Regarding the lack of Kutner analysis, this week we had Wilson trying to get House back to "normal." (Though process: My friend's life has been disrupted. I have to help him regain his sense of equilibrium. How? I know! I'll eat salad.) I've had a few colleagues die over the years. A week after someone's funeral, you don't spend a lot of time in the office discussing it. But it's always there, in the background. You do something or work on a project that reminds you of the person and, for a few minutes you talk about them. Or, given how screwed up the staff at PPTH is, jumping through hoops to avoid talking about him. There are 3 more episodes. I'm sure the fallout is going to be apparent in a variety of ways.

Interesting post razor, I like your take on Cameron and Chase, especially acknowledging how clueless and cut off she is in some ways. Good analysis of their relationship also, and yes, they should learn to communicate better, but I suppose it's more dramatic if they make mistakes and then fix them. I don't find them quite as fascinating, but who knows, if they keep writing them like they did last night, maybe I will. ETA: Wilson says to House that he's been obsessing about Kutner's death for a week and House responds that he's not on his team anymore, his way of saying he's letting it go. Cameron says she didn't want to hear Chase's proposal because of Kutner's death (which as House points out, is lame and nowhere neear the truth) but I thought her saying that that had affected everyone seemed sincere. Wilson and his salad-eating ways were an effort to guide House back toward normalcy, and maybe for himself as well. So, anyway, it seemed like the fallout so far has been mostly offstage: I too expect more stuff to be revealed in next eps.

There is nothing of what should have been Chase's abandonment issues affecting how he feels about Cameron stalling, I disagree. He was definitely feeling abandoned, "You're blowing off our vacation to treat another doctor's patient for hiccups?" and "I don't know what's worse--postponing our vacation to hang out with House or postponing it because he won't hang out with you." Those aren't exact quotes, of course. But Chase was definitely feeling like second fiddle and he tried to work through it by trusting her up to a point, but he also knew he'd been lied to and there's only so much "Trust me even though I'm lying to you" anyone can take, abandonment issues or not. I think that when Cameron beleives something, she beleives it. She worked up this scenerio in her mind, that Chase was only proposing because of the whole Kutner mess, and possibly from some other neuroses. I thought it odd that she was convinced that he was only proposing because of Kutner. Even if she found the ring in the last week, Chase said it took a week for him to plan the vacation. I don't think he came home from Kutner's funeral and started planning a vacation for them to leave immediately. They had to coordinate their schedules so they could both get time off. Having planned many a trip, I find it more likely Chase had planned the trip several weeks ago and been planning the proposal for weeks. I guess we'll never know, but it didn't make much sense to me for her to think that Kutner inspired the proposal given the amount of time he invested in just planning the trip. The thing that Chase said that I loved most and thought was so in character was, "I don't care how it looks. I care what it is." That was a wonderful statement to be made between two people on the virge of a breakup. I love that he was willing to go beyond appearances and find the truth and the truth was what he really cared about. Appearances are what could cost him his pride (it looking to everyone like his girlfriend was blowing him off for her old crush), but he could deal with that so long as she would tell him the truth. The thing I love about Chase/Cam is that they have a much more mature relationship than we see with House/Cuddy. They're not hurting each other just to hurt each other and that's a refreshing change of pace from tripwires and busted toilets. That being said, I still wish the show would focus some storytelling on Chase as a diagnosing doctor rather than only showing him as "the surgeon" or Cameron's boyfriend. Chase was a great asset to House's team and I wish we'd see him doing that doctory stuff again. That's way more interesting than sailing the shippy seas.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the way I look at it is that's who Cameron WAS -- lacked maturity, annoying, head-over-heels and completely idiotic when it came to House. She grew up beyond that and she's matured as a character (shown extremely well in Locked in and Saviors, IMO). From what I've taken out of the show, we're supposed to see Cuddy as a mature, responsible, hard-working and dedicated woman with a strong sense of her goals -- her career and now her baby. I'm happy Cameron's taken two steps forward in terms of characterization, but Cuddy's almost gone back to the mentality of a 12 year old girl (or, if you want to be like that, S1 Cameron). I used to think it was just the way Cameron was too, but now it's the way Cuddy is too. They're not that similar that both their personalities just happen to turn them into immature children when they're "in love." Cameron's no longer crushing on House, so she comes off as much more mature. Cuddy's world now revolves around House and she's coming off as extremely immature and very Cameron of S1-3 like. Seeing Cuddy act more or less the same as Cameron did just leads me to believe this is how the writers will write any regular female character who has the misfortune of being House's love interest.

