ooc: character analysis, plot speculation
aka WHAT THE HELL am I going to do now? This entry, I will cut, because it's going to have some pretty big spoilers from the season finale, but soon enough I'm not going to be cutting things in his personal journal unless someone (anyone, this is your chance to speak up now) would like me to label spoilers for season two.
I'm going to run down the events, the hell of a cliffhanger they left us with, the medical aspects of things, his addiction and ways to get rid of that, plus the 'what if' speculation as well. And what's going on in TM. All while eating breakfast and avoiding getting ready for work.
So. Onwards, I suppose. If you people who want to read, could read, and possibly give your input/feedback, that would be great, and Emma!mun, if I could request you take a peek at the addiction section, I had an idea.
Events - Canon:
A rough outline of the REAL events that happened in the finale, is simple.
- House is in his office, working on a diagnosis. The door opens, a man walks in, and asks for House. House tells him that 'Cameron' is House, but the guy says that she's not.
- Upon wondering how (Moriarty) knows who is who, the guy admits that he was a patient of House's. House starts to snark him about leaving the gift in the other room, but Moriarty draws out a handgun and shoots House in the midsection.
- House hits the ground in shock. The ducklings attempt to get to him but Moriarty aims at them and tells them to stay back. He and House stare at each other, and then Moriarty says "Shocking, isn't it? Who would ever want to hurt you?" and then fires. It goes black, so I'm assuming House blacks out as well.
- The rest of the episode is ALL a hallucination. (Which I will work on next.) So, jump 45 minutes later...
- We have a shot of House being rolled into the ER on a gurney, bleeding heavily (see the icon I used for this post) from the neck. Cameron is holding one hand on his neck and the other is random EMT guy. He's unconcious.
- Right before they shift him onto the bed, he opens his eyes and tells Cameron "Tell Cuddy, I want Ketamine."
- Then, he passes back out, the ducklings (they are all there) all sort of stare in shock/angst/omgbosscan'tdie/ketaminewtf?! woe.
Added Events for TM Canon:
- Just one, really. When House does come to, he tells Cameron to 'get her', meaning Brittany, because he doesn't want her to find out and panic. The rest was played out in RP, I may touch on it later.
Just what IS Ketamine?
Bolded areas are what I've decided to emphasize.
From Wikipedia:
Ketamine was first synthesized in 1962 in an attempt to find a safer anaesthetic alternative to PCP, which was more likely to cause hallucinations and seizures. The drug was first used on American soldiers during the Vietnam War, but is often avoided now because it can cause potentially unpleasant out-of-body experiences. It is still used widely in veterinary medicine, and for select human applications.
Since it suppresses breathing much less than most other available anaesthetics, ketamine is still used in human medicine as a first-choice anaesthetic for victims with unknown medical history (e.g. from traffic accidents), in podiatry and other minor surgery, and occasionally for the treatment of migraine. There is ongoing research in France, Russia, and the U.S. into the drug's usefulness in pain therapy and for the treatment of alcoholism and heroin addiction.
Ketamine is also a potent analgesic and can be used in sub-anaesthetic doses to relieve acute pain; however, its psychotropic properties must be taken into account. Patients have reported going into other worlds or seeing God while anaesthetized, and these unwanted psychological side-effects have marginalized the use of ketamine in human medicine.
From an article [link] in today's New York Times:
she is among an estimated one million Americans living with complex regional pain syndrome, a nerve disorder formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome. For patients with the disorder, a trauma as mild as a fractured wrist or a twisted ankle can cause the nerves to misfire, so much so that intense pain messages are constantly sent to the brain.
Dr. Schwartzman treats the condition with ketamine, an anesthetic that blocks one of the body's pain receptors. In most cases, this five-day inpatient therapy reduced the pain significantly for three to six months, he said.
Dr. Schwartzman has also sent the most extreme cases - the 30 patients who were found to be intractable to all other treatments - to Germany for five days of prolonged ketamine anesthesia, enough to put them into a coma.
Ten patients were completely relieved of their pain, Dr. Schwartzman said, noting that the treatment has not been approved in the United States.
