In this week’s episode of House, I tended to lean more towards House and House and his boxer charity case in terms of theme. However, something can be said of the patient of the week. I’ll begin with I considered the minor “fix” in this episode.
This will be brief because the story in regards to the theme was self-explanatory, I felt. The patient of the week is brought in with seizures. Through the course of the investigation into her history, the team discovers that she goes through a bevy of boyfriends and tends to cheat on one with her next conquest. Unfortunately, he current boyfriend, sick of her cheating ways, poisons her with Spanish Fly which has similar traits as radiation exposure. Basically, I felt the message to her was to quit her cheating ways, because it will come back to bite her in the end…which it this case she almost did meet her end. Truthfully, that’s how I tied her into the theme of this week’s episode.
I did, however find myself mesmerized by House’s fascination with helping the boxer to win his bet. Yet, I don’t think this was just about the bet. I think this was about House not only trying to bring this boxer hope but bring hope to himself. I was taken aback by this line from House to the boxer.
“You don’t have to be a loser. Whatever’s wrong with you, it’s real. Sick is good. Sick means it can get better. You can get better. I don’t mean healthier…..I mean, you don’t have to suck.”
Maybe House’s talk with Thirteen last week got him thinking. Maybe House does feel that the majority of his problems stem from his leg. He’s failed at some things in his life and probably did or does consider himself a loser. But the prospect of trying to get his leg better is giving him hope. He won’t necessarily lose hid disability completely, but he can make the pain get better. If that pain gets better, then maybe his emotional hang-ups will follow suit. Again, this all goes back to the premiere when House asked Cuddy, “Do you think I can fix myself?” Each experience House has faced this season was a step in getting him to take a look at himself in terms of some things he can fix in his life and maybe some things that are harder to fix. If House can bring back this boxer’s morale, then maybe there is hope for him too.
As the episode unfolds with House performing many trial and error methods of diagnoses on the boxer, the boxer is impatient with him but still remains a closeted willing participant to being the experimental rat. In one instance, House even points out to him that the he wants House to be right, which is why he continues to enable House’s insanity. House tells the boxer that he’s, “only an ass for building your hopes up if I’m wrong.” This small statement has me thinking about House and Cuddy again. Maybe House feels that Cuddy wanted it to work which in turn gave him hope. But when she shattered that hope by breaking up with him, he was angry with her; and as a result gave up on that hope. Thus, he turns his focus to his leg.
We discover that during this episode, House has turned himself into a human experimental lab rat by injecting himself with trial drug beings tested to re-grow muscle tissue. It was being proven successful so far in lab rats but the testing was still ongoing. House, curious about the prospect of fixing the Achilles heel of his life, swipes some of the drug packets and makes himself the human guinea pig.
House’s obsession with healing his leg and the puzzle of the boxer has him ignoring the team and his current case, much to the confusion and worry of Foreman. In his eyes, House is being irresponsible and this attitude could be detrimental to the health of the patient. Wilson, on the other hand, doesn’t see it that way. To Wilson this is a much needed break and distraction from his break-up with Cuddy. The very fact that House’s curiosity is being piqued by something stupid to Wilson is a good sign, especially since House has been in engaging in crazy behaviors as of late. This interest in the boxer is tame and normal in comparison. Frustrated with Wilson’s lack of concern, Foreman turns to Cuddy. He strongly feels that something is wrong with House and she’s the reason for it. Cuddy sees House’s avoidance of her and the team as normal House behavior. Foreman would tend to agree, but points out that at least House shows up to do his job. Right now, he isn’t. Cuddy still insists, though hesitantly, that House is fine and always is. This prompts Foreman to realize that Cuddy is avoiding House too and nothing good will come of it.
Concerned by Foreman’s reaction to House’s avoidance, Wilson and Cuddy secretly and separately send Thirteen to check up on House who sees him shooting up with this experimental drug. She thinks he’s an idiot and Wilson tends to agree with that assessment later on.
