HOUSE, M.D.: 33. "Need to Know"
Micky DuPree
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I'm not very moved to do the usual detailed commentary this time.
Analyzing the second season of this show is a bit like what House said
to the whiteboard: I give it so much and it gives back so little. Right
now, what I really need to do is vent, and it's not going to be in
chronological order, nor thematically developed.
I had thought that Wilson was more than ready for a larger role in the
series, but this season has had a way of making me sorry for everything
I've wished for. It was bad enough that House didn't seem like House,
and Stacy didn't seem like Stacy, but even Wilson didn't seem like
Wilson. Maybe other people really go for that soap-operatic whipsawing;
he wants her, no he doesn't; she wants him, no she doesn't. But for
Wilson to be angry that House was breaking up Stacy's marriage at the
beginning, only for Wilson to be angry that House wasn't breaking up
Stacy's marriage by the episode's close, was just pointlessly
histrionic. And the gratuitous headshrinking at the end .... I was
with House on that one, but I'm sure that Wilson was meant to be
speaking the truth from on high, because that's what the writers have
gleaned from the first season: everyone says House is miserable, so he
must be miserable, therefore he loves his own misery and seeks to
perpetuate it. The perfect senseless end to a perfectly senseless plot
line. When coherency is too much to ask for, standards are pretty low.
Are we supposed to believe House was miserable the entire five years he
was with Stacy?
I can't see House not throwing Wilson's own infidelity back in his face
when Wilson was obviously getting on House's nerves about his blossoming
adultery with Stacy, and yet it was like the writers just didn't want to
go there in this episode, so the characters conveniently forgot about
all those times House gave Wilson a hard time over the subject.
So House can't make Stacy happy. Now who could have figured that out
from "You were the one, but I can't be with you"? Or from "With you I
was lonely, but with Mark there's room for me"? Or from "I love you and
I hate you. I love Mark but I don't hate him"? Or from her reaction to
House reading her file? Or from all those knowing (and yet apparently
instantly forgotten) looks in "Failure to Communicate" about how the
patient couldn't change for the woman he loved? It's ALWAYS been that
simple (though not easy). And yet every time the writers held out the
hope of closure, they pressed the damned reset button again. And it
wasn't just the characters that started over from scratch, but whole
plot points were ignored, not only from last season, but from this
season as well. Now we're supposed to believe that House has been
chasing Stacy all season long? It's canonical that he was avoiding her
until she started putting paperwork pressure on him. It's canonical in
"The Mistake" that he said he was *sorry* for getting her to like where
things were going, as if his sudden pursuit of her in "Hunting" was just
to prove he could do it, not because he wanted her to come back to him.
Since none of the characters seems to think there's anything
inconsistent about all this, are all conflicting statements supposed to
be treated as equally true?
The characters had sex, but they didn't have a sex scene. I correctly
predicted that they would get House's shirt off during sweeps, but it
was almost anticlimactic, so to speak. During sweeps especially, that
baffles me. Are the producers signaling that this show will simply
never go there? I hate to sound like a pervert, but that seems like
poor payment for my having endured all that back-and-forth with the
soap.
I think there should have been a longer buildup to Mark's outburst.
I found Super-Mom unsympathetic and wanted her to get busted. I found
House and Stacy unsympathetic and wanted them to get busted. The big
surprise was that I found Wilson unsympathetic. Unless he had some
genuine wisdom to impart from his having committed infidelity himself, I
wanted him to butt out.
I found Cameron's unwillingness to get tested unsympathetic. (There is
one fellow whom House needs to berate for being a wuss, and it's not
Foreman for taking his responsibilities seriously.)
House used to have reasons for being a jerk or violating conventional
ethics. They weren't always good reasons or reasons I agreed with, but
there was something behind it all. Nowadays the writers seem to have
picked up on how his jerkiness or amorality is a defining
characteristic, but they've made him an amoral jerk just for the sake of
being an amoral jerk. For example, I don't remember any instances of
thievery for simple personal gain in the first season. Now he's
stealing newspapers when the cashier isn't looking and trying to make
off with his best friend's pot. In fact, sometimes the show itself
seems to be saying, "Everybody lies, and that's for the best as long as
you don't get caught."
The more I examine the first season, the more it pays dividends. The
more I examine the second season, the more I realize what a hash this
has become. I'm almost ready to blame it on the departure of Sara B.
Cooper, the only writer-producer to have been present for almost all of
the first season, but who's been entirely absent from the second.
