DORKAGE: HOUSE 5X24 BOTH SIDES NOW
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT THE WHAT.
HERE ARE SOME TOTALLY INCOHERENT THOUGHTS, WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN CAPSLOCK. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE, I KNOW I'M THREE MONTHS LATE ON THE FLAIL.
Surprise! I lied about the capslock. Only because I couldn't imagine typing everything in capslock and having to proofread it after. IMAGINE it's in capslock, okay?
Nothing particularly smart, revolutionary or intelligent follows, I imagine. Just my ve4ry impressionistic thoughts and views on the episode, a lot of (slightly creepy and pathetic) flailing over House and Cuddy, and a lot of love for Hugh Laurie's blue blue eyes.
- ARE SEASON FINALES FOR THIS SHOW EPIC OR WHAT. Like, seriously. I still count among my favourites the mindfuck that was the Season 2 closer (I'm so bad with titles now), and this one? Was absolutely batshit INSANE. I kind of hate the fact that I couldn't help being spoiled for it over the three months I DIDN'T WATCH IT. So yes, entirely my own fault for not watching it the first chance I got.
- ALTHOUGH, to the episode's credit, allow me to say that I knew going in that House winds up in a psych hospital by the end of the season, and presumably starts out there in Season Six. I also knew that the House/Cuddy sexage that made my pathetically flaily little shipper's heart so happy was all part of House's hallucinations. But... the episode was unbelievable. I KNEW all of that, and I still had the best time getting wrapped up in it, and trying to puzzle my way through the entire thing, and - in a great parallel, in fact, with the Season 2 closer - watching House diagnose his way out of his hallucinations and straight into a mental hospital. SO AMAZING.
- Hugh Fucking King Of The Fucking World Laurie, to give him his full name, if you please. I want to marry this man for his eyes talent - sorry, the eyes thing was just a kneejerk reaction to the gorgeous, ghostly blue of his eyes in the final scenes when Cuddy is confronting him and he comes to the revelation that he was his own patient all along. So fucking haunting, but also: every time I watch this show, but more than ever in this episode, I just want to tell him he is one of the most amazing actors of his GENERATION, that he is doing unbelievable, important, incredible work on House. Whatever wankery goes on in the fandom, between the ships and the whatnot, I hope we are all agreed on THAT, at least. The utter heartbreak and horror in his face - that wasn't there but was in his EYES... just the hauntedness at the end, when he realises that, yes, he might REALLY have gone round the bend this time and lost the one thing that he has always prized above all else (his intellect, his way of reading the world and deciphering and interpreting it for himself).
- Here's something I LOVE: House's fear that he will lose what sets him apart - his mental acuity and his ability to always "do it again" (as he proudly announces at the heart surgery of Schizo!POTW) - has always been a recurring theme in the series. Concern from the other characters that his reliance on drugs to dull the pain actually impairs his judgement. HIS concern that not taking the drugs allows the pain to consume his rationality. It is part of the entire House-ian enterprise: his ego, his quest, his mission. And what unravels it? Not JUST the drug on which he is dependent, not simply his brain or his logic per se, but the sheer weight of the guilt (the EMOTION, the attachment) that came from (unintentionally) causing Amber's death and failing to prevent Kutner's. I thought that was fucking BRILLIANT. I mean, it boils down to House priding himself on his ability to notice everything, to pick up every clue, to play the detective who saves lives while squandering his own... so logic, in a fashion. But also... when it comes down to it, it's his mind breaking under the strain of what logic, ultimately, cannot unravel. Fate, chance, the coincidences and events that led to Amber's death. The choice of another human being to take his or her life. Logic cannot explain these events, House's brain cannot explain either these events or how he was unable to prevent them from happening. And so it got twisted in... this.
- And what a gloriously messed-up 'this' it was. Oh god. That final scene - when they cut House's hallucinations with what had really happened - it was... such an OBVIOUS thing to do, but it was so incredibly well done. Limping down the hallway - kissing Cuddy - twisting that lipstick in his fingers, a smile on his lips - and all the time it was his Vicodin. Some kind of effed-up: I guess that's how I've always loved House.
