HOUSE, M.D.: 36. "Sex Kills"
Micky DuPree
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This episode was reminiscent of episodes earlier in season two: very
breezy, brisk pace; sensitive to criticism about the season-one formula,
so while there were bouts of differential diagnostics, the overwhelming
drive of the plot was not to solve the puzzle before the end of the
episode, but to procure a heart transplant. The diagnostics were just
to make sure the patient could keep it.
Apart from a couple of vestigial reminders (just had to get those in,
didn't they), there was no mention of Stacy nor of House making himself
miserable, which was an overdue mercy. Evidently, all you need to do to
get rid of a conversion disorder is have one incident with a placebo
effect revealed to you. I did raise an eyebrow at that, but I'm not
going to bother to research it. Apart from that, there wasn't anything
so obvious that I could smell something fishy before House did, so I
wasn't medically outraged this time. I actually liked the return of the
red herring in the prologue, just because it made me laugh to realize
that the daughter wasn't going to be the patient after all.
I don't feel bad about not realizing the significance of the acid reflux
(i.e., its treatment), because it was a plausible symptom in its own
right. I do feel bad about missing the significance of the cheese-
tasting. If it were going to be insignificant, they would have made it
something more common, like wine-tasting.
Given the automatic expectation of patient dishonesty, I'm surprised
that the Diagnostics Dept. doesn't insist on examining and interviewing
all patients alone first. Allowing a loved one in the room instantly
kicks up the probability of getting incomplete or false information.
In "The Socratic Method," the other doctors were astonished at House's
willingness to go see the patient. This season, almost any pretext will
do for House to drop in and say hi, and except for Cameron looking
suspiciously jealous at House visiting the fashion model, the other
doctors have never said boo about this change in M.O.
The remodeling of the fourth-floor set continues, and they moved the
wings around. (The Cuyler Wing is at the opposite end of the hospital
from where it started.) They've diverted so many of the corridors in
the sets without once showing a construction crew in the story that
PPTH's floor plan is as unpredictable as the school in the Harry Potter
movies.
I like it when House advocates for his patient, but since they already
pointed out that he does this when he lobbied for the heart transplant
in "Control" and they did it more subtly and poignantly then, having
House unsubtly say it out loud here -- twice -- felt repetitious and
artlessly obvious, even leading me to compare "Sex Kills" unfavorably
to "Control." Less would have been more.
I liked how they touched on the fact that donor organs get tossed
because they aren't perfect, while people die for lack of donor organs
or lack of perfect qualifications. But it was one of the few times this
season when I thought they were being too subtle, because it was one of
those issues worth a little rant on House's part. The larger ethical
and technical implications of doing imperfect transplantation were sort
of steamrolled by the plot about the drive for just this one transplant.
Are they going to do this every time a patient goes into organ failure
(color me dubious), and if not, why not?
I would have liked to hear an iffy percentage prognosis for the patient
even if we couldn't stick around long enough to see how well he did. It
would have seemed a lot more plausible to me if the docs had said that
all they did was buy him a few years, and then House had said something
like if a few years are what we can give him, then we've done what we
can. As matters stood, it felt like everything was peachy and there was
no need to worry about any pesky complications.
Considering that House bothered to put on a lab coat to talk to the
almost-widower, I had to agree with the latter that House was trying to
be deceptive. I wasn't sure why the organ procurement coordinator
thought that it was House's job to tell him his wife was dying, though.
Ho-kay, I'm gonna hand-wave that they did manage to get the donor's
heart started again after it had so obviously foundered in the E.R., but
that the brain had been deprived too long. Otherwise, it did look
screwy that they were performing furious CPR on a heart that they would
later harvest.
Interesting shot passing through the wall of the Diagnostics Office as
Foreman chased after the exiting House.
Odd. I think that in the wide shot of the MRI control room, there was a
snippet of Cuddy's reflection walking off to the left (a vertical
pinkish blur, which resembled her outfit, for less than a second).
There was no reason to have just a snippet of a reflection of a regular
character like that, so I'm guessing part of the scene was cut.
