I'm now in the middle of this thread, so I haven't read all the answers yet. So please forgive my stupidity. I've been wondering through nearly entire episode: why exactly House needed some help from Wilson or Amber in the bar? He couldn't limp home, of course, but he got on the bus without Amber's help, and if only he didn't forget his cane, she could not have followed him! If all the matter was money, why were the keys involved? Those keys mean he couldn't ride his motorcycle, but he could catch the bus without calling on Wilson! I'm sorry for beating the air, but that moment really puzzles me. As for the episode itself - I liked it. Hugh, RSL and Anne were just brilliant. Poor Amber :( I hoped she would limp just like House.

I was also fairly horrified that they woke Amber up like that in the first place, only to tell her that she was in fact dead. OK so it was necessary to give us the W/A farewell but frankly I thought it was a pretty horrible suggestion on Cuddy's part (as Wilson initially reacted). I'm torn on this. Initially, I too, thought it was cruel to wake her up just to tell her she has a few hours to live, but then, maybe it is what Amber would have preferred. I'm not sure which. But Amber's terrified, "I'm dead." broke my heart and I think (I can't say for sure because I haven't been there and I'm not judging) I would have just let her go peacefully and unaware.

Wow.... that was intense. Together with last week's episode, they pack quite an emotional punch. It broke my heart when House was "on the bus" during the brain stimulation scene and realized that Amber had taken pills to fight off the flu - and Wilson was all like, "Oh good! Then we just flush it out of her system and all will be right with the world!" But House already KNEW the outcome and had to tell Wilson. *sniff* A bit surprised by all the anti-Wilson posting out there in cyber land. The - how could he ask his best friend of years to sacrifice himself for a chick he's known a few weeks? - outrage. Rather reminds me of the anti-Stacy - she crippled House and she should have respected his wishes even if it meant he would die because that's what you do when you really love someone - backlash. Gotta wonder if some people have not had to weather the types of complex emotions you go through when someone you love is suffering/dying. It ain't all clean cut and black and white... humans are complex. Intense emotions are not rational. People in pain (emotional and physical) will do and say things you would never imagine they could. They will bargain with God. They will make promises. They will plead. Beg and blame. It is messy and painful and heartbreaking. Amber was dying. Amber was being kept alive by machines. Amber was *blue* for crying out loud! House was alive and kicking (and as usual acting indestructible). The danger to Amber was in your face obvious and undeniable. The risk to House was insubstantial and much easier to dismiss. I do not find it strange Wilson made the request - especially since he was just reiterating something House himself had offered - and I certainly don't think it undermined or weakened their friendship! If anything, it strengthened it! You don't make that kind of request from anyone who is not an intensely close friend. What cynics we are to say that "People don't risk themselves for others they don't care about." First of all, it isn't Amber House is risking himself for, it is Wilson. And secondly, yes they do! Anonymous donors give marrow, and sometimes even kidneys to total strangers. They put themselves on donor registries and agree to undergo the risks of procedures for people they have never even met. House himself noted to Wilson - “I don't do self-sacrifice!" And yet, that is exactly what he did! For Wilson through Amber. That is about as close to a declaration of love as I've ever seen from House! And I don't buy that Wilson is angry at House and that is why he walked away. He stood at the window and waiting till House woke up, and then he left and I don't blame him one bit. They man is emotionally torn apart. He needs time to recoup! He just spent the last few hours holding his dying girlfriend and then turning the machines off and essentially being the one to kill her! And he is supposed to walk in and inquire as to House's well being? He probably has nothing left to give at the moment. He is numb and dead inside and the fact that he was even there was a miracle in my mind. I'd be hiding under a bed somewhere sucking my thumb and humming. He waits to see if House is going to come out of the coma, and then he goes away to be alone with his grief. I doubt he has any reserves to deal with House at the moment. And even if he does blame House - that too is understandable. People who have a loved one hurt or killed in an accident often look for someone to blame, thus our litigious society. I once had a lawyer tell me, "There are no accidents." Why do people think so many marriages break up after the accidental death of a child? Because the parents end up playing the blame game... Is it rational? No, but it is very human. So even if Season 5 opens with House and Wilson at odds, I will understand the why. And frankly, I would welcome watching them both work through it and come out the other side stronger for it...because I *do* think Wilson is very aware, on some level, of just how much House did risk and sacrifice for Amber, and thus for him. And eventually THAT is what will remain with him.

Chase has always been there for Foreman (mending fences with Foreman's father, praying after Lupe's death etc) - its Foreman that's not appreciated it or reciprocated (the "I never liked you anyway" was Foreman's speech IIRC) but Chase has rarely hesitated to reach out to him.