- But, yes, getting back to the emotional attachment thing: I LOVE that the reason his mind starts playing tricks on him is, because, fundamentally, he cannot figure out how he lost these people in his life. House's way of showing affection, perhaps - but the way he takes responsibility and blames himself for Amber's death (because he would, and because Wilson means so much to him), and even for Kutner's (a minion he treats with disdain at the best of times)... THIS is how House shows he cares for other people. HE GOES INSANE. A++++
- AND NOW I GET TO FLAIL ABOUT HOUSE/CUDDY. Except... no, because omg this is some kind of screwed-up. I mean, it is possibly the most intensely... romantic episode in House, ever, but of course, this being HOUSE, the romance progresses in possibly the most perverse way ever. On the surface, there is poo, strippers, and embarrassing Cuddy beyond anything he's ever done before and making her cry. WELL DONE, HOUSE. IN YOUR VERNACULAR, THIS IS A PROFESSION OF UNDYING LOVE AS SWEET CHERUBS SING IN THE HEAVENS. But at the bottom of it all, and this part is so fucking romantic it's really kind of SICK, is that he needs her and wants to need her and he... DOES love Cuddy, he DOES want that chance with her, his brain tells him he wants it, and so he goes out to get it, finally - except he's CRAZY AND IT NEVER HAPPENED AT ALL. He wanted it though. So that counts for something, right? God. I love how completely messed-up and layered and just FUCKED this ship is.
- NO WORDS for how amazingly Hugh played this entire arc. From the way he treats Cuddy at the beginning, when he is blissfully unaware that the sex the night before was a figment of his imagination: that is just pure, mischievous House, hoping to get a rise out of Cuddy, to engage in that semi-sexual back-and-forth they've always enjoyed. He thinks she's playing the adult, having second thoughts... and instead of backing off, he aggressively plays for keeps. AGAIN, SO ROMANTIC. But, at the end, when he confronts her after she fires him: Hugh plays House as HURTING, as actually just... completely shell-shocked and unable to comprehend WHY she is reacting THIS WAY, when he is (for him) laying all his cards on the table, ASKING HER TO MOVE IN WITH HIM, admitting how much he needs her. (That was perhaps the best of all: when she says, what, all you did was insult me and I walked away, as usual, and he says - no, I told you I needed you... and then that LOOK on his face - FUCK DID NONE OF THAT HAPPEN? - heartbreaking.) Of course, the fucked-up thing, as always with this show/character/relationship, is that she's operating with an entirely different frame of reference: she didn't help him detox, they didn't have sex, they didn't... open a new chapter. She got insulted, and went home... and then was horribly embarrassed in front of all her staff. (The best part is that if they DID have sex, everything he did after that? WOULD have been part of their mating dance. And would have been oddly, intensely romantic... except now it's just, in its way, horribly tragic.)
- But, being a House/Cuddy shipper from way back, allow me to say: yes, in my head, House and Cuddy are living happily ever after in snarky companionship (with a dose of angst here or there). But I LOVE how the writers have brought this ship into the show. House is a messed-up dude. Cuddy is fantastically sane and mature in comparison, but she's not without her blind spots (big one spelt G-R-E-G-H-O-U-S-E). Their relationship? As screwed-up as it should be. And here it is, playing out as that one key hallucination that so happily cloaks House's perceptions but also, finally, proves to him that he is crazier than ANYONE actually thought he might be.
- Lisa Edelstein continues to be actual amazing in her part. I want her to win lots of acting awards because she does such DAMN GOOD WORK (FINDING JUDAS, EXCUSE ME PLZ). It's not easy going up against Hugh Laurie, okay. NOT EASY. For there to be that insane amount of chemistry? And she was so heartbreaking in this episode. When she came up to him in the hall, furious and CRYING? That was amazing. And when she started laughing at him when he said they should move in together. Omigod I think that broke my heart, as did her little admission in her office - what, I thought we did but clearly we DON'T have a personal relationship.