Continuing in the _Jerry Springer_ vein from last episode, the clinic
patient made me think he was going to turn out to be deeply attracted to
either other males and he had a strict religion or was homophobic, or
else to very young children and he was trying to nip it in the bud. In
fact, I would have expected House to go down a mental road like that,
since he was obviously surprised that the answer turned out to be merely
"stepmother." I would have thought that most guys would be much more
embarrassed to admit to cow attraction than to admit to stepmother
attraction (particularly if they're adamant about not wanting to follow
through on the stepmother attraction). But people are funny that way.
That's two out of the three evil nerds from _Buffy_ walking into the
clinic now. I'm waiting for Danny Strong to be the next one.
I've read that what with new drugs and new techniques, tissue
compatibility isn't the huge issue in transplants that it used to be,
but given that they've made a big deal about compatibility in previous
episodes, it seemed odd that the word wasn't even spoken this time. And
don't those powerful new drugs tend to make the recipient less able to
fight off infection (like, say, gonorrhea)?
Geez, don't they have, like, a billion blood vessels to reconnect when
they transplant an organ? It looked like they lucked into one of those
newfangled plug-n-play modular hearts that don't need all those old-
fashioned connections.
I was bothered by the ease with which House could snap his fingers and
get a transplant team when by all rights, even based on his behavior in
this episode, most of the other staff at PPTH shouldn't be willing to
piss on him to put out a fire. By now, the whole hospital probably
knows that House blackmailed the transplant surgeon in "The Mistake" to
get him to operate. I can well imagine ways by which House could go
around trying to convince other doctors to help him out, but given what
a HUGE deal they've made all along, in both the first and second
seasons, about how House antagonizes every colleague around him except
for the other regular characters (and frequently them as well), it
really should be part of the onscreen story when House has to make nice
(or threaten blackmail) to get recalcitrant colleagues to cooperate with
him. Abrasiveness to that degree is a character flaw, and it's
organically part of the characterization to show the consequences of
that flaw coming home to roost.
The thing that bothered me the most, though, was House basically telling
Wilson to bug off because he doesn't do the listener bit. First of all,
House has historically loved to do the listener bit and has even tried
to insinuate himself where he wasn't invited so he could get people to
spill what's bothering them. He doesn't give people the usual hand-
holding when it's all done or say he's going to kiss it and make it
better, but neither does he twist the knife. He got Cameron to spill
about her dead husband in "Fidelity." He practically hounded the
closed-lipped Wilson in "Histories," even following him at the end to
get him to spill about his homeless brother. ("Histories" is going to
be on the USA network this Friday at 11 PM Eastern Time if you don't
believe me.) He got Chase to spill about his absentee dad in "Cursed."
House has picked on Wilson about his infidelities since the middle of
the first season. I always got the impression that it was partly
because House didn't approve of infidelity, but partly because he didn't
see anything good coming out of it for his friend (multiple marriages,
multiple affairs, and never seeming to be happy about any of it).
Always, I got the impression that it was House who was willing to listen
while it was Wilson who refused to open up, going back to House's
inquiry at the end of "Damned If You Do":
HOUSE: Your wife doesn't mind being alone at Christmas?
WILSON: I'm a doctor. She's used to being alone. [Off House's
look.] I don't want to talk about it.
HOUSE: [Quickly] Neither do I.
At which point, House respected Wilson's privacy, but if House hadn't
been willing to listen in the first place, he wouldn't have asked the
question.
Now, you could say that House's motivation to pry into other people's
problems has always been his insatiable curiosity rather than any
concern for their well-being. That's what House seemed to claim when
challenged, anyway. From "Cursed":
CHASE: If I tell you my dad left, my mum drank herself to
death -- you gonna care about me more?
HOUSE: Cameron would. Me, I just like knowing stuff.
I don't think that was the whole story, particularly since Cameron has
let her personal issues interfere with her work, which made Cameron's
issues into House's professional concern, but even if it were the whole
story, where did House's defining curiosity suddenly disappear to in
"Sex Kills"?
Both House and Wilson were different in "Sex Kills." The recently
retconned Wilson didn't bother me as much. It was strange that he went
from being overly macho about not sharing his feelings to practically
begging to unburden himself, but I guess I could buy an argument that he
finally asked for help because he had reached some kind of breaking
point. He's older now. Maybe he wants more stability now and doesn't
know how to get it. He could tell himself that one failed marriage was
bad luck and her fault. A second failed marriage could be a coincidence
and still her fault. A third failed marriage points the finger at him.