Chase was probably feeling abandoned, who wouldn't be? But I never got the sense that it was anything beyond what any person would feel when he had planned a special vacation and his girlfriend was stalling. Chase must have huge issues given his father dismissing him and his mother abandoning him in her own way, issues beyond the ordinary, but I got absolutely no sense of that at all in this episode. It seems to me to be a big missed opportunity to show something deeper of Chase and perhaps of Cameron too and more evidence that this is just a bone Shore is throwing to people who have been calling for Chase and Cameron to be back on the show and not something he's committing to in terms of story telling. Think how many episode it would have taken up if it had been Thirteen's issue and not Chase's. :roll: I still love how clueless, relationship-wise, Cameron is. Is Cameron clueless relationship-wise all the time or only when it comes to Chase? It seems to me that she's always been very good about seeing relationships and how people are fallible except that she believes in true love (e.g. Clueless, thinking she could have a relationship with House). Other than that, she's got them nailed. She even zinged Cuddy in Unfaithful, telling to to tell House if she wants him to attend the baby naming, as she zinged Cuddy in this episode. She gave good advice to Wilson in DCE about dealing with Amber's death, advice which he put into effect in this episode (both written by Eli Attie). It seems to me that Cameron being clueless relationship-wise applies only to her relationship to Chase. To me, that feels like artificial writing in oder to justify this relationship rather than something inherent in Cameron's character.

The thing that Chase said that I loved most and thought was so in character was, "I don't care how it looks. I care what it is." That was a wonderful statement to be made between two people on the virge of a breakup. I love that he was willing to go beyond appearances and find the truth and the truth was what he really cared about. Appearances are what could cost him his pride (it looking to everyone like his girlfriend was blowing him off for her old crush), but he could deal with that so long as she would tell him the truth I think that it also shows how different Chase and Cameron are though, and I don't know if it bodes well for their relationship. Sometimes it seems to me like Chase is really open with Cameron but he doesn't really demand that she reciprocate. I get the feeling that he's used to being right, because he's been right quite a bit. The problem is, if he doesn't discuss these things with her, he comes up with the wrong idea as well. He was also questioning Cameron's involvement with House (as was Foreman, Cuddy, and House himself). Cameron was very forthwright with all of those characters that it had nothing to do with House but I don't know if they believed her. If he doesn't tell her how he's feeling, she's going to come up with her own ideas. I think sometimes he gets into this high school 'you know damn well what I was thinking' headspace and it seems painfully clear to me that sometimes Cameron really doesn't. I personally think Cameron was the one who took the risk, she was one caught flack from House and Cuddy. It seemed like Cuddy felt bad for Chase, well as bad as Cuddy can feel for any other human being these days. I also think that there was a great of subconscious motivation on her part. She really didn't seem to 'get it' until he got really mad. Is Cameron clueless relationship-wise all the time or only when it comes to Chase? It seems to me that she's always been very good about seeing relationships and how people are fallible except that she believes in true love (e.g. Clueless, thinking she could have a relationship with House). Other than that, she's got them nailed. She even zinged Cuddy in Unfaithful, telling to to tell House if she wants him to attend the baby naming, as she zinged Cuddy in this episode. She gave good advice to Wilson in DCE about dealing with Amber's death, advice which he put into effect in this episode (both written by Eli Attie). It seems to me that Cameron being clueless relationship-wise applies only to her relationship to Chase. To me, that feels like artificial writing in oder to justify this relationship rather than something inherent in Cameron's character I think she was better at observing other people than she was about her personal relationships. We know that Foreman dated Wendy, We know that Chase hung out with dominatrices (I don't the plural! help!) but we never even heard Cameron mention anything about friends or family. I'm always reminded of Damned if You Do, where Foreman is playing Santa, House and Wilson are eating Chinese, Chase goes to Church, and Cameron is all alone in office and seems happy with just one Christmas present (and it was from House, so you know it couldn't have been anything good ;-)) Even the whole way she started FWB was socially tone deaf and a good way to get a sexual harrasment suit pinned on you.