- AT THIS POINT, ALLOW ME TO ALSO EXPRESS LOTS OF LOVE FOR WILSON, HOUSE/WILSON, AND ROBERT SEAN LEONARD. God, the fandom recently has gone into wank OVERDRIVE, which is why I'm kind of glad I'm appreciating the show by myself (now that summer hiatus has happened and no one cares) and I'm less actively involved in fandom than I used to be. WHY can't people just appreciate the show for what it IS, regardless of your own personal preferences/ships? If you don't like it, you don't like it. Why bash others for liking it? WHATEVER. I LOVE how House, as usual, laid out his nefarious plans to get Cuddy to admit that she looooves him to Wilson. Those scenes made me giggle, and flail, and I LOVE it when House and Wilson banter with each other with... that electricity and charm and SPARK that they have. Legit there was a moment when Wilson was baiting House, and House was snarking back, when I went: THIS. THIS IS MY SHOW, AND THIS IS WHY. ♥ Oh, my favourite? When Wilson was all WHY DOES THE CUP PROVE ANYTHING, and House responded that he was going to get Cuddy angry so that she would either... well, jump him, or kill him? LMAO I LOVED THAT.
- HUGH LAURIE'S BLUE BLUE EYES NEED TO BE MENTIONED AGAIN, BECAUSE IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I'VE FLAILED ABOUT THEM IN CAPSLOCK. Also, RSL is looking sooooooo fine. ♥
- Okay, on to the *ahem* other parts of the episode. FUN POTW, to add into the mix, because that whole left-side-of-the-body TOTES HATES MY GIRLFRIEND thing was really funny. I think I need a couple more watches to really figure this all out (because House!symbolism, you are tricksy and layered and that's why I heart you so), but I LOVE how the left/right-brain dichotomy and debate mirrors so closely the theme of the episode. I would argue that it really centres on House's HEART (see how it mirrors the last episode of Season 4, which was titled Wilson's Heart, following on House's HEAD), but the left brain (all logic, rationality, interpretation and understanding) and right brain (emotion, insight, etc i.e., the heart) dichotomy works too. The part about how the POTW would rather that side of him dies - that pesky part of him that clouds the reason, that engenders affection, that feels love - would be the clear parallel to House: how he always prefers less emotional attachment to the subject/patient, how he acts like a child with the people that matter most to him (testing how far he can push them, still measuring their love rather than enjoying it), all of that. Fantastic.
- Chase/Cameron. OKAY. I REALLY REALLY LIKE THEM. I've always liked them, partly for the shallow reasons that Chase is pretty and this keeps Cam away from House, but really I always thought they were an interesting pairing on the show, and when they work, they really WORK. And Jennifer Morrison brought it in that scene at her locker, when Chase asks if Cameron really wants to kill her dead husband's sperm. When he suggests to her that she doesn't because it would mean killing the last thing she has of someone she loved dearly... oh god, I almost cried at that. Jennifer's reaction was killer. The random wedding at the end was random (WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T CANCEL THE WEDDING PREPARATIONS, CAMERON, WTF?), but okay, they needed that contrast of a new life beginning, the hope shining from the faces of Chase and Cameron, with the windswept moor/grey darkness of impending madness colour theme that went with Wilson taking House to the nuthouse. Can I just say: that wedding scene must have been SEVERAL KINDS OF AWKWARD for Jennifer and Jesse. I don't know... HOW they did it, after breaking their engagement. :\
- AND OKAY. That wasn't... very smart or well-organised and was just a jumble of thoughts thrown out in pretty much random fashion. There's so much MORE, which I don't have any more time to go into, and surely can't until I've watched the episode again anyway. But I... looooved this episode, and I LOVE being reminded why I love this show so much, and I don't care if other people think it's jumped the shark or are indulging in epic fandom wars or WHATEVER. I love this show, the acting, the writing, the way it makes me THINK, and care for these characters. Especially that ornery, cranky, misanthropic bastard of a main character. Oof. Want it to be September 21 TODAY, please...
Oh, and because I'm now devouring House interviews and such after watching the finale, I thought this was a great way of expressing what it is about House's hallucination about Cuddy I really liked:
Jacobs said the fake sex will have very real repercussions for Huddy once House is sprung from the asylum. "I don't think he hallucinated that scenario with someone he works with and someone he has feelings for in some random way," she pointed out. "I think that was his mind telling him something, and I think fans can count on that story not being over yet. For me, that was the twist that was most symbolic of how serious his mental illness is. Hearing a voice that manifests itself as Amber is one sort of random thing, but Cuddy is a real person who is still alive and still in his life. It is meaningful, just not in the way that Huddy fans were hoping for."