Or maybe Wilson finally wanted somewhere to turn to because this was the
first time one of his wives had had an affair and it was terra incognita
for him. But House's behavior towards Wilson was completely out of the
blue and frankly, did not seem like House to me.
You could say that House's rebuff of Wilson's plea was *meant* to be
something new; that maybe it was payback to Wilson for all of Wilson's
recent lecturing about Stacy and being miserable. But if it was
consciously intended by the writers to be a new behavior for House, I'd
expect Wilson to say something to that effect. I'd also expect Wilson
to point out that he was always there listening when House wanted to
talk about Stacy or Mark. Even when Wilson didn't approve of what House
was getting up to, he always gave complete overriding priority and
confidence to House, despite being friends with both House and Stacy.
Yeah, I got it pretty early on: House is a jerk. But for his one and
only friendship not to be reciprocal? No, I never got that off of him
before. He very soberly admitted that their friendship mattered to him
when Wilson chewed him out in "Babies & Bathwater." Now all of a sudden
House is implying that Wilson chose the wrong friend if he wants someone
to listen to him? It's yet another repugnant retcon of the character to
me.
What female tells her father he's going to have to use a condom the next
time he "does" her mother?
I think this was the first time they used the same exterior for House's
residence from a previous episode, but they changed the interior again.
I'm beginning to think that's a running gag with the producers.
"Sex Kills" feels like a sweeps title (sex and violence in one pithy
market-researched phrase). It's a melodramatic title considering that
at most, only one person died of sex in the story. (I've never heard of
gonorrhea making you pass out while driving, but fine, whatever.) For
that kind of impact, I would have expected House to give a speech about
how mortality is the price we pay for sexual reproduction, but he
doesn't know many people who turn down sex in protest.
Eh. There were a lot of one-liners, but they felt labored to me rather
than funny.
--
Chelsea Christenson
news:duou4s$p56$1...@pcls4.std.com...
> Spoilers for "Sex Kills," 3/7/06.
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> organically part of the characterization to show the consequences of
> that flaw coming home to roost.
Like the heart donor's husband "taking it out on" House? Although yeah,
that's a cheap shot in more than one way. The idea that House can just snap
his fingers and have a transplant team go to work was a "Huh?" moment for
me. Perhaps he threatened to have the donor's husband knee _them_.
> The thing that bothered me the most, though, was House basically telling
> Wilson to bug off because he doesn't do the listener bit.
That was just wrong. Wilson gets himself fired to protect House's job, and
House can't even listen to his tale of woe? That's not a friendship, let
alone a friendship House has claimed to value. And why would Wilson be
stupid enough to hang onto a one-sided friendship? He's a personable guy.
He can find better friends.
Nigel Sellars
"Chelsea Christenson" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
I personally don't find House's reaction to Wilson so odd. Wilson is
House's confidante, someone House could always talk to. House didn't
like the role reversal. With Cameron & Chase, House can express
curiosity so he can learn about ( and perhaps manipulate) the other
person. He has a history with Cuddy, so he can't manipulate her.
Wilson is House's only friend but for House to listen to Wilson might
reveal things about Wilson that House would prefer not to know. It's
also possible that House fears he might empathize too much with Wilson,
which is likely a painful experience.
This sort of relationship isn't that unusual. I know more than a few
people who've had a friend do this to them when they needed a
sympathetic ear. It's even happened to me. Which is probably why when
we finally meet someone who both listens to us and is someone we can
listen to ourselves, we want to spent our lives with them.
Just my humble opinion. Who knows what's going on in the writers' minds.
David Johnston
<n.sel...@verizon.net> wrote:
>In article <-9qdnS8EjIU...@comcast.com>,
> "Chelsea Christenson" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> "Micky DuPree" <MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply> wrote in message
>> news:duou4s$p56$1...@pcls4.std.com...
>> > Spoilers for "Sex Kills," 3/7/06.
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>reveal things about Wilson that House would prefer not to know. It's
>also possible that House fears he might empathize too much with Wilson,
>which is likely a painful experience.