Either that or John Mankiewicz seems to have stepped down from some
responsibilities. Maybe continuity and common sense were among them. I
know correlation is not causation, but my third-best theory is sunspots
eating away at everyone's brain.
I really wouldn't have pegged button-down Wilson as the type to procure
pot and then roll joints for his patients. I'd expect him to give them
the name of "a guy who knows a guy," but not for him to be their
supplier.
The implication in "Humpty Dumpty" was that House went to med school at
the University of Michigan. Now Foreman tells us he went to Johns
Hopkins.
A minor matter, but they did the fake rooftop effects much better in
"Honeymoon."
Two quick good things: House's method for getting a test sample from
Cameron was funny. Foreman's perspicacious cynicism about the
durability of the patient's marriage was the closest he had ever come to
being like House. Unfortunately, the parallel went unremarked upon by
the characters, so it was probably unintentional by the writers.
Of course, with the combination of the now-established audience for
_House_, the return of the _American Idol_ lead-in, the lack of
_Commander in Chief_ episodes for competition, and the pent-up demand
for new episodes, "Need to Know" will undoubtedly be the highest-rated
episode of _House_ to date, leaving everyone involved in making it
convinced that they can do no wrong.
-Micky
Ian J. Ball
MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote:
> Spoilers for "Need to Know," 2/7/06.
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> Two quick good things: House's method for getting a test sample from
> Cameron was funny.
I liked that too. I also liked the way he broke the test results to her.
> Foreman's perspicacious cynicism about the
> durability of the patient's marriage was the closest he had ever come to
> being like House.
And, like House for most of this episode, I'm pretty sure Foreman was
wrong on that one - cynical Chase and (cynical?!?) Cameron seemed to be
much more likely to be right with their bets.
> Of course, with the combination of the now-established audience for
> _House_, the return of the _American Idol_ lead-in, the lack of
> _Commander in Chief_ episodes for competition, and the pent-up demand
> for new episodes, "Need to Know" will undoubtedly be the highest-rated
> episode of _House_ to date, leaving everyone involved in making it
> convinced that they can do no wrong.
Wow. You're good:
"House" (households: 13.6/20, #2; 18-49: 8.8, #2) - 22.2 million viewers
That is, indeed, "House's" highest rating ever.
--
"Read less. More TV." - Dr. Greg House, "House"
http://homepage.mac.com/ijball/TV-Blog/
Daniel Damouth
news:dsdson$cl5$1...@pcls3.std.com:
> Spoilers for "Need to Know," 2/7/06.
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[...]
> "Need to Know" will undoubtedly be the
> highest-rated episode of _House_ to date, leaving everyone
> involved in making it convinced that they can do no wrong.
This was the first "House" episode I've seen, and while I was
entertained enough to watch the whole thing, in the end I wasn't all
that impressed and will make no plans to watch it in the future.
What I liked: The guy's voice, in combination with his demeanor and
attitude. It's been a while since I saw a main character who didn't
really like himself. (I also liked the guest star playing the woman
with all the problems).
What I didn't care for: the medical mystery that goes way beyond my
medical knowledge. The solution that turned out to be multiple
things hidden behind multiple lies. Bleh.
The plight of the woman lying to her husband. Eh.
How did it happen that doctors from the office were searching her
house for cocaine?? Even if they got permission from the husband,
which was not something that the show should have skipped over, it
makes no sense at all to do it without police.
Do doctors really sit in a faculty room and go through theories on a
whiteboard like that?? And they all seemed to have nothing else to
do.
-Dan Damouth
Brian Thorn
wrote:
In my opinion, "Need to Know" was one of the weakest "House" episodes.
(although I liked Julie Warner and Dakota Fanning's dead-ringer
sister.) Sela Ward's character showed up in the penultimate episode of
Season 1 and has been around ever since. I like Ward, but through the
bulk of the excellent first season, there was very little of the soap
opera that Stacy (Ward) brought to the storylines, it was all medical
mystery and hospital politics. Hopefully, now that Stacy has been
written out of the show, it will return to emphasizing the medical
stories. Maybe we'll actually see Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) for more than
30 seconds per episode again, too.
>How did it happen that doctors from the office were searching her
>house for cocaine?? Even if they got permission from the husband,
>which was not something that the show should have skipped over, it
>makes no sense at all to do it without police.
House is notorious for ignoring rules and using questionable ethics.