Now, why Ketamine? And what does that have to do with the episode?
- When House hallucinates, his pain goes away to the point where he stops his morphine dosage. He doesn't know why and insists that a surgeon must have screwed up, hit a nerve in his neck. I should note that while he's hallucinating, he KNOWS he's hallucinating, and is trying to stop it and figure out what is real.
- He gets ahold of his surgery notes (a big no-no) and reads that instead of putting him uner with normal anathesia, they put him into a ketamine coma. Without his consent. (Ring a bell of Stacy betraying him, anyone?)
- He goes to confront Cuddy about it, yells, so on, and she's all in shock and teary eyed and says 'it worked' and he's all "WHAT WORKED?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" and she explains about a German (See above, I think we found where the writers found this) trial where they put people in comas and basically restart the nervous system. House is not happy. (More reasoning on that later.)
Now, for the hallucination stuff:
To the best of my ability, it WAS a mindfuck and a half.
- House knew he was hallucinating as he started to put things together. He was actually hallucinating, hallucinating. For much of the episode, he's in the ICU next to Jack Moriarty, the man who didn't try to kill him, just wanted to make him suffer.
- The reason Moriarty shot House was because House had treated his wife awhile back, she didn't die, but during the course of the treatment, it came out that Moriarty had an affair. House told his wife, who survived the treatment, only to kill herself (by sitting in a running car in the garage) when she returned home because of what her husband had done. Hence the 'I want to make you suffer' line, when House asks 'why did you try and kill me'.
- Moriarty is, in the hallucinations, House's nemesis. This is a reference to Professor Moriarty, of Sherlock Holmes, which House is heavily based on.
- House and Moriarty talk. A lot. More than I can remember, quite frankly, but one of the final hallucination scenes has House, standing at a glass wall, writing on it while Moriarty goes on in the background in a very good speech (almost preaching) about him:
Jack: Would anybody care that the world lost that wit? [As Jack speaks, House writes on the glass board with a white marker.]
House: Working, here.
Jack: That’s all right, you don’t have to say anything. Just let me soak into your subconscious. You think that the only truth that matters is the truth that can be measured. Good intentions don’t count, what’s in your heart doesn’t count, caring doesn’t count, that a man’s life can’t be measured by how many tears are shed when he dies. It’s because you can’t measure them. It’s because you don’t want to measure them. Doesn’t mean it’s not real.
House: [looking at his makeshift whiteboard] That does not makes sense.
Jack: And even if I’m wrong, you’re still miserable. Did you really think that your life’s purpose was to sacrifice yourself and get nothing in return? No. [As Jack speaks, we see House in a car with the woman he was speaking to earlier. The car is in a smoke-filled garage.] You believe there is no purpose to anything. Even the lives you save you dismiss. You turn the one decent thing in your life and you taint it, strip it of all meaning. You’re miserable for nothing. I don’t know why you’d want to live.
House: I’m sorry. I know what’s wrong.
Now, the writing on the wall is a motif used in the Book of Daniel [see the Wiki] to:
The writing on the wall (or sometimes 'handwriting on the wall') is an expression that suggests a portent of doom or misfortune. It originates in the Biblical book of Daniel - where supernatural writing fortells the demise of the Babylonian Empire, but it has come to have a wide usage in language and literature.
It's used in this instance to fortell how House will kill himself if he keeps on this path. The fact that he's in the car with Jack's wife, and basically 'commits suicide' with her, shows that he won't go quickly, but it will be slow. The only way he would die slow, at this point, is from the drugs. Which, he needs for the pain. The pain, is the reason for the Ketamine.
So, House doesn't want to die. He knows he's hallucinating it all at this point, then, we get this scene:
Foreman: Hey, hey! This is a nightmare, you’re gonna wake up. It’s real, you’re killing a man!
House: It’s also possible I may already be dead, but I don’t believe in the afterlife.