I kind of thought that the only reason why House wasn't willing to
listen to Wilson was because he just didn't have time, and he would
have reacted differently if he hadn't been paged at that moment.
House would always rather make a snarky comment than apologise.
Chelsea Christenson
news:_F%Pf.24938$G%2.12353@trnddc07...
> Wilson is House's only friend but for House to listen to Wilson might
> reveal things about Wilson that House would prefer not to know.
From the way House was acting, he was sure he had Wilson all figured out.
He already knew.
Barry Margolin
MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote:
> I liked how they touched on the fact that donor organs get tossed
> because they aren't perfect, while people die for lack of donor organs
> or lack of perfect qualifications. But it was one of the few times this
> season when I thought they were being too subtle, because it was one of
> those issues worth a little rant on House's part. The larger ethical
> and technical implications of doing imperfect transplantation were sort
> of steamrolled by the plot about the drive for just this one transplant.
> Are they going to do this every time a patient goes into organ failure
> (color me dubious), and if not, why not?
Part of the logic in this case was that he wasn't eligible to receive an
organ donation at all, because of his age. If an eligible donor could
live decades with a good replacement organ, there's some sense in not
giving him one with a 5-year expiration date. Sure, it's better than
nothing, but if he can just hold on a little longer (and treatment often
allows this), he may get one that achieves his full potential. How
often do patients get refused being added to the organ recipient list?
But really, the problem is that the medical establishment in the US is
very perfectionist. Maybe it's paranoia, because of the danger of
malpractice lawsuits if they cut any corners. This theme shows up on
medical shows all the time, often in plots involving experimental
treatments or illegal importing of drugs that haven't yet been approved
by the FDA.
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
Philip Busch
Frankly, if it were not for the opening credits, no way would have I
recognized him. In fact, he reminded me more of (the late) Will Geer if
anything.
Also, how does a 66-year old man have an early 20-something daughter? I
understand that many men today start families very late but I think the
writers should have gone for a bit older woman to play the daughter
role (at least closer to age 30).
Unless I heard wrong, she always called him "dad", not "granddad".
Otherwise, a good episode as usual.
Richard Evans
>How did Howard Hesseman (aka "Dr. Johnny Fever" on WKRP) get so...old??
>
He will always be Dr. Johnny Fever to me.
"I'm a forty year old man who lives like a college sophomore. I eat
standing over the sink, for God's sake."
And the immortal:
"Booger!"
Barry Margolin
"Philip Busch" <phili...@msn.com> wrote:
> How did Howard Hesseman (aka "Dr. Johnny Fever" on WKRP) get so...old??
>
> Frankly, if it were not for the opening credits, no way would have I
> recognized him. In fact, he reminded me more of (the late) Will Geer if
> anything.
>
> Also, how does a 66-year old man have an early 20-something daughter? I
David Letterman is in his 60's and has a 2-year-old son. Tony Randall
had a kid when he was in his 70's.
But I agree, these are unusual.
> understand that many men today start families very late but I think the
> writers should have gone for a bit older woman to play the daughter
> role (at least closer to age 30).
I'll take any excuse for them to cast Kerri Lynn Pratt -- I think she's
really cute. She has one of the best pouts in the industry, which she
got to show off frequently last year in "Jack and Bobby". And as a
bridge player, I'd partner with her any time -- I don't care how poorly
she plays. :)
David Johnston
<bar...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <1141952835.4...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> "Philip Busch" <phili...@msn.com> wrote:
>
>> How did Howard Hesseman (aka "Dr. Johnny Fever" on WKRP) get so...old??
>>
>> Frankly, if it were not for the opening credits, no way would have I
>> recognized him. In fact, he reminded me more of (the late) Will Geer if
>> anything.
>>
>> Also, how does a 66-year old man have an early 20-something daughter? I
>
>David Letterman is in his 60's and has a 2-year-old son. Tony Randall
>had a kid when he was in his 70's.
>
>But I agree, these are unusual.
43, however is not so unusual.
>
George W Harris
: "Philip Busch" <phili...@msn.com> wrote:
:
:>
:> Also, how does a 66-year old man have an early 20-something daughter? I
He impregnates a woman when he's in his early 40s.
