson never actually saw the file

Oh, hm. Better than anything I've come up with so far, although I'm still not convinced. If I were Wilson, well-trained by having been friends with House for so long, I'd've found out exactly what was what. And then lectured him about it called some friends in the field to make sure he got the best treatment, even if House didn't even bother to share the "bad news" with him.



Telling Cameron was foolish in a lot of ways (though dramatically necessary)

Dramatically necessary -- nah, don't cut 'em the slack. The Wilson-tells-Cameron thing could've been avoided if the story had been rearranged just a little. The writers should know better than to box themselves into a situation where Wilson had to tell Cameron. Either they wanted Wilson to gossip with Cameron about this for a specific reason -- and maybe the rest of the scene that got cut, if the line that made it into the preview indicates trimmed footage, would have made this clearer -- or it was sloppily done, because the story could just as easily have been written so that Cameron found out before Wilson or in some other way.

[saara-zaara.livejournal.com]

nah, don't cut 'em the slack.
"snorts!" I think the "you can't tell anyone" line had to get cut, because TIIC just can't have Cameron looking bad! and it gave House an additional reason to isolate Wilson. Which frankly sucks, so yes, there were other ways to have done this. I do also hope that it might also set up a situation to have Wilson next time tell Cameron to get lost - which I would really like to see "g".

Mind you, I do think Cameron came off as really clueless in this ep - I can't put my finger on a specific reason why, but she set this train moving by speculating on House's mail, she didn't really contribute to PotW's treatment, Chase did most of the hard work with House's medical situation even focusing on the phone records, while she's glomming on to the year book, the needle thing - doomed to failure, the "faking cancer to get high" & "I have a right to know" comments. And having Wilson tell her what's going on actually makes sense in that context - she can't figure any of this out herself. Hmm - I just worked that out in my own mind, but it makes a weird kind of sense.

[(Anonymous)]

"let him believe a lie just so he could "get high" and possibly harm himself"

Actually I thought Wilson was right about that, that House was doing because he really is depressed. That or he thinks the drug could help his chronic pain. Either way, I doubt House was doing it just to get high.