H/C S6 Review Series: 6.01/6.02 'Broken'
6.01/6.02 Broken
It’s called ‘transference’. It's all good, I can deal...
(MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR UPCOMING EPS)
So this might seem like a weird place to begin my Season 6 House/Cuddy recap/review series, considering there is No Cuddy.
Nevertheless…
I’m skipping a lot of House character-development stuff here, I know, but the whole point of this project is to get to the House/Cuddy. In that spirit, Alvie et al can just move the hell over, for the first part, because what I am concerned with is what House says in therapy. Sure, he’s talking about Lydia, but there can be no question that one of Lydia’s functions in this marvellously intriguing episode is to serve as a stand-in for Cuddy. Seeings as I am only posting these reviews in Huddy-friendly places, I’m not going to bother to duck right now. House checked himself into Mayfield because he was hallucinating; because he felt like his already tenuous-enough grip on reality was slipping further. He hallucinated Amber, he hallucinated Kutner, and he hallucinated Cuddy. Amber said it best, of course:
‘So… this is the story you made up about who you are… it’s a nice one!”
(in creepy ghostish!Amber-voice)
In his wonderfully troubled head, House dreamed that Cuddy saved him.
He dreamed that she helped him, cared for him, slept with him, loved him. And he was happy about this, for a few horribly fleeting moments, before his apocalyptic reality came crashing down upon him once again.
At the very end of ‘Both Sides Now’, he confessed all. Although we did not see it, we can presume that absolutely freaked expression on Cuddy’s face as she led him into Wilson’s office can only be the result of some version or other of the following:
“Oh, I, ah… I thought we had sex. But we didn’t. But I thought we did. In my head. And then I humiliated you in front of the entire hospital. And then I asked you to move in with me, and hell, I was really only half-joking. And then, you fired me. Unfortunately, all of this later stuff didn’t happen just inside my head. Yeah. Sucks to be me, right? So, I’m crazy. Ya dig?”
Not a great conversation to have, really.
But, to my amazement - and probably to House’s too - Cuddy, eternal masochist that she is, managed to withstand all of the above, and still had the energy and commitment to caress his face in a lovingly tender manner, whilst gazing concernedly into his eyes.
The woman is a saint.
So, long story… not so short, House simply must have been thinking (read: obsessing) about Cuddy in Mayfield. It’s kind of a no-brainer.
He’s darkly, torturously musing and obsessing over his screwed-up life; over Cuddy, and the hallucinations and his own sanity, when Lydia comes along.
They form a connection (and no, I promise I wasn’t fast-forwarding through these scenes whilst cringing and peeking out from behind a spectacularly dramatic facepalm) and afterward, House has something new to obsess over.
Or does he?
(LOL, insert dramatic pause.)
Let’s break it down, dialogue-wise.
House: “She kissed me. And don’t read into the phrasing. We kissed. Each other.”
Nolan: “And… how do you feel about that?” (Perfect shrink-style question! I approve of you, Nolan.)
House: “How do I feel about that?! It was a kiss! Kisses are… good things.”
(Let me interrupt. House does not sound like a typical, macho, ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ kinda guy here. He has never sounded like that, even with all of his hooker-stripper talk. House isn’t a typical jerkwad guy. He wasn’t like that with Stacy, he hasn’t been like that with Cuddy, really, from what we’ve seen. He isn’t being like that with Lydia. House doesn’t do sex lightly. Not with people he knows, at least. It’s easy to stay emotionally detached when you’re leaving your money on the nightstand; not so much when you’re entwined to the point of no return with someone you know, and who knows you. Someone you care about, and who cares about you. If House were truly a ‘wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am’ kind of guy, this episode, this entire story arc, would most likely not be happening. Let’s face it: House cares.)
Nolan: “I’m simply stating the obvious. It’s complicated.”
Is this about Lydia?
Dr Nolan goes on to say that Lydia is married, etc, so yes, it is. But doesn’t this statement of truth, this snaggy, stickily-uncomfortable little fact apply just as accurately to House’s messed up, twenty-years-and-counting, partially-hallucinated history with Cuddy?
Why, yes, yes, it does! Cheers to you, Dr Nolan!
Nolan: “I know you’ve spent the last twelve hours trying to figure out what that kiss means.”
He’s done it again! I love this guy. If House has spent twelve hours trying to figure out the deeper emotional and psychological context of one snog with a woman he’s known for a couple of days, at most, then exactly how much time has he spent psychoanalysing and obsessing over the glorious, kaliedoscopic myriad of flirtations, fights, one night stands and various randomish snogging sessions he’s engaged in with Lisa Cuddy over the past twenty years?
No wonder the poor guy is in an institution, really. All that time spent worrying…
Nolan: “I think that kiss meant a lot. I think that scares you. […] How do you think you and Lydia will end?”
House: “You are a lonely man. You’ve screwed up every opportunity you’ve had in life.”
Nolan: “What’s the ending to this story?”
(Another interruption, sry. Gah, how I adore this ‘storytelling’ theme TPTB have set up since the end of last season. It’s so, so great. I’m working it into all of my fics from now on. Anyhow…)
House deflects, projects, does pretty much every dumb thing that we learned to identify in first-year Psych. But when Nolan, bless his heart, asks him to recount the end of the story, to predict either great happiness or great disaster for himself, House can’t seem to bring himself to do it.
House: “I don’t know.”
He doesn’t know how his own story will end. He doesn’t even know how this thing with Lydia will end; how can he possibly expect himself to be able to predict what might or might not be in his own life. How can he predict the ending, happy or sad, of his half-a-lifetime connection with Cuddy?
He can’t.
House might have all the answers, he might be able to pick out the truth amongst the overgrown weeds of falsehood and self-deception in his patients and his colleagues and even, sometimes, in himself, but he can’t possibly know what could be, what might be, what will be and what absolutely won’t. He just can’t know; he simply can’t puzzle out the answers to these questions.
And that is probably the scariest thing in the world.
~
Music for 'Broken':
House
‘Roses In The Hospital', Manic Street Preachers
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roses in the hospital
stub cigarettes out on my arm
roses in the hospital
want to feel something of value
roses in the hospital
nothing really makes me happy
roses in the hospital
heroin is just too trendy
Cuddy
‘Come Back To Me’, Utada Hikaru
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baby, come back to me
i’ll be everything you need
baby, come back to me
you’re one in a million