That seems pretty obvious to me.
--
"Intelligence is too complex to capture in a single number." -Alfred Binet
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
ANIM8Rfsk
Margolin at bar...@alum.mit.edu wrote on 3/9/06 6:36 PM:
> In article <1141952835.4...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> "Philip Busch" <phili...@msn.com> wrote:
>
>> How did Howard Hesseman (aka "Dr. Johnny Fever" on WKRP) get so...old??
>>
>> Frankly, if it were not for the opening credits, no way would have I
>> recognized him. In fact, he reminded me more of (the late) Will Geer if
>> anything.
>>
>> Also, how does a 66-year old man have an early 20-something daughter? I
>
> David Letterman is in his 60's and has a 2-year-old son.
Well, he will be in couple of years anyway. He's 58 right now.
Tony Randall
> had a kid when he was in his 70's.
78. Pushing 80 there rapidly.
>
> But I agree, these are unusual.
Jimmy Doohan was 80 when his youngest was born.
dr...@cornell.edu
> How did Howard Hesseman (aka "Dr. Johnny Fever" on WKRP) get so...old??
>
> Frankly, if it were not for the opening credits, no way would have I
> recognized him. In fact, he reminded me more of (the late) Will Geer if
> anything.
I knew him right away. (Maybe I've seen him in something else
recently?
I'm not sure). I cheered when I saw his name come up in the (final)
position
of honor :-).
[Spoilers below]
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On another point, what do people think Cameron said to the husband, if
anything,
at the end?
After she learned that the husband knew he had gonorrhea, she could
rationalize
that she doesn't need to load him with more guilt by confirming that
the wife
had it. On the other hand, since the husband knows who's getting the
heart, and
that family clearly knows about the gonorrhea, isn't it likely that the
news will get back
to the husband that way, if he's visiting at some point?
Did the episode make it clear whether the husband told his wife after
he learned he
was positive for gonorrhea? If I'm interpreting Cameron's expression
right, she seemed
to be shocked that he hadn't. Cameron wouldn't be the type of person
to tell him, just to
make him feel guilty, would she?
-Doug Elrod (dr...@cornell.edu)
David Johnston
He's already reached the conclusion that he infected his wife. It no
longer matters. What I'm wondering about is whether they'll tell the
student.
>
>Did the episode make it clear whether the husband told his wife after
>he learned he
>was positive for gonorrhea?
It was pretty clear to me that he hadn't. Seems like that was the
point of House and the husband's scene alone in the home. Yeah, she
was keeping some secrets from you, buddy. What were you keeping from
her?
If I'm interpreting Cameron's expression
>right, she seemed
>to be shocked that he hadn't. Cameron wouldn't be the type of person
>to tell him, just to
>make him feel guilty, would she?
That would be a bit redundant under the circumstances. But if he
hadn't seemed to feel guilt as he told her the truth, then yes, she'd
make sure to tell him that the VD he gave his wife is probably what
led to her death. She hates it when people don't feel as guilty as
she thinks they should.
Richard Evans
>
>[Spoilers below]
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>On another point, what do people think Cameron said to the husband, if
>anything,
>at the end?
I don't know what she told the husband, but she was bound to tell the
wife, who was then bound to tell her teen partners, which was going to
open a whole new can of worms.
khal...@netzero.com
Wife's dead. Not certain she had teen partners. Were you actually
watching the show?
Kate
Richard Evans
I sure thought I was. Did they not discover photos in her desk at
school of her having sex with teen boys? Was Cameron not dreading
having to reveal that to the husband, when he let her off the hook by
admitting he had gonorrhea?
I don't remember her dying, maybe I'm wrong.
David Johnston
<inf...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>dr...@cornell.edu wrote:
>
>>
>>[Spoilers below]
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>>On another point, what do people think Cameron said to the husband, if
>>anything,
>>at the end?
>
>I don't know what she told the husband, but she was bound to tell the
>wife,
The wife is dead.
David Johnston
<inf...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>khal...@netzero.com wrote:
>
>>
>>Richard Evans wrote:
>>> dr...@cornell.edu wrote:
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>I sure thought I was. Did they not discover photos in her desk at
>school of her having sex with teen boys?