Thinking that the drug isn’t working, House stops taking the experimental drug and goes back to taking the Vicodin. When Wilson comes to confront him, the question becomes why did House start and stop the drug in the first place. According to House, he felt that starting the drug gave him some hope of at least having one part his life show improvement. Wilson counters with the idea that he thinks House feels all his problems are due to his leg. But how can Wilson really make that assessment? What if House does feel that his bitterness is due to his leg issues? He seemed to indicate that to Hannah….that his decision to keep his leg made him a harder, worse person. How can Wilson possibly know what is going on in House’s screwed up head? Maybe Wilson was correct in saying that perhaps all House is seeking is a tangible, physical, simple happiness…that House wants unhappiness to have a cure. I say, why is that so wrong considering the kind of life House has had? Of course the experimental drug was a dumb move, but he’s House and he’s constantly enraptured with science and puzzles. He’s currently trying to solve his own puzzle. However, his mindset I think is okay. If House feels that getting rid of his leg issues can open the door to dealing with other aspects of his life, then so be it. Who said there was a rulebook on the pursuit of happiness?
Towards the end of the episode, House tries one more experimental idea on the boxer and fails again. Dejected, he goes to Wilson in defeat with the fifty dollars he owes him. When Wilson goes to press House more on the issue of his problem, House wants to hear nothing of it, swipes Wilson’s desk clean with his cane, and destroys the glass on Wilson’s Vertigo poster. House has been known to deflect, not destroy. To me this was House signaling his frustration over his failures. At this particular point, he couldn’t fix the boxer and he couldn’t fix himself. Like he did with Nolan, he wanted help and support not words. When Nolan failed to give him what he wanted, he abandoned therapy. When Wilson wouldn’t stop lecturing him, he lashed out in a somewhat destructive way. House then finds himself in a bar drunk to the point where the bartender no longer wishes to serve him. I think a lot of what House said in that bar was a drunken verbalization of what was going on in his head. As much as Cuddy had a right to break up with House, to him she had not right giving him “crap” for being upset with her. House has a lot of pain to kill from his leg to his heart and booze at this point is his only comforting staple. He didn’t lectures. He didn’t need anger. He just needed to lose himself for awhile and forget about reality, since in his mind “reality sucks.” He wanted to get lost in this pain numbing fantasy of booze and despair.
When House goes on his rant berating the bartender for serving him just to shut up him, I thought this was another interesting aspect to the theme of “fixing.” House was telling the bartender and anyone else who wanted to hear, that you should change your principles just to accommodate the situation. Don’t fix your ideals. Stand by them. In other words, the all famous Davis Shore mantra….don’t change. You either believe in your convictions or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways. So what are House’s principles here? What does he believe in? Does he believe in hope? Does he believe that his leg is truly the cause of the failures in his life or what he deems as failures in his life? Alcohol seems to be the truth drug. So what is House’s truth?
At the end of the episode, through a Houseian twist of fate, House discovers what’s wrong with the boxer. He has tumors. The good news is… what the boxer has is curable and can be fixed. The bad news is that the boxer’s career is will be finished as a result of the surgery. So, House indeed was able to make the boxer’s sickness better, but it will come at a price. House then has a happy moment again in that his leg starts feeling no pain. Unfortunately, as we saw in the preview for Monday night’s episode, it may have also come at a price.
So how do you feel about House’s mindset? Do you think he’s still hopeful? Do you feel that if he is able to manage his leg pain, he can improve one part of his life? Do you think his leg pain is what is leading to some of the missteps in his life or do you think it’s something deeper than that? How do you feel about House turning himself into a lab rat? Tonight makes the penultimate episode to the season and I have no idea where we are going with this. I do say buckle up, because I think we are in for a very emotional ride.
As always thanks for reading! This has been another edition of Diagnosing House. My apologies for the delay in this entry. Illness, concerts and online class assignments prevented me from posting earlier. The next blog will be on time.
Sound off with your thoughts in the comments section.
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