Warning: This post contains major spoilers.
After reading tons of comments related to the season finale, I worry that a lot of people are missing the mark in terms of their analysis of these last two episodes of House.
A recap for those whom were not paying attention - in the past few episodes, House has been hallucinating Wilson’s dead girlfriend Amber. Amber, as a figment of House’s subconscious, has been guiding House to do Bad Things such as make dangerous diagnoses and kill Chase. It also does not help that, in general, she has been DAMN CREEPY, particularly when she unexpectedly appeared singing “Enjoy Yourself.”
Naturally, House wishes to be rid of Amber, the processes of which supposedly culminated in sexual relations with Cuddy.
Only it didn’t happen. In reality, House’s hallucinations took a turn for the worst and he confabulated the whole thing. His brain tricked his conscious mind so that he could go on a Vicodin binge.
A great many people have complained that this was a dream-sequence bait-and-switch used to exploit and ultimately deprive fans of the “Huddy” angle to the show. They feel as though the hallucination aspect was merely a rehash of the “dream sequence” plot device which is often used to make it as though events never happened so that the status quo within the program can be continued.
While I think most people “get it”, I worry that some people are missing the larger point.
The hallucinations weren’t used to explain away House and Cuddy being together. House and Cuddy being together was used to impact us with the emotional depths of House’s madness.
This wasn’t a mere dream sequence. That’s been done, overplayed, and really would have been the cheating cop-out people say it was had “Under My Skin” been the finale and the device from “Both Sides Now” been used in the Season Six premiere.
Such was not the case. “Huddy” was just a red herring. Whether House and Cuddy should be together in the end is quite irrelevant - the fact that House currently has major psychological problems is a far more interesting development in the plot. To repeat, the writers did not merely throw in the “Huddy” angle to appease the fans just to cop out with a bait-and-switch. Instead, they used these highly anticipated events to deepen the impact of the devastating revelation of House’s mental illness.
House has not been “alright” since the accident that resulted in Amber’s death. The entire season has been foreshadowing what we have seen in this finale. Many of House’s patients have had ailments which reflected his own. House accompanied Wilson to the psych ward to see his brother. House has been increasingly sloppy in his diagnoses. Events in this season have been building to precisely this outcome, not to the happily-ever-after that “Huddy” fans so desired.
That latter result would have been tacked on and, most likely, ultimately unsatisfying. I think that what we saw on Monday will lead to something more satisfying, as it will bring a psychological angle to the show we rarely see on American television.
I am personally looking forward to Season Six.
Feel free to discuss it here or debate it on Snarkbate!
4 Comments
Hi M.W., welcome to the blogsphere!
I’m not sure who Huddy or Cuddy or Amber are, but I get House is that TV doctor, yeah? One man’s spoiler is another man’s cultural update. Thanks!
Morgan
Morgan! You win the award for being the first to comment on my blog!
Well, yes, House is the TV doctor. Cuddy is the administer of the hospital and House’s boss. They’ve had a bit of flirtatious tension between them for a while now… “Huddy” is the cute name that some fans have termed the two of them together. I think it is rather goofy myself, which is why I refuse to remove the quotation marks whenever I write it.
Amber was a doctor trying to get a fellowship with House a couple seasons back. He gave everyone nicknames - hers was “Cutthroat Bitch” because she would go to any length necessary to win. She ended up not getting the job because she ultimately couldn’t accept being wrong, something which is completely necessary when you work for House. She later ended up dating House’s best friend Wilson.
Later she died as a result of an accident she was in with House, and it was House’s fault she was there. Fast forward to the end of the season. After one of House’s assistants committed suicide, House started hallucinating Amber. House, being the quintessential skeptic, knew it was a hallucination but merely accepted it as his subconscious talking to him… and he listened to “her.” Unfortunately, that led to the “Bad Things” referenced above…
Folks, when you start having hallucinations of people you considered awful in life, PLEASE, for the sake of all that’s good, don’t just assume that it’s your subconscious talking to you. Your subconscious is obviously divided into various parts and “Amber”, apparently, is House’s Cutthroat Bitch subconscious.
As for you, Mr. Morgan, you ought to start watching the show! At least rent a season DVD! It’s awesome!
I used to watch House religiously then stopped. I wound up watching the episode before the season finale and while confused about the singing dead girl, as soon as House and Cuddy slept together (after I got over the initial “oh no they can’t do that to me” shock) I realized this was House and nothing is as it seems until the last fifteen minutes. House and Cuddy getting it on - was not the last fifteen minutes. Then I forgot the finale was on so I had to watch it on my computer (at work….shhh…).
To see him get hit with the reality of what had happened was spooky. That he had hallucinated the whole thing (and after telling the entire hospital he had totally done her too) was, I thought, damn near brilliant on the writers’ part. I’m tired of the whole vicodin thing and thing House will be even more irritable sober.
The episode brought me back because despite being an anti-hero, I want House to win. I just don’t want him screwing Cuddy because half the fun is the “will they won’t they” feeling and as soon as that tension is shattered…where’s the fun? But it is time for House to have some growth because one of the reasons why I stopped watching because he was becoming so two dimensional…and getting clean is a great step. Oooh the layers they can do!
Jenn-
I totally agree. I’m quite looking into the possibilities with this new angle and I hope they play it for all its worth.
This is what I like about House’s character - at the core of his being he truly is a good, redeemable person. He hides this beneath drug abuse and a sour demeanor. It seems easy to forget that he insisting on being this way because he believes it makes him more effective at saving lives.
Of course, he rationalizes this part of his nature by creating a facade that he is merely interested in the “mystery” aspects of his cases. I don’t believe that is really his driving reason, even if he does insist on telling himself and others such. I think that he takes the painkillers help him to kill the pain of the rationalizations he constantly has to make in order to “remain effective”, at least in his own mind. This is what makes him fascinating… he runs away from being human because he seems to think that “being human” somehow would make him a less capable doctor.
Yet the audience wants to see him come to terms with who he is and wants him to become human. I don’t think that the show can end in a satisfactory manner until this happens.
It will be interesting to get a glimpse into his psyche over the course of the next season.