In earlier episodes, he simply took the keys from the patients
belongings and sent one of the younger doctors off to look for
something that could be causing the illness of the week.
>Do doctors really sit in a faculty room and go through theories on a
>whiteboard like that?? And they all seemed to have nothing else to
>do.
Princeton-Plainsboro is a teaching hospital, I think.
Brian
Barry Margolin
Daniel Damouth <dam...@san.rr.com> wrote:
> What I didn't care for: the medical mystery that goes way beyond my
> medical knowledge. The solution that turned out to be multiple
> things hidden behind multiple lies. Bleh.
Then you probably shouldn't bother with this show any more, because that
happens in *every* episode. This team always gets the totally
mysterious cases.
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
David
<bar...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <Xns9764A0F78C8D...@66.75.164.120>,
> Daniel Damouth <dam...@san.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> What I didn't care for: the medical mystery that goes way beyond my
>> medical knowledge. The solution that turned out to be multiple
>> things hidden behind multiple lies. Bleh.
>
>Then you probably shouldn't bother with this show any more, because that
>happens in *every* episode. This team always gets the totally
>mysterious cases.
He should fast-forward to the clinic segments.
Barry Margolin
David <diml...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm having trouble remembering the last episode that had one of them.
They seem to be few and far between this season.
M.B.
> In article <ouflu1hee3vbmqdg0...@4ax.com>,
> David <diml...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> He should fast-forward to the clinic segments.
>
> I'm having trouble remembering the last episode that had one of them.
> They seem to be few and far between this season.
>
I think that's the point.
Micky DuPree
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Daniel Damouth <dam...@san.rr.com> writes:
: This was the first "House" episode I've seen, and while I was
: entertained enough to watch the whole thing, in the end I wasn't all
: that impressed and will make no plans to watch it in the future.
I can't recommend this season in good conscience. I can wholeheartedly
recommend the first season, though, which is currently running on the
USA network on Fridays at 11 PM. Tomorrow's episode, "The Socratic
Method," is a good one, and I hope to have a detailed commentary on it
posted within a few days, real world permitting.
: What I liked: The guy's voice, in combination with his demeanor and
: attitude. It's been a while since I saw a main character who didn't
: really like himself.
That seems to be the leading theory of this season, so maybe you
wouldn't like last season after all, dunno. I read last season's House
closer to that classic line from _Daria_: "I don't have low self-esteem.
I have low esteem for others."
: (I also liked the guest star playing the woman with all the problems).
The guest casting has been terrific, by and large. I just had a problem
with the way the ethics of the character were portrayed, not with the
actress.
: What I didn't care for: the medical mystery that goes way beyond my
: medical knowledge. The solution that turned out to be multiple
: things hidden behind multiple lies. Bleh.
That's recurring. On the surface, _House_ is a plot-driven show like
the crime mysteries it borrows from, and since most people aren't
doctors, we kinda have to take the script's word for it that drug A is
the proper treatment for disease B. However, if you look at the plot
more closely, you can see that the elements are chosen to illuminate the
characters, and that's where the best part of the drama lies.
: The plight of the woman lying to her husband. Eh.
I'm with you there. The patient made her own problems to preserve her
deceit, and yet we were supposed to look on her twisted selfishness as
"romantic." The first-season episode, "Fidelity," which should be on
USA next week, is a better take on deceit within a marriage, in my
opinion.
: How did it happen that doctors from the office were searching her
: house for cocaine?? Even if they got permission from the husband,
: which was not something that the show should have skipped over, it
: makes no sense at all to do it without police.
House's mantra is, "Everybody lies." If they asked permission to search
the patients' homes and offices for drugs or other environmental causes
of disease, they either wouldn't get it or else would be steered away
from important information. As someone else mentioned, House doesn't
concern himself much with conventional ethics. He USED to have his own
very strong sense of ethics. Nowadays, it's not that much in evidence,
but he considers his first ethical duty to be to diagnose and cure the
patient. He doesn't mind running roughshod over the patient's autonomy
to achieve that goal.
: Do doctors really sit in a faculty room and go through theories on a
: whiteboard like that?? And they all seemed to have nothing else to
: do.
I read one doctor's account saying that it reminded him exactly of
differential diagnostics sessions he was involved in at a previous job.
The full name of the hospital is Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital,
and the three younger doctors are all completing fellowships under
House's mentorship.
-Micky
Ian J. Ball
"M.B." <NoS...@ForYou.com> wrote:
And is yet another factor in season #2's sucking in comparison to season
#1...
