House Review: 8×22: "Everybody Dies" House Sees Dead People. Again.

DAHLINGS –

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FINALE!  I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR SUBSEQUENT REACTIONS.

For once, I shall begin at the end rather than the beginning. As we all know, “Everybody Dies” is the series finale.

For the sake of spending Wilson’s last months together, House fakes his own demise.  He pretends to burn to death, there is a funeral, Wilson gets a text.  He finds House grinning, sitting on a stoop.  After being yawped at endlessly about how selfish and self-centered House is, House makes the grand gesture of  sacrificing everything for Wilson.

 This begs the question: what on earth was the point of the episode?  If House has already planned his own death, down to switching dental records with his patient, who lies dead next to him in the warehouse, why is he visited by the Ghosts of Costars Past?  I mean, it’s nice to see Anne Dudek, Kal Penn, Sela Ward and Jennifer Morrison again. If only they had something more interesting to do.

So, House wakes up from shooting heroin, and is trapped in a burning warehouse.  Why is this warehouse burning?  It’s never explained, so it drops into the vast yawning pit of Baffling Events and Disappearing Characters and Plot Holes.  Again, if he’s planned to fake his own death, what’s with the ghosts and hallucinations? Why on earth did he shoot heroin?  Don’t give me that addict kerfuffle.  Surely he’s done it before. He’s taken everything before.

 Each “ghost” shows up to lecture House about himself…pardon me for putting it this way, but HOW COME THIS SHOW CAN’T MAKE A POINT WITHOUT HALLUCINATIONS?  This fall-back device is annoying.  And tired.  And ultimately boring, once you get over the pleasure of seeing the old faces again.  The same old arguments, written the same old ways. Written and directed by show creator David Shore, it’s not up to the amazing “No Reason” and not as abysmal as “Two Stories.” Pointless mediocrity is what we have after a listless final season.  It’s easy to see why the show has been cancelled.

 What’s missing from these characters is any sense of humor.  Each “ghost” solemnly lectures House about his life, his choices, fill in the blanks. Kutner is first, (Kal Penn), who asks him who the dead guy is.

“It’s James LeGros. He was the POTW for about, oh, five minutes.”

 House exposits:

POTW is a heroin addict who likes being an addict (ANVIL ALERT).  He has agreed to help House (although we’re not sure how) get out of jail. Through dialogue with Kutner, the exposition continues: House is trying to avoid jail to stay with Wilson for the remaining time.  Kutner talks about a “plan” and asks, “why are you sitting here on the floor with the suicidal guy?”

 I’d heard it all before and I knew it was a hallucination and House wasn’t dead.  Amber (Anne Dudek) shows up to take over the exposition.  She speaks in a spaced-out monotone, which fits the dialogue.

Amber is there the longest, and given the lamest dialogue, mostly standing around solemnly intoning…whatever.  Your faithful correspondent doesn’t give a damn.   Stacy, House’s great love in Seasons 1 and 2 (Sela Ward) is there to show him the life he never had, handing him a baby with matching big blue eyes.  Excuse me?  House has never shown more than a faint interest in settling down.  Yes, he bonded with Rachel Cuddy, but has she ever been mentioned again?  He looks into a suburban living room , where he is canoodling with…Dominika? 

Speaking of which, where was Cuddy during the Greatest Hits parade?

Then, finally, drama!  House crashes through a collapsing floor!  He’s trapped!  As he lies on the floor, surrounded by flames, Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) appears, urging House to die.  That he’s done everything he can, he deserves to end it.  It is such a pleasure to see her onscreen again.

 However, she joins him in the hospital with the POTW, and in a baffling turnaround, tells him he’s a “coward” for choosing suicide. Meanwhile, Foreman and Wilson have been searching everywhere.  They go to—Nolan’s office!  WTF?  Yes, it’s nice to see Andre Braugher, but–Nolan wouldn’t let House out of Mayfield unless he got clean.  And now he’s okay with House being on Vicodin?  This makes even less sense than everything else! Oh well, Nolan does fine with his three sentences.

House is alone.  “I can change,” he mutters.  But he can’t get out!  Foreman and Wilson reach the warehouse just in time to see House through the flames.  Then a burning beam comes down and the whole place explodes.

“Oh, fuck me.”

A body bag is removed, the dental records match.Your faithful correspondent was upset but all right with House being dead.  If someone was going to die, it is fitting that it should be House. 

Foreman breaks the news to Wilson

A funeral is held.  House’s ashes are in an urn.  I will forego the obvious joke.  Charlene Yi kicks off the festivities, Blythe (House’s mother) gets a line, Chase gets a line, Amber Tamblyn shows up, everybody gets a line. It’s all actually quite poignant.

Then Wilson gets up.  He starts a eulogy, but then loses it completely, calling House “an ass” for failing Wilson the one time truly needed him.  A cell phone keeps ringing during Wilson’s sort-of eulogy.  It’s in his pocket, but it’s not his phone.  He opens it and sees a text: SHUT UP YOU IDIOT.

Cut to a car pulling up.  Wilson gets out, to find House waiting for him.  Turns out, as I said at the top, House faked his own death.  He has given up his career, his identity, in short, sacrificed everything to be with Wilson.  Now tell me that isn’t true love.

“PSYCH!”

The ending montage shows the cast (Taub has both mothers and both babies, excuse me?) carrying on in the wake of House’s “death.”  The best moment is when it is revealed that Chase is the new head of diagnostic medicine.  The second best moment is when Foreman finds House’s ID card wedged under a wobbly table, and realizes what has actually happened. So, everybody dies, but they don’t.  Just that poor bastard junkie.

