I agree that Wilson had to face the fear of losing House which made it that much tougher a thing for Wilson to come around and to agree to the idea of DBS and to then ask House to do it long after House first suggested it. At that point Wilson felt that the likelihood of House losing his life was less then Amber losing her life and House clearly agreed. They were right, House survives, Amber dies. Many see it as Wilson choosing between House and Amber I see it as choosing between two circumstances, ultimately Amber's being deemed the most grave. House agreed as did Chase and Cuddy otherwise the DBS would not have gone forward. Here's where I think we see things very differently. Wilson did not feel the likelihood of House losing his life was less than Amber losing her life and House did not clearly agree. At that point, House has a diagnosis that everyone on the team is happy with and House does not see the need for the DBS. Wilson asks him not because he has further information that changes things, but because he needs to minimise as much risk as he can--he doesn't know the diagnosis is wrong. The risk to House is very grave, enough that House is not going for the DBS on his own, despite the missing four hours. House gives Wilson what he wants because he wants it, not because at that point he thinks his risk is less than Amber's. He's not making sure Wilson understands he's risking his life with the DBS to make small talk. House thinks his diagnosis is sound. We never saw what it took to get Chase to do the procedure but we do know that Cuddy felt there was good likelihood it would be fatal. Maybe next season we'll get a glimpse of how those dynamics played out. Perhaps Cuddy decided House got to make the ultimate call, whatever the risk. House was most definitely not responsible for Amber's death. But to pretend that his actions were not relevant to what transpired is to be in complete denial. Dr. Spaceman's last couple of posts says that better than me. I think both Wilson and House will feel that, unwittingly as it was, House played his part in what happened. Of the two I think the one who will feel it the most intensely is House. We agree that House will feel it intensely, though I'm not making any predictions yet what Wilson will feel. But I don't think you can say that House is definitely not responsible for Amber's death, but he should take responsibility anyway. In terms of responsibility for Amber's death, his actions are not relevant. In terms of breaching the agreement on how to share Wilson, they are relevant, but one does not equate to the other. He may have called Wilson for a ride, which set in motion Amber coming to the bar, but there's no way that House should have reasonably foreseen that would be the outcome. I think it's significant that we spent some of last episode and most of this episode wondering just what House was up to in those missing hours and fearing he'd done something awful that led to Amber's death--having an affair, taking a lethal combination of drugs with her--and it turned out all he'd done was call Wilson for ride. That's a random universe, not logical consequences to being drunk. Wilson got good and drunk himself a couple of eps ago. If he'd called Amber for a ride and she'd gotten into an accident, would Wilson be responsible? He may feel so, but the rational people around him would hopefully be helping him not take that responsibility. House doesn't need people feeding his irrational thinking, either. He has good reason to think about his lifestyle, but he didn't cause Amber's death.

If Wilson has little chance of a healthy long-term romantic relationship with a woman, which we have been led to believe for most the series and all of Wilson's backstory, Wilson risked House's life for a questionable cause. But now that Amber's been martyred, her and Wilson's relationship is being romanticized as him turning a new leaf. Yeah, but as much we know that Wilson's relationships are all doomed, Wilson doesn't know that. (I can't believe I'm talking about him as if he's real, here.) As a character, Wilson has no idea that he's doomed to have failing relationships until the show is no longer renewed. For all we know, Wilson thought he had Ms. Right here.

I have no idea if Wilson was turning over a new leaf. Have people been saying that? Why doesn't my, or any outsiders assessment of Wilson and Amber's relationship, matter? If I really, really, REALLY believe I'm going to win the lotto next week, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be the waste of a dollar. Wilson can believe whatever he wants, might doesn't make right. I'm not quite sure I get the analogy here. If Wilson has little chance of a healthy long-term romantic relationship with a woman, which we have been led to believe for most the series and all of Wilson's backstory, Wilson risked House's life for a questionable cause. So, are you saying Wilson knows he has no chance at a long term romantic relationship and he knew it wouldn't have lasted with Amber? And, are only long term romantic relationships worthy causes? Would it be a worthy cause to risk House's life if other people believed that Wilson and Amber would have ended up celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary? And, since this is about Wilson himself, does that still mean that his own feelings don't carry any more weight than other people's? But, I can see a lot of roadblocks, and I don't think Amber is less flawed than House I don't think she's less flawed than House either. I love in Amber the same things I love in House - and lots of them aren't necessarily "good". Heck, I considered CTB to be a term of endearment when I referred to her that way. Again, have people been -I don't know the word. I guess the opposite of vilifying? - her? Basically (I know this is TL;DR), Wilson attempted to buy a losing lotto ticket. Had they saved Amber's life (bought the ticket), Wilson still wouldn't have what he wants down the road. I'm not sure how to ask this, so I'll just do it and you tell me if I'm way off base here. Are you saying he shouldn't have wanted to save her unless he was going to have her down the road? I can't understand that. Unless how he tried to save her life and how you view that (choosing her life over House's) is a factor in your position here. In that case, I suppose I can kind of see where you're coming from. Other than that, if it's just saving her life at all was a losing ticket because he might not have had been with her in the long run, it's a way of thinking I just can't get. Wilson loved Amber. I have no idea how to convey that I'm not romanticizing that, but I'm not. I'm even willing to say there's a possibility that they would have broken up and that their own flaws and errors could have led to break up down the road. That being a possibility for the future doesn't mean he didn't really love her now. And, if you love someone, of course you're going to want to save them. Yeah, but as much we know that Wilson's relationships are all doomed, Wilson doesn't know that. (I can't believe I'm talking about him as if he's real, here.) As a character, Wilson has no idea that he's doomed to have failing relationships until the show is no longer renewed. For all we know, Wilson thought he had Ms. Right here. That implies that Wilson isn't obligated to examine his own behavior. All of the characters are grown, educated, adults, etc. They are responsible for their actions within the story. Wilson owes it to himself, House, and his future victims girlfriends to change his ways. I don't think that was implied at all in that post. How does saying he doesn't know that all his relationships are doomed mean that he doesn't need to examine his behavior and he isn't responsible for his actions?