Daniel Damouth
>: How did it happen that doctors from the office were searching her
>: house for cocaine?? Even if they got permission from the
>: husband, which was not something that the show should have
>: skipped over, it makes no sense at all to do it without police.
>
> House's mantra is, "Everybody lies." If they asked permission to
> search the patients' homes and offices for drugs or other
> environmental causes of disease, they either wouldn't get it or
> else would be steered away from important information. As someone
> else mentioned, House doesn't concern himself much with
> conventional ethics. He USED to have his own very strong sense of
> ethics. Nowadays, it's not that much in evidence, but he
> considers his first ethical duty to be to diagnose and cure the
> patient. He doesn't mind running roughshod over the patient's
> autonomy to achieve that goal.
I could see one guy being pathological enough to do that, but a couple
of other doctors cheerfully doing his bidding by breaking into a
patient's house and searching it?? It's criminal and not in a minor
way. A career-ending lawsuit should quickly ensue.
It seems like one of those really crappy television conventions.
-Dan Damouth
Stan Brown
<dam...@san.rr.com>:
> What I didn't care for: the medical mystery that goes way beyond my
> medical knowledge. The solution that turned out to be multiple
> things hidden behind multiple lies. Bleh.
That's the standard "House" plot. Every episode basically has the
doctors reach a wrong conclusion, nearly kill the patient, reach
another wrong conclusion, etc, until a few minutes before the end
they get it right.
> The plight of the woman lying to her husband. Eh.
That too, alas, seems part of the show's basis. I find the whole
House/Stacy thing horribly boring. After this week's episode I have a
tiny glimmer of hope that it's over, but I suspect I'm wrong.
The only good thing about the _entire_ Stacy/House story line was
this week when Cuddy imitated Stacy to House, who was seeking
permission to cancel a scheduled surgery.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"You may be the Universe's butt puppet, but I'm its right-
hand fist of fate." -- /Wonderfalls/
Micky DuPree
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Brian Thorn <btho...@cox.net> writes:
: In my opinion, "Need to Know" was one of the weakest "House" episodes
: [....]
In mine too, though at least partly because it finally defined the
entire second-season Stacy subplot as repetitive and dumbed down with no
hope of eleventh-hour redemption.
: Sela Ward's character showed up in the penultimate episode of Season 1
: and has been around ever since. I like Ward, but through the bulk of
: the excellent first season, there was very little of the soap opera
: that Stacy (Ward) brought to the storylines, it was all medical
: mystery and hospital politics. Hopefully, now that Stacy has been
: written out of the show, it will return to emphasizing the medical
: stories.
Sadly, Stacy has merely been a symptom, not the underlying disease. I
thought her contribution to the last two episodes of the first season
was excellent, despite the whole romantic triangle it cooked up. It's
possible to handle a triangle as high drama rather than as repetitive
soap. The difference this season has been in the handling, not in the
raw subject matter.
The medical mysteries this season have also been less intelligently
crafted (you don't have to be a health care professional anymore to spot
problems in the doctors' thought processes), so once again, it's not the
subject matter, but the execution. Or to put it another way, when the
viewers can spot that House is screwing up, but the story says he's not
screwing up, it's the *writers* who are screwing up.
: Maybe we'll actually see Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) for more than 30
: seconds per episode again, too.
As Chelsea Christenson intimated in another thread, be careful what you
wish for. Cuddy has come off as incompetent when they've focused on her
this season. I had also hoped to see more of Wilson until they painted
him as histrionic, inconsistent, and nonsensical in "Need to Know."
-Micky
Micky DuPree
: In article <Xns9764A0F78C8D...@66.75.164.120>,Daniel
: Damouth <dam...@san.rr.com> wrote:
:: What I didn't care for: the medical mystery that goes way beyond my
:: medical knowledge. The solution that turned out to be multiple
:: things hidden behind multiple lies. Bleh.
:
: Then you probably shouldn't bother with this show any more, because
: that happens in *every* episode. This team always gets the totally
: mysterious cases.
And not just cases that baffle the layman, but cases that even baffle
other professionals. From "Control."
VOGLER: What is a "Department of Diagnostic Medicine"?
CUDDY: That's Doctor House's department. They deal with cases
that other doctors can't figure out.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
: In article <ouflu1hee3vbmqdg0...@4ax.com> David
: <diml...@yahoo.com> wrote:
:: He should fast-forward to the clinic segments.
:
: I'm having trouble remembering the last episode that had one of them.