Being cluelesss about your own realitionship seems very realistic to me. It's always a lot easier to sit back and make judgments about someone else's relationship or even give good advice about someone else's relationship than it is to make the one you're in work. We have no idea what Cameron's relationship with her husband was like and that relationship never had to survive any test of time. She was pretty clueless about House because she was convinced he had feelings for her because he treated her badly a la Freud's ideology. Chase must have huge issues given his father dismissing him and his mother abandoning him in her own way but I got absolutely no sense of that at all in the episode. This isn't Chase of five years ago though. He's grown up some and, in doing so, he's trying different approaches. He didn't immediately react in fear like he would have when we first met him. He TRIED to wait it out and trust, but his faith had a time limit. That's still a progression from immediately distrusting/lacking faith. House is the person on the show who can't change and grow. The people around him can and must in order to stay interesting. I'm glad we didn't see Chase reacting to a test of faith by immediately failing it. JS and JMo are professional actors who have been working together for nearly two years since they split up. I fail to see why their appearing together in an emotional scene is somehow beyond their capability or why they should be treated with kid gloves, rather than being treated with a meaty, emotional scene. I meant to say earlier that I completely agree with this too. Those scenes were the best Jesse or Jennifer have had in years. They both played them incredibly well. I bet they both prefer playing out scenes that give them something impressive to do than episodes where Cameron has one line (or doesn't appear at all) and Chase gets one scene. ETA: Cameron was very forthwright with all of those characters that it had nothing to do with House but I don't know if they believed her. Actually she wasn't. When Cuddy asked her, she didn't deny having feelings for House, she said Cuddy was marking her territory. The way the episode was written kept Cameron's feelings for House a question until the very end.

Yeah, but Cuddy was kind of acting weird and I thought Cameron was just trying to snap her out of it (plus, we know she ships Huddy). I think if she would have brought it up more than she did, it would have been guilt by association.

I think suggesting the FWB was Cameron being clueless in not getting Chase's feelings at all, although to be fair he had covered them up very well because he told Foreman he didn't want to jump Cameron and he told her he didn't want to repeat the night of sex, both of which I think were lies. (Those were the days before Chase talked about his personal affairs to his boss in the middle of the hospital.) But asking a colleague/friend for a FWB relationship which he is free to refuse if he wants to is not sexual harassment territory. She was pretty clueless about House because she was convinced he had feelings for her Wilson also thought that House had feelings for her, e.g. the "every woman you've given a damn about" line in Kids and worries about House getting hurt if she can't take it. This isn't Chase of five years ago though. He's grown up some and, in doing so, he's trying different approaches. I think that's a difference between us. :) You're okay if Chase grows up, if he gets punched and then starts standing up to House. (Is that right?) I want to know how and why. I want to see the growth on my screen, not have to assume it from the time passage. I want Chase to have a conversation with someone, anyone, about how his past and present have affected him so we can see that tptb still remember that about him. Goodness knows we've had it with Foreman, Thirteen, even Taub. And especially with House. I don't think Cameron ships Huddy. I think she doesn't want House for herself and she's as fed up with Cuddy acting immature as I am so she's trying to get her to do something. (Or maybe I'm projecting.)

