So, I assume that even though he is released from Mayfield, he will continue to take anti-depressants?

I'm guessing he will, although how that will play out once he's back in PPTH will be interesting (remember how he pointing to Wilson's yawning as a side effect?). My mother called me to say how much she enjoyed it...I didn't contradict her because she loves the sappiest stuff (she was born to watch the Hallmark Channel). I also didn't ask her how it stacked up to the many times she's had to visit me at various hospitals, had things confiscated like tinned prunes :), how the longest visiting hours are about one and half hours... There was some good stuff in the first part of the episode, but after that, Feel-Good House was such a cardboard construction, as I think others have said. I still can't believe the writers worked with NAMI (National Alliance of the Mentally Ill) and consulted a psychiatrist. Seriously? I wanted to mention how much I appreciate the courtesy to most of the responses on this board. I feel an instinct to lash out at people who write "best episode ever!" but I don't, because you can't convince people to not enjoy or enjoy something. They either do or they don't, for their own reasons. I didn't hate it, I felt let down by a show that almost always picks the most realistic choices. Today I'm going to talk to my psychiatrist about the benefits of bashing my face in a cake and wearing a happy face t-shirt. That oughta take care of all of those abusive childhood/loss issues I have. Maybe he'll even kiss my boo-boo and make it all better. Or at least break down in tears in front of me. That would be a nice change.

The sex happened when she was feeling vulnerable because she was upset over Annie, and he was feeling vulnerable because of all the daddy issues the visit to Nolan's father stirred up. They took comfort in each other's arms, then the Trope Fairy took over and they would up doing the wild thing (proving that preacher in "Footloose" correct -- see what dancing leads to?). Oh God, I am old enough to remember this... I finally got to see the epi yesterday evening (after setting up very bad excuses to end a meeting earlier, then give up and say, I wanna go home and watch season 6 premiere) I liked it, first because it was new! I was badly missing new House episodes. I did not love it, because it lacked things I would have wanted to see, ie more conversations with Dr Nolan, and deeper ones, with real talks about his issues, and Amber, and Kutner, and Cuddy, too. I was not bothered by the medical part on the psych ward, and found Dr Beasley really cute. I feared the Lydia story (I swear I'm not reading spoliers again...till tomorrow) but it was nicely done and quite moving. But I share the feelings that she had also serious issues (seriously? 10 years visiting on a long stay psych ward, and hooking up with a patient? She should know better) I got this weird feeling that I was seeing Hugh Laurie, not House, at some times, mainly the rapping, throwing basket ball with a smile, and hugging Alvie. Maybe it was the smile, the bow? Just weird. Oh, and I absolutely loved dr Nolan from the start. I'll be really, really happy if he was staying around for more episodes. He connected with House, and House could use more than one friend...

Anti-depressants were originally designed not to be taken for life; they were meant to help people with intractable depression after a death, etc. (I knew someone at Pfizer when they were developing Prozac). Then they became a way of life for many people, and they are the most prescribed drugs in the US. There is chemical depression, which is a brain chemistry disorder, and then there is situational depression, which is reacting to bad events in your life. House clearly suffers from situational depression, but it was never dealt with in this episode in a real way. So yes, it's perfectly realistic that at some point he could stop taking anti-depressants. I'm bipolar, so I have to take them, but we've been tapering off my dose this year since I haven't had a severe pathological depression for about two years or so. Eventually I hope to get off them completely, to be replaced by a higher dose of the bipolar drug I am on. Unfortunately, that I will have to take for the rest of my life, because bipolar can't be "cured." However, mental illness can be managed, through a combination of meds and therapy. Schizophrenia is an entirely separate disorder. For instance, the paranoid guy in the episode probably had schizophrenia. For Alvie to function as well as he did without any meds for months was pretty unrealistic, but I was willing to let it go. It is true that many bipolars stop taking their meds because they feel "dulled" and end up back in the hospital. Sorry for the off-topic ramble, I've just been on a LOT of different drugs over the last ten years. Anti-depressants all have side-effects, I wonder if the writers are going to deal with that? Some cause sweating, weight gain, sedation, or even an increase in suicidal thinking.

A bi-polar person could function for years without medication and do quite well. Every case is different. I'm not saying that your observations aren't valid, wackjob--obviously, they're your experiences-- but saying that someone who is bi-polar will always be tied to medication is not a universal truism.

radiosweetheart, I'm sure there are some bipolar people who function without meds. I've only met one among the hundreds of bipolar people I've known through hospital stays, support groups, casual acquaintances, etc. Also, bipolar is the diagnosis du jour for dozens of different conditions (like how having repressed memories of your parents abusing you while in a Satanic cult swept the nation ten years ago). As I like to say, I was bipolar before bipolar was cool. But I wasn't trying to give a definitive answer, just trying to impart information from where I sit. Speaking of which, I just came back from seeing my psychiatrist, and he hadn't seen the episode yet! He's as much of a House fanatic as they come. The one thing he had heard about, he said was ridiculous. He was giving a lecture on substance abuse, and someone mentioned House being put in restraints. "You don't put someone in opiod withdrawal in restraints," he said with a chuckle. I sketched out the scenario of Nolan by his father's bedside with House there, and his jaw dropped. "You're kidding me, aren't you?" We've kicked around some of the bad medicine on the show (like the no-methadone-withdrawal) but we both enjoy the show tremendously. How sad is it when the only two people you know who watch House are your mother and your psychiatrist?

