Who are we? Why are we here? What exactly is my purpose in life? These are questions we may ask ourselves time and again, but do we ever really get an answer? Our pasts and how we are raised seem to influence our personalities. Experiences shape how we handle life’s little curve balls and achievements. But can the past and certain experiences alter our view of ourselves?
To me this week’s House was all about recovering our identities. After her break-up with House, Cuddy seems to lose why House respected and loved her in the first place….her ability to smartly handle his insanity. Out of guilt over how the break-up has had an impact on House, she allows him to ride a scooter around the hospital, park a Monster Truck in six handicapped spaces, provides written authorization for him to add his green card hungry fiancé to his medical insurance, and gives him the okay to use the chapel as a catering hall.
Wilson discovers, from House, that he’s taking advantage of Cuddy’s guilt complex. According to Wilson, of all the things House is, a “sadist” is not one of them. I believe Wilson to be right here. For as much of an ass as House is, inflicting pain whether physical or emotional on someone else, is not his style. If anything, he holds his hurt in and isolates and distances himself from the situation. He doesn’t aggravate it. House is also a master manipulator and usually gets what he wants. I wonder if this is why House was doing all these insane things. Maybe deep down he wanted Cuddy to fight back and get her attention. Using a toy helicopter, he flies it down to Cuddy dropping toy missiles on her and then uses it to knock over a vase while she is trying to give a tour. Cuddy is appalled and doesn’t fight back or get angry at him. Maybe that’s what he was looking for her to do…react as was the intention in the season five finale “Both Sides Now.” Was House looking for her to tell him to stop the insanity? Did he want her to reach out to him? Was he searching for normalcy again? Or Was he just screwing with her to get her back?
Well, when Wilson notices Cuddy isn’t fighting back he intervenes. He forces Cuddy to think about what House needs in his life. Of all the people in House’s orbit, Cuddy is one of the few people he actually listens to despite how it may appear sometimes. Wilson reminds Cuddy that she is the one who can handle him. If she loses her identity in his orbit, she becomes another pawn in his game and will lose the respect House has held for her, becoming just another product of his manipulative ways. In his conversation with her, I think Wilson was trying to tell her that if she stops caring and doesn’t start telling House “no” again that someone will get hurt. In essence he was sending her the message to stop giving him what he wants and to start telling him what he needs. Based on Cuddy’s past personality, she does have a guilt complex but she also has the rare ability to knock sense into House’s messed up head. After heeding Wilson’s advice, Cuddy starts fighting back again and refuses his requests for the chapel and demands the return of the 60 inch television he wanted. She becomes the keeper of her domain again. She grabs her identity back, even though through her relieved expression when she leaves the chapel that it was hard for her.
As for House, well the clue to his identity may have been illustrated through this week’s patient of the week. Perhaps, House is struggling to find out who he really is. Maybe his perception of himself is altered. I’ll explain in a minute or two.
Like our star diagnostician, this patient of the week has an abusive past in his history complete with drunken episodes of beating and burns. The patient of the week only gives you a general idea of what he endured in his life, but not a complete picture. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? How many people in House’s life are aware of his troubled past with his father? We know he told Wilson that his father was not his biological father. But what about the abuse House endured as a child….the nights of sleeping on the lawn and ice water baths? Only Eve from “One Day, One Room” seems to be the only one aware of those things.
Later we discover that the POTW tried to overdose and kill himself. He was clinically dead for several minutes but felt God was giving him a second chance at life to do things right. However, his position changes when he discovers that he might have Parkinson’s disease. Then, he figures that God wasn’t trying to save him but rather punish him, making him suffer for the horrible things he’s done in his life. To him, he deserves to suffer.
If we take a look at these sentiments, they are eerily similar to House’s in a few ways. Fans are aware that House feels he doesn’t deserve any kind of happiness. Yet, we always wonder why. In “Now What” House tells Cuddy that he hasn’t changed and has done horrible things to her. He even goes on to say that he will do horrible things to her again. House has had several near death experiences. Does he feel that all these second chances he’s been given are to punish him for the life he’s lead? Of course in House’s own mind, he probably feels he deserves to suffer. Being crippled to him may be the mark of his identity as being a worse person just as the DNA identified the POTW as an alleged serial killer. To House, happiness is an unattainable ideal because it never lasts. Maybe the patient is the clue to why House is such a skeptic when it comes to faith and happiness. Apparently no matter what House tries to do to rectify the wrong in his life, somehow he feels he gets punished in some way, just like in last year’s events. He got clean and counseling in an attempt to get back on track and to win Cuddy’s heart but she’d found another love. Then, he did “everything right” with Hannah and she died regardless. House must have been asking himself, “What in God’s name do I need to do here?”
Towards the end of the episode, the POTW is no longer condemned to a life of suffering as he has a curable disease. Thanks to the guidance and belief that Masters bestowed upon him, the POTW believes that God does have a plan for him. And that what he went through may have been God’s way of testing his “resolve.” Masters tries to ease his troubled mind by telling him that she doesn’t believe him to be a bad person, but one who’s simply made mistakes as we all do. She suggests that maybe a professional can help him when he gets out of the hospital.