Interesting on rewatch to note that Kutner actually was within spitting distance of the answer at one point. While searching the apartment and the computer, he notes that he's checking out Amber's case files, thinking maybe she caught something from a patient. Think she had a patient with the flu?

The Huddy elements (although completely one-sided) were much more obvious on my second watch, but I'm not sure how much of that was simply because I expected them, knew they weren't going to tell me anything new, and so focused my watching elsewhere the first time around. I really almost wish they would do a Huddy storyline at this point, although I'm not a Huddy fan, if only because if they gave Cuddy a decent arc's worth of screentime, maybe they'd manage to finally settle on a consistent characterization for her instead of vacillating between the caring friend to House that we saw at the end of WH and the useless annoying creature she too often appears as. The closing montage of all the ducklings did take place after House wakes up the first time, so yeah, I'll be satisfied now to believe they simply stopped in off-screen. I'm much less upset with Wilson after this ep than I expected to be. Walking away from House at the end, yeah, I can believe that he was just overwhelmed, and it was simply bad timing that had him turning away literally when House was expecting it figuratively. But his expression did seem more critical to me than concerned, and I don't buy the notion some have put forth (elsewhere) that Poor Martyred Wilson put aside all his own grief and exhaustion for hours to hover anxiously over House's bedside, just to make sure House was awake and all right. For starters, House had already woken up before Wilson appeared and was stable enough for Cuddy to relax and go to sleep. If you want to wave character-army flags, you could just as easily argue that Wilson coldly stuck around long enough to make sure House saw him turning his back on him, and have just as much (or as little) canon support. That said, I don't think we've seen the last of the "affair". It wasn't just Taub -- it was the promo, the PTB's choice to make the dream scene sexy, Wilson's line about House's "feelings" for Amber in the last ep, the bartender's lines and Wilson's reaction to them. We may know better than to think that House and Amber had an affair, but I think Wilson is going to end up suspecting it, at least while he's still in irrational mode. Taub may have been making assumptions based on what he would have felt and done himself, but Taub is the mini-Wilson (when he's not being mini-Foreman), and it wouldn't be the first time we've seen Wilson make assumptions about House based on what Wilson himself would do or feel. As for asking House to risk his life, no, he didn't spent hours soul-searching about it. He spent moments, at best. And yes, he was clearly reluctant to ask, and yes, he had plenty of reasons to be irrational; the show tells us, by pointing to him as the scared family, that he's not thinking straight. So, no, I'm not going to be angry at him for it. BUT he did clearly choose Amber over House, and I think the scene clearly shows us that he doesn't love House as much as or the way that House or I wish he did. I'm not going to blame him for that or be angry at him; you don't choose who you love. But I'm not going to ignore it either, and I am going to be angry at the universe for making it so. Everyone seems to be focusing on the "I don't want Wilson to hate me" line, but the lines in that scene that got me were when he says he can't leave because "It doesn't hurt here. I don't want to be in pain." He really was heartbreaking there, and those lines immediately threw me 20 years into my own past, to when I was suicidal in part because of leg pain that seemed it would never end. We haven't seen much evidence of it this season, but the guy is supposed to be living with constant physical pain as well as emotional, and that affects everything. And I have a different take on the end of that scene than most others seem to have; I don't think getting off the bus was an active positive choice at all. But I've no idea how to explain it without TMI and aren't sure I could put it into words anyway.

I think what Wilson wanted was for House to do what he could to save Amber. Nothing more than that. His nod when House asked if he wanted him to risk his life to save hers was more "Yes, I realize that ultimately, that's what it boils down to." Not, "ha, ha! I don't care about you as much." More like somebody needed to do something, and House was the guy you call for cases like that. For me, the saddest moment in the episode is when, after Wilson nods, House thinks about it and then makes that quiet almost laugh of realization, of surprise that, regardless of how long they have been friends, how much they have meant and mean to one another, Wilson chose someone else before him. He appeared genuinely surprised. I am not saying that House had ever consciously thought that he was more important to Wilson than any one else, in spite of how narcissistic he is. I think it was an unspoken assumption, an unchallenged world view, that he held and suddenly realized that he was wrong about that surprised him. House probably understood the rational, logical reasons of Wilson making the choice he did as you describe quite well, but there is something different about understanding and actually knowing that your place is second to someone you care about and who cares about you. It is not only Amber, but the past wives andn by extension, the next "Amber" or next wife. That could change the relationship between House and Wilson.