At the very end, we see House and Wilson on motorcycles, strapping on their gear.  “House, when my cancer gets bad—“

House gives him perhaps the happiest smile we’ve seen in eight years.  “Cancer is boring.”  With that, they ride off into the sunset, to the strains of Louis Prima singing “Enjoy Yourself,” a truly bittersweet choice.  And a perfect ending.

“Wilson, you look so gay.  Thank God.”

Farewell, House.  For better or worse, we shall not see your like again.

Random:

Your faithful scrivener has not watched “Swan Song” yet, so my opinions will be saved for another time.

It is a shame that this episode followed the “Reichenbach Falls” on “Sherlock”.  Bad timing.

Does anyone else find it sad that Chase’s team is now Park and Adams?

Wilson sitting with a blanket over him the morning after the fire broke my heart.

“Enjoy Yourself” was sung by Amber in a great creepy way when she was a hallucination in Season Five.

I love Sela Ward.  Stacy was the only one who called him “Greg” and gave as good as she got.

I missed Lisa Edelstein.

Ciao,

Elisa & Fletcher

House Review: 8×21, "Holding On"

DAHLINGS –

My dears, what with watching ‘Holding On’ Monday night and again yesterday afternoon, there is a mountain of soiled silk handkerchiefs in the wastebasket.  Yes, the wastebasket.  They’re ruined during a good cry.  A small group of nuns embroider them until they go blind, fortunately, there are always new nuns.  In that country, any way.

The POTW of the week is a 19-year-old cheerleader played by a 30-year-old actor with the charisma of an armchair.  According to the promo monkeys, there was a SHOCKING SECRET about the patient.  Cheerleader Biff hears his long-dead brother’s voice in his head. Oh. He might be schizophrenic, but probably not. Shocking.  What makes this even more boring is that the team is now Taub, Park and Adams.

In any event, his mother, the Worst Mother Ever, had destroyed all of the pictures of the boy and his name, Christopher, was never mentioned again. However, Cheerleader Biff has secretly kept a picture of his brother.

The actual plot is that Wilson’s cancer is inoperable, and he has decided not to go the chemo route, but live the five months he has left to the fullest.  House of course cannot deal with this.  So he argues; he drugs Wilson with Propofol (the drug that killed Michael Jackson) so that Wilson can experience “death”; he fills the cafeteria with actors to play Wilson’s surviving patients. We know it is a scam the instant House introduces “Mikey.”  Another phony adolescent? Wouldn’t Wilson have recognized them? Why not a simple conversation about how many lives Wilson has saved? They always do that to justify whatever House is up to.

( Note: There is a special circle in hell reserved for the person who invented the “one person starts clapping, then another, and soon everyone is clapping”.) 

Meanwhile, Foreman has gotten House season tickets to the hockey games, “one month after Wilson’s expiration date.”  It’s no surprise that House tears them up and stuffs them down Foreman’s toilet.  What happens later is a surprise, but not the well-written, interesting kind.

Wilson has called Thirteen, who has gone blonde, for advice on how to cope.  She naturally assumes he’s going for chemo, but when he says he isn’t, she’s all like, “Okay.” This despite the fact she’s been doing everything she can to keep her Huntington’s from progressing.  Then she visits House, who’s staring gloomily at a bald patient in the chemo unit, and tells him…to be honest, I forget. The chemo suites I’ve visited are filled with bored people, most with hair, reading magazines.

Once again, the scenes between Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard are poor gold. 

House takes Wilson out for a quiet dinner, where they reminisce, chuckling. (SOILED HANDKERCHIEF ALERT!) It struck me that this type of scene has heretofore always been shown silently. As they reminisce, Wilson starts to rethink his decision.  “Don’t do this to me, Wilson,” House says quietly.  But Wilson is certain that House is conning him so Wilson can be there longer for House.  Once again, it’s about what House needs.  Wilson stands up: “I don’t owe you anything. Our entire relationship has been about you. My dying is about me.”

Wilson storms out, and breaks down crying in his car.  (SO many handkerchiefs, so beautifully played.)  Of course House follows him, and Wilson cries harder.

House: You don’t have to just accept this.
Wilson: Yes, I do have to accept this. I have five months to live and you’re making me go through this ALONE! [Wilson starts crying again]. I’m pissed because I’m dying and it’s not fair. And I need to know that you’re there. I need you to tell me that my life was worthwhile and…I need you to tell me that you love me.

Naturally, House says no.  “Not unless you fight.” 

Some fans have been deeply offended by the characters acting so out of character. In some ways House hasn’t changed.  He’s still trying to get his way, trying to get what he needs and putting himself first.

Foreman lays down the law to Wilson.  When Wilson says, “I’m not responsible for House’s happiness,” Foreman responds that he is.  And that Wilson has had three broken marriages, hundreds of colleagues, thousands of patients, and the only person who has lasted is House. Foreman: “Enduring pain to do some good for someone you care about. Isn’t that what life is?”  I beg your pardon?  Does that even mean anything?  What sort of home lives do the writers have?

During an earlier scene, the bathroom door is opened and we see the sinks overflowing and two frantic janitors.  Did House stuff hockey tickets down every toilet in the hospital? 

The Worst Mother Ever shows up at her son’s room.  But once she hears the name “Christopher” her eyes bug out and she runs.  She really is the Worst Mother Ever.

Cheerleader Biff gets an MRI scan.  When Adams and Park slide him out, as Greg Yaitaines would say, KA-BOOM!  A wall of water descends on them, breaking the ceiling and ruining the MRI. 

The most amazingly symmetrical ceiling collapse ever.

