Monday, July 18, 2011

Unwritten: Life Imitating Art in the Land of House

First, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to my new blog capitalizing on one of my favorite pastimes…..House. Intrigued by the intricacies woven into each episode by the creative team of writers and a burning desire to write again, I decided to create a blog discussing some of the topics brought forth within each episode. I will attempt to diagnosis and dissect how these issues pertain to the character of Dr. Gregory House as well as discuss how they may have an impact on our lives. Consider it like my own personal diary of observations that I'm sharing with you. I will have you keep in mind that I am not a professional blogger….just a regular fan who has an affinity for House. Therefore, you may want to lower your expectations now. So, I'll give you a minute to do that. Okay, now that you've done that, enjoy my first entry.
This week's episode entitled "Unwritten" not only displayed some interesting parallels for me in terms of the character of House, but also made me wonder if House is indeed correct when he says that long-term relationships are based on compatibility.
To begin, I will take a look at the deeper parallels that I thought were inherent in this particular episode. As I watched, I wondered if it was coincidental that Alice's real name was Helen and that her housekeeper's name was Christina. Why you wonder? Well, here we have Alice Tanner (real name Helen) who is a woman plagued by pain both physically and mentally as the result of past accident. As we discover later in the episode, she blames herself for giving her son the keys to the car on a rainy night when he only had his learner's permit. Immediately, I wondered why this scenario sounded familiar. Then, I took a trip back in time. Like Alice/Helen, House metaphorically handed the keys by way of his cane to Wilson's girlfriend Amber at the end of season four. As a result, she got on the bus with him and dies as a result of her injuries while House survived. For this reason, House carried that guilt with him even though he wouldn't admit it to anyone. Alice carried her guilt with her as well, since she survived and her son perished. Just as House took to his Vicodin and drinking as an escape from the pain, Alice took to writing as an escape from hers. Both individuals carried their addictions with them to get them though their pain. Even though Alice's visions of her son were not of the hallucinatory nature, she was similar to House in that she envisioned her son and used him as the key to unlocking her literary mind. House used Amber as the key to unlocking his diagnostic mind. Yet, it's those very visions that caused self-destructive tendencies in both House and Alice. Alice wanted to take her life due to her building depressive state of mind in the eyes of tragedy, while House sacrificed the very essence of his livelihood when his mind lost site of reality as a result of distress over his inability to survive the deaths of Amber, his father and his fellow Lawrence Kutner. Both Helen and House were ticking time bombs ready to go off as they carried the weight of their worlds on their shoulders and with heavy hearts. I also questioned whether or not Alice's resentment over her ex-husband's betrayal mimics the hurt House may have felt when Cuddy failed to tell him about Lucas after he left Mayfield or even the hurt and resentment he experienced when he felt Stacy betrayed him after his infarction. I'll let you all ponder that one too.
Then, we have Alice's housekeeper Christina. She is a woman who cares deeply for her boss whom she may even consider a friend. She was worried for Alice's well-being and noticed that something was going wrong with her. Out of concern, she helped House and Cuddy investigate Alice's problems by telling them about Alice's behavior. Once Alice discovered what Christina had done, she fired her and was incredibly bitter towards her for meddling. When thinking of House, which relationship does this remind you of? Isn't it ironic that Cuddy was in that room at that time during that exchange between Alice/Helen and Christina? Hum….Helen…Christina…..House…..Cuddy. A part of me is saying that I'm delusional but another part of me wonders if it really was just a coincidence or intentional. Cuddy has always worried about House's well-being and his emotional state of mind. Constantly, she reached out to him only to be pushed away or given very little information about what is distracting him. Although there had been times when he treated her badly as a result of great pain, she was persistent and still cared and worried about him.
In the end, House really did indentify with Helen and became her savior, albeit in a false way by telling her that her son died of a brain aneurysm and not as the result of injuries suffered in the accident. As a result, House was able to ease her restless mind and allowed her to be able to move forward in her life while lifting her hardened personality in the process. House had been plagued by the tragedies in his life and suffered that same hardened persona as Alice. And just as Cuddy was there for him in the end, House was there for Alice. What's interesting to note as well is the fact that Alice and her housekeeper Christina also made amends with each other, allowing Christina to assume her role as care taker and friend. This seems to parallel House's relationship with Cuddy as she is now his lover and in a sense there to take care of him on a personal level as a partner. Regardless of whatever parallels there may have been, one thing was clear. Both House and Alice were given that option of hope and an opportunity to embark on new chapters in their lives. Their past was put to rest, burdens lifted and a door to a new adventure opened for them in the process.
Now onto House's issue of compatibility and it's factor in a long-term relationship.
House's relationship with Cuddy has been a loving and essentially complicated one. In this episode, House questions the outward happiness that he and Cuddy are experiencing and is obsessively wondering when their "honeymoon" period will fade for it is then when House feels there will be problems. Because he feels that he and Cuddy have nothing in common other than work and their sexual escapades, he thinks that the relationship will eventually crumble. His reasoning is based on the idea that long-term relationships are based on compatibility. If you have something in common with your partner, your relationship is more likely to succeed. But is House right about this? Is it important to have something in common with your mate right out of the gate or perhaps can you discover something you have in common with your mate after spending more time with him or her? Or perhaps you don't need to have anything in common with your partner in order to have a long-term relationship. I can say from my own past experience that having something in common with someone is not the premiere aspect in relationship compatibility. I dated someone who had many similar interests as I. However, his personality was not as dynamic as mine and I was not happy. I was bored. What I found fascinating is that several sites I perused listed things in common as important but not as important as things such as communication and compromise. As a matter of fact, it seems that trying different things with your mate can lead to the discovery of things that couples can enjoy doing together. After reading a few things, it seems that House and Cuddy are on target in terms of their relationship with communication bring one of the important issues needing fixing at the moment. Cuddy seems to be fine with expressing what's going on in her mind in terms of their relationship, but House seems more hesitant or afraid to relate to her what's on his. The very fact that Cuddy eased his mind by urging him to talk to her about problems he may be processing with their relationship was an important step in building a dialog with him. It opened the door again for him, since he seems to be tripping over things and going to Wilson instead of Cuddy in the past two episodes. There are far more important factors to consider in terms of maintaining a long-term relationship. The question is whether or not both are committed to the task. The very fact that House has apologized to Cuddy for things that have happened in the past few episodes is huge on his part, because I really think he is determined to make things work. His problem is that he needs to get out of his own way and stop looking at statistics or what science says about relationships in terms of going the distance and just allow things to happen naturally.
Like Alice did with her last story, she left the ending to her audience with the thought being how many definitive answers does one achieve in life? Everyone is in charge of their story and their ending. Even then, the story doesn't end until the day we meet our demise. Everything depends on what ending House wants for himself. No matter what he believes, as Cuddy pointed out to him in the premiere, he cannot possibly predict the future. Each day he experiences with Cuddy is a new page, a new chapter and a new adventure. He holds the key to his story. The ending is unpredictable because, as Natasha Bedingfield says in her song, "the rest is still unwritten."
I thank you all for taking the time to read. I hope this entry made you think about more questions and possibilities as it did for me.

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