Having just re-watched this episode, I was struck by the way Wilson finds Amber's last message to him and how he clutches it to his chest. :cry: The wording of Amber's note to Wilson seems particularly relevant and seems to imply how it might define the conflict between House and Wilson. The note read: Sorry I'm not here. Went to pick up House She's not there. Wilson has to come to terms with that. And when he asks himself why, Amber's note gives him the answer: She went to pick up House. Just MHO

Yes. I value long-term relationships over short-term relationships. Wilson and Amber never got the chance for a long-term relationship, through no fault of their own. Stability, knowing who you can count on to be there, means more to me that the emotions evoked in a new relationship. Yes, those emotions feel amazing, but the honeymoon phase is fleeting. That's great and of course you should dictate what you want in your own relationships and what feels right for you. But that doesn't make it an objective standard that all other people adhere to in their own relationships. It's not better or worse, it's just what you want and/or need. Or to put it another way: Eric Clapton's son died at age 5. Carol Burnett's daughter died at age 38. One was a short term relationship and the other long term. So should we sit around and try to calculate which parent loved their child more and who should have the grea-*test*-('") grief? Or a parent who loses a newborn - when they're in the "honeymoon" stage of parenthood and still full of amazing feelings - vs. a parent who loses a teenager or adult they've gone through difficult times with? And yes, I realize the folly in comparing real life tragedies with fictional characters. But it's just part of the point that I'm uncomfortable with calibrating relationships, love and grief in such cold, black and white terms. I actually just picked up the new book by Ann Hood about the death of her daughter Grace, and there was something in it that struck me as one of the most astute things I've ever seen written about grief. She wrote that other books about grief didn't help her, because while those people lost their loved ones, "No one knew what it was like to lose Grace." That's exactly how you feel when someone dies. It's also how you feel when you're in love. No one knows what it's like to love that person in the way you do, and no one knows what it's like if you lose them. You know that other people have gone through similar experiences, but no one has ever felt the exact same way that you do or loved that person in the way you did. Other than that, if it's just saving her life at all was a losing ticket because he might not have had been with her in the long run, it's a way of thinking I just can't get. Ditto. Maybe I'm off-base and not understanding what hry is saying, but it comes across as cold to me, that the only relationships worth valuing are long-term ones (in which case, who decides what is long-term) and that, since there was a chance Wilson and Amber might have broken up somewhere down the line, he should not have been concerned with her death and just let her die. That's thinking that I just can't get. I absolutely would rather have my SO break up with me and go on living somewhere than to have her die. Because I love her and part of that is valuing her over myself sometimes, though of course I selfishly would want her with me.

That implies that Wilson isn't obligated to examine his own behavior. All of the characters are grown, educated, adults, etc. They are responsible for their actions within the story. Wilson owes it to himself, House, and his future victims girlfriends to change his ways. I agree with you on the fact that Wilson should be responsible for his actions, and I think that it will come up somehow in Season Five. Neither Wilson nor House, I think, can take the moral high ground on this one. However, I don't think the decision to ask House was taken lightly; the delivery of the line seemed to be incredibly uncertain, as if he's reluctant to even ask. And after House says, "You want me to risk my life to save Amber's" he looked almost as if he was about to say no. There's another huge gray area in that I believe it was House's idea at first. It was only after Cuddy said, "I've never seen a study linking electricity with rest" then House gave up the plan. I think House inadvertently planted the idea in Wilson's head, and after that I can imagine it was something Wilson obsessed over. Like, Hey, maybe it is my last hope.