House shows up at the ER, leads the team into Cheerleader Biff’s room, and insta-diagnoses him with some sort of artery thing in his ear.  Take it out, all of his symptoms will clear up.  And he’ll stop hearing his brother’s voice. (ANVIL ALERT)!

Taub tells House he’s being an ass to Wilson.  House loses it and shouts that life is pain, he gets up in pain, he goes to work in pain, he’s considered suicide more times than he can count.

Then House finds out that Cheerleader Biff drank ammonia because he didn’t want to lose his brother’s voice.  (ANVIL ALERT)

Enraged, House runs into CB’s room and proceeds to strangle him, yelling about wanting to live and wanting to die.  Park clocks him with his own cane, and shrieks that sometimes the truth sucks. (ANVILS, SO MANY ANVILS! RUN!)

The Worst Mother Ever has taken Christopher’s photograph, but agrees to give it back if Cheerleader Biff has the surgery.  He accepts fate and loss and all that (ANVIL ALERT) and has the surgery.  But! Amazingly enough!  The Worst Mother Ever takes out a bunch of photos from his childhood.  He starts to cry but doesn’t, while she gives him a bug-eyed smile.  Seriously, this woman is frightening.  I think she wanted her son strangled so she could burn all of his pictures and forget about him, too.

Meanwhile House sits alone and plays the piano, which we have been waiting for all season.  Wilson eats dinner alone.  When he goes to get a bottle of wine, he sees a pack of Oreos.

Wilson turns up on House’s doorstep.  “I’m ready to start the next round of chemo?”
“Why?”

“Because you need me. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing anymore.”

“No. You’re the only one I listen to. And when I stopped, I almost killed my patient.” House says Wilson is smarter than him. He’s not okay that there are only five months left, but it’s better than nothing. House says he won’t tell Wilson he loves him, which Wilson seems pleased about.  Yours truly was disappointed.

Then, of course, the script goes south.  House and Wilson are happily planning a hiking trip, when Foreman enters with the hospital lawyer.  Seems House practically destroyed the hospital by stuffing the tickets down Foreman’s toilet.  Really?  Really?  The plumbers at PPTH are worse than security.  The tickets have House’s name and fingerprints (??) on them.  So House’s parole is revoked.  He’s going back to prison for—wait for it—six months.  When he gets out, Wilson will be dead.

Sucks to be House.  Sucks to be Wilson.  Sucks to be a fan, because next week is the final episode. It’s called “Everybody Dies.”

Random:

Why didn’t Taub and Adams think the picture was child porn?

Why is “misery” the catchall word for any kind of unhappiness?  Don’t the writers have a thesaurus?

Thirteen looks very good as a blonde.

If Wilson dies and House accepts it with serenity, your faithful correspondent is going to have to choke a bitch.

Ciao, Elisa & Fletcher

House Review: 8×20 "Post-Mortem" or, Ferris Wilson’s Day Off

DAHLINGS –

Let me get one thing out of the way: I adore House and Wilson, in case you haven’t already noticed. Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard are perfectly in sync for this ending arc. This viewer is riveted every moment they are on screen.

Now, if only the writing would follow suit.

Once again, the POTW is interesting.  Peter Weller, who directed, appears briefly in the opening scene to call time of death on a young woman.  The body is taken to the morgue, where Dr. Biff, who has OCD if his chart is anything to go by, proceeds with an autopsy while bitching about the doctor who did the surgery.  And then tries to cut open his own brain.  Cue opening credits.

 The best moment in the show.  In the opening.

Meanwhile, Wilson has decided to take a road trip. He buys a $75,000 red car.  (Where’s Doris Egan when you need her?)  Out of the blue, his PET scan will reveal whether or not he lives or dies.  What?  Pardon me? Did they skip five years into the future?  Please, someone explain this.  Continuity is an unknown concept in the House writing room, but did anyone even READ last week’s script?

Last week, Wilson had thymoma, which could be treated with radiation, chemo, and surgery.  He went for Super-Chemo, even though he had a 75% chance of survival with traditional treatment.  Now it’s fatal?

So Wilson goes the tried-and-true bucket list route He drags House along, with Wilson calling himself “Kyle Calloway.”  Wilson is determined to “embrace the shallow.” Which we know will last for halfway through the show.  House and Wilson go to a dive where Wilson gags down an 80 oz. steak and throws it up again.  House arranges a threesome with hookers for Wilson, after having convinced him to go to hair and makeup to have a bald cap applied to make him look more like a dying cancer victim.  Good times.

 Your obedient scrivener feels the way RSL apparently did:

Tweet from Kath Lingenfelter:  Oh man, RSL was not happy with us on this gag.

Oh, Robert, you sold your soul for a mess of pottage.

Someone also explain why the female writers on this show go along with the appalling female stereotypes the show has been trafficking in the past two seasons.  Are they actually men with false names?   Do they have a secret right-wing agenda that all women are good for is sex and…sex?  Are they all former hookers, hoping to bring their deep life experience to the screen?

Does anyone remember the earlier seasons when Wilson was a suave ladies man?  A philanderer?  A “panty peeler”?  They neutered him some time ago, but really.  This is too much.   

Inevitably it all goes wrong.  Wilson sees a funeral procession (ANVIL ALERT), races his car past it, and crashes through a fence and wrecks the car.  What is it with this show and car crashes?  At least no cows were injured during the filming.  Wilson’s wallet is stolen by one of the hookers.  They end up at a bus stop, where Kyle Calloway runs screaming from this script and James Wilson returns. 