LOL! I was way too afraid to ask at school if anyone had seen the show, since so many people in my class have part-time jobs at psychiatric hospitals. (Usually working as the psychiatric techs who were mysteriously missing from the episode...)

I'm totally stealing these bits of insight from Topaz and Corgigirl over at LJ: 1) Notice that Alvie's name is an anagram for "Alive." 2) When it comes to Lydia: "In the New Testament, she was the woman who sheltered the apostle Paul and his early missionaries. She was noted for her willingness to share and provide for the needs of others. It fits. (Well, except for the actual sex.) :D"

I don't know, Namaste, I think she definately provided for the need of another by having sex! LOL. On the issue of this episode having like twenty or something wrong to it, I was a waitress, but I don't focus on series based in diners for not showing the sidework and the death threats from the kitchen. The spitting in food is always over played. *shrug. It is forced drama so...I relax. Besides I can count only three times where I had exceptionally funny one liners about people at my tables in about seven years in the industry. I guess it really is make believe.

I had dinner last night with a friend who is a therapist and he asked if I had seen the premiere. I said I was thinking of him and all the objections he probably had. I told him about shadowcat's list and he was interested to hear the points. I ran down the list (as much as I could remember) and he said "YES! YES! YES!" all the way through. He picked up on the same things. He also had some comments on Dr. Nolan inviting House to his dying father's bedside. He said it would only inappropriate depending on Nolan's motivation. He said that if he was really asking House for a consult it would be inappropriate, but since House makes a comment that even Nolan would know that there was nothing to be done for his father, Nolan's motivation was probably to let House see him in pain, etc. and thus making it a teachable moment so it wouldn't be inappropriate. I found that pretty interesting. That said, he thought that acting was spectacular. We talked about the need to suspend disbelief (some times, much more than others!) It's nice to get so many differing perspectives.

Thanks to a crazy!hectic schedule at nursing school I finally got to see the complete episode. First, HL’s acting, as usual, was spot-on. I swear that man can take the dictionary and turn it into an amazing performance. I admit that I had become disheartened with the show over the last season or two, but his acting always kept me coming back. I can understand the haircut for this season/episode, but I wonder if he did other things as well to “prepare” for this. There were technicalities in the episode that I didn’t agree with – mostly the way the residents were treated in the hospital, even though in many cases, it does happen. After working at nursing homes for several years now (as a nursing assistant – and some residents were former mental institution residents who needed additional care), there are parts of the episodes that ring true. Dr. Beasly’s character, to me at least, really does show the underlying care that someone in healthcare tries to have as evidenced by her being accessible to the residents and even participating in the talent show; unfortunately, it was countered with Dr. Medina’s character of distrusting the residents and perspective of the resident being the enemy. These two characters were combined into Dr. Nolan’s character – he’s in it to care, but still has questionable motives throughout. In my opinion there is an ethical debate over long-term care already; the organization needs patients to make money, but the aim of the organization is to treat and release their patients into new and healthier lives. The ethics of a majority of the scenes really had me wondering, and Shadowcat’s list touch on a lot of what concerned me with this episode. However, I also can see from having worked as a CNA and having friends work as CNAs at an area mental hospital, that a lot of this can/does still happen. We are only human. But, I do see where House “had” to be institutionalized as a way to tell the story that the writers did tell. Lydia. This is the part for me that I actually liked the most. Several people here were against her storyline and its ethics. I actually feel that it would be quite possible. There was a show I saw a few years back called ”Takin’ Over the Asylum”. It tells the story of a man who volunteers at a mental hospital in the UK and illustrates how broken a person’s life on the outside can be as compared to the lives of those on the inside of the mental hospital (in fact, several subplots in this episode were also in TOtA). I won’t go into spoilers on that, but I saw a definite parallel between Lydia and House here. House’s life is broken, he admits that, but so is Lydia’s. She married her best friend’s brother to spend more time with her best friend, and then her best friend goes silent. She visits her friend daily, a motivation that can be seen as one where she is seeking her own asylum for her frustration over the situation. She meets House, falls for him, which can also be seen as part of that motivation. She can also be seen as a vice for House, one that he has to “withdraw” from again. In this episode, she becomes his Vicodin. House has to leave his vice to get “better,” which only is the chance for him to see how miserable he is. The scene where they make love, to me, was bittersweet because of “Lydia=Vicodin.” House realizes how much he needs a connection, but at the same time knows that it can only end with someone getting hurt. Nolan foreshadowed this by mentioning that he was having an affair with a married woman, showing him that it was not a “healthy” relationship. While I agree that there would usually be 15 minute checks on the residents as well as predetermined visiting hours which would make this impossible, this was a scene that was needed for House to push to his “recovery.” He needed to take that one vicodin in this story to allow himself to become human again. I have not seen any spoilers or previews for upcoming episodes, but I’m hoping that the writing staff can continue the storyline of House’s recovery – at this point, it is needed for House’s character development. I’m hoping for the continuity to be there, and for some theme of “House’s new Vicodin” to be within the story. I think having House back in PPTH will also bring more chance at seeing how House reacts to new temptations to treat his pain, as much of Hollywood’s stereotypical medical treatments focus too strongly one medical interventions as opposed to lifestyle interventions.