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!
