I must admit that the diagnosis for this week was a bit difficult for me. I had a hard time finding a clear theme to compliment the title. However, I did discover after a few viewings which players essentially came out on top. As much as I was not a fan of Masters in the episode, she was the one who gave me my epiphany. I’ll explain in a minute.
Lisa Cuddy is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to her job. Unfortunately, when dealing with her mother Arlene that’s not the case. House is well aware from past experience that Cuddy does not do well balancing personal and professional feelings. As House has pointed out to her in the past, it doesn’t make her a very good doctor. Because of this reasoning, House doesn’t want to get involved when Arlene gets sick. As House says to Cuddy from the start, “You know all that ethics stuff I don’t give a crap about. It suddenly makes sense.” Yet, for House, there are much bigger stakes here. If he treats Cuddy’s mother and something goes horribly wrong, he has this fear that she is never going to think of him in the same way again. Thus, it would result in a possible dissolution of their relationship. House’s issue is that he doesn’t seem to bring this up until it’s almost too late. He walks a tightrope with Cuddy, but this time he spoke up. I’m so proud of our boy. Confrontation was the key to this episode and not in a combative way, I thought. I thought it was more in a….reality check sort of way.
Let me summarize the situation and then explain what I mean. Cuddy wants House to treat her mother, not only because he’s her boyfriend but because he is the best doctor in the hospital. Now, House is House and when he thinks Arlene’s being a hypochondriac, he let her know by switching out her arthritis medication for sugar pills. Not happy with House’s dishonesty, Arlene fires House. At this point, House is relieved to be off her case. But not so fast…..Cuddy puts House back on the case with one catch….he has to do it behind the back of her mother and the physician to whom she assigned her mother’s case. So now we have House in an impossible position and what’s a man to do? Well, if you’re House you go all in. Unfortunately, when the diagnosis starts to get more dangerous and complicated, so does the situation. At one point there is a miscommunication, where Cuddy wants to be involved but doesn’t want to be involved when it comes to certain things. Sadly, she forgot to give House a decoder ring. Yet, I don’t blame Cuddy. She was becoming drained emotionally and completely stressed which is why she should have stayed out of the situation.
But Cuddy isn’t the only one stressed out about the situation, so is House and his team. They are violating ethics codes left and right. There are a few instances where House lashes out, but then calms himself down again. Of course, he doesn’t stop telling his team to violate medical standards.
Then, we have Masters being tested and failing…at least we think she is. Thinking ahead, House gets Masters to commit an illegal act by drawing blood from a coma patient who has paperwork stating that no procedure is to be performed without the consent of a relative. House never gave her the order to do it. He just conned her into doing it by not saying a word and letting her think on her own….smart man.
Finally we have Taub, who is desperate for some extra income. As a result, his soon to be ex-wife calls her brother who offers Taub a job as a medical consultant for some legal cases he has. Taub’s brother-in-law gives him a trial case to look at but Taub is intrigued by a head scan on a table. He thinks the boy in question might have a brain bleed. Taub’s brother-in-law assures him that two people checked out the films and the boy is fine. He urges him to leave it alone because they were settling with the family in two days. Yeah, that suggestion went over really well. Taub ends up going to the house of the family and urging the mother to take the boy for a cerebral angiogram because he might die of a hemorrhage,
Now that I’ve laid out the situations for you, I’ll tell you why confrontation was the key. Let me work backwards and start with Taub.
Yes, Taub was an idiot and probably should have just left well enough alone. He knew confronting the family could cost him his consulting job, but he went and did it anyway. However, if there was any question, he also could have saved a life if the boy did have a hemorrhage. Because he took initiative and was caring, he did what he believed to be right. Naturally, the brother-in-law got angry and smashed Taub’s nose into a toilet handle and Rachel thought Taub was a loser, but hey…who’s keeping score. Knwoing Taub’s situation, Foreman confronted Rachel with a phone call to explain what happened. Upon hearing the information from Foreman, Rachel came to tell Taub that he was a lousy husband but a good person. She didn’t agree with what her brother did after hearing the story. Taub’s life and dignity were somewhat redeemed even if he had to sacrifice his second source of income and his nose for it.
Now Martha M. Masters’s confrontation was interesting because it set off a chain reaction. Faced with the prospect of losing her medical career to House’s blackmail, she stood by her principles and confronted Arlene and Dr. Kaufman with the information that House and Cuddy were scheming behind their backs. As much as I didn’t like Masters at that point, I understood why her confession was so important. For her, if she hadn’t told on House and Cuddy things could have gotten much worse for Arlene. Arlene really could have died with the wrong mix of medicine and information. Basically to go back to an idea from Season three’s “Fetal Position,” Masters became Cuddy and House’s Cuddy. Someone had to stop the madness before it escalated any further. As House explained to Masters after re-hiring her, he needs her to prevent him from doing something Cuddy might regret. In other words, keep House and Cuddy grounded before the hospital pulls them apart for violating every ethical code in the medical handbook. Also, if Masters hadn’t confronted Arlene and Dr. Kaufman with the truth, then the next event in the chain reaction may not have occurred either. That event was House confronting Cuddy.