No. They discovered pictures of a nude teen boy in her desk. However
there was nothing to indicate that she was having sex with the boy
apart from the pictures which may or may not have just been
confiscated from a student. There were no notes or anything and she
wasn't in them.
Was Cameron not dreading
>having to reveal that to the husband, when he let her off the hook by
>admitting he had gonorrhea?
>
>I don't remember her dying, maybe I'm wrong.
Dude...they transplanted her heart. (In an operations which, I'd say
is virtually certain to kill him in short order.)
Lorraine G
>(Richard Evans)
>>khal...@netzero.com wrote:
When Cameron returned to the school with the pictures, she said the
principal figured the pictures (found in the teacher's locked desk
drawer) had been confiscated by the teacher. In the picture they showed
briefly, you could only see a teenaged boy clearly. If the teacher was
_in_ the pictures with the boy, why would the principal figure she had
confiscated them?
>I don't remember her dying, maybe I'm
>wrong.
You don't remember _who_ dying? The teacher? She was the car accident
victim. It was her heart that was given to Howard Hesseman's character.
Lorraine
Patty Winter
Richard Evans <inf...@mindspring.com> wrote:
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>school of her having sex with teen boys?
Nude teen boy. The doctors assumed that the principal's assumption
about her confiscating them wrong, and that in fact they were hers.
But by the end of the show, it appeared that she really hadn't had
anything to do with them.
>Was Cameron not dreading
>having to reveal that to the husband, when he let her off the hook by
>admitting he had gonorrhea?
Exactly. Except we then found out that Cameron's revelation would
have been inaccurate. The wife's gonorrhea had come from the husband,
not from an affair with one of her students.
>I don't remember her dying, maybe I'm wrong.
She was clinically dead throughout the whole episode; House was just
keeping her organs going until he could convince the husband to let
him use her heart, and until he could assure himself that the heart
would be (more or less) safe for the recipient.
Patty
--
"Teal'c, what is that?" "It is a long-range visual communications
device--similar to your television, but much more advanced."
"Think it gets Showtime?"
Micky DuPree
: "Micky DuPree" <MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply> wrote in message
: news:duou4s$p56$1...@pcls4.std.com...
:: Abrasiveness to that degree is a character flaw, and it's organically
:: part of the characterization to show the consequences of that flaw
:: coming home to roost.
:
: Like the heart donor's husband "taking it out on" House? Although
: yeah, that's a cheap shot in more than one way.
"Cheap" isn't a bad description. How often do people really resolve
their emotional issues with doctors by resorting to physical violence in
a hospital, after all? Plus, I couldn't help but feel they had been
over this ground before. While a knee to the groin was a bit of an
escalation, it was in the same vein as the father slugging House in
"Detox." We already know from the father slugging him in "Hunting" that
House is willing to provoke people and literally take the hit as a means
to an end. Yeah, it obviously hurts, but House is just treating it as
an acceptable price to pay.
: The idea that House can just snap his fingers and have a transplant
: team go to work was a "Huh?" moment for me.
Exactly. It's way past time that there ought to be consequences that
House can't just amortize as a manageable cost of doing business. There
ought to be blowback that negatively affects the very things he hopes to
accomplish. Or if the writers are adamant that House doesn't have to
stoop to mending fences, then it's worth at least one scene showing
Cuddy giving the transplant team the hard sell on what it will mean to
them and to the hospital if they can publish and get grant money for
doing a successful experimental surgery.
:: The thing that bothered me the most, though, was House basically
:: telling Wilson to bug off because he doesn't do the listener bit.
:
: That was just wrong. Wilson gets himself fired to protect House's
: job, and House can't even listen to his tale of woe? That's not a
: friendship, let alone a friendship House has claimed to value. And
: why would Wilson be stupid enough to hang onto a one-sided friendship?
: He's a personable guy. He can find better friends.
Yep. None of it made any sense or looked like the way the characters
had behaved last season. It's another superficial reading of the
characters, that Wilson is the open one while House is the closed-off
one. But the actual presentation last season was a lot more subtle than
that.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
<n.sel...@verizon.net> writes:
: In article <-9qdnS8EjIU...@comcast.com>, "Chelsea Christenson"
: <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
:: "Micky DuPree" <MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply> wrote in message
:: news:duou4s$p56$1...@pcls4.std.com...
