As the famous David Shore saying goes, “People don’t change.” In this week’s House, Masters changed….for a few minutes. But realized that doing so, didn’t provide her with the fulfillment she thought it would. Plus, I thought this week’s episode may have given us clues as to how circumstances may have changed House to a point where I wondered whether or not he was like Masters at some point in his life before making a deal with the devil so to speak. Many undertones to digest here, so I’m not going to waste anymore time.
It’s Masters’ last day as a medical student but she finds herself with a rare opportunity. House offers her an internship. However, as she discovers through Cuddy and House’s staff working with House means making sacrifices in terms of character. You play by his rules or you don’t play at all. In other words, she would have to lie, manipulate and cheat to do things House’s way. For Masters this is a moral dilemma, because her persona is not fit for that kind of demand. Nevertheless, she argues with House that she can do her job without compromising her personal character. Of course, House disagrees, and deems her as having the personality of an eight-year old if she doesn’t do things she dislikes to do….like cheat. But is House really correct in his assessment? Does cheating heighten your potential? In House land, cheating may have saved some lives but there’s always some kind of cost. Contrary to popular belief, House’s cheating ways haven’t always yielded the best of outcomes and have gotten him into plenty of trouble on occasion. So, in House’s world there is always a catch-22. Herein lies Masters’ dilemma.
According to Chase, sacrificing his surgeon duties to go back working with House has apparently changed him and he tells Masters that people close to him think that change was not for the better. Here he is basically referring to Cameron who left to get away from House and his vortex of disaster. House’s influence on Chase caused Chase to commit an act of murder on an African dictator, leading him to cover it up to save himself. This led Chase to make a deal with the devil and sacrifice his marriage in order to stay with House. Foreman tried to get away from House once, but ended up using House’s teachings to cheat. As a result, he was fired from his job and pretty much blackballed. Thus, the only place of safety was PPTH and House’s playground. Although 13 and Taub didn’t escape because of House, they too were sucked back into his orbit. All of these people, with the exception of Foreman, basically gave Masters the message to get out while she had the chance. Otherwise, she’d have to sacrifice her identity because there is no different approach to medicine and morals on House’s team.
Now, some people had the impression that Cuddy was a little harsh with Masters when Masters approached her looking for some advice. I did too at first. However, watching that scene again, I don’t think so. Cuddy knows what goes on in her hospital and most definitely knew about House seeking an intern and who he wanted. Cuddy brought Masters to House because she brought “a fresh perspective.” But as ambitious as Masters might be, Cuddy I felt was protecting Masters’ character and morals. Like any parent, Cuddy wanted her to be aware of what she could be getting herself into and to ask herself if she was truly ready for it. It’s like a high school student who gets invited to their first big party. She gets warned that there could be drinking and she could get tempted to indulge due to peer pressure. Thus, the parent advises that when the moment comes she should be prepared.
Masters’ situation had me wondering if House really was like her at an early age….highly intelligent, awkward, weird, engulfed in studies. (Just think about how much information House has seemed to absorb over the years.) As Masters’ roommate points out to her, she rubs people the wrong way, argues with people who outrank her and has an unpleasant bedside manner. All of which House has embraced with open arms. Perhaps like Masters, House constantly did the right thing until one day he saw it was getting him nowhere in life. Look at what he said to Gabe in “Son of a Coma Guy.” He told him the words he wanted to hear from his father were, “You were right. You did the right thing.” Maybe that feeling of rejection was a turning point for House. Since young House could apparently not do the right thing in the eyes of his father, he does the wrong things to get attention both medically and personally. So, just like House’s father could have changed him, Gregory House could have changed his team members in that same “fatherly” way. Kind of ironic isn’t it? Maybe it isn’t Masters’ morals and honesty that he rejects, but the very version of himself that could be a reminder of his past identity before life changed him. I also have this thought due to the conversation Masters had with Kendall’s father. The father tells Masters that all he and his wife are trying to do is help their daughter reach her dream to which Masters answers that she’s “different.” Therefore, they have to be “different.” What if House’s father didn’t support young Greg’s dreams? What if John House didn’t want to be different? What happens when you’re a fighting man and your son is an exceptionally brilliant boy? Maybe even more intelligent than you? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?
When Masters is lured back to the case from her surgery internship, House thinks it’s because all Masters cares about is being “exceptional.” However, I think that’s more a reflection on House himself than Masters because it seems that being exceptional is more of what House values in his life. If House didn’t have his brilliance for medical puzzles, then what would he have? I think that’s all he sees in himself….the brilliant gifted doctor, especially these days. To House, perhaps anyone who doesn’t sacrifice their personalities in favor of their career simply isn’t exceptional. They become ordinary people. Question is….would he be right in his thinking?
I definitely felt the writers may have been intentionally illustrating that Masters was like House also by the way she stayed back after all left to check labs and do research. She even took the usual House pose of thinking on the floor. Then, like House, she gets an epiphany about salmonella enteritis from Wilson and his antics with House and the chickens.
But Masters wasn’t the only person who showed the essence of Gregory House. Our POTW Kendall did as well. As she told her story, I kept thinking House. She may have the slowest boat, but she wins because she can sense changes in wind direction before they happen can see what the others can’t even when they think she’s crazy for taking an unconventional approach. To her it isn’t about winning or records, it’s all about how it makes her feel about herself. At the top of her game, she plays by different rules. Although she doesn’t like everything about sailing, doing what she loves means she accepts the things she doesn’t like.