When House confronts Cuddy, I saw two purposes. The first purpose was to save his relationship. If anything fatal happened to Arlene, House knew Cuddy could never love him in the same way again, because her mother’s death would be by his hand and hang over them like a black cloud. As a result, the relationship would eventually fall apart. House wasn’t going to let this series of events ruin that. When Cuddy questions if House is taking this personally, he tells her this,
“She insults you, you complain to me. I drug her dinner, you never let her know.
We slip her medicine, it happens behind her back. You never confront her and it
pisses me off. She leaves she dies. One day…maybe a week from now maybe a
year from now, you’re going to decide that the person sleeping next to you killed
your mother.”
Basically the burden falls on House’s shoulders, and to him it doesn’t seem fair that he’s the one on the receiving end of Cuddy’s frustrations. So, what exactly was the second purpose I saw to House’s confrontation with Cuddy? House knows that Cuddy is a strong woman. She shouldn’t have to take the insults, the put downs or the stubbornness of her mother. Cuddy should put her foot down and be honest with her mother, because it’s not like Cuddy to be a coward. To House, Cuddy is stronger than that. He respects Cuddy because of her honesty and tough love. Now, he may be figuring it’s time to take charge again. Cuddy’s the expert and her mother is not. In this situation, Cuddy needs to confront her mother and give it to her straight. Basically, House gives Cuddy the reality check she’s always given him. This becomes more obvious when House utters the command to Cuddy, “Get me my patient back.” This sets Cuddy back into focus where she runs off to catch the ambulance and confront her mother. Hence, the next link in the chain reaction.
Cuddy explains to her mother why she thinks she’s been so hard on her all these years. Her mother saw an “ambition” and “brains” in Lisa Cuddy that she didn’t see in herself or Cuddy’s sister Julia. Because of that, Arlene has always trusted her daughter Lisa’s medical judgment. According to Cuddy, Arlene lights up when Cuddy talks about her job. For that reason and as a result of that trust, Cuddy confronts her mother and gives it to her straight. She tells her honestly that if she goes to Princeton General, she’ll get “treated well but she’ll die.” If Arlene stays at Cuddy’s hospital with House, she’ll be “treated badly but she’ll live.” Therefore, Cuddy puts her foot down and refuses to let her mother leave.
Even if it’s for a moment or two and while Arlene is starting to crash, she can sense the teamwork and medical expertise going on between her daughter and House. As Arlene begins to crash, naturally Cuddy’s stress and worry go into overdrive. But I felt in that moment House was trying to get her to focus by coaxing her into a DDX session with him. It worked and House discovered cobalt poisoning. In a very well acted moment without words, I saw House looking at Cuddy as if to say, “I’m sorry.” In Cuddy’s eyes, I saw the return of apology along with a “thank you.” What a moment where no words were needed.
If House hadn’t confronted Cuddy, then his relationship with Cuddy may have failed and Arlene may have died. If Arlene died, Cuddy deep down may have regretted not having stopped her mother from leaving and would have carried the burden of a strained relationship with her until the day she died. If Cuddy hadn’t had her confrontation with Arlene, Arlene would have died at Princeton General and would have never found a resolution to her strained relationship with Cuddy.
In the end, in another great moment without words, we see Arlene grab Cuddy’s hand with a look and expression that said, “I’m so proud of you.”
Family members have a way of setting us straight even if we don’t want to hear the truth. Sometimes we accept it and sometimes we ignore it. Most importantly, we learn from it. Each family member taught the other a valuable lesson through the act of confrontation. Yes, I include Masters to be a family member in terms of House’s team. They all look out for one another and protect one another like family members should. Whether it’s protecting one’s pride, dignity or even jail, the very idea of family practice means working together. By learning from our family members, we tend to become better people. We learn from our mistakes and grow as individuals. In this episode, everyone learned, everyone grew and everyone protected each other in their own way. That’s what makes this family of House a home.
So what did you think? Did you think House should have told Cuddy he wasn’t going to participate anymore when things got complicated? Do you think Cuddy should have taken herself off the case? Do you think Masters was right in selling House and Cuddy out? What about Taub? Should he have stayed quiet?
On a side note I thought it was rather interesting how Cuddy told House that since her father died, Cuddy, Julia and Arlene told each other the truth when asked directly. Cuddy cited that it was important to them. I wondered why. I wondered if Cuddy’s father kept something from them. Illness maybe? Maybe this is why Cuddy holds the truth to be valuable and frowns upon lies. Wonder if that aside was also a clue to her past. What did you think about that comment?
As always, I’d love to read your comments and I love responding to them. Please spread the word if you like the blog.
Until next week, this is another edition of Diagnosing House. As always, thank you for reading!
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