::: The thing that bothered me the most, though, was House basically
::: telling Wilson to bug off because he doesn't do the listener bit.
::
:: That was just wrong. Wilson gets himself fired to protect House's
:: job, and House can't even listen to his tale of woe? That's not a
:: friendship, let alone a friendship House has claimed to value. And
:: why would Wilson be stupid enough to hang onto a one-sided
:: friendship? He's a personable guy. He can find better friends.
:
: I personally don't find House's reaction to Wilson so odd. Wilson is
: House's confidante, someone House could always talk to. House didn't
: like the role reversal.
Why did House ask Wilson if his wife minded being left alone at
Christmas in "Damned If You Do"? You just don't go there unless you're
prepared to hear the answer. Why did House persist in finding out about
Wilson's homeless brother in "Histories" despite strong resistance from
Wilson? The role reversal isn't swapping House for Wilson, but swapping
second-season House for first-season House.
: Wilson is House's only friend but for House to listen to Wilson might
: reveal things about Wilson that House would prefer not to know.
House wants to know everything. It's one of his defining traits, or at
least used to be.
: It's also possible that House fears he might empathize too much with
: Wilson, which is likely a painful experience.
Unless House was unfaithful to Stacy, which is difficult to imagine for
more than one reason, it's hard to see where House would have any
empathy for someone he suspects is cheating on his wife. But we have
seen House listen before. For him to now describe himself as not
"*that* kind of a friend" is completely out of the blue. (So is Wilson
acting like a teenage girl since "Need to Know," but I've fanwanked that
elsewhere.)
-Micky
Micky DuPree
Barry Margolin <bar...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
: In article <duou4s$p56$1...@pcls4.std.com>,
: MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote:
:: I liked how they touched on the fact that donor organs get tossed
:: because they aren't perfect, while people die for lack of donor
:: organs or lack of perfect qualifications. But it was one of the few
:: times this season when I thought they were being too subtle, because
:: it was one of those issues worth a little rant on House's part. The
:: larger ethical and technical implications of doing imperfect
:: transplantation were sort of steamrolled by the plot about the drive
:: for just this one transplant. Are they going to do this every time a
:: patient goes into organ failure (color me dubious), and if not, why
:: not?
:
: Part of the logic in this case was that he wasn't eligible to receive
: an organ donation at all, because of his age.
Some people have received organ transplants at ages even higher than 66,
but usually they have some kind of clout. Director Robert Altman
received a heart transplant at the age of 70. Baseball player Mickey
Mantle received a liver transplant at the age of 63, despite being a
recovering alcoholic whose previous liver had cancer and hepatitis C.
He died not long after because there were cancer cells left over that
proceeded to run rampant under the protection of the antirejection
immunosuppressant drugs. He was a much worse risk than the healthy
fictitious transplant recipient in "Sex Kills," but what transplant
committee was going to say no to Mickey Mantle?
Similar story with actor Larry Hagman, who destroyed his own liver with
alcoholism and then got a new liver at the age of 63. The outcome was
better in his case, but it demonstrates that eligibility criteria aren't
as absolute as doctors would have you believe.
CHASE: We do nothing, she dies from liver failure within sixty
days.
CAMERON: She needs a transplant.
HOUSE: That's gonna happen.
CAMERON: She's thirty-eight years old. She's a mother --
HOUSE: She's a schizophrenic mother, with no money -- on the
public dole, in fact -- who knocks back vodka every
time a breeze blows her way.
FOREMAN: Mickey Mantle had a whole bar named after him. He got
a transplant.
HOUSE: Yeah, well, Lucy can't switch-hit.
-- "The Socratic Method"
: If an eligible [recipient] could live decades with a good replacement
: organ, there's some sense in not giving him one with a 5-year
: expiration date.
The doctors in "Sex Kills" acted like the recipient had unlimited time
with his new, suboptimal heart. That seemed a little dubious to me, but
that's how they were acting, and no one said anything to counter that
impression.
: Sure, it's better than nothing, but if he can just hold on a little
: longer (and treatment often allows this), he may get one that achieves
: his full potential.