There is an old lady with Alzheimer’s at the bus stop, and Wilson is determined to stay with her until the cops arrive.  House and Wilson ride a bus back home.  Wilson talks about a traumatic senior year incident that left him scarred (a girl dumped him for–wait for it–Kyle Calloway).  One can hardly believe he got married three times after that shattering incident.  

Once again, Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard give the script far more than it deserves. Wilson is terrified to return to the hospital and find out his fate.House says, “I could live without Kyle Calloway,” making it more than clear that he can’t live without Wilson.  A tear slipped down my perfectly pink cheek. 

Meanwhile, back to the POTW.  He applied for the slot in House’s team that Chase got and thinks Chase has wasted his life.  Again, what?  Chase has helped save hundreds of lives, killed an evil African dictator, got Epiphany Face last week.  What more do you want, Dr Biff? 

Since House isn’t around, they again swap around the script so Chase can do all of the standard House misdiagnoses and stand up against the rest of the team and Foreman to do what’s right.  In one shot he’s leaning over a morgue table staring downward, in a pose so House-like it’s ludicrous.  “We’re missing something,” he keeps saying.  He even gets his own whiteboard.  Then—Epiphany Face!  There’s a quick explanation that Dr. Biff’s OCD causes him to use way too much hospital soap.  Combined with energy drinks, he went crazy, etc. etc.  There, there, it makes no sense to me either.

Now that he’s learned his own version of Epiphany Face, Chase is ready to move on from PPTH.  Foreman can’t persuade him to stay, so they have an awkward hug.  Chase goes to where House is staring at Wilson’s PET scan, they exchange perfunctory goodbyes, and Chase says, “Let me know how Wilson is.” And leaves.  One more time: WHAT?  Chase has known Wilson for eight years and he walks out?

 I’ve got a new series to star in, “Chicago Fire.” Later.

After Chase leaves, House sees something on the PET scan. From House’s expression, we know it is BAD NEWS.

Your faithful correspondent’s best guess is that Chase will return to operate on Wilson, since Dr. Biff said, “Statistically, you’re the best surgeon in this hospital.”

Again, what?

Random:

Jesse Spencer does a superb job.  He plays the change in Chase from fellow to leader subtly.  However, it leaves almost as big a hole in the cast as Cuddy. When the three remaining fellows are together, they look oddly pathetic.

Speaking of the three remaining fellows, it was such a pleasure to barely see Adams and Park.  Whatever happened to Taub’s babies? No, wait, I don’t want to know.

Ciao,

Elisa & Fletcher

House Review: 8×19, "The C-Word"

DAHLINGS –

 

For the last few days yours truly has been insanely busy.  And I know how many of my beloved readers hunger for my reviews.  My Twitter feed has been filled with moans of “When, when?” Here you are, darling hearts.  Although I’m not sure what “The C-Word” stood for besides Cancer.  Caring?  Columbia?  Concord Grapes?  It was directed by the show’s star, Hugh Laurie.

 

As I mentioned in my previous review, it’s rather annoying that the show is pulling out this manipulative melodramatic twist for the last few episodes, but better late than never.  This was a complex episode despite some major flaws.  And by far the best this season.  

 

The heart of the show has always been the relationship of House and Wilson.  They have drugged each other, stolen from each other, lied to each other about matters great and small.  And yet the friendship continues.  (One might consider them two halves that make a whole. Or not.)  The regrettable loss of Cuddy has made the House/Wilson dynamic even more central.  This is why the show has been so difficult to watch it this season being tossed to one side in favor of outlandish plots and insipid characters.  Matters have not been helped by Robert Sean Leonard’s uninterested acting and Hugh Laurie’s phoning it in.

 

However, both actors brought their A-game, particularly Robert Sean Leonard.  This was a stellar performance, revealing more of Wilson than we have seen in eight seasons.  The darkness and anger that has been glimpsed sporadically in the past comes front and center.  Both House and Wilson suffer from an inner darkness that they medicate in different ways.  House is an antisocial drug addict; Wilson hides himself behind a cheerful shiny surface. As we discovered at the end of last week, Wilson has cancer, Stage Two thymoma. At the latest doctor’s office, House says, “How many times have I told you I wanted to be alone and you’ve made yourself a pain in the ass?  I owe you.” 

 

Unfortunately, the POTW plot is a straight rehash of “Finding Judas”.  Sick child of feuding divorced parents is put on a carnival ride by the father.  Disaster ensues.  Emily, the daughter, is either cute or crying “Ow, ow, ow!” She has a genetic illness, and her mother (Jessica Collins) is a humorless geneticist specializing in same.  It’s never clear what the father does, but he’s a lot more fun. Chris L. McKenna portrays the confused, loving father, creating a fully rounded character from sketchy material. For some insane reason, Foreman wants Dr. Mom to head the team.  Once again, disaster ensues.

 

Dangerous experimental drugs have been a go-to plot device last season and this season.  Last year House mainlined a drug that caused tumors in his leg.  This time the child is used as a lab rat by her mother, giving her daughter a drug that has not yet received FDA approval.   Joint custody is so not a good idea.

“Mommy’s sorry for almost killing you, sweetie.  She’ll be more careful next time.”

Emily’s illness, as it turns out, is not caused by genetics but from a tumor in her heart.  House has been working with the cases less and less this season, so it’s Chase who gets to have Epiphany Face and solve the puzzle.  One suspects that the show is setting up Chase to be the team leader as the series ends.