: They seem to be few and far between this season.
I think the last one was the woman who switched to jelly as a
contraceptive in "Deception." That one wasn't bad, but you're right:
there have been fewer of them this season, and fewer standouts among
them.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
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Daniel Damouth <dam...@san.rr.com> writes:
: MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote in
: news:dsfq7l$mnu$1...@pcls3.std.com:
:: Daniel Damouth wrote:
::: How did it happen that doctors from the office were searching her
::: house for cocaine?? Even if they got permission from the
::: husband, which was not something that the show should have
::: skipped over, it makes no sense at all to do it without police.
::
:: House's mantra is, "Everybody lies." If they asked permission to
:: search the patients' homes and offices for drugs or other
:: environmental causes of disease, they either wouldn't get it or
:: else would be steered away from important information. As someone
:: else mentioned, House doesn't concern himself much with
:: conventional ethics. He USED to have his own very strong sense of
:: ethics. Nowadays, it's not that much in evidence, but he
:: considers his first ethical duty to be to diagnose and cure the
:: patient. He doesn't mind running roughshod over the patient's
:: autonomy to achieve that goal.
:
: I could see one guy being pathological enough to do that, but a couple
: of other doctors cheerfully doing his bidding by breaking into a
: patient's house and searching it??
They're not so much cheerful about it as they are now resigned to the
repeated experience of House being right about people hiding things that
are crucial to the diagnosis. The pilot episode especially dealt with
Dr. Foreman's outrage over being told to break into a patient's home for
the first time. He was funny, dramatic, and sympathetic in his
protests, all at the same time. Now that was good writing.
: It's criminal and not in a minor way. A career-ending lawsuit should
: quickly ensue.
We've been told that House is a veteran of lawsuits, so evidently he
hasn't simply gotten a free pass on everything he's done, but in the
case of illegal trespass in an unoccupied home, I don't see any basis
for a civil lawsuit unless property damage occurs. There's a
possibility of criminal charges, but I think that the conceit (not
entirely difficult to buy) is that the patients are either so guilty
over being caught lying about something (sometimes something illegal)
that could kill them or else so grateful for being cured in spite of
their own stupidity, that they don't press charges. (And since the
doctors go into people's homes only when nobody's there, they simply
don't tell the patients they did it if they don't find anything worthy
of note.) Still, I think it's overdue that we see House send Cameron
down to the courthouse to post bail for Foreman and Chase. Plus,
there's been the implication that House does not have a completely clean
police rap sheet.
Seriously, try the _House_ episode that's on the USA network tonight
(11 PM ET). It's a quantum leap better than what you saw on Tuesday,
and as near as I can tell, the USA versions are uncut.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
episodes.
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Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
: I find the whole House/Stacy thing horribly boring. After this week's
: episode I have a tiny glimmer of hope that it's over, but I suspect
: I'm wrong.
Sela Ward will be gone, but the writers who didn't see anything wrong
with the way they handled that plot line will remain.
: The only good thing about the _entire_ Stacy/House story line was this
: week when Cuddy imitated Stacy to House, who was seeking permission to
: cancel a scheduled surgery.
It was pretty good in isolation (Edelstein was hilarious), but that
whole exasperated tirade made it sound like Stacy had been mooning to
Cuddy about House all through the season, when there was just the one
instance in this episode. Worse, the very fact that Cuddy did the
imitation revealed to House that Stacy had unburdened herself to Cuddy
about this private matter, and I doubt very much that Stacy gave Cuddy
permission to tell House that she had talked about this. Since I've
never seen Cuddy as one to violate a confidence just because she's
annoyed, this struck a false note with me.
-Micky
Keith Baird
> Worse, the very fact that Cuddy did the
> imitation revealed to House that Stacy had unburdened herself to Cuddy
> about this private matter, and I doubt very much that Stacy gave Cuddy
> permission to tell House that she had talked about this. Since I've
> never seen Cuddy as one to violate a confidence just because she's
> annoyed, this struck a false note with me.
Though it seemed likely to me that Cuddy's imitation was at least one
factor (maybe the decisive one?) in House's decision finally to dump
Stacy.
--/<eith
Micky DuPree
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In article <ijball***NO-SPAM***-8E41C9.151...@news1.ucsd.edu>,
"Ian J. Ball" <ijball***NO-SPAM***@mac.com.invalid> writes:
: In article <dsdson$cl5$1...@pcls3.std.com>,
: MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote:
:: Foreman's perspicacious cynicism about the durability of the
:: patient's marriage was the closest he had ever come to being like
:: House.