You've already given the topic more thoughtful treatment than the
episode did. But it's worth asking what about the people who die while
usable, though suboptimal organs get tossed. And they do die, every
year. It's worth hearing the cons to what House did, too, of which I
assume the primary one would be expense. Insurance isn't going to cover
procedures classified as experimental and frankly, there's a strong
financial incentive to let all non-rich people with bum organs die.
: How often do patients get refused being added to the organ recipient
: list?
Age and risk factors do weigh against one, but as the Mickey Mantle
example illustrates, there are some vast discretionary powers of life
and death in the hands of some unelected people who operate largely
without public oversight.
The one question they did touch on in "Sex Kills" was how often do
*donors* get rejected:
HOUSE: Sixty percent of potential donor hearts get tossed in
the trash because there's something wrong with them.
With fat people, it's closer to eighty.
CAMERON: But if her heart's no good, then --
HOUSE: Big fat sloppy heart beats no heart at all.
Which just begged for some follow-up (particularly since the potential
donor pool in America is getting fatter all the time).
: But really, the problem is that the medical establishment in the US is
: very perfectionist.
And hidebound. I think there should be an incentive for registering as
an organ donor, and that limited power of attorney over the harvesting
of organs should be vested in the donor registry, not in the next of
kin, who often go against the wishes of the donor during their grief.
: Maybe it's paranoia, because of the danger of malpractice lawsuits if
: they cut any corners.
I think they got around that in "Sex Kills" with the classification of
the procedure as experimental. Faced with imminent death, I think most
recipients would be glad to sign any waivers of liability put under
their noses. And, as House pointed out, the experimental category meant
that failure wouldn't spoil the surgeons' mortality and morbidity
statistics.
But over the long haul, this is a genie that the writers on _House_
logically shouldn't be able to put back in the bottle. From now on,
every time House has a patient who needs an organ transplant and either
can't qualify or else can't wait, I'm going to wonder why House doesn't
pull the same stunt he pulled this time. There was a lot glossed over
in this plot. Once upon a time, House would have made a little rant
about the unnecessary deaths resulting from antiquated transplant
policies, and possibly one of the other doctors (Cuddy or Foreman would
be logical, by-the-book choices) would have pointed out the pitfalls of
turning to suboptimal transplantation on a routine basis. Most of that
was missing in "Sex Kills."
-Micky
Micky DuPree
dr...@cornell.edu writes:
: On another point, what do people think Cameron said to the husband, if
: anything, at the end?
I think she said nothing. The overriding public-health reason to tell
the husband that his wife had had gonorrhea was because he needed to get
tested too, but it turned out he already knew he had had it.
Personally, I'd tell him anyway because I think too often people don't
see the connection between their actions and the negative consequences.
The more bullets they dodge, the more they think they're bulletproof.
At the same time, though, unless I'm missing something important about
the disease, I'd also tell him that I was very, very doubtful that
gonorrhea would cause a car crash.
: On the other hand, since the husband knows who's getting the heart,
: and that family clearly knows about the gonorrhea, isn't it likely
: that the news will get back to the husband that way, if he's visiting
: at some point?
That's a lot of contact for people who don't have anything else in
common, and that's an awfully embarrassing topic of conversation to
bring up and share (although it would be hard to put anything past the
daughter). But say he does visit and they start discussing STDs. Then
he takes his lumps. I can see Cameron telling herself why push it,
though.
: Did the episode make it clear whether the husband told his wife after
: he learned he was positive for gonorrhea?
It seemed clear to me that the husband was staking everything on the
hope that she didn't have gonorrhea, and he could live in that kind of
denial only if he hadn't told her, which was why she remained untested
and untreated for the disease.
: Cameron wouldn't be the type of person to tell him, just to make him
: feel guilty, would she?
Cameron is totally that kind of person. In "Fidelity," she told the
*victim* of infidelity that he was a terrible person because he harbored
ill will towards the cheater (even though he never acted on that ill
will).
But in the most recent case, Cameron probably would have considered it
1) redundant, because the husband already felt guilty, and 2) overkill,
because he was already stricken with grief as well. She's a widow
herself, after all, and doesn't seem to be able to get past the
experience.
-Micky