 

And, of course, the main plot: Wilson is determined to use an extreme form of chemotherapy to blast his cancer.  It is literally life or death.  The inherent unbelievability of this plan is given what writers call “explainers,” those sentences that explain why a course of action is being taken that would otherwise make the viewer go, “Huh?”  It is clear that Wilson has an excellent chance of survival with traditional therapy (thymoma is almost never fatal).  The “explains,” if you will, are brought to the table when Wilson refuses to die in a hospital.  Then he produces a series of objects from patients who died unexpectedly of cancers with high survival rates.  House objects, but Wilson is determined to go through with it.   What else can House say but, “we’ll do it at my place”?

 

Once the medical equipment is in place, House raises a toast “to stupidity.” Before Wilson can agree, House goes on to give a blood-curdling description of what Wilson can expect. “Agony isn’t a word or a concept. It’s your only reality.”  He then asks, quite reasonably, “What are we doing here, Wilson?” Indeed, what are they doing there?  Wilson looks determined.  This is another moment that outlines how rickety the conceit is, but Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard sell it as well as they can. 

 

 It’s only a matter of time before Wilson is a grey-faced, vomiting mess.  Director Laurie chooses to shoot many of these scenes in tight close-up, letting us see into their emotional lives, particularly House.  House is tender with his sick friend, even with all of the snarky jokes he uses to cope.  He holds Wilson’s head when he throws up into an emesis basin, then wipes his mouth expertly and goes on to the next task.  This kind of care is exhausting, round-the-clock work.  The realism with which this is shown makes these scenes hard to sit through.  (Kudos to the makeup people.  Wilson’s pallor and cracked lips are heart-rending.)

 

House never touches anyone or lets them touch him, with exception of the women he’s been involved with.  With Wilson, the boundaries are dropped.

 

House giving the last of his Vicodin to Wilson.  

A million fangirls scream around the world

But then, crazed with pain and illness, Wilson lashes out at the unfairness of getting cancer, and spews out venomous truth at House.  House sits, hurt, and silent. House is usually silent when the people he cares about rage at him.  If anyone has any thoughts about this, please post them in the comments.

 

There is an unfortunate cut at the end of this scene to cute Emily, asking, “If I die, will my parents get back together?” (Your faithful scrivener burst out laughing.)   

 

The parents reconcile and Wilson survives the treatment.  There is a reference to three days having passed.  Three days?  Three days?  The child had the usual dozen wrong diagnoses, then major surgery in only three days?  Wilson went through all of that in three days?  You might argue it’s “television time,” but the script itself says three days. Even though Emily is still going to die an early death, she’s okay with it and her parents reconcile.
 

Wilson apologizes for his splenetic remarks, then asks for one last thing: to make it to the bathroom.  House hauls him up and half-carries Wilson to the bathroom.  Wilson notices that House is in extreme pain and asks if how he felt is how House feels all the time.  House gives an answering grunt.  “It really does suck being you, doesn’t it?” Wilson observes.  “At least I don’t have cancer,” is the response.

However you choose to view their friendship, it is indeed true love.  It would have been perfect had the episode ended there.  Instead, House and Wilson return to work.  Wilson finds an open laptop on his desk, hits a button.  Journey blasts out, accompanied by a photo montage of House and two hookers clowning with an unconscious Wilson ala “Weekend At Bernie’s.” Your mileage may vary, but it was a cheap, jarring end to an otherwise excellent episode.

 

“When did I get the time, money and energy to do this? When my Vicodin’s all used up? Ah, screw it.  Par-TAY!”

What did you think about the ending montage?  Feel free to discuss in the comments.

 

Random:

 

Why on earth did they do it in House’s living room and not the bedroom?

 

Apparently Emily’s parents have been raging at each other for years.  One wonders how long the detente will last once their daughter is back to dying on schedule.

 

What is with the cinematography this season?  Half of the show was almost pitch black.

Anything you’d like to say in the comments?  Just bear in mind that I am always right.

Review: House Ep. 8×13, Caveman Of The House

DAHLINGS –

Much like the doctors vying for the title of team leader, the writers of “House” are striving to see who can write the worst script before the series’ end. Sarah Hess and Liz Friedman have a strong lead with “Man Of The House.”

This script is a strange mix indeed: a cauldron of outdated sexual politics, sitcom, and…what was the third thing? Oh, yes, the patient of the week, a marriage counseling motivational speaker named…um…er…Biff. Sorry, but it’s easier to call them all Biff.

A professional speaker who urges men to be more like women and get in touch with their feelings, Biff collapses and falls off the stage.

House announces that because of evolution, it is impossible to change the way men act. (Does devolution explain the change of his character from tortured genius to bullying baboon?)

It seems that Biff had a life-altering experience three years prior, when he was beaten up in a fight in a sports bar. Since then he became a changed man, from hard-driving corporate shark to someone with very strange hair and moist, sensitive eyes. Biff claims his wife has changed “my life and my diet.” He’s gone red meat and gluten-free, which means he can now only eat cardboard. She beams.

For no other reason than for wacky shenanigans and false conflict, House starts a contest among his team for highly undesirable position of team leader. Why anyone would want a job that humiliated Foreman for years is beyond me, but it’s going be hilarious!

Whenever the camera pans around the diagnostics room, I’m distracted by the redecoration, including the mysteriously vanished garage door into Wilson’s office. Who directed this episode, Greg Yaitanes?

But wait! There’s more! Flying in from Sitcom Land it’s the long-lost Dominika, House’s green-card bride. She’s adorable. Her accent is adorable. Her long brown hair is adorable. She needs to keep her adorable self in the country, which means to pretend having lived in marital bliss with House for the past six months. So they need to learn every fact possible to each other, coached first by Park, then by Wilson. He has seniority because he has been married three times.

