House: 4.09 Games--they shoulda called this one on account of rain. Or stupidity.
The conclusion of last night's episode left me confused and disappointed and angry and irritable. Oh, and did I mention confused? Continuity gods, why dost thou continue to forsake us? Our forgiveness for last season's Tritter arc wasn't a large enough sacrifice?
And speaking of arcs. I enjoyed the Stacy arc. *ducks*
I tolerated the Vogler arc [well, really I just pretty much ignored it.].
I despised the Tritter arc.
The Survivor arc? Makes me want to crawl into bed with my seasons one and two DVDs, and pretend to be awaiting season three. It's not that I despised it. It's not that I enjoyed it. It's that I didn't care one way or the other. And that? Saddens me.
Some questions. Where is the medical mystery that drove season one? Where is the characterization that drove season two? And even--where are the highs and lows that drove season three? But most importantly: Where the hell is Dr. Gregory House, the brilliant, damaged genius whose glimpes of humanity and vulnerability were all the sweeter because the rest of the time we were slicing ourselves on his barbed-wire personality?
For me, the character of House has become a caricature of himself--and a poorly drawn one, at that. I feel no sympathy for S4 House, nor even empathy. I love him still--but that's only because I can still remember how utterly complicated, how poignant, how amusing, he used to be. I'm able to recreate that man with my fiction because I know that--underneath this season's confused, self-indulgent, shallow idiot, that man still exists. He's simply hidden underneath the rubble of bad writing and inconsistent characterization. Not his fault.
And where is Wilson? You know who I mean--that man who was House's anchor and his foil, his conscience and his catalyst, his reason for not throwing in the towel and completely, finally, turning his back on the human race? The man who, with one gaze would have let both House and the audience know, last week, that he was worried sick about his abused, mistreated, misunderstood, vulnerable best friend?
I can't complain about the House-Wilson dynamic this season, because there is no House-Wilson dynamic this season. I've adored watching Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard revel in each other's company each time they're on screen together. I've cheered on the rare occasion when they've been able, solely through their skills as actors, to overcome the horrid writing and convey true glimpses of the complex men each has worked so hard to create. And I've sighed sadly when even they are unable to overcome the writers' lack of characterization and continuity, and a scene between them comes off forced, or phoned in.
The plotline involving Wilson last night is a prime example of the reasons for my despair. Yeah--I get that Wilson is a good-hearted, sincere, upstanding fellow who was about to let a patient walk all over him. I get that it was House's job to prevent that from happening. I even get that the writers may have been attempting to convey to us a Deep Message about the way the two are always looking out for one another. What I don't get is why they couldn't give us a lousy three-second shot of House staring after Wilson, concern evident in his eyes, a la season one [just as, last week, I wanted the same three-second shot of Wilson's eyes, brimming with compassion, as he looked at his ill, defeated friend]. Instead, they left us to figure out for ourselves what House had done, and why. And I'll tell ya--after last night's show, I visited a few chat and message boards, and was unsurprised to discover that the majority of posting viewers had totally missed the well-hidden intent of the plotline.
I want House back. I want Wilson back. I want the House-Wilson dynamic back. And--because I am a foolish optimist, with unshaken faith in Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard--I will continue to watch the show faithfully, awaiting the day when the medical mysteries again capture my avid attention, the day when the writing again makes me laugh and cry and sigh and snort, all in the space of five minutes--the day when House and Wilson, the current confusing and separate entities, become again House-and-Wilson, two intriguing "halves" who make the most complex "whole" on television. Or until the writers succeed in running the show into the ground. Whichever comes first.