This exchange reminded me of House and Cuddy’s relationship. Cuddy has always believed in House and knows he suffers inside even if she doesn’t understand why. She’s forgiven him time and time again, because she loves him and worries about his well-being. When House got help from Nolan, he made progress but I still feel he wasn’t comfortable letting the skeletons out of the closet regarding the past he had with his father. Maybe just letting go of those skeletons will set him free. But until he can verbalize why he has this pessimistic outlook on life and why he cannot absorb another person’s pain, House will never be at peace. He will continually be a restless mind complete with a scarred soul. For now, he will only feel pain and will never find the light of happiness. Deep inside, House may be worried that he will become his father or on some level he may feel he already has. In order to protect others, he will keep them at bay and remain in misery. Like our patient of the week, he may feel he’s a monster who deserves to die. After losing the belief and faith of the one person he cared about and trusted, House’s shattered inner being leads him to no hope for there may be no hope for the hopeless. So what does a man like that do? He manufactures a relationship that is nothing but a business proposition. House does the unthinkable and marries a girl so she can get a Green card. For House I think, he believes true love does exist….and he lost it when Cuddy dissolved their relationship. Although House goes through with the wedding, he doesn’t consummate his new union with his wife. When she kisses him, he pulls back and can’t go through with it. Fans wondered why the sudden change. Last week House was exploiting his rendezvous with hookers left and right. Now, he can’t have relations with Dominica? Why? Then, I realized something. With the hookers, it was meaningless….a distraction. I mean, he distracted himself with hookers when he broke things off with Stacy. This was different because he married this girl. Because he is still in love with Cuddy, maybe he didn’t want to give this girl the wrong impression. He liked her enough to marry her so she could get her Green card, but he doesn’t love her. It’s still all business. In reality, deep down maybe he feels acknowledging anything more than a business arrangement with Dominica would be betraying the love he still holds in his heart for Cuddy.
And how did Cuddy deal with House’s illegal marriage? Not well. On the outside she tried not to let it bother her. But when she saw it happening for real, she retreated to House’s bedroom teary eyed. As much as she promised herself she wasn’t going to let it get to her, it did. If she wasn’t still in love with House, this wouldn’t have bothered her. Although she said she couldn’t handle a relationship with him, seeing him with another woman is no consolation. I wondered if that guilt she felt turned to regret for ending things with House. Maybe a part of her processed the things Wilson said to her in the office and made her realize how special her relationship with House was and in some way still is. Rather than give House the satisfaction of seeing her leave the event in sadness, she alludes to Wilson that she won’t leave. Wilson jokes that things are back to normal just by her very comment. However, by Cuddy’s reaction, we know things are far from it right now.
Final thought, the number thirteen was mentioned quite a few times in this episode. Was it a reference to the mysterious thirteen or was it in reference to House’s possible thirteen victims? The POTW is wanted for thirteen unsolved murders. He eats his victims. Could it be a possible reference to the victims House has metaphorically eaten/hurt? I made a list with an example or two…although there might more ways each person could be a victim.
1. Cuddy-He told her she’d suck as mother and wasn’t there to support her for
her dinner or when she got sick.
2. Wilson-He got involved in the bus crash with Wilson’s girlfriend Amber
because he was drunk and needed a ride.
3. Foreman-Due to House’s personality, Foreman quit because he didn’t want to
be like him.
4. Chase-House punched him when he was detoxing during the Tritter arc and
clouded Chase’s view of right and wrong when Chase killed Dibala.
5. Cameron-She left the hospital and her husband Chase due to House’s toxic
hold on everyone.
6. Taub-House berates Taub for his philandering ways and initially felt Taub rode
the coat tails of Kutner.
7. Kutner-He commits suicide leaving House to wonder if it was his fault and
House’s first never to be solved puzzle.
8. 13-He fired her to get her to stop her risky behavior and face her Huntington’s.
House also forced her to break up with Foreman. She’s been missing all season
with the exception of episode one.
9. Amber-When calling Wilson to come pick him up from a bender, Amber arrives
instead. House decides to take the bus, but Amber follows him on because he forgot his cane. There is a terrible crash. Due to complications, Amber dies and so does a part of House’s best friend Wilson. The accident causes a rift between them for awhile.
10. Masters- She believes that honesty and patient care are of the highest priority. She doesn’t agree with House’s ideals or his Vicodin habit at the moment. Somehow, I feel her principles are going to make her leave.
11. Stacy-After House’s infarction, he placed the blame on her. When he does have an affair with her and gets her back, he sets her free. He knows he’ll never be able to be the man her husband is and realizes that getting back together would be a mistake.
12. Hannah-His open rapport and honesty with her gave her comfort. He was able to get her out of the rubble by amputating her leg. Unfortunately, he waited too long. She developed an embolism resulting in her eminent death in the ambulance on the way to Princeton.
13. Blythe House-Because of his volatile relationship with his dad, his mother became a victim as she was in between them trying to keep the peace. Also, House may feel he is a disappointment to his mother and probably felt that way in terms of his father. One can argue that House’s father was a victim as well since House never made peace with him before John died. House still carried that resentment and hurt and never confronted his father about it. Now, he’ll never get that opportunity.
I know I’ve just grasped for straws here, but can the idea be ruled out completely? With six episodes left, it will be interesting to see where exactly the writers are taking us on this Housian journey. I realize that the fandom is going a little crazy due to the oddities presented in each episode since “Bombshells.” However, I still get this nagging feeling that this all indeed is going somewhere and leading to something. Guess we’ll just have to try to stick it out and find out what that something is exactly.
Until then, please let me know what your thoughts are on anything I’ve mentioned. Do you think House deep down feels he’s evil? How did House find Dominica in the first place and know she needed a Green card? House is not likely to talk to a stranger about her life if he’s getting something at the time. What did you think of the mysterious POTW being a cannibal serial killer? Do you think he really was considering changing his life or was it just another lie?
Well, this has been another edition of Diagnosing House. We’ll see you back here after the hiatus. New episodes of House return to us on April 11th. Thanks for reading!
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