(Side note: in an interview prior to Season 8, when asked if they were going to bring back Dominika, David Shore said no. Apparently he felt the show needed more breasts now that Lisa Edelstein is gone. And in the new world order, they have to be nonthreatening breasts. Dominika’s breasts are adorable.)

She offers House $30,000 to pretend to be her real husband as opposed to her pretend-real-husband—they are married, yes? So isn’t he her real husband? My head aches already. God, she’s adorable. She dances around House’s living room to Amy Grant songs. As much as I actually like the character, this woman needs to get a fatal disease.

Oh, dear, your faithful correspondent forgot the patient! There’s been some diagnosing, wrong naturally. Do you really care if I recap the diagnoses so far? No, neither do I. I’ve watched the episode twice, and I don’t know if I have the stomach to do it again.

House goes to Biff and asks if he was hit in the groin during the bar fight. The answer is yes. While they discuss it, House drops things, asking Adams and Chase to bend over to pick them up. Biff never takes his eyes off House. Which either means he has no sex drive, or he’s a fanboy who can’t stop staring at HL.

The blow turned Biff’s testicles purely ornamental, which is why he is so sensitive and preaches feelings and makes pottery. And has no libido, even though his wife is the hottest woman on the show. Although less adorable than you-know-who.

House orders injections of testosterone. Biff’s wife obviously hopes that among the side effects will be getting laid more than every six months. The shots make him leaner, meaner, craving hamburgers, and cracking lascivious remarks about her ass.

The oh-so-funny B-story has House and Dominika posing in various outfits in front of a green screen, which can then be made into travel pictures. For the Las Vegas picture, they don huge Elvis wigs.

Taub asks to talk to House alone. Taub feels the team should be friends, not competitors. How long has he worked there? House announces that Taub is no longer a man because he is raising children. (Huh?)

And House is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a giant Elvis wig.

GOOD GOD, WHAT ARE THEY DRINKING IN THE WRITER’S ROOM? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SIT THROUGH THIS NONSENSE? A CHIMPANZEE TAKING A CRAP ON A NEWSPAPER WOULD BE BETTER THAN THIS!

Oh, dear, pardon my outburst. So unlike me!

“Who can turn the world on with her smile?”

Meanwhile, the patient gets jaundice. Don’t they always? By the end of the episode, he’s so yellow he looks like Big Bird crossed with Donald Trump.

House and Dominika welcome the immigrant agent, Nate, to House’s apartment. Nate doesn’t find it strange that a beautiful young woman is married to her creepy uncle. Everything is going beautifully until Nate asks to speak to a neighbor. He opens the door and—there’s Wilson! Wearing a silly hat! Wilson has dropped in from Sitcom Land to pretend to be the wacky British neighbor. But the real occupant of the apartment shows up. Ruh-roh!

Nate orders House and Dominika to be in his office at ten the next morning. Dominika might be deported! House is threatened with jail for the 35,000th time! What’s going to happen?

Long story short, the judge is so impressed by how adorable Dominika is that he’s going to let her stay for six months. But she has to live in marital bliss with House full-time. They will be spot-checked at all times of the day or night. I was hoping for deportation, but that would have been so season two.

Biff now has turbo-nads. For starters, he tells his wife that “he’s going to be the man in this relationship.” In fact, he’s going to make some kind of deal whether she likes it or not. In two viewings I did not get what the deal was, but it doesn’t matter. He’s Doing What He Wants, Damn The Torpedoes, Because That’s What Men Do.

“Can you believe anyone watches this?” “No one does. That’s why we’re cancelled.”

After viewing some old videos of Evil Corporate Shark Biff, House has some kind of epiphany. House and Taub go see Biff. House announces that chronic hoarseness is a symptom of chronic thyroiditis. Biff’s not hoarse now, but he was three years ago. And chronic thyroiditis comes and goes. The Magi-Cam goes into Biff so that House can rattle off some gibberish that means, “you’re sick.”

They’re going to treat Biff with steroids. Testosterone and steroids! Biff will Hulk out! Maybe Chase will get stabbed once more! House says, “Kicked in the nuts is kicked in the nuts.” I rewound the scene to see what that had to do with anything. I still don’t know. Enlighten me in the comments, won’t you?

But Biff spoils the fun by refusing the testosterone, despite the health risks. “I’m a better man without it,” he sighs. His wife leaves the room to hang herself because now she will never have sex again.

Cut to wacky C-story: House is putting the team, save Taub, through a series of idiotic contests (suturing pigs’ feet) for the bafflingly coveted position. Taub gets it by offering to split the difference in his salary with House.

At the end, as Amy Grant blasts on the soundtrack, House comes back to his apartment to find it immaculate and hideously decorated. Adorable Dominika is doing adorable dance aerobics in the kitchen. Cut to House making a series of facial expressions until he says (and I want you to know I said this with him): “Honey, I’m home!”

Ruh-roh.

Ciao,
Elisa & Fletcher

Review: House Enjoys "The Perils of Paranoia" 8.06. And "Pencils."

DAHLINGS –

I didn’t review last week’s Parents because I had so little to say. Team: Teenage girl has MPD and cancer. House: dead child was deaf. It was supposed to have a “shocking twist.” If it was the child’s elaborate sarcophagus being opened, one must assume the promo monkeys never saw a few episodes of NCIS. Or one episode of Supernatural, where the gore-covered bodies pile up like cordwood. As usual, the episode botched the presentation of mental illness. The creators must dislike the mentally ill almost as much as they dislike women. House got punched a few times. Everybody had a glass of sangria and sobbed despairingly on the lawn.

