Two barking dogs, a chatty mother, a one-second delayed echo in my right ear from the TV upstairs, a pair of grumbling college boys: this is why I didn't want to watch House at A.'s place tonight. Needless to say, I missed a lot of lines.
Let's try this anyway:
Sara Hess has also written:
"Spin" - good
"Sleeping Dogs Lie" - awful
"Finding Judas" - okay
"Act Your Age" - good
This one belongs with "Sleeping Dogs Lie" for its Wilson content, which is to say, almost nil, and as of the foosball scene, as pointless and unsatisfying as the one in SDL where he only showed up to berate House about not pushing Cameron's article. The rest of the episode seemed all right, though: fairly clear developments in the medicine and fellows plots, even if the theme got muddled towards the end.
It finally being lupus was a complete anticlimax, no? I thought they were saving that for the series finale. Even barring that, it didn't get much fanfare; House didn't even announce the diagnosis in front of Allison "It's clearly lupus" Cameron. (Where the heck were she and Chase? They couldn't have been in a supply closet all episode.)
My favorite parts… I liked the "You're AB negative, you take from everybody" / "You're O, you donate to everybody" exchange. That's classic House/Wilson right there. And when Wilson pursed his lips and called him out on recklessly endangering his life again.
I thought it was very creepy when Cole and Thirteen knocked out House and biopsied him. He's the power center of the show, dominating everybody, always moving, always talking; to see him lying there, physically helpless, bested, at their mercy, just an unconscious body on a table, was very uncomfortable, in a way most of his encounters with Vogler and Tritter didn't invoke-I say "most" because an exception was when Tritter tripped him in the clinic, another instance of physically subduing him. They knocked him out and violated him with biopsy needles against his wishes; I'm surprised he didn't freak out more when he woke up, considering his reactions when Stacy, Cuddy and Wilson did similar things to him. But on the theme of my favorite parts, I liked when he woke up, tested his restraints, joked with Thirteen about moving fast on a first date, and then looked like he'd fallen a little bit more in love with her. And not just because it's more potential evidence that House likes bondage and domination. It looked like some mixture of being aroused and impressed; this is the kind of manipulation he likes in his team. With this new "eye for an eye" sense of justice, Thirteen is like where we left off with Cameron last season.
Clearly Cole had made a deal with Cuddy; I didn't guess that she'd made him promise something in return. I'd feel bad about the bad blood (heh) between Cole and Kutner if we'd had any real sense that they were friends in previous weeks. It's too bad, because he was the only one paying attention to the patient all episode. Well, him and Thirteen.
I wonder if almost-firing Amber and Kutner means that next week they'll actually fire Thirteen or Taub. That would suck.
Amber's become a one-note harpy already, which doesn't bode well for her in future episodes, if she's chosen. Dear Sara Hess, It is not a good idea to have a fairly new character summarize herself to another character who's been there as long as she has, Sincerely, a well-meaning fan. P.S. More Wilson plz.
I'm forgetting stuff. I missed stuff. I want to watch again to pick apart the points they made about knowledge and magic/wonder: especially the one about wonder not being real if it can be explained (wtf?), and whether House could ever run out of questions.
I have to say, though, a friend of the family has Huntington's Disease, and it sucks. If I were Thirteen, I don't think I could bring myself to take the test either. It can't be easy living with the uncertainty, but at least she doesn't know for sure that she's going to die a protracted, frustrating, terrifying death. It's an interesting argument she makes about how holding off on the test allows her the potential--or, in House's view, gives her an excuse she wouldn't need if she weren't a coward--and, ha, what a thing for him to say, considering how he's treating himself--to live a full life with the adventurous spirit of someone who lives for each day. We all noticed the parallels to the scene with Cameron's HIV results, yes? And how here House didn't check out the results beforehand (I guess that was a meta reference-"callback," right?-in Thirteen's question), and they didn't read the results at all? Yes.
You know House is going to fish that envelope out of the trash later, though.
Or maybe… not? What would it mean if House were somehow swayed by, or wanted to be swayed by, the magician's and Thirteen's brief arguments about letting a little mystery into his life? I just don't see that he could sustain that willful ignorance. Part of what makes House House is his relentless search for answers. If the writers/producers are not going to change him, they certainly can't change that. Eh. Probably it will have been forgotten next week. If not, good for them; I look forward to where they might take it.