I certainly didn't need it in the way Huddy fans were hoping for (though it would have been nice, ha ha). I'm just happy that this show is still as challenging and daring and screwed-up and yes, meaningful, as it ever was and ever has been. ♥
Also, I always love what Lisa has to say about the House/Cuddy relationship. She plays it like I see it.
House will never change... because if House changes, we don't have this show anymore... but I think that WHO he is is what Cuddy loves. I'm not sure that it's necessary for him to change at all for them to have this horrible relationship move a bit forward. It will NEVER be a happy relationship, but happy is not what either of these people are anyway.
In the end of Season Five, we find out a lot more about House's feelings for Cuddy and what she means to him. They're really important episodes, actually, in terms of that relationship. And I love that. I love the depth to which he relies on her and needs her is very deep, much deeper than he reveals on a day-to-day basis. And his ability to hurt her is also - she's extremely vulnerable to him. So these are two really shut-down, afraid people who get under each other's skin no matter what. It's fun.
This is... pretty much what has grabbed me about their relationship... FOREVER. ♥ ♥ ♥
As I keep adding fun quotes that pretty much encapsulate my flail for me:
Although the nature of the story precluded any sort of post-coital romantic comedy, it is clear as House limps around his apartment the next morning searching for Cuddy he has fond recollections of their passionate lovemaking, especially after he finds her lipstick on the sink (and smeared on his face). The scene is dialogue-free but, said Egan, "the script directions describe it as a ‘sort of Christmas morning happiness.’" That is exactly the sense you get from House’s quiet delight, played impeccably by Laurie: a faint smile, a gleam in his eye - afterglow. “That is one great thing about these shows," noted Egan. "You put something like that into a script and Hugh or someone else… it’s so perfect. It’s wonderful to watch. It’s like being God (seeing your creation come alive)."
OH GOD. Take the entire interview with Doris Egan, it's SO GOOD, and sums up/clarifies the episode beautifully.
In other news, I was completely useless as work. One of my colleagues had her last day today and we went out for Japanese to celebrate and wish her well. I wished it was MY last day.
And that is all, really.
HERE ARE SOME TOTALLY INCOHERENT THOUGHTS, WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN CAPSLOCK. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE, I KNOW I'M THREE MONTHS LATE ON THE FLAIL.
Surprise! I lied about the capslock. Only because I couldn't imagine typing everything in capslock and having to proofread it after. IMAGINE it's in capslock, okay?
Nothing particularly smart, revolutionary or intelligent follows, I imagine. Just my ve4ry impressionistic thoughts and views on the episode, a lot of (slightly creepy and pathetic) flailing over House and Cuddy, and a lot of love for Hugh Laurie's blue blue eyes.
- ARE SEASON FINALES FOR THIS SHOW EPIC OR WHAT. Like, seriously. I still count among my favourites the mindfuck that was the Season 2 closer (I'm so bad with titles now), and this one? Was absolutely batshit INSANE. I kind of hate the fact that I couldn't help being spoiled for it over the three months I DIDN'T WATCH IT. So yes, entirely my own fault for not watching it the first chance I got.
- ALTHOUGH, to the episode's credit, allow me to say that I knew going in that House winds up in a psych hospital by the end of the season, and presumably starts out there in Season Six. I also knew that the House/Cuddy sexage that made my pathetically flaily little shipper's heart so happy was all part of House's hallucinations. But... the episode was unbelievable. I KNEW all of that, and I still had the best time getting wrapped up in it, and trying to puzzle my way through the entire thing, and - in a great parallel, in fact, with the Season 2 closer - watching House diagnose his way out of his hallucinations and straight into a mental hospital. SO AMAZING.
- Hugh Fucking King Of The Fucking World Laurie, to give him his full name, if you please. I want to marry this man for his eyes talent - sorry, the eyes thing was just a kneejerk reaction to the gorgeous, ghostly blue of his eyes in the final scenes when Cuddy is confronting him and he comes to the revelation that he was his own patient all along. So fucking haunting, but also: every time I watch this show, but more than ever in this episode, I just want to tell him he is one of the most amazing actors of his GENERATION, that he is doing unbelievable, important, incredible work on House. Whatever wankery goes on in the fandom, between the ships and the whatnot, I hope we are all agreed on THAT, at least. The utter heartbreak and horror in his face - that wasn't there but was in his EYES... just the hauntedness at the end, when he realises that, yes, he might REALLY have gone round the bend this time and lost the one thing that he has always prized above all else (his intellect, his way of reading the world and deciphering and interpreting it for himself).