Moving on to The Perils of Paranoia, the cutesy title warning of the stinking mound of ordure that was about to happen. My agonized screams could be heard for miles. My assistant Leo came in with a peach mango martini pour moi and stared at the flat screen in disbelief. “Why are you watching this crap?”

“I don’t know…” I gasped. “It used to be Hugh Laurie but he’s had all of this plastic surgery and he’s phoning in his performance. And Robert Sean Leonard but he’s not even trying to hide his contempt for the material. And Lisa Edelstein, but she’s gone. BUT I CAN’T STOP! GOD HELP ME, I CAN’T STOP!”

Leo shook his head with a sigh and took a seat.

You know when you see a comedy and all of the decent jokes are in the trailer? That was this week’s “prank war” between House and Wilson. I was so looking forward to it! Wilson believes House has a gun in his apartment. When he goes to ransack the place, an improbable hunting net traps him in the air, which is a funny image. What followed was ludicrous slapstick. Wilson finds a gun in a box marked “House,” in case House forgets who he is when he opens the box. In a scene that lasts approximately ten years and is written in crayon, House waves it around, points it at himself and Wilson, demonstrating with a pencil that the barrel is blocked. “You win,” Wilson sighs.

“Naturally Wilson doesn’t call the police because the crazy felon who runs Diagnostics has a gun,” I remarked to Leo.

“That’s ‘cause they’re married.”

The POTW is a prosecutor, who collapses with a heart attack in the cold open, but of course it’s not a heart attack or we’d have no show. We barely have one as it is. Turns out the uncharismatic patient has a secret bunker behind a bookcase on his wall (OH, COME ON!) loaded with a small infantry’s worth of automatic weapons and C-4 explosives. His wife does not take the news well.

“Sorry, honey,” he tries to explain. “I totally forgot to tell you that I built an underground bunker.”

“Why?”

“Well, I had a free weekend…”

He only eats food he cooks himself—I’m assuming he grows his own meat and vegetables at his secret farm under the back porch—and drinks bottled water. The world is going to hell in a hand basket and this guy wants to go vigilante on the bad guys’ collective asses. Come to think of it, Hitler had a lovely secret bunker, with curtains. But I digress.

House thinks the paranoia is a symptom (that means that most of the GOP presidential candidates have diphtheria, too. Sorry to spoil this so soon). The patient didn’t have vaccinations. Do you think that storyline had anything to do with Fox News having a segment on parents refusing vaccines? Do it, Moms, or your kid will throw chairs through the window while hallucinating they’re being attacked by bears. Bears? Seriously? Vigilante Patient has an underground bunker and he’s afraid of bears? Does anyone even clock into the writer’s room?
“Oh, shit, bears!”

Speaking of ham-handed product placement, Adams, the pretty one, while driving with Park, the one whose voice annoys me so I want to reach down her throat and pull out her vocal chords, mentions her Ford cruise control. And a minute later we sail into a Ford commercial! My dear readers, I hoped the creators had a shred of integrity intact, but the Ford ran over the last shred. At least Adams didn’t crash the car into the patient’s house.

Long story short: the patient is paranoid. And he has diphtheria.

Park is paranoid that the rest of the team doesn’t like her. Unfortunately, she’s right. She goes to House for consolation. She is an idiot.

Wilson is paranoid that House has a gun. Wilson should be.

I’m going to make a stretch here to say that Taub is paranoid that Foreman has no personal life. Never mind the details. Foreman hooks up with a horrifically buff former America’s Top Model contestant who’s married. One saving grace of this episode was that Taub was relegated to snarking on the sidelines.

When Vigilante Patient is on the mend, he promises his wife they’ll move to a new house without a secret bunker. “Oh, honey, can it be English Tudor?” she asks, caressing his cheek. “Now that I know you’re an insane time-bomb who still might go off any minute, I love you even more.” Cue heartwarming music. VP plans to donate the arsenal to the Peace Corps. As long as the new house has no bears.

I mentioned the show’s overall dislike of women at the beginning. That was code for “rampant misogyny.” As a friend tweeted, “This is a sausage fest.” They are trying to fill the void left by Cuddy’s departure (her name has been uttered once or twice). Cuddy was a confident, mature, sexual woman with an impressive job. Now we get, what, an anonymous pretty cipher and a teenage geek? And a passel of middle-aged men? Eeeew.

One feels a certain fondness for middle-aged writers and directors, getting back at all of the girls who wouldn’t date them in eleventh grade.

Meanwhile, during clinic duty, House barks out the names of female clinic patients until he gets to the standard-issue Hollywood Hot Babe, and takes her into the clinic room. Har de har har. Let’s laugh at the less attractive women in the waiting room. Is it me, or is House’s awful make-my-ears-look-big dyed haircut making him look more Creepy Grandpa each episode?

“It’s not you,” Leo assures me. “He is Creepy Grandpa.”

The crowning touch is a scene where Chase and Adams, the pretty people, are on the verge of hooking up when Park gets on the elevator. Standing on either side of her, they look like her parents. She gets up her courage asks Chase for a drink, causing him to squirm with a “kill me now” expression on his face, before he agrees. Ha ha ha! Less attractive women are so funny! Especially when they come on to cute guys who’d rather suck on a tailpipe than get naked with them. But, who knows, maybe Chase and Park will get it on. I’d rather that that Chase and Adams.

Side note: what is with the gruesomely thin women on this show? America’s Top Model weighs about 70 pounds but still looks like she could out-bench-press Foreman. When she walks toward Foreman in the gym, he looks like a sofa compared to her. At least women who don’t eat make cheap dates.