Cameron: House, go back to your room. If this is a hallucination, it’s a good one: you’re pain free, you can walk -
House: This is not real, therefore it’s meaningless. I want meaning. [He stabs Vince in the bellybutton, and makes a deep incision up to about his stomach. Organs force their way out of his chest. He flatlines quickly. As the team looks on horrified, House walks toward Vince.] Oh, God. [Vince’s hand falls down, and out drops a bullet. House picks it up and clutches it.] Goodbye.
[Cut to House being rushed on a gurney through the halls.]
Foreman: He was shot!
Cameron: Twice!
Chase: Once in the abdomen, once in the neck.
House: Hello.
Cameron: It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.
House: You don’t know that. Tell Cuddy I want ketamine.
AND THEN THE SEASON ENDS.
*stabs writers*
OKAY, that being said, here's my dilemma:
What to do? Is the ketamine going to work? Is it only going to last three to six months? I don't know. I haven't heard any speculation for next season at all and it leaves me in quite the jam, here.
If House is pain free, then, he'll need to detox. I know David Shore has said that 'next season House will deal with his addiction' which makes me wonder if they are going to go this route, heal him up, kick him off the drugs.
But then what is he? A walking miracle? That's so very un-House like. So. For RP right now, I am dabbling in the thought of healing him up, because he DOES want to be painfree and knows the drugs are bad for him. But I don't want to commit to it in case the writers suddenly do a 180 and blow us all out of the water, right? Right.
So. Muse is out of the hospital. Moriarty is dead. As of this point? He is pain free. He can walk normally. He is still on the Vicodin, though, a lower dose, obviously, as he's only taking enough to keep from having withdrawls.
RP wise? He's going on vacation on Saturday and will be 'gone' from replying to people a week. I'll be here so don't think I'm leaving. The muse is just going to be getting a tan and dealing with the aftereffects of nearly dying and leaving his wife and unborn son behind. Fun fun fun in the sun!
When he gets back? It's all up in the air. If I decide that he's going to detox, Jo, I may have him ask Emma for help. Muse knows he's not strong enough to do it on his own and would need some assistance. Though I would have to leave it open ended because if they DON'T heal him up then I don't want to be totally screwed. Open ended in the sense that he could become addicted again. But I'll contemplate more on that later.
So. Questions? Comments? I'll try and clarify.
I'm going to run down the events, the hell of a cliffhanger they left us with, the medical aspects of things, his addiction and ways to get rid of that, plus the 'what if' speculation as well. And what's going on in TM. All while eating breakfast and avoiding getting ready for work.
So. Onwards, I suppose. If you people who want to read, could read, and possibly give your input/feedback, that would be great, and Emma!mun, if I could request you take a peek at the addiction section, I had an idea.
Events - Canon:
A rough outline of the REAL events that happened in the finale, is simple.
- House is in his office, working on a diagnosis. The door opens, a man walks in, and asks for House. House tells him that 'Cameron' is House, but the guy says that she's not.
- Upon wondering how (Moriarty) knows who is who, the guy admits that he was a patient of House's. House starts to snark him about leaving the gift in the other room, but Moriarty draws out a handgun and shoots House in the midsection.
- House hits the ground in shock. The ducklings attempt to get to him but Moriarty aims at them and tells them to stay back. He and House stare at each other, and then Moriarty says "Shocking, isn't it? Who would ever want to hurt you?" and then fires. It goes black, so I'm assuming House blacks out as well.
- The rest of the episode is ALL a hallucination. (Which I will work on next.) So, jump 45 minutes later...
- We have a shot of House being rolled into the ER on a gurney, bleeding heavily (see the icon I used for this post) from the neck. Cameron is holding one hand on his neck and the other is random EMT guy. He's unconcious.
- Right before they shift him onto the bed, he opens his eyes and tells Cameron "Tell Cuddy, I want Ketamine."
- Then, he passes back out, the ducklings (they are all there) all sort of stare in shock/angst/omgbosscan'tdie/ketaminewtf?! woe.
Added Events for TM Canon:
- Just one, really. When House does come to, he tells Cameron to 'get her', meaning Brittany, because he doesn't want her to find out and panic. The rest was played out in RP, I may touch on it later.