I've been away for a while, and now I'm late to the party. But I want to add one point to all your beautiful analysis. Yes, I think it was very selfish of Wilson to ask House to risk his life, even for someone he, Wilson, loves. I think that means Wilson put Amber over House. But I don't think House realised it only at the moment Wilson asked him such a thing. House was suspected it for years, I believe. His ability to love is huge, and unfortunately not all the people can boast they have the same. Also, House has brains and a very good intuition, so I think he always knew Wilson doesn't love him as much as he loves Wilson. But like many people who love someone deeply House preferred to pretend to be blind. And that night House got the fact he couldn't deny - the confirmation. It's very hurtful, but isn't House a realist? House agreed to do the drain stimulation, but not only from love to Wilson. He blamed himself, that's obvious to me. Onle a day before he was arguing with that beautiful young woman for Wilson's attention, being House as much as he could. And now she was dead. Of course, he thought he somehow set the thing in motion, cause he wanted to get rid of her. But I think House is not the one who will be continuing to humiliate himself because he loves someone more than that someone deserved. He won't be dangle after Wilson. Such things as Wilson did to House in the finale epidode, they kill love. I think House will just leave. I an not blaming Wilson, but he made his choice. And, maybe, House in S5 will find someone who can love him as deepy as he can love someone. And please, let it be that "someone" will be played by Stephen Fry ;) Maybe, a friend whom, he believes, he lost many yeas ago.

My opinions on relationships are based more on observing other relationships, good and bad, than my own limited experiences. So, I would ask, would Wilson's approach to relationships be fulfilling for you? Would you feel secure with that? I can't think of anyone that would, and since Wilson is lonely and miserable most the time, I include him in that assessment of what people need. The thing is, I see no evidence Wilson was lonely or miserable with Amber. He wasn't jumping from the ceiling but he did come across as a lot happier then he had been before. Conversely and as someone else noted, we saw how House has not made Wilson happy in a long, long time. I think Cuddy is right when she told House that Wilson wanted to change, he didn't necessarily want to be House's partner in misery and loneliness. I can't say whether Wilson's approach to relationships would be fulfilling to me, because we haven't seen enough of it. Just going by what we saw in his relationship with Amber, he struck me as (prior to her) rather closed-off, overtly concerned with others, and not able to lean on his partners, though he was excellent at support. Personally, I am much more a Wilson type, and my own partner is a more outgoing, ballsy Amber/House type. We had to learn how to grow and change together, for the better. It was a conscious effort to change, improve communication, to work at the things that may have gone wrong in previous relationships. We did get indications of that with Wilson and Amber: both of them making deliberate choices to be, not different people, but better versions of themselves. Just because he had previous failed relationships doesn't mean that he was forever doomed and never would have a relationship that worked. He just needed to change, to work on what didn't work, and we got indications that he was doing that.

House is not the one who will be continuing to humiliate himself because he loves someone more than that someone deserved. So now Wilson doesn't deserved to be loved? Because he asked a selfish thing of House? By that logic House doesn't deserve to be loved because Wilson went through the ringer for him last year with Tritter, he was humiliated and he had no one on his side while doing it, and he wasn't even asked to, he was expected to. Wilson is not happy with his relationships, hasn't been for probably most his life. You really don't think Wilson was happy with Amber? I think that his relationship with Amber was different than his previous ones if for no other reason than she wasn't going to let him just take care of her and ignore himself. She told him to take care of himself and he did, if he didn't like that he could have left or cheated on her. He finally had someone worrying about his needs and putting him first (and not in have to sit around and disect you motives way that House does). I know it was new and I know they were still in the honeymoon phase but based on what I saw of their relationship, I see no reason why Wilson should believe that it wasn't going to work out. Even if you disagree, he thought he was breaking his pattern, he thought they had a chance, he said himself that he was happy.