At the close, House puts the box with the gun on the upper shelf on his closet, and then takes out his father’s ceremonial Marine sword, caressing it gently before returning it to its hiding place. This was the “mid-season finale” (when did television start using that term?). I guess come January we’ll be watching House explore his daddy issues. Because, honestly, what’s left?

Watching this mess lurch to its conclusion, Leo and I touched glasses. “We lived through it,” he said.

“But at what cost?” I retorted, paranoid that my IQ level had dropped twenty points.

In January House MD will be back to slog toward the finale.
Feel free to express yourself in the comments. But bear in mind that I am always right.

Ciao,
Elisa

EDITED TO ADD: Hugh Laurie has announced he is leaving acting after the final season of House. That’s too bad, but understandable. A weekly series is an unbearable grind.

If you are going to post Anonymous comments, let it be known that you have to sign them somehow if you want to be published.

Review: House MD "Parents" Ep. 8×06 – Clowns Shouldn’t Reproduce

DAHLINGS –

The confusion over Season Eight has been cleared up at last! While we fans were wondering, “What happened to this show? When did it become such a car wreck?” there is now an answer!

In a recent interview, Hugh Laurie, former pillar of artistic integrity, is quoted as saying: “Whatever we’re doing now on the show, we’re doing it for its own satisfaction. I don’t feel like we’re struggling to prove ourselves to executives or critics. Not to be complacent about it, but I think we’ve moved beyond that stage.”
Source: http://tinyurl.com/c39t9q8

Clearly, beyond the stage of producing decent television. Mr. Laurie is making it clear that they no longer give a damn about what they are creating. (Those of us who have recently wondered if Mr. Laurie has been assuaging the tedium of playing the same character for so many years with, ahem, illegal substances can rest assured that “coffee” is what is keeping the company going. Naturellement .)

This week’s episode, “Parents,” was as multilayered as a tuna melt, with the same mushy texture.

I am going to cut directly to the shocking (!) family secret (!): Ben is a teenager who wants to go to Klown Kollege because of his loving memories of his Dead Clown Father. But Dead Clown Father isn’t actually dead. He shows up at the hospital where, after giving DCF a quick glance, House announces that DCF molested Ben and gave him syphilis when Ben was a wee bairn. (House deduces this from the way DCF is walking. Maybe it was from a stilt accident, but what do I know?) The family is shattered, Ben is ruined for life by finding out his DCF is a live CF and a child rapist and the police are called.

Oh. Wait. None of that happens.

Taub decides not to tell Ben how he got syphilis but they don’t show that part—because it might have involved some actual writing—and DCF shuffles out of the picture, presumably on the hunt for more young wanna-be Bozos. Bear in mind, this entire sequence of events, including the Magi-Cam during the “let’s just get this crap over with” explanation takes three minutes of screen time. Not even a final reaction shot from Ben, who is actually an interesting patient.

“Come here, little boy, and I’ll show you my balloons.”

The theme of this episode is parents. Good parents, bad parents, bad clowns who molest children parents, and Taub. I know there was supposed to be a connection to Taub’s story and Dead Clown Father, as in, what’s better, an absent father who molested you or a present father who doesn’t touch your privates? Or something along those lines.

Taub’s two illegitimate daughters are both named Sophie. Most of the episode is taken up with Taub’s—uh, Taub’s—Taub’s futzing around with the babies because the ever-annoying Rachel wants to move Sophie #1 to Portland along with her new BF. Meanwhile, Ruby, the other baby mama (be grateful she’s not named Rachel) bitches at Taub that she can’t afford a baby yada yada. I used to love Taub before his personal life became The B-Story That Ate The Show.

House isn’t around much for “Parents.” There is a passing mention of his two fathers. At last! An exploration of this pivotal shaping of House’s character and worldview. Oops. It’s a throwaway line. House wants to accompany Wilson to Atlantic City to sing ringside at a prizefight. So most of House’s storyline is devoted to getting his ankle bracelet off. Or dealing with a fat clinic patient who is convinced who has diabetes. Or randomly announcing that everyone’s parents screwed them up.

Or trying to find out what Adams’s deep dark secret is. Adams, as usual, seems faintly distracted, as if worried she left her Iphone at the mall. Her big secret is that she was a good girl who ran away to see if she was a rebel, but she wasn’t. Is anyone even IN the writer’s room?

Most of my notes are along the lines of “Taub? Again?” and one notation: WILSON. Robert Sean Leonard has dropped any semblance of interest in his character—I don’t blame him—who has largely been reduced to sight gags. When one starts to feel nostalgic for the chicken bet, one is peering into the abyss. Foreman calls Wilson into his office and tells Wilson that it’s his duty as a friend to stay with House and watch the fight on television. Wilson realizes, shocked, that this is the truth as well as his higher duty (to be honest, the way RSL played it I was sure Wilson was faking) and takes the tickets out of his pocket.

The end of the episode shows Wilson coming to House’s place with pizza and beer, eagerly turning on the fight, only to see Foreman and House sitting ringside, toasting each other with a beer. Ruefully, Wilson eats pizza.

As my betters say, WTF?

David Shore and company are doing the artistic equivalent of leaving a flaming bag of dog poop on the audience’s collective doorstep.

POST EPISODE CONCLUSIONS:

Hugh Laurie has it in his new contract that he only has to work eight hours a day.

Robert Sean Leonard has gone even more meta than the show itself by delivering his lines as if even he can’t believe them.

Nice little anecdote about how Chase became interested in medicine.

Foreman as Dean of Medicine continues to delight—when he isn’t involved in stupid gags.

Terra Nova is on before House to make House sound like Chaucer. The strategy isn’t working.

Ciao,
Elisa