2.22 Forever
From tv.com: A young mother has a seizure while bathing her newborn son and nearly drowns him. House and the team have two cases at one time as they try to save the infant and determine the cause of the mother's seizures.

My fave ep, tied with the Mistake, for season 2. Why? So much Chase. His moments with Michael, the prayer before the autopsy, learning more about him, House following him around and like Mistake, the most House/Chase scenes for the season. Hugh and Jesse are fabulous together, plus I just really enjoyed the ep of itself. Maybe minimal Foreman and Cam had something to do with that too. Heh.

One of my favorites as well. The prayer just makes this ep for me. I really like how the writers have written Chase to be a character who clearly believes in God, but is neither preachy nor perfect. Also, House/Chase interaction is all too rare, but always good.

This ep is still too sad for me to watch. :(

I just watched it again. Cam is particularly kick-worthy, Foreman is less annoying than usual, Chase is lovely, and House gives Wilson the most delicious looks :wub: Not to mention Wilson's ghastly tie. But most of all, it made me miss Cuddy. Here's an episode that deals with reproduction, but does'nt make her a two-dimensional soapish boring mess. Her reactions are multilayered, she's funny, accurate and just a delight to watch. Why, PTB?? WHY??

This is the episode that made me a House fan. It's the episode that made me go out and buy Season 2 on DVD to catch up (then Season 1). My coworkers told me I had to watch House because of the "hot blond Aussie." So I tuned in after American Idol a few times. Even though I saw episodes prior to this one, none of them grabbed me and made me say, "Wow, this show really is something special" until Forever. And the reason that this episode grabbed me was the scene with Chase doing the autopsy. Jesse's performance was perfection. The writing made me sit up and take notice. I was floored that a primetime TV show would show a man of science as also a man of faith (of course, you realize at this point that I had no idea Chase had been in the seminary or had a crisis of faith). I thought it was brave because you so rarely see anything expressed about faith that isn't completely negative. The simple and tasteful expression of something that I didn't see elsewhere made me realize that the show was indeed different. That's when Chase won me over too. His hot blondness couldn't do it alone. This episode made me interested in Chase and made me appreciate Jesse as an actor.

I'm not sure why, but my favorite scene from this episode is when House and Foreman at the nurses' station talking, then notice the mother trying to smother the baby. I like seeing House do "normal doctor things" like scrubbing up, or doing CPR. And that he threw his cane away so he could run faster...bless.

Yep, a yummy yummy episode. The prayer was beautiful, and I love the parallel with House's baby autopsy in "Maternity". And I utterly adore the way House runs around just an inch from asking Chase "why don't you love me anymore?" and just an inch from haranguing Cameron and Foreman for not being Chase. (I've heard it said that he was complaining about Foreman not getting up to speed quickly enough, but really, he's asking for new, original ideas, and that's always been Chase's domain, not Foreman's even pre-brain damage.) And I love everything about House's reaction to Chase's reaction to Michael's death. How did people interpret House's behavior in NICU re: Michael? It seems to me that House was doing a pretty good job of not undermining Chase's authority as an attending there, but I can't quite convince myself I'm not just seeing what I want to see. He waits till the nurse is gone before disagreeing with Chase's diagnosis and sort of hovers mentor-ally (I don't think that's a word *shrug*) but doesn't browbeat. I adore him for telling Foreman to get a water sample even though the baby isn't House's patient. Because it's too wonderful not to re-read: House: So what causes seizures, hypercalcemia and the thing where mommy bends like Gumby? Chase: A little busy here. House: Uh oh, baby's lungs are going to conk out any minute. Probably want to deal with that. Chase: I'll get right on it as soon as I finish indulging my boss. House: Multi-task. Chase: Chemical pneumonitis. Bubble bath got into the baby's lungs when he was underwater. Start him on prednisone; keep him on high FIO2 . House: Let the indulging commence. I love the fact that the supposed syncophant can snarkily throw out that "indulging my boss" line and the supposed arrogant jerk will cheerfully catch it. Oh, okay... I love just about everything about this ep. Except the parents. They're pretty boring and unsympathetic.

I liked this powerful episode because of the the way it formed part of a closely linked triptych with the final two episodes of the season, at least in my mind. "Forever" introduced the themes of thwarted parenthood, the equation of children with purpose, a yearning for non-existent children, the search for meaning through connection to another person, and self-destruction based on feelings of unworthiness that are expanded in the next episodes. In "Whose Your Daddy," we have Crandall trying to form a family with his (false) daughter and Cuddy pressing forward with her desire for a child. Both of these crucial figures in House's life are trying to create meaning and purpose through human connections outside of their professional worlds. In both cases, House is the critical agent/facilitator in their quests: he lies about Crandall's paternity in order to give him a daughter, he gives Cuddy her injections, and he reviews (and quashes) Cuddy's sperm donor candidates. So in "No Reason," House himself grapples with the reverberations of participating so actively in his friends' quests for meaning. The themes introduced and elaborated upon in the previous two episodes are now seen to seize House's unconscious mind and provoke his darkest imaginings. He emerges from his hallucinations desiring life, connection, and meaning for himself. House is at the opposite pole from the ravaged mother of "Forever."

blacktop, I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. There is a theme of family and meaning toward the end of S2.

This is one of my favourite S2 episodes. Fine, go on in there and tell her that every day is a blessing! So you killed your baby, shake it off, think positive! At least you're alive. Hmm. Kinda hard to sell when you don't believe it, huh? And you never believed it. You just wanted all that crap you went through to mean something, well it didn't mean anything, it never does. Welcome back. I love that this scene with Foreman (and the earlier comment about almost dying changing everything -- for about two months) sets the scene for the "meaning-search" of No Reason and, well, Meaning. It's so true to House's misanthropy and misery, as well. He won't take Foreman's hypocrisy because he's seen how ultimately pointless and painful almost dying can be. How depressing! That's the House we know and love.