I'd say House, the men's team and 13 all bear responsibility. House should have foreseen from the competitiveness in the group sessions that a race to diagnose could result in something like this. If he wasn't prepared to be on the spot to make sure things didn't get out of hand, he shouldn't have set it up this way. The men's team were jerks, concerned only to win. I think I blame them even more than 13 for that very reason. I beg to differ. How was it in anyway the men's fault? Yes, they interrupted her giving him the pills but that wasn't their fault. They were set up by House to play this way and they are not responsible for her lack of assertiveness, concentration and follow-through. While I can see that the game was at fault, they didn't set up the game, they only played it the way they were supposed to. And don't forget, 13 was playing the game too--only less well because she let them grab the patient before she was done--except she didn't realize the wasn't done maybe. I think that is where I fault her most: with an ordinarily fit patient you can, I guess, expect them to take the pills themselves but this guy couldn't even eat, go to the bathroom or take a sample of his stool on his own. Not to make sure this particular patient managed to swallow his pills is careless to the point of culpability imo. Furthermore, where is the evidence that 13 wasn't just as much of a jerk and only concerned with winning as much as the men? Maybe she was so cavalier because she thought she had already won that she let them take over before making sure the patient took his pills. Where is her great concern for the potw? She didn't even think to bring a glass of water with those honking big tablets. Make the diagnosis, hand him the pills, snap! her job's over. Yes, House hired all the applicants and set up the game which led to the situation in which 13 made her error. But Cuddy allowed it. She knew about it, she had her reservations, but she let House talk her around. So, in my opinion, Cuddy is responsible here too. She is at least as responsible as House because she--and only she--could have put a stop to the 40 applicants game as soon as she learned of it. She could have put a stop to it when House came in to get yelled at and they had that ambiguous exchange about whether House already had the diagnosis (he never actually stated that he did). House invented the game, Cuddy allowed the game, all the applicant--including 13--joined in the spirit of the game. But if 13 had just made sure her patient took his meds, the game would not have killed him. So I say the only one who really did anything wrong is 13 and I think her mistake is inexcusable. You may say the game distracted her; I say if she's that good (and anyone I would want for a doctor) she should not have allowed it to, especially considering the patient's condition.

