Are you the same person at twelve as you were at five? What about being the same person at seventeen as you were at ten? How about at fifty as you were at forty-three? Why am I asking these questions and why am I using seven year intervals? I am asking these questions, because I wonder if we think House should be the same person seven years into the show as he was at the beginning. In seven years time, many things can happen to us personally. We grow and learn from mistakes and from the people to whose orbit we tend to gravitate.
I have been reading comments in various social and general media outlets from fans of House who feel that the writers and the Powers That Be are changing the character fans have grown to love. Many of the writers are feeling the backlash from fans who feel they are leaving the show in a shell of what it once was. In my opinion, I think this season is offering fans a chance to see another layer of House that we’ve only seen glimpses of in previous seasons…his heart.
Personally speaking, would all fans be satisfied if the show stayed stagnant and offered us no insights into how House could improve his quality of his life? Would we feel fine with House staying a misanthropic, lonely drug addict every season? Would we find it more satisfying to see a more realistic take on how this character’s actions and feelings morph into many facets of his being? I think it’s refreshing to see how life has impacted House in many ways, and how many dimensions of his personality are being explored on a yearly basis. The House writers are going to places few shows tend to want to go…they are exploring the evolution of a character rather than making him a one note character. Even Beethoven had periods in his life that were reflected in his compositions from the infancy stages to his depression period to a period of happiness. Is it wrong to feel that we should be able to explore these moods of House as well?
In the first season we were introduced to House and his team. In this period of his life, it was the team and patients who introduced us to House’s cantankerous, sarcastic attitude and his bravado for being a superstar diagnostician. Fans were also introduced to how he became handicapped and addicted along with the fallout he endured as a result. Season one also showed how House’s selfish personality cost the hospital one hundred million of Edward Vogler’s dollars and almost cost him his friendship with his best friend Wilson. We also learned that House lived with someone for five years, so he could be loved.
As we found our way into the second season, we found that House did have a love and that he could be loved, all in part to the appearance of his old girlfriend and live-in-love, Stacy Warner. In small glimpses, we saw his corny romantic side and his ability to forgive. Additionally, we saw that even though he has a hard time trusting others that others seem to trust him. This was evidenced when Cuddy called upon him to help her with her invitro-fertilization treatments and asked him to keep her plan to have a child a secret. Fans also were privy to the foreshadowing of pain House suffers through, especially when faced with emotional distress when he sent Stacy away of his own accord. It wasn’t that House wanted to send her back to her husband. I think that situation had much to do with her reluctance to tell her husband Mark of her affair and feelings for House. In that moment, I think House recoiled into himself again because his feelings are something he holds dear and trusting Stacy with them at that point would have been unfair for both parties. Furthermore, fans were introduced to House’s parents for the first time. It was clear that House had issues with his father, even telling Cuddy that he hated him. But he did love his mother. That would only heighten the mystery of his personal life and childhood.
As we entered season three, we experienced the joy House seemed to have being pain free, but also fell with him when his pain returned after his experimental Ketamine treatment at the end of season two failed. It was then that House began his downward addiction spiral to a point where it almost cost him his job, license, and his freedom during the infamous Tritter arc. Fans saw his nasty side during a withdrawl period and a possible suicide attempt when he hit rock bottom. Again, House’s selfish act of stealing Wilson’s prescription pad almost cost him his friendship with Wilson again. Plus we had Cuddy lying to save House, from perpetual destruction of his life, on the witness stand at his trial. Not to mention we had House punching out Chase, which caused Wilson to confront Tritter about his friend’s addiction. More or less I consider this season House’s self-destructive period. After all was said and done, we did return to calm after the storm and found out more about House’s past. Apparently, House endured some abuse by his hard-nosed military father. Some of these acts included ice water baths and sleeping out on the lawn. Therefore, fans got a bit more insight into why House hates his father. The end of this season also saw House getting ready to deal with another scary chapter in his life….a new team, especially when he isn’t a fan of change.