- Here's something I LOVE: House's fear that he will lose what sets him apart - his mental acuity and his ability to always "do it again" (as he proudly announces at the heart surgery of Schizo!POTW) - has always been a recurring theme in the series. Concern from the other characters that his reliance on drugs to dull the pain actually impairs his judgement. HIS concern that not taking the drugs allows the pain to consume his rationality. It is part of the entire House-ian enterprise: his ego, his quest, his mission. And what unravels it? Not JUST the drug on which he is dependent, not simply his brain or his logic per se, but the sheer weight of the guilt (the EMOTION, the attachment) that came from (unintentionally) causing Amber's death and failing to prevent Kutner's. I thought that was fucking BRILLIANT. I mean, it boils down to House priding himself on his ability to notice everything, to pick up every clue, to play the detective who saves lives while squandering his own... so logic, in a fashion. But also... when it comes down to it, it's his mind breaking under the strain of what logic, ultimately, cannot unravel. Fate, chance, the coincidences and events that led to Amber's death. The choice of another human being to take his or her life. Logic cannot explain these events, House's brain cannot explain either these events or how he was unable to prevent them from happening. And so it got twisted in... this.
- And what a gloriously messed-up 'this' it was. Oh god. That final scene - when they cut House's hallucinations with what had really happened - it was... such an OBVIOUS thing to do, but it was so incredibly well done. Limping down the hallway - kissing Cuddy - twisting that lipstick in his fingers, a smile on his lips - and all the time it was his Vicodin. Some kind of effed-up: I guess that's how I've always loved House.
- But, yes, getting back to the emotional attachment thing: I LOVE that the reason his mind starts playing tricks on him is, because, fundamentally, he cannot figure out how he lost these people in his life. House's way of showing affection, perhaps - but the way he takes responsibility and blames himself for Amber's death (because he would, and because Wilson means so much to him), and even for Kutner's (a minion he treats with disdain at the best of times)... THIS is how House shows he cares for other people. HE GOES INSANE. A++++
- AND NOW I GET TO FLAIL ABOUT HOUSE/CUDDY. Except... no, because omg this is some kind of screwed-up. I mean, it is possibly the most intensely... romantic episode in House, ever, but of course, this being HOUSE, the romance progresses in possibly the most perverse way ever. On the surface, there is poo, strippers, and embarrassing Cuddy beyond anything he's ever done before and making her cry. WELL DONE, HOUSE. IN YOUR VERNACULAR, THIS IS A PROFESSION OF UNDYING LOVE AS SWEET CHERUBS SING IN THE HEAVENS. But at the bottom of it all, and this part is so fucking romantic it's really kind of SICK, is that he needs her and wants to need her and he... DOES love Cuddy, he DOES want that chance with her, his brain tells him he wants it, and so he goes out to get it, finally - except he's CRAZY AND IT NEVER HAPPENED AT ALL. He wanted it though. So that counts for something, right? God. I love how completely messed-up and layered and just FUCKED this ship is.
- NO WORDS for how amazingly Hugh played this entire arc. From the way he treats Cuddy at the beginning, when he is blissfully unaware that the sex the night before was a figment of his imagination: that is just pure, mischievous House, hoping to get a rise out of Cuddy, to engage in that semi-sexual back-and-forth they've always enjoyed. He thinks she's playing the adult, having second thoughts... and instead of backing off, he aggressively plays for keeps. AGAIN, SO ROMANTIC. But, at the end, when he confronts her after she fires him: Hugh plays House as HURTING, as actually just... completely shell-shocked and unable to comprehend WHY she is reacting THIS WAY, when he is (for him) laying all his cards on the table, ASKING HER TO MOVE IN WITH HIM, admitting how much he needs her. (That was perhaps the best of all: when she says, what, all you did was insult me and I walked away, as usual, and he says - no, I told you I needed you... and then that LOOK on his face - FUCK DID NONE OF THAT HAPPEN? - heartbreaking.) Of course, the fucked-up thing, as always with this show/character/relationship, is that she's operating with an entirely different frame of reference: she didn't help him detox, they didn't have sex, they didn't... open a new chapter. She got insulted, and went home... and then was horribly embarrassed in front of all her staff. (The best part is that if they DID have sex, everything he did after that? WOULD have been part of their mating dance. And would have been oddly, intensely romantic... except now it's just, in its way, horribly tragic.)