I felt that this was an outstanding episode, one of the best in the series and certainly the best of this new season. The writing and plotting was extremely tight as was the direction and the editing which really told so much of the story, IMO. I think that House is a rationality addict and that his motive for electrocuting himself was that as a man of science he needed to know the answers through direct experience. I think that the show was displaying this aspect of House to undercut much of what we have come to believe about his character over the past three seasons. He did not risk death in order to search for a way to solve or relieve his terrible pain. He did not electrocute himself in order to investigate ways to help his patient. He did not do it to gain meaning. He did not even do it in order to win a bet. House's reason for seeking near death was to find out, to explore, to experience, and to know. If he had chosen to boldly go where everyone goes eventually during a down period between patients the consequences to his patients would have been nil. He would have once again terrorized his friends, of course, but nothing beyond that. Instead, by chosing to electrocute himself while his teams attended to the SMA patient, House abdicated his responsibilities. This is what Cuddy so forcefully tells him in their final scene together. The look on House's face when he accepts responsibility is just so powerful and tragic. I believe that his statement in that scene is purposefully ambiguous: when he says the patient's doctor is responsible I think he means himself, Cuddy thinks he means Thirteen, and I believe we are also supposed to be reminded of Cuddy's own serious responsibility as well. Responsibility ascends up the chain of responsibility and its burden is equally awful to bear at each level. I do think that the one way that House can be partially excused for his dispicable choice is by looking at the timing of the electrocution. House believed that they had found the diagnosis: cancer spreading from the patient's eye throughout his body. He believed what Wilson told the patient, that it was only a matter of months before his death. So House could have thought that his manoevre was risky only to himself, not to his doomed patient. It was at precisely the moment that Thirteen and Amber discovered that the patient did not have cancer that House paged Amber and took off on his voyage of discovery. I don't think he would have gone through with the electrocution if he had known what the two candidates had found out. The direction and lighting of this episode emphasized the addictive and obsessive nature of House's preoccupation with the questions of afterdeath possibilities wonderfully. I particularly was thrilled with the way that at least twice there was a hard cut between Foreman's ddx and House fiddling with the knife. The unhealthy idea -- planted by the clinic patient's ecstasy, underlined by the SMA patient's fatalism, and driven home by Wilson's goading-- has seized House's imagination in a way that he is incapable of shaking. At the end of this sequence, we see House grappling with his obsessive curiosity. His office is darkened, his brow is furrowed, his eyes are beautifully haunted and searching. In the past, these have been the external markers of his passion for uncovering the key to curing his patients. We have grown to expect that at the end of the process will come enlightenment, epiphany, and a chance for the patient to survive. Instead, the burst of light is the flash of electricity from his foolish experiment. In stark contrast we have the scenes of Foreman grappling with his own patient's ddx and finally in that same night-long mental struggle, coming to the decision to follow his own insight and rely on his own best judgment in pursuit of a radical solution for his patient. Where Foreman was focussed on his patient's welfare, House was focussed on himself. It is dedication vs. dereliction of duty in the starkest terms. This episode had four bed-ridden patients: the SMA patient, the clinic patient who reported back from The Other Side, Foreman's patient, and House himself. Three of them died: SMA guy, clinic patient, and House. Foreman's patient and House lived, due to the timely and extraordinary responses of their doctors. SMA guy was doomed to live a miserable life, but one that might have extended for many more years, had his doctors properly followed up their initial correct diagnosis of the worm infestation. The clinic patient would have lived had he not chosen to fry his already damaged internal organs. I took House's final comment to the cadaver as a sort of apology for his own selfishness and obsessive behavior. The flicking of the hinged knife was used as the visual symbol of his "unhinged" state of mind. He couldn't stop doing it, pressing the dull side of the blade to his forehead, as if hoping that by pressing his skull in this manner he could drive his desire out of his brain. I think that House knew and was ashamed of his dereliciton of duty when he came out of his coma. In the past we have seen him rely on the judgment and the professional expertise of his old team, but that is because he has had three years of experience with them and knows he could rely on them. But in this case, he went AWOL on his patient, leaving him in the care of job candidates House had known for barely two weeks. The contrast with Foreman's conduct with his own patient was clearly delineated. I think that we are meant to attribute at least part of House's unsettling and disturbed behavior in this episode to the very fact that he does not have a team to anchor him. In the past CCF would have pushed House toward his responsibilities, even when he might have wanted to let them slide due to boredom, over-confidence in an initial diagnosis, or reliance on a misplaced assumption. Without a team, House is unmoored, floating without boundaries, buoyed by his own snap judgments which go unquestioned by the inexperienced and cowed candidates. I don't think that House would have stuck the knife in the socket if a team of fellows had been around.

Excellent analysis, blacktop. Thank you!

Blacktop, lots of good points about things I don't want to discuss until I can rewatch, but your analysis upset me for one reason -- you make a very good argument (intentional or not) that TPTB are still portraying Foreman as the better man! Eep. Urgh. I don't want them to think that. They're insane to think that. But since they did have Cuddy offer him the parallel team, I can't help thinking that, yes, they are going to continue to portray him that way. Re: House's vision -- my initial impression was that he definitely saw something, but then the "I told you so" changed my mind. Then last night I realized something. We've all been focusing on afterlife-type visions, and no one's mentioned the other kind of NDE -- the "life flashing before your eyes" type. Maybe that's what he saw? Could explain the "I love you" without contradicting the "I told you so."

Hmm. I have several problems with your analysis blacktop. I would have agreed more with your suppositions had House not already indulged in near-death experiences (the Three Stories moment being particularly relevant here). Wilson pointing such a thing out in this ep doesn't negate the fact that these events have occurred. The writing in this ep made no sense because House had already gone this route before. There was no need to know for science--he already knew (as far as he was concerned anyway). He should have come right out and said so to his electrocution patient (but then a lot of what happened in this ep would become moot and the writers needed an ep). As for the contention that CCF could have stopped him from doing something stupid in the midst of a DDX. That's seriously unlikely. House has done some incredibly stupid things (the Von Lieberman migraine incident comes to mind) in the middle of a case and the trio hasn't been able to stop him. I do agree with you, however, about the lighting and direction. If they had to go the stupid route in the writing department, they did it very well.

