House season finale
I'm going to be taking a break from this fandom over the summer.
Btw, just to clarify: I didn't think this was a bad episode - in fact, they did a pretty decent job near the end addressing the issue of tragedy being random etc. - but I had trouble back in the day with the storyline of Stacy's husband falling ill and needing House's help, and this just took that trouble further into sensationalism (which I just couldn't shake off, no matter how hard I tried). In fact, I managed to enjoy the character revelations brought about by contrived plots in the past - very much so! That's their primary purpose as far as I'm concerned: that we get to see what House looks like when he loves a woman, and how she tries to love him back, and what his best friend thinks about it (TO PUT IT MILDLY), etc. This ep contains some such relevations, of course, plus some quality "hey viewer, you're not really affected when you're watching a random patient die so let's examine how this kind of episode is different for people on BOTH sides of the screen" metatext, but... I can't really handle the accompanying grief.
So: not that I read much fic anyway, but for the next few months I plan to take extra effort not to look at any post-finale stories. You know, the ones about House's misery and everybody coping and Wilson grieving in many, many ways. (All those fics about Wilson being angry and then numb and then obsessively self-diagnosing his depression until he feels like he's going insane, and then wondering how the hell he does his job when he clearly can't handle this and he was totally pretending with all those people he couldn't keep alive, and how he almost calls up some of his deceased patients' loved ones to ask them how on earth they managed, but really he just wants to have someone tell him it's possible, and how he has no place to get away from death no matter where he goes, and how once upon a 3am he takes his entire Pratchett collection to the dumpster and burns it... and then eventually gets to the point where he can think about it and can tell himself that she actually managed to die well, considering, and it won't sound like he's lying to himself; and... you know, those stories.)
They are going to be ridiculously easy to write for too many people, and I don't have a problem with that; I just really, REALLY don't want to read them. There are too many reasons to dwell on loss in life; grief narratives, especially the more "gratuitous" kind, are not my coping mechanism of choice even in fiction. (Said the woman who still sucessfully refuses to read "Freedom's Just Another Word...") Instead, I am going to see what the next season brings - and TV tends to do a mercifully unrealistic job of skipping the actual process of learning how to live with loss - so I'll get to dive right into that moment of several months later, in which House will probably be trying to woo Wilson anew so they can be friends like before etc. etc. Or Amber can become House's happy phantom/private ghost a la Slings & Arrows and he can be the only one who sees her and the two of them can have OUTRAGEOUS arguments over diagnoses and keep freaking everybody out... or something.
(Is it terrible that I kinda suspect Amber got killed off in part because RSL cries so damn well?)
So... heartbreaking performances: check. (Oh, Amber's face when she realizes what's happening to her - I can barely stand to think about it.) Kutner and Taub were pretty awesome. Foreman surprised me with his apparent lack of memory re: what happened when HIS ASS was on the line, hello?!? Cuddy is PURE, PURE LOVE. I actually enjoyed Thirteen's crisis of identification since I see her as very intelligent, practical/realistic about her unhappiness, and selfish in the way of somewhat emotionally isolated people - which all worked here to make her believably affected by the tragedy of someone she didn't even really like. But OH, when she picks up the Huntington's test and it's RED and POSITIVE, I actually yelled at the TV: "Oh you FUCKERS, will you leave the girls ALONE!!!"
(Yeah, still kinda pissed about that one.)
I doubt I'll watch this one again, or DL any music from it. Which is a shame, especially since the "Teardrop" cover they used in the montage was pretty awesome.
ETA: Well, fuck. I just got reminded of the NOTE under the PILLOW.
*sniffles*
*opens second post-ep beer*
Damn. I hate it when TV makes me cry.
Btw, just to clarify: I didn't think this was a bad episode - in fact, they did a pretty decent job near the end addressing the issue of tragedy being random etc. - but I had trouble back in the day with the storyline of Stacy's husband falling ill and needing House's help, and this just took that trouble further into sensationalism (which I just couldn't shake off, no matter how hard I tried). In fact, I managed to enjoy the character revelations brought about by contrived plots in the past - very much so! That's their primary purpose as far as I'm concerned: that we get to see what House looks like when he loves a woman, and how she tries to love him back, and what his best friend thinks about it (TO PUT IT MILDLY), etc. This ep contains some such relevations, of course, plus some quality "hey viewer, you're not really affected when you're watching a random patient die so let's examine how this kind of episode is different for people on BOTH sides of the screen" metatext, but... I can't really handle the accompanying grief.
So: not that I read much fic anyway, but for the next few months I plan to take extra effort not to look at any post-finale stories. You know, the ones about House's misery and everybody coping and Wilson grieving in many, many ways. (All those fics about Wilson being angry and then numb and then obsessively self-diagnosing his depression until he feels like he's going insane, and then wondering how the hell he does his job when he clearly can't handle this and he was totally pretending with all those people he couldn't keep alive, and how he almost calls up some of his deceased patients' loved ones to ask them how on earth they managed, but really he just wants to have someone tell him it's possible, and how he has no place to get away from death no matter where he goes, and how once upon a 3am he takes his entire Pratchett collection to the dumpster and burns it... and then eventually gets to the point where he can think about it and can tell himself that she actually managed to die well, considering, and it won't sound like he's lying to himself; and... you know, those stories.)
They are going to be ridiculously easy to write for too many people, and I don't have a problem with that; I just really, REALLY don't want to read them. There are too many reasons to dwell on loss in life; grief narratives, especially the more "gratuitous" kind, are not my coping mechanism of choice even in fiction. (Said the woman who still sucessfully refuses to read "Freedom's Just Another Word...") Instead, I am going to see what the next season brings - and TV tends to do a mercifully unrealistic job of skipping the actual process of learning how to live with loss - so I'll get to dive right into that moment of several months later, in which House will probably be trying to woo Wilson anew so they can be friends like before etc. etc. Or Amber can become House's happy phantom/private ghost a la Slings & Arrows and he can be the only one who sees her and the two of them can have OUTRAGEOUS arguments over diagnoses and keep freaking everybody out... or something.
(Is it terrible that I kinda suspect Amber got killed off in part because RSL cries so damn well?)
So... heartbreaking performances: check. (Oh, Amber's face when she realizes what's happening to her - I can barely stand to think about it.) Kutner and Taub were pretty awesome. Foreman surprised me with his apparent lack of memory re: what happened when HIS ASS was on the line, hello?!? Cuddy is PURE, PURE LOVE. I actually enjoyed Thirteen's crisis of identification since I see her as very intelligent, practical/realistic about her unhappiness, and selfish in the way of somewhat emotionally isolated people - which all worked here to make her believably affected by the tragedy of someone she didn't even really like. But OH, when she picks up the Huntington's test and it's RED and POSITIVE, I actually yelled at the TV: "Oh you FUCKERS, will you leave the girls ALONE!!!"
(Yeah, still kinda pissed about that one.)
I doubt I'll watch this one again, or DL any music from it. Which is a shame, especially since the "Teardrop" cover they used in the montage was pretty awesome.
ETA: Well, fuck. I just got reminded of the NOTE under the PILLOW.
*sniffles*
*opens second post-ep beer*
Damn. I hate it when TV makes me cry.