- But, being a House/Cuddy shipper from way back, allow me to say: yes, in my head, House and Cuddy are living happily ever after in snarky companionship (with a dose of angst here or there). But I LOVE how the writers have brought this ship into the show. House is a messed-up dude. Cuddy is fantastically sane and mature in comparison, but she's not without her blind spots (big one spelt G-R-E-G-H-O-U-S-E). Their relationship? As screwed-up as it should be. And here it is, playing out as that one key hallucination that so happily cloaks House's perceptions but also, finally, proves to him that he is crazier than ANYONE actually thought he might be.
- Lisa Edelstein continues to be actual amazing in her part. I want her to win lots of acting awards because she does such DAMN GOOD WORK (FINDING JUDAS, EXCUSE ME PLZ). It's not easy going up against Hugh Laurie, okay. NOT EASY. For there to be that insane amount of chemistry? And she was so heartbreaking in this episode. When she came up to him in the hall, furious and CRYING? That was amazing. And when she started laughing at him when he said they should move in together. Omigod I think that broke my heart, as did her little admission in her office - what, I thought we did but clearly we DON'T have a personal relationship.
- AT THIS POINT, ALLOW ME TO ALSO EXPRESS LOTS OF LOVE FOR WILSON, HOUSE/WILSON, AND ROBERT SEAN LEONARD. God, the fandom recently has gone into wank OVERDRIVE, which is why I'm kind of glad I'm appreciating the show by myself (now that summer hiatus has happened and no one cares) and I'm less actively involved in fandom than I used to be. WHY can't people just appreciate the show for what it IS, regardless of your own personal preferences/ships? If you don't like it, you don't like it. Why bash others for liking it? WHATEVER. I LOVE how House, as usual, laid out his nefarious plans to get Cuddy to admit that she looooves him to Wilson. Those scenes made me giggle, and flail, and I LOVE it when House and Wilson banter with each other with... that electricity and charm and SPARK that they have. Legit there was a moment when Wilson was baiting House, and House was snarking back, when I went: THIS. THIS IS MY SHOW, AND THIS IS WHY. ♥ Oh, my favourite? When Wilson was all WHY DOES THE CUP PROVE ANYTHING, and House responded that he was going to get Cuddy angry so that she would either... well, jump him, or kill him? LMAO I LOVED THAT.
- HUGH LAURIE'S BLUE BLUE EYES NEED TO BE MENTIONED AGAIN, BECAUSE IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I'VE FLAILED ABOUT THEM IN CAPSLOCK. Also, RSL is looking sooooooo fine. ♥
- Okay, on to the *ahem* other parts of the episode. FUN POTW, to add into the mix, because that whole left-side-of-the-body TOTES HATES MY GIRLFRIEND thing was really funny. I think I need a couple more watches to really figure this all out (because House!symbolism, you are tricksy and layered and that's why I heart you so), but I LOVE how the left/right-brain dichotomy and debate mirrors so closely the theme of the episode. I would argue that it really centres on House's HEART (see how it mirrors the last episode of Season 4, which was titled Wilson's Heart, following on House's HEAD), but the left brain (all logic, rationality, interpretation and understanding) and right brain (emotion, insight, etc i.e., the heart) dichotomy works too. The part about how the POTW would rather that side of him dies - that pesky part of him that clouds the reason, that engenders affection, that feels love - would be the clear parallel to House: how he always prefers less emotional attachment to the subject/patient, how he acts like a child with the people that matter most to him (testing how far he can push them, still measuring their love rather than enjoying it), all of that. Fantastic.