I think suggesting the FWB was Cameron being clueless in not getting Chase's feelings at all, although to be fair he had covered them up very well because he told Foreman he didn't want to jump Cameron and he told her he didn't want to repeat the night of sex, both of which I think were lies. (Those were the days before Chase talked about his personal affairs to his boss in the middle of the hospital.) But asking a colleague/friend for a FWB relationship which he is free to refuse if he wants to is not sexual harassment territory. I guess that is kind of part of the reason why I think Cameron's character is so fascinating. I understand that many people don't think she's very pretty but I really do *faints*. If some balding fat guy with coke bottle glasses and sweat pants suggested something like that to another colleague who had the same level of interaction that Chase and Cameron did at the time, I think some people might have found it disgusting (even if you add in the Meth!Sex). That is just so far away from how normal people interact with one another. Why not take him to a bar or to the waffle house and have things progress organically? I think she unintentionally gets away with some of her weirder behavior because of her looks (it is a double edged sword obviously, because many people probably don't respect her because of her looks). It comes to the whole mask thing. I think it is really easy for Cameron to hide, and not just because she's good at it.

Eli Attie used to write for The West Wing. I can't imagine Aaron Sorkin letting him get away with writing CJ or Abby Bartlett like Cameron was written, much less the way Cuddy was. . Why not take him to a bar or to the waffle house and have things progress organically? She didn't want things to progress organically. She didn't want a relationship with him, in fact she asked him because she didn't want a relationship. She wanted no strings microwave pizza sex and then they both go their separate ways without any ties. I'm sorry but I'm never going to believe that Cameron secretly wanted Chase but was too clueless to know it no matter how many times the writers retcon it. That's just not who the character was in the first two seasons.

Am I the only person that liked the patient this week? A lot of the people I hung out with a few years ago were beginning to get almost as bad as this guy (for a while, I was too -- my whole activist phase. In fact, I'm still vegetarian, but I've realized I'm not doing it for anything even vaguely resembling human or animal rights) and it really bothered me, and because of the whole scene I was involved in, I was exposed to a lot of it, and it annoyed me. It's something I'm used to though, and he was such an ass it was entertaining. It was almost familiar in that way. I mean, I didn't like him as a person and I didn't like the wife, but it was just... really interesting. I really liked watching it. And I think it's totally awesome the annoying activist nearly died because of the very thing he's trying to stop. If only the clinic patient had lived up to expectations.

I didn't exactly like him, but I didn't hate him. He was very young and an idealogue. He just hadn't figured out that he was responsible for his own family, quite a blind spot. I didn't think the actor was that great. But I liked that he was doing a good thing, dedicated no matter what, and was presented as insufferable for his tunnel visioin dedication. Reminded me of the TB or not TB doc, though this guy wasn't as slick as that. I do like how the patients on House are not all necessarily likeable or smart or making good choices, and that all that is totally irrelevant to their treatment. For his patients, it's a good thing he doesn't care about them but rather their maladies: when the young docs care about who they treat, there's a chance the patients they don't like/agree with/approve of will get lesser treatment.

By Boffle, "Oh, I think with that ending, they've opened us up to all kinds of possibilities: they totally set us up and then pulled the rug out from under us with that one." The episode's manipulative atmosphere was crowned with a set up and decapitated with a rug pull. Evenso, I think Shore was being unusually straightforward in the final set up about how he truly views his characters. They were not candy-coated versions of House, Wilson, Cuddy, Cameron, and Chase but Shore was showing us the essence of the main characters in the ending montage with no skewing applied. It was almost as if Shore needed the hyper-manipulative framework of this particular episode to allow him to be obvious and clear with his audience about the most essential things on House MD, his characters. By Boffle, "I think in part maybe it's about expectations. It's irresistible when Cameron tells Chase she has no expectations, she's just hoping. He follows through. OTOH, Cuddy wants to know if Cameron is a threat so she asks Cameron, Chase and House: she has expectations, maybe a plan, so people are now on guard to her: her own expectations are bound to thwart her." Great call Boffle about expectations and how they operate. You're reminding me of Mr. Dickens.