Different thought from House's experiment (which I think personally was a matter of him rechecking his hypothesis because the accident guy introduced variables into his original hypothesis) ... I found it interesting that in "Three Stories," Wilson was the one asking about what House had seen, and what it meant. Here he also asks what House saw. I do think that Wilson is genuinely curious, but he also has seen few moments when House was so vulnerable and potentially open to discussing the moment that he grabs his opportunities whenever they're available. He knows that the moments -- whatever House has or hasn't seen -- mean something important to House, and he wants/needs to know about them almost as much as House needs to experience them for his own curiosity's sake.

A few more thoughts upon seeing it again. House wants to talk to eht outlet guy when he wakes up. I think (maybe someone's already said this) that he wanted to stop the guy from doing it again. Wanted to tell him that he'd seen nothing on the other side. But he didn't want to talk to Stark. I think he wanted to leave well enough alone with him. He was dying and was going to leave him with his beliefs. not until he died, did House go in to talk to the POTW. When House told his infarction tale in 3 Stories, he said he'd had visions (like the outlet guy, maybe). When the outlet guy tells him his story, House is intrigued at someone else having "seen" something or experienced something in a near death event. House listens intently and seems pretty captured by the guy. But then he explains that it was chemicals as the brain shuts down as he had in 3S. Then he goes on to actually try it. He was trying to get some sort of proof for both the outlet guy, the POTW and himself. I wonder if House has thought about his experiences after the infarction alot. I'm guessing that he's analyzed and re-analyzed them; read about them and researched them in journals and books to prove to himself that there is no afterlife. To consider that there was an afterlife would fly in the face of his non-belief. His image of God is of a cruel God who allows much suffering in life (including his own suffering both as a kid and an adult). He will do anything to hold onto that belief, because the alternative is prove that God exists and that God will have allowed some terrible things to happen to him and to everyone else. i'm reminded of somethign that hugh has said recently. That House is an old soul -- someone who has senn a lot of human suffering. I wonder if that view has been shaded by something that HL's seen in the early scripts for this season.

I can't say I agree with all your take on the episode, blacktop, but I can say it is well thought out and well written and makes many compelling points which I would love to discuss if I had the ep on tape and my physical self wasn't trying very hard to go into hibernation now that the weather here has turned cold... :yawn: :wink: However that may be, I just have to say, whether I agree or not, this is a beautiful, insightful, mind-blowing sentence: The unhealthy idea -- planted by the clinic patient's ecstasy, underlined by the SMA patient's fatalism, and driven home by Wilson's goading-- has seized House's imagination in a way that he is incapable of shaking. :thumb up: :thumb up: :thumb up: ETA: I think it's time to agree to disagree, peggy--I could take on various of your points but I get the feeling I'm not going to change your mind any more than you are going to change mine... :wacko: Whoever was to blame or to blame the most, 13 is here to stay apparently and Cuddy is on House's back no more and no less than usual as far as I can see so nothing has really changed. I'll try not to bring up 13 Big Mistake everytime she does something I don't like.... :wink:

sasmom - those are beautiful and poignant thoughts about the episode.

I notice that over at the other place Sara M didn't do the recap of the ep. Hmm, wonder if her complaining about the changes got the best of her?

sasmom, I agree that House was focused on Outlet!Guy. Although blacktop's description of his motives is good, I believe he also did it to have something to tell The Amazing Electricto. I'm guessing that he's analyzed and re-analyzed them; read about them and researched them in journals and books to prove to himself that there is no afterlife. To consider that there was an afterlife would fly in the face of his non-belief. His image of God is of a cruel God who allows much suffering in life (including his own suffering both as a kid and an adult). He will do anything to hold onto that belief, because the alternative is prove that God exists and that God will have allowed some terrible things to happen to him and to everyone else. I agree with some of this – for one thing, I'm sure he has researched his experience ad nauseum, but I think the analysis has a slightly contradictory foundation because it has an inherent perception of faith as the basis of his viewpoint. If we suppose that House does not believe – and, in my opinion, we have every reason to accept that premise – then it's not a question of attempting to disprove the existence of an afterlife, but rather to find a rational explanation to his experience. He has already ruled out that his experience or experiences were of a concrete afterlife. I don't think he's caught between atheism and faith in a cruel, unfeeling God. I think he's very clear on the issue and his multiple brushes with death have not moved him – which is a very different piece of mental gymnastics compared to 'doing anything to hold onto his beliefs'. And on a different and much less serious note: Am I the only one who thought 'patented, durable microfibre' when House did the hair(piece) flip? It wasn't hot as much as a reminder of the heroic measures of the hairstylists.