Just what IS Ketamine?
Bolded areas are what I've decided to emphasize.
From Wikipedia:
Ketamine was first synthesized in 1962 in an attempt to find a safer anaesthetic alternative to PCP, which was more likely to cause hallucinations and seizures. The drug was first used on American soldiers during the Vietnam War, but is often avoided now because it can cause potentially unpleasant out-of-body experiences. It is still used widely in veterinary medicine, and for select human applications.
Since it suppresses breathing much less than most other available anaesthetics, ketamine is still used in human medicine as a first-choice anaesthetic for victims with unknown medical history (e.g. from traffic accidents), in podiatry and other minor surgery, and occasionally for the treatment of migraine. There is ongoing research in France, Russia, and the U.S. into the drug's usefulness in pain therapy and for the treatment of alcoholism and heroin addiction.
Ketamine is also a potent analgesic and can be used in sub-anaesthetic doses to relieve acute pain; however, its psychotropic properties must be taken into account. Patients have reported going into other worlds or seeing God while anaesthetized, and these unwanted psychological side-effects have marginalized the use of ketamine in human medicine.
From an article [link] in today's New York Times:
she is among an estimated one million Americans living with complex regional pain syndrome, a nerve disorder formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome. For patients with the disorder, a trauma as mild as a fractured wrist or a twisted ankle can cause the nerves to misfire, so much so that intense pain messages are constantly sent to the brain.
Dr. Schwartzman treats the condition with ketamine, an anesthetic that blocks one of the body's pain receptors. In most cases, this five-day inpatient therapy reduced the pain significantly for three to six months, he said.
Dr. Schwartzman has also sent the most extreme cases - the 30 patients who were found to be intractable to all other treatments - to Germany for five days of prolonged ketamine anesthesia, enough to put them into a coma.
Ten patients were completely relieved of their pain, Dr. Schwartzman said, noting that the treatment has not been approved in the United States.
Now, why Ketamine? And what does that have to do with the episode?
- When House hallucinates, his pain goes away to the point where he stops his morphine dosage. He doesn't know why and insists that a surgeon must have screwed up, hit a nerve in his neck. I should note that while he's hallucinating, he KNOWS he's hallucinating, and is trying to stop it and figure out what is real.
- He gets ahold of his surgery notes (a big no-no) and reads that instead of putting him uner with normal anathesia, they put him into a ketamine coma. Without his consent. (Ring a bell of Stacy betraying him, anyone?)
- He goes to confront Cuddy about it, yells, so on, and she's all in shock and teary eyed and says 'it worked' and he's all "WHAT WORKED?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" and she explains about a German (See above, I think we found where the writers found this) trial where they put people in comas and basically restart the nervous system. House is not happy. (More reasoning on that later.)
Now, for the hallucination stuff:
To the best of my ability, it WAS a mindfuck and a half.
- House knew he was hallucinating as he started to put things together. He was actually hallucinating, hallucinating. For much of the episode, he's in the ICU next to Jack Moriarty, the man who didn't try to kill him, just wanted to make him suffer.
- The reason Moriarty shot House was because House had treated his wife awhile back, she didn't die, but during the course of the treatment, it came out that Moriarty had an affair. House told his wife, who survived the treatment, only to kill herself (by sitting in a running car in the garage) when she returned home because of what her husband had done. Hence the 'I want to make you suffer' line, when House asks 'why did you try and kill me'.
- Moriarty is, in the hallucinations, House's nemesis. This is a reference to Professor Moriarty, of Sherlock Holmes, which House is heavily based on.
- House and Moriarty talk. A lot. More than I can remember, quite frankly, but one of the final hallucination scenes has House, standing at a glass wall, writing on it while Moriarty goes on in the background in a very good speech (almost preaching) about him:
Jack: Would anybody care that the world lost that wit? [As Jack speaks, House writes on the glass board with a white marker.]
House: Working, here.
