House, MD

[Cathy904]

House was pretty good last night, "Unfaithful", but it could have also been called "The Atheist Priest". This is a plot synopsis for the 2/16 episode, so be forewarned.


House tried to break up Foreman and "13", giving them the choice of breaking up or one of them had to quit. Because Foreman had recently committed the ethics violation with the Huntington's trials, Cuddy wouldn't give Foreman a recommendation and it looked like 13 was going to have to quit because Foreman had nowhere to go. Fortunately with a little encouragement from Cameron and Chase (when did those characters get re-engaged?), 13 and "14" staged a breakup and fooled House into keeping them both since they started arguing during the patient differentials.

Back to the priest. An actor named Jimmi Simpson played Daniel Bresson, a priest who had been unjustly accused of pedophila, transferred to several parishes, but the accusation kept following him. Bitter and alcoholic, the priest had lost his faith. He was starting in on a night of drinking when someone banged on the door, he answered it, and it was Jesus, thorned and bleeding, floating a foot off the floor.

House's support drs were underwhelmed with House's choice for a patient, alcoholism being the main suspect, until House discovered the priest had both lost his faith and the priest was an engaging atheist. House and the priest had a couple of smug conversations supporting the logic of their atheism. When the pedophilia charge was uncovered, Taub didn't believe the priest. The priest (like every other patient House has) started exhibiting odd symptoms, one of his toes falling off for starters, an apparent heart attack in a hyperbaric tank, and then he started exhibiting AIDS symptoms but refused to be tested. Taub, convinced the priest was lying, somehow (?) tracked down the teenager who had accused the priest. The young man only asked if the priest was dying, Taub said yes, the boy refused to talk anymore about it.

As "Job-like" symptoms begin to appear, the priest developed boils and was put in isolation. In a dramatic moment while Kutner and Taub were with the priest, the young boy barges into the room, goes to his knees and asks the priest's forgiveness for apparently lying about the accusation. While the priest and the boy both have tears streaming down their faces, the priest forgives the boy while a stunned Kutner and Taub look on.

House, perplexed by the symptoms and wearily listening to Wilson lecture House about another subplot, has a moment of clarity, erases "hallucination" from the list of symptoms, and goes to confront the priest.
Turns out the priest has a genetic disorder that mimics AIDS, but isn't fatal. A well done dramatic moment as House presents the facts to the priest, the priest has an epiphany. Although each symptom has a logical explanation (two drinks into a 6 drink night gives the priest a hallucination? the priest doubts it too), the priest thinks it's too many coincidences. Despite a hollow plea from House (and some House forehead cane-leaning looking suspiciously like prayer), the priest recovers his faith and House loses another atheist.

Nice episode, and it's passing the time *whistling*............

[musing_11]

i find i liked House a lot more back in the day. i still like it, but i don't love watching it like i used to

[Cathy904]

i find i liked House a lot more back in the day. i still like it, but i don't love watching it like i used to

I don't like it like I used to also, but I'm desperate! Just as long as I don't start a thread on "Cops greatest Chases", you'll know I'm okay.

Last night's show, 2/23, gave House a solution some of us had been waiting for, pain control that actually works. He went on methadone, which freaked Cuddy and Wilson out. He did stop breathing once while taking a nap in his office, Foreman did his own version of CPR by giving House a double Nipple Twister! House came to gasping, and I couldn't help but laugh. "13 is the only one allowed to do that to me again!"

House and 13 continued their charade about being broken up, but were starting to get paranoid about someone suspecting they were still together. House had threatened them last week that he couldn't use a 'contented' couple, even though Chase and Cameron's affair didn't bother him. Kutner and Taub started planting doubts about their secrecy. Taub lost the bet to Kutner once Foreman and 13 admitted they were still together. House, being distracted with the methadone, hasn't noticed yet. Although House had a look on his face when 13 showed up in sexy heels at the end which would make Me nervous if he were scrutinzing me.

Long story short, although he looked consistantly depressed the whole show, it was a thoughtful House I wasn't used to watching. He Shaved! He looks good shaved! But his new-found 'not mean, at least' niceness caused an error in judgement.

He let the parents of a sick child dictate that the child needed an MRI. House gave the child contrast, which dominoed in all kinds of symptoms since the child was dehydrated.

I felt for Cuddy at the end, she had dictated House could keep his job if she could administer the methadone (he employed hookers to watch him sleep so he wouldn't stop breathing again, 'they're cheaper than nurses' ). He refused the methadone after the medical mistake, choosing pain and bitterness gargling Vicoden over methadone. The look on Cuddy's face as House limped down the hall with his cane was touching.

So we get the 5-day beard shadow and frightening countenance back. Too bad.

What can I say, it was the highlight of my television watching night .

[Elly]

my sister is bonkers over this show lol she never misses an episode kinda like me with Fringe lol ive never saw it before tho but shes trying to get me to watch it, it looks pretty interesting

[musing_11]

i liked this episode but it was kind of hard to watch because my uncle just got out of rehab for a methadone addiction (his doctors were retarded and got him hooked on it after a surgery) and hearing him talk about is just the saddest thing ever

i like my television to take me away from my life, not remind me of it

[Cathy904]

i liked this episode but it was kind of hard to watch because my uncle just got out of rehab for a methadone addiction (his doctors were retarded and got him hooked on it after a surgery) and hearing him talk about is just the saddest thing ever

i like my television to take me away from my life, not remind me of it

I'm rambling about "House" and some other shows 'cause I don't have a tv obsession right now. It won't last after "Fringe" starts up again, or if I put myself in cryogenic freeze till April 7th, which is starting to look more and more attractive!