House may only take one case at time and be slow to diagnosis. But he can sense and predict things that could happen to a patient before it happens. He can see what the other doctors have missed, even if he has to take unconventional approaches at times to treatment. In that case, to remain at the top of his game, he can’t play by every other doctor’s rules, since doing so wouldn’t make him the extraordinary diagnostician that he is. Playing by those rules to him doesn’t yield the results he needs to save the patient. When he does succeed where others have failed, it’s not about saving a life but how he feels after doing it. It’s an accomplishment…a personal fulfillment that allows him to love what he does despite the consequences and risks. Even if the outcome isn’t favorable, House learns something new for the next time whether it’s about a disease or himself. Gives me the chills thinking about that parallel and provides a new perspective for me about House’s passion.
Naturally, we also have the POTW/House parallel when Kendall refuses to have her arm amputated when she really needs to due to bone cancer. House wanted to keep his leg despite the medical risks and protests from Stacy. Although House’s leg was not amputated, Stacy and Cuddy agreed on a middle ground treatment, while House was in a medically induced coma thus going against his wishes. It’s the story Wilson gives to Masters when she is faced with that same dilemma.
Although it seemed as if House didn’t care that the family made a dumb decision to go by their daughter’s wishes, I think he did. But he needed to test Masters to see what she would do in that situation. Notice in that scene House was training the dog. I took that later as a visual clue to House training Masters. Question was…would she take the bait? He gives her that bait when he seems to not care because he got his diagnosis then follows it with a question to her…..”What do you want?” He leaves her to ponder the question as to whether or not she wants to save the patient’s life or keep her moral integrity. If she breaks the rules, she saves a life but loses her morals. If she doesn’t break the rules, the patient will likely die at sea. Which temptation will Masters succumb to? As viewers know full well, House would never miss an opportunity to call the family members and his patient idiots. He resists that temptation to see what Masters has learned from him and if she can be “exceptional” in a moment that lends itself to his ideals.
In the end, Masters indeed pulls a House giving the patient a drug which puts her into cardiac arrest. Then, she lies saying that the cardiac arrest is due to the cancer in her arm. As a result of her lies to the family, they sign a consent form for amputation. In one quick instant, feelings cause Masters to lie, manipulate and cheat like House. However, upon a restless night of reflection, she finds that she felt no joy in saving a life by that means. She just felt worse. She conveys to House that she didn’t do what she did to feel good or satisfied. She just thought she would. The very act of being right and acting on her feelings didn’t bring her personal fulfillment. Maybe it does for House, but I don’t know about that completely either. Maybe at one point it did, but maybe he’s finding he does need more in his life. Perhaps he was disappointed in that moment that Masters realized it earlier than he did….before it was too late. As Chase mentioned earlier, once you change it’s hard to go back. Maybe when House tells Masters, “You can’t always get what you want” he wishes he could go back.
Martha Masters refuses House internship, citing that she doesn’t know what she wants to do but she knows she “doesn’t want to be here.” That seems to be an open-ended statement because we don’t know if she means PPTH, House’s department or medicine in general. Whatever her decision, House cautions her that “nothing will ever be simple again.” She got a taste of real life first hand.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the scene when Kendall wakes up to find her arm gone. Echoes of “Help Me” rang loudly in the father’s words to his daughter…almost in exact wording of House’s words to Hannah. The father tells his daughter that the record wasn’t everything. That now, due to the amputation, she has a life and a future.
To House, his decision to not have his leg amputated was the worst decision he made in his life because it made him a harder, worse person in his words. That is what he told Hannah and is something I think neither he nor Cuddy ever told Wilson. I feel that’s why Wilson told Masters it depends on who she asks when House’s life was saved through conspiracy means. Wilson may feel House is still resentful, but doesn’t realize House has actually come to terms with all that’s happened. In House’s eyes, his life changed when he rejected the amputation and not for the better. His defiance resulted in many of his personal problems and perhaps to him altered his potential future.
I think House is truly struggling right now with his future and his life. All he has right now are the medical cases and trivial betting games with Wilson, but does he want more? Is he as selfish and negatively destructive in terms of people as he is perceived to be by others? Or Is there something more that we just aren’t aware of yet? Right now I think he’s lost and trying to create a superficial life for himself, hoping for a new personal fulfillment. Unfortunately, I think he feels he’s failing. I think part of his wake up call was Masters rejecting his proposal. He doesn’t have the hold on people he used to have and that can make him feel less than exceptional. Another great mind similar to his is not engaged with his status as a world-renowned diagnostician. What else then does he have in his life?
Maybe this is the question that will be asked and answered in the remaining four episodes of this season. Time flies, doesn’t it? In the meantime, House is off next week and will return on May 2nd.
In the meantime sound off in the comments section. Do you think everyone wanted to keep Masters away from House for her own benefit? Do you think House was really like Masters when he was younger but something happened that changed things for him? Do you think Chase was right in saying that once you change you can’t go back? What do you see in House’s future? I’d love to read your thoughts.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read! This has been another edition of Diagnosing House. For those celebrating, I wish you all a Happy Passover and Happy Easter. We’ll see you all after the break.
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