I personally don’t think season four offered anything new in terms of House’s personality. We did get to see House toy with his lack of religious beliefs, but it wasn’t accentuated. However, we did get to see how nervous he became at the prospect of losing his friend to happiness as Wilson embarked on a relationship with Amber. This was an abridged season with a finale that took us to the infancy of House’s depressive period, after the death of Amber and House’s indirect involvement in it. Also, we saw more of a hint at the House/Cuddy connection with Cuddy’s worry over House’s well being and her holding his hand at his bedside. Most importantly we discovered while House was in a coma in the famous white bus scene that he didn’t want to be miserable, in pain and he didn’t want Wilson to hate him. This told fans that he really was on a quest for happiness and that he wasn’t pleased with what his life had turned out to be.
Season Five I like to call House’s depressive period and the most revealing season of House’s innermost thoughts. At the beginning of the season, House had to deal with Wilson abandoning him and announcing to him if they ever really were friends after Amber dies. Wilson leaves PPTH and House’s friendship to catch a breather. House is naturally disturbed, because Wilson is his best friend. Losing that friendship puts House in world where he can’t focus, because even though he doesn’t admit it out loud, he feels guilty for Amber’s death. Thankfully, this friendship is repaired but not under the best of circumstances. House’s father dies and we learn some more about House’s childhood. House’s father wouldn’t talk to him for a summer, because House told John that he wasn’t his father. It turns out that House suspected there was truth that John House was not his biological father. And after a clip of his dad’s ear at the funeral, we find that House’s suspicions are true. His mother hated his father too, according to House, and had an affair. Crazy thing is that House still considered John his dad and in the end showed signs of missing him. At this point, the weight of House’s world started to slowly come down on him. Next there came the revelation that Cuddy was trying to adopt a child and kept it from House. After helping her in season’s two and three, this came as a shock to him. But when Cuddy’s plans fall through at the outset, he and Cuddy find each other in a moment of pain and share a kiss. We begin to see House’s emotions for Cuddy start coming to the surface, but fear holds him back from telling her about them. As a result, he keeps them bottled up inside. Again, the walls start closing in on him. In an attempt to be pain free and live his white bus dream, he tries methadone. Unfortunately, his diagnostic thinking suffers and he gives up on that pursuit. Suddenly, tragedy strikes for House again as his seemingly happy fellow Kutner commits suicide. The very fact that House missed any warning signs haunts him and the vice of depression begins to grip him harder to the point where he is taking mass amounts of Vicodin. Depression, guilt and addiction begin to result in hallucinations of Amber and bouts of insomnia. The culmination is a hallucinatory night of detox and a tryst with Cuddy which he believed to be real. Finally, fans saw the most heart-breaking conclusion to House’s personal turmoil this particular season. When reality finally hits him, he confesses in a moment of great distress to Cuddy that he is “not okay” which results in his voluntary committal to Mayfield Psychiatric Institution.