- Chase/Cameron. OKAY. I REALLY REALLY LIKE THEM. I've always liked them, partly for the shallow reasons that Chase is pretty and this keeps Cam away from House, but really I always thought they were an interesting pairing on the show, and when they work, they really WORK. And Jennifer Morrison brought it in that scene at her locker, when Chase asks if Cameron really wants to kill her dead husband's sperm. When he suggests to her that she doesn't because it would mean killing the last thing she has of someone she loved dearly... oh god, I almost cried at that. Jennifer's reaction was killer. The random wedding at the end was random (WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T CANCEL THE WEDDING PREPARATIONS, CAMERON, WTF?), but okay, they needed that contrast of a new life beginning, the hope shining from the faces of Chase and Cameron, with the windswept moor/grey darkness of impending madness colour theme that went with Wilson taking House to the nuthouse. Can I just say: that wedding scene must have been SEVERAL KINDS OF AWKWARD for Jennifer and Jesse. I don't know... HOW they did it, after breaking their engagement. :\
- AND OKAY. That wasn't... very smart or well-organised and was just a jumble of thoughts thrown out in pretty much random fashion. There's so much MORE, which I don't have any more time to go into, and surely can't until I've watched the episode again anyway. But I... looooved this episode, and I LOVE being reminded why I love this show so much, and I don't care if other people think it's jumped the shark or are indulging in epic fandom wars or WHATEVER. I love this show, the acting, the writing, the way it makes me THINK, and care for these characters. Especially that ornery, cranky, misanthropic bastard of a main character. Oof. Want it to be September 21 TODAY, please...
Oh, and because I'm now devouring House interviews and such after watching the finale, I thought this was a great way of expressing what it is about House's hallucination about Cuddy I really liked:
Jacobs said the fake sex will have very real repercussions for Huddy once House is sprung from the asylum. "I don't think he hallucinated that scenario with someone he works with and someone he has feelings for in some random way," she pointed out. "I think that was his mind telling him something, and I think fans can count on that story not being over yet. For me, that was the twist that was most symbolic of how serious his mental illness is. Hearing a voice that manifests itself as Amber is one sort of random thing, but Cuddy is a real person who is still alive and still in his life. It is meaningful, just not in the way that Huddy fans were hoping for."
I certainly didn't need it in the way Huddy fans were hoping for (though it would have been nice, ha ha). I'm just happy that this show is still as challenging and daring and screwed-up and yes, meaningful, as it ever was and ever has been. ♥
Also, I always love what Lisa has to say about the House/Cuddy relationship. She plays it like I see it.
House will never change... because if House changes, we don't have this show anymore... but I think that WHO he is is what Cuddy loves. I'm not sure that it's necessary for him to change at all for them to have this horrible relationship move a bit forward. It will NEVER be a happy relationship, but happy is not what either of these people are anyway.
In the end of Season Five, we find out a lot more about House's feelings for Cuddy and what she means to him. They're really important episodes, actually, in terms of that relationship. And I love that. I love the depth to which he relies on her and needs her is very deep, much deeper than he reveals on a day-to-day basis. And his ability to hurt her is also - she's extremely vulnerable to him. So these are two really shut-down, afraid people who get under each other's skin no matter what. It's fun.
This is... pretty much what has grabbed me about their relationship... FOREVER. ♥ ♥ ♥
As I keep adding fun quotes that pretty much encapsulate my flail for me:
Although the nature of the story precluded any sort of post-coital romantic comedy, it is clear as House limps around his apartment the next morning searching for Cuddy he has fond recollections of their passionate lovemaking, especially after he finds her lipstick on the sink (and smeared on his face). The scene is dialogue-free but, said Egan, "the script directions describe it as a ‘sort of Christmas morning happiness.’" That is exactly the sense you get from House’s quiet delight, played impeccably by Laurie: a faint smile, a gleam in his eye - afterglow. “That is one great thing about these shows," noted Egan. "You put something like that into a script and Hugh or someone else… it’s so perfect. It’s wonderful to watch. It’s like being God (seeing your creation come alive)."
OH GOD. Take the entire interview with Doris Egan, it's SO GOOD, and sums up/clarifies the episode beautifully.
In other news, I was completely useless as work. One of my colleagues had her last day today and we went out for Japanese to celebrate and wish her well. I wished it was MY last day.
And that is all, really.