If they had, and their relationship and the friendship between House and Wilson ended because of the DBS, where would Wilson be then? Lonely and miserable, and while I want Wilson to be happy, he would deserve it. You are making a value judgment about Amber's life and "worth" as a person based upon a future we can't know....Sure Wilson has had bad relationships in the past, but Amber- we are told - is different. She is more like "House" - a person Wilson *has* managed to have a long term relationship with (though I do doubt they could live happily ever after either.) Maybe it would have worked out or maybe not - but the idea that Wilson, in the midst of this emotional crisis of a possibly dying lover - is supposed to stand there and think through things and make a choice based upon her past behavior with women? Sorry. That strikes me at totally unrealistic. "Now wait. Hold it. Amber has one foot in the grave but let's see....Do I risk House's life to save Amber, who I may not have a real future with, cause you know I suck at relationships, and it is likely we won't last and if we do stay together we will probably be miserable, so it will just end in another divorce cause that is my MO and I have such a bad track record with women in long term relationship so this will probably only be a short term relationship like all my others so...you know what? Screw her. " People in the midst of life and death events don't sit down and weight the pros and cons - they react on a pure emotional level. You are looking at the situation from a calm, objective standpoint of emotional distance. Wilson was in no condition to do so...and frankly, neither was House. In all this talk about how Wilson devalued House by choosing Amber over him, let us not forget that HOUSE himself agreed - so House obviously felt his own life was worth less than Amber. On the bus, he even says he should have died and Amber should have lived. Whether Wilson's choice feeds into that or not is an interesting question, but it is not as thought we haven't been presented with House's self-loathing before. And I can't help but wonder what would have been everyone's reaction if Amber HAD lived. House did not actually find the final answer till he did the DBS. What if there HAD been some treatment that could have saved Amber? Then, if they had not done the DBS, Amber would have died. And in doing so they would have saved her. I wonder would the request have been viewed as so negative in that light. In a way, Wilson *was*correct - House did have the wrong diagnosis - and the DBS did give them the correct answer... but it was a diagnosis for which there was no treatment. But, I can see a lot of roadblocks, and I don't think Amber is less flawed than House, which would be incentive for Wilson to go back to House in the end. Ah ha... I think I see light here. I suspect you are coming at this from a strong "slash" perspective... please correct me if I am wrong about this. You see Amber as "flavor of the month" so to you she is not a "real" relationship. The "real" relationship is House... when you say Wilson would "go back to House" it suggests you see House as the "real" relationship, but Wilson just doesn't see it. However, taking off the slash glasses for a moment: Wilson does not need to "go back to House" because he never HAD House. They do not have a romantic relationship, as shown in canon (as much as I love to speculate otherwise) so there is no "going back" - unless you mean in terms of the friendship - which they never abandoned anyway. If anything, their realtionship currently (prior to HH and WH) was doing better than it had for a while. Yes, Wilson is making more time for Amber, and things would change as Amber became a part of their lives, but either Amber would not work out, because she wasn't right for Wilson and then H/W would be back at thieir default settings- or it would work out, and Wilson would be happy..which would mean House *isn't* the only "real" relationship Wilson could have...but that would go against the idea that House and Wilson are soulmates, so it HAS to be that things would not work out, and Wilson should have seen that at the beginning. I may be misconstruing what you are saying, but this explanation does at least let me see where you might be coming from. If I am wrong, I am sure you will correct me. :)

People in the midst of life and death events don't sit down and weight the pros and cons - they react on a pure emotional level. You are looking at the situation from a calm, objective standpoint of emotional distance. Yes, and I think one can view what we learned about how Wilson feels as valid because of this. He reacted from the heart, priorizing in that instant what he could live with and what he couldn't. I'm not one who's arguing Wilson doesn't have that right, just that he did do it and it changed his and House's relationship, because House didn't know he would do that and now he does. In all this talk about how Wilson devalued House by choosing Amber over him, let us not forget that HOUSE himself agreed - so House obviously felt his own life was worth less than Amber. On the bus, he even says he should have died and Amber should have lived. Whether Wilson's choice feeds into that or not is an interesting question, but it is not as thought we haven't been presented with House's self-loathing before. I don't see how House agreeing to possibly sacrifice himself for Wilson's happiness at the same time as Wilson is showing him that he needs Amber in his life more than he needs House is not a relationship changing moment because House has survivor's guilt on top of a low sense of self in the personal sense. I don't think anyone is arguing that House didn't agree to the DBS when Wilson asked, we're talking about what both the request and the agreement signify for the relationship. If Wilson is feeding into House's self-loathing as a way to minimise Amber's risk, that is significant, even it's still understandable in human terms. It means something between House and Wilson. And I can't help but wonder what would have been everyone's reaction if Amber HAD lived. House did not actually find the final answer till he did the DBS. What if there HAD been some treatment that could have saved Amber? Then, if they had not done the DBS, Amber would have died. And in doing so they would have saved her. I wonder would the request have been viewed as so negative in that light. In a way, Wilson *was*correct - House did have the wrong diagnosis - and the DBS did give them the correct answer... but it was a diagnosis for which there was no treatment. But Wilson wasn't "correct" in the sense that he knew that House had the wrong diagnosis and was arguing against it specifically. He was saying because there was a risk House could be wrong, he wanted to cover every base before warming her up, even if that cost House his life. He didn't know House would find anything--he just couldn't bear to risk Amber if there was anything left unturned. I think an equally interesting question to yours about what if Amber had lived would be: what if House had died? He does the DBS, not because he feels the need, but because Wilson does, having just been shown that Wilson is willing to risk House's life to minimise risk to Amber's, and dies on the table, not having revealed anything that will help Amber. Nearly happened that way. Would that change anyone's perception of what Wilson was asking of House and what it revealed about their relationship?