For me Season Six saw House seeking redemption and the road to a new chapter in his life. House had goals and a desire to be clean of addiction. He learned that psychiatry isn’t a bad thing and it can heal. Being free of Vicodin resulted in clear thinking and a feeling of remorse for his actions towards others. Part of his plan was to try and make one of his dreams a reality…a relationship with Cuddy. Unfortunately, he had to deal with the heartache of her being involved with Lucas, someone he considered a friend in the previous season when Wilson was out of the picture for a time. Determined to try and move on, his friendship with Wilson grew stronger when he found himself living with him for a time. That was until Wilson sent House on his way in favor of taking in his ex-wife/girlfriend Sam. Doing the best he could, House continued to try and move on. It was then in a therapist session with Nolan that we discovered Wilson throwing him out wasn’t really an issue, because they always find their way back to friendship. House’s issue was Cuddy moving in with Lucas and moving on without him. But Nolan pressing the issue caused House to leave therapy. From House’s point of view Nolan was supposed to help him find happiness, but all House kept feeling was pushed down. In an attempt to let Cuddy know how he felt about her, House tells her the episode prior to his encounter with Nolan that he wants to be more than just friends. Now, in a last ditch attempt in the finale for this particular season, House gives Cuddy the gift of an old medical text written by her great-grandfather, perhaps hoping that the sentimentality will sway her his way. In a tense situation at a crane collapse, House discovers Cuddy is engaged. The revelation makes him angry and both of them become combative with each other. In a heated exchange, Cuddy questions him as to what he really has in his life, telling him nothing. The words lead House in thought, mainly due to the reality check Cuddy usually gives concerning his life’s actions. In a moment of raw honesty with Cuddy present, House tells this trapped woman Hannah, with whom he developed a bond, that his decision to keep his leg made him a “hard person” a “worse person.” His raw honesty, telling her he was alone while she has someone who loves her and can have a family, showed viewers that he had grown as a person in season six. House was trying to be a better person and used his personal experience to try to save a life. There were no usual House tricks involved. Yet when Hannah dies of an embolism, House collapses at home feeling all his efforts during the year were all for naught. Having nothing to work for anymore, House rips his mirror off the wall and goes for a hidden stash of Vicodin. But just before he takes it, Cuddy walks into House’s bathroom tells him she ended things with Lucas and that she loves him. Tossing the Vicodin on the floor, House kisses Cuddy for real this time and we begin a new chapter in House’s life that is more hopeful than previous seasons.
Now, here we are in season seven. For me each season House has learned something and grown as a result of it. From the consequences of his addiction to his quest for a more meaningful life for himself beyond the medicine, House has become an in-depth exploration of how our lives can be shaped by circumstance, trust and love. This season House is in a relationship where he has to practice seeing things through another person’s eyes and acknowledging how his actions have an impact on that person. And it’s not just with Cuddy either. House is becoming an even better friend by accepting Sam then allowing Wilson his space when things go sour with Sam. House is beginning to understand how his selfish-thinking can only be tolerated for so long in a relationship, and that it’s more important to show you care than to be right. He’s learning the value of give and take, as well as the ability to trust again. But these lessons, in my eyes, haven’t changed the outline of his character. The only things he’s lost are his addiction and his misery. House is still mocking his team, lying, berating patients and people, continues to be a smartass and obsessed with sex and porn and still drinks. Because of House’s lousy life, I welcome the opportunity to find hope and happiness in his life. That’s what he wants for himself.
In reality, we don’t know what House was like before his infarction other than he was still an ass. What if we are just seeing right now what he was like? What if now is finally a return to who he was? Does House still hold secrets? Yes, he’s never told Cuddy about his biological father or the abuse he suffered as a child. Then again, Wilson doesn’t know the whole story about John House either. Is House still in pain? Sure he is. We just don’t see it as prominently because his emotional state is stable right now. When House is in distress, that pain flares, as we all have come to know. At the moment, nothing significant has warranted that. Yet, House still limps.
I ask again….should House be the same seven years into the series as he was at the beginning? If the answer is “yes” then what has he really experienced? What has House really learned? People don’t change. They grow. If House doesn’t grow then he remains the infant he was in season one and that by all means is not an accurate representation of the evolution of life itself. As David Shore explained time and time again, this show is about a character’s journey and the impact those around him have on it. If House doesn’t evolve, then there is no journey and the show becomes like all other medical shows. If House doesn’t grow, then how can we ever speculate how his journey will end based on what he encounters in his life? If he doesn’t grow and experience the ups and downs of life then there is no journey and nothing interesting to look forward to. As House would say it would become boring. Like Cuddy said, common is boring….it’s common, and the television show House is certainly not common.
Here’s to the writers this season. Yes, they may not get it right all the time. However, they succeed more often than they fail. Otherwise House wouldn’t still be a popular and heavily discussed show and FOX’s number one drama series.
Thanks for reading this Special Weekend Edition of Diagnosing House.
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