Jack: That’s all right, you don’t have to say anything. Just let me soak into your subconscious. You think that the only truth that matters is the truth that can be measured. Good intentions don’t count, what’s in your heart doesn’t count, caring doesn’t count, that a man’s life can’t be measured by how many tears are shed when he dies. It’s because you can’t measure them. It’s because you don’t want to measure them. Doesn’t mean it’s not real.
House: [looking at his makeshift whiteboard] That does not makes sense.
Jack: And even if I’m wrong, you’re still miserable. Did you really think that your life’s purpose was to sacrifice yourself and get nothing in return? No. [As Jack speaks, we see House in a car with the woman he was speaking to earlier. The car is in a smoke-filled garage.] You believe there is no purpose to anything. Even the lives you save you dismiss. You turn the one decent thing in your life and you taint it, strip it of all meaning. You’re miserable for nothing. I don’t know why you’d want to live.
House: I’m sorry. I know what’s wrong.
Now, the writing on the wall is a motif used in the Book of Daniel [see the Wiki] to:
The writing on the wall (or sometimes 'handwriting on the wall') is an expression that suggests a portent of doom or misfortune. It originates in the Biblical book of Daniel - where supernatural writing fortells the demise of the Babylonian Empire, but it has come to have a wide usage in language and literature.
It's used in this instance to fortell how House will kill himself if he keeps on this path. The fact that he's in the car with Jack's wife, and basically 'commits suicide' with her, shows that he won't go quickly, but it will be slow. The only way he would die slow, at this point, is from the drugs. Which, he needs for the pain. The pain, is the reason for the Ketamine.
So, House doesn't want to die. He knows he's hallucinating it all at this point, then, we get this scene:
Foreman: Hey, hey! This is a nightmare, you’re gonna wake up. It’s real, you’re killing a man!
House: It’s also possible I may already be dead, but I don’t believe in the afterlife.
Cameron: House, go back to your room. If this is a hallucination, it’s a good one: you’re pain free, you can walk -
House: This is not real, therefore it’s meaningless. I want meaning. [He stabs Vince in the bellybutton, and makes a deep incision up to about his stomach. Organs force their way out of his chest. He flatlines quickly. As the team looks on horrified, House walks toward Vince.] Oh, God. [Vince’s hand falls down, and out drops a bullet. House picks it up and clutches it.] Goodbye.
[Cut to House being rushed on a gurney through the halls.]
Foreman: He was shot!
Cameron: Twice!
Chase: Once in the abdomen, once in the neck.
House: Hello.
Cameron: It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.
House: You don’t know that. Tell Cuddy I want ketamine.
AND THEN THE SEASON ENDS.
*stabs writers*
OKAY, that being said, here's my dilemma:
What to do? Is the ketamine going to work? Is it only going to last three to six months? I don't know. I haven't heard any speculation for next season at all and it leaves me in quite the jam, here.
If House is pain free, then, he'll need to detox. I know David Shore has said that 'next season House will deal with his addiction' which makes me wonder if they are going to go this route, heal him up, kick him off the drugs.
But then what is he? A walking miracle? That's so very un-House like. So. For RP right now, I am dabbling in the thought of healing him up, because he DOES want to be painfree and knows the drugs are bad for him. But I don't want to commit to it in case the writers suddenly do a 180 and blow us all out of the water, right? Right.
So. Muse is out of the hospital. Moriarty is dead. As of this point? He is pain free. He can walk normally. He is still on the Vicodin, though, a lower dose, obviously, as he's only taking enough to keep from having withdrawls.
RP wise? He's going on vacation on Saturday and will be 'gone' from replying to people a week. I'll be here so don't think I'm leaving. The muse is just going to be getting a tan and dealing with the aftereffects of nearly dying and leaving his wife and unborn son behind. Fun fun fun in the sun!
When he gets back? It's all up in the air. If I decide that he's going to detox, Jo, I may have him ask Emma for help. Muse knows he's not strong enough to do it on his own and would need some assistance. Though I would have to leave it open ended because if they DON'T heal him up then I don't want to be totally screwed. Open ended in the sense that he could become addicted again. But I'll contemplate more on that later.
So. Questions? Comments? I'll try and clarify.