[Cathy904]

I've got nothing better to do til April 7th, so if you'll bear with me, "House" is the highlight now of my Monday nights. Spoilers ahead if you haven't seen the 3/16 show.

I'm so glad they've normalized 13 just a little. They made her story the first dramatic subplot of the season, and by December critics were calling for 13's demise, or at least replacement by Cameron. Putting her in the background, giving the character a rest, is a great idea.

Taub, poor Taub! His crises were much more relatable, and crises that make for good television. 13's Huntington's Chorea, one-night bisexual stands was too much drama I couldn't relate to. Taub on the other hand, there's his plummet from very wealthy ranks after a bad affair with a partner's daughter. He had to sign a noncompetitive agreement to escape public scandal, leading him to the long auditions of last year, to being middleaged in what has been a younger doctor's game doing Dr. House's bidding. Taub was at a pinnacle, he was respected, he had his glass office. Now we learn most of his finances have been wiped out by the recent stock market crash. We've seen glimpses of Rachel, she seems very likeable, but not saintly, in other words, a normal long-married wife who seems to have been happy for most of it. They've had their disagreements over children (she didn't want them, he did, I can relate), but she seems willing to stand by him. He's a middleaged man who has perhaps seen the best of his material life, and it hurts.

I've enjoyed Taub for most of the season, but now I'm Really enjoying the character. The situation feels so real, the actor was a fine addition to the show, he can stand up to House in a way nobody else can. I can SO relate to the drop in job status, although nothing has technically changed for me. It's an age and looks thing, mostly. Of course now, this is about me

Another of those moments at the end when House sees the back of Taub slumping into the chair, you go (or I go, at any rate), c'mon, House, show an ounce of compassion, but no. House, who actually has been opening his heart up by millimeters, continues on to the elevator. I hope in the back of my head there will be a little more empathy in the future between them, but then there's this terrific friction that makes terrific drama.

If Taub seemed helpless, Kutner was a delicious exercise in revenge. I really couldn't watch House for a couple of years because the man was just too damn mean. I get it, he's in pain, he's bitter, and he can't stand for anyone around him to be happy. But still, some of his little sadistic measures get repellent. So he begins to taunt Kutner about Kutner's superstitions. Admittedly, Kutner, not 13, has long been the weak link for me. I couldn't, and still can't understand how Kutner beat Amber (I know, she'd never felt defeat before, but someone as sunny as Kutner with Bah Humbug House?). As soon as House spit up blood on Kutner, I yelled, "It's the cat! The cat's killing people." Then you find out it's cranberry juice, and I think even House has gone too far, spitting 'blood' in anyone's face is frightening in this age of AIDS. So I had to laugh, first in confusion when the chair wobbled as House flew out of it, 13's amazement, "How are you still alive?", capped off by Kutner's smug, "Who said it was cat pee?" struck a blow for the way House metaphorically craps on his staff sometimes.

But the show closed on Taub, first seeing an escape from House's more intense than usual mistreatment, then Taub finding out he was completely conned by an old high school acquaintance who almost took what little money Taub had left and quitting to accept a 'position' at the conman's firm, when in reality, the man was a receptionist who was arrested as Taub arrived for his first day at work at his new job. Yes, it seems more fantastical now that I look at it on paper, but it played out beautifully onscreen. I was sitting there thinking how can the show get Taub back 'cause I really didn't want to lose the character. "I'm telling Rachel we don't have to downsize, but maybe we really do have to downsize." Kutner doesn't seem like he could be much of a friend, but Taub's retort about Kutner playing "Gears of War" with 3000 Korean guys online at night, "Why doesn't your avatar just ask their avatar how they're doing?" Oh Man, I flinched at that.

So Taub's shoulders slump. He looks at the bear claws House told him to bring when Taub would return from quitting with his tail between his legs. And to complete that metaphor, the cat jumps up on the table and Taub contemplates what crap he'll have to clean up from House in the future.
Tremendous character show. The medical subplot? It had to do with the cat predicting death, but the 'medical' part is only a reason for me to watch this wonderful parade of characters.

[Cathy904]

Well, damn. Anybody else see the April 6th show?

On a positive note, or maybe out of nervousness, the preview part for "Fringe" was funny,
"WHAT?!"

[musing_11]

i caught the back half of tonights episode, was it just me, or was the entire episode's lighting/processing a little darker than usual?

loved seeing Fringe after it too, reminded me the show was back tomorrow and then i got all excited and whatnot

[Cathy904]

I don't live and breathe for "House" the way I can for *cough* other shows, but msnbc and one of it's most interesting writers, Helen A.S.Popkin, finally addressed the wierdness that occurred on April 6th with the untimely demise of happy-go-lucky Dr. Kutner. Wednesday my favorite (and free) news source finally caught up with some facebook and other memorials for the fictitious character.

For you UK'ers, (I wish you could get our links!), it's titled, "You're sitting too close to the Internet", and at one point she says, "Do we need to turn off the Internet and just go outside and play?"

You're sitting too close to the Internet
Dr. Kutner, a popular character on the T.V. show "House," is killed off and the network throws up a memorial site so fans can "grieve." Blurring the divisions between real life and the TV box via the Interwebs is no longer new or exciting. Now it's just bizarre.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30114251/from/ET/