:
: And, like House for most of this episode, I'm pretty sure Foreman was
: wrong on that one - cynical Chase and (cynical?!?) Cameron seemed to
: be much more likely to be right with their bets.
My take is that the story wants us to believe that Foreman was dead
right as long as Super-Mom doesn't get caught, because she's willing to
go to any lengths to preserve the fantasy bubble that her husband lives
in. I think the story wants us to believe she can keep the lid on her
secret because of her commitment, and that one day she'll reap the
reward she seeks: she and her husband will give up trying to conceive,
Stepdad will appreciate Step-Cherub all the more, Super-Mom will be able
to lay down some of her burdens when Step-Cherub reaches adulthood, and
they'll live happily ever after. I think the story even wants us to
admire Super-Mom. I found her extremely repulsive, myself.
If this were the real world, the number and severity of Super-Mom's
problems to date would make me think that she is at risk for future
exposure since we know she's not going to stop taking risks with her
health. But just in general, I know of several lengthy and still
ongoing marriages that harbor potentially deal-breaking secrets, so I
know that House was at least partially right in "Maternity" when he
cynically told the cheating wife with the pregnancy of indeterminate
paternity, "Then just have the kid. [Hubby will] never know. The most
successful marriages are based on lies. You're off to a great start."
:: Of course, with the combination of the now-established audience for
:: _House_, the return of the _American Idol_ lead-in, the lack of
:: _Commander in Chief_ episodes for competition, and the pent-up demand
:: for new episodes, "Need to Know" will undoubtedly be the
:: highest-rated episode of _House_ to date, leaving everyone involved
:: in making it convinced that they can do no wrong.
:
: Wow. You're good:
:
: "House" (households: 13.6/20, #2; 18-49: 8.8, #2) - 22.2 million
: viewers
:
: That is, indeed, "House's" highest rating ever.
I didn't need to be a William George Ferguson to see that one coming,
for the reasons I listed. :) _House_ will still do well commercially
against the Olympics, but not quite as well. It will still do well when
it loses _Idol_, but in the meantime _Idol_ is an insanely powerful
lead-in that heaps icing on the cake. _House_ will still do well when
_Commander in Chief_ comes back (as it was doing before the latter was
put on hold), but just a tad less well since they seem to have some
overlapping audience. These things build up momentum after a point.
People will keep tuning in just to see the characters even if they're
not entirely satisfied with what they see. Hell, I'm not a happy
camper, but I can't break away yet either.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
recap of "Need to Know." I thought I'd post my response.
> Subject: Re: TWoP Nails "House"
> "Wilson protests that this is his business because he was the one
> 'stuck picking up the pieces' the last time Stacy left House. Again,
> I'm pretty sure this is not something that a straight guy would say."
It was noticeable to me that in this episode, House, Wilson, and Mark
all seemed to be written with the emotional makeups of stereotypical
women. It's something you sometimes see in fanfic written by women. I
did notice that the episode's writer of record was a woman, but the
executive producers all had to sign off on it, so it's not something we
can just blame on her.
I hesitated to complain, though, because in the past, House especially
managed to avoid some stereotypically male inhibitions in his
relationship with Wilson, and I found that both unusual and even
admirable. House did talk to Wilson about the return of Stacy and what
it meant to him in "Three Stories." He admitted what had to be the
painfully ugly truths to Wilson that A) he was an addict in "Detox,"
and B) that part of him wanted Mark to die in "Honeymoon." That's not a
stereotypical guy who's deathly afraid of facing himself, or of talking
about a love affair, or of admitting vulnerability to another guy. But
it was matter-of-fact and practical, which was very, very House.
By contrast, House was virtually mooning about what was "romantic" in
"Need to Know." Wilson was excitedly pumping everyone to share their
feelings. Mark reminded me of a female soap opera character. Ladies!
Chill, take a bubble bath, and drink some flavored decaf. I think it's
great to eschew stereotypical male failings, but that's not meant to be
encouragement to embrace stereotypical female failings. I half expected
Hugh Laurie and Currie Graham to start doing Bette Davis and Joan
Crawford in _What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_ (Actually, I'd pay to
see Hugh Laurie and Currie Graham doing their impressions of Bette Davis
and Joan Crawford in _What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?_)
-Micky
(Sorry if this double-posts. I got an error message the first time.)