6.22 - Help Me

Either that or Cuddy drove by her house and yelled it out of the car window. Yeah, a "drive-by breakup" ;) Just wanted to say that I loved the way PJ played concerned Taub in House's office. He didn't say much, but as usual he managed to express so much with these few words. A.MR. BLAKE Well, the 22 minutes that pass are only screen time. The last scene takes place around dawn, so in reality (or “reality” in quotes) many hours have passed. Not to mention that House and Cuddy getting together is actually six seasons in the making, so hopefully we’d earned it... ...So we imagine that after all of this, Cuddy goes home to Lucas and has a wrenching, long conversation with him. Lol, but that makes even less sense! Are we really to believe that Cuddy didn't take the time to take a quick shower and change after her long in-depth conversation with Lucas? And if it's really around dawn, who's looking after Rachel? I can buy the nanny staying longer in the evening, but I just don't see her arriving basically in the middle of the night so that Cuddy can rush over to House. And what about House, what did he do upon leaving the hospital in that desolate and physically already weakened state we saw him in, was he just wandering around town or frequenting bars for hours, with a seeping neck wound and covered in dust? Also, it makes no sense dramatically, that he would still be that distraught instead of cooled down after all those hours ;). Oh, and when House calls Wilson in the ER, the clock on the wall says it's 10:15, and allegedly House sitting in his bathroom takes place 8 hours later! Dammit, in the beginning I wasn't bothered at all by the logistics of Cuddy's sudden appearance and break-up, but now I find myself lengthily thinking about it because it has been made into such a big deal! ;) ETA: What's amazing about the lobby scene, while House angrily yells at Foreman, HL manages to look so desperate and vulnerable, so that House's eyes don't really match the displayed anger and betray his true emotions, I love that contrast!

I think House was probably at the hospital that whole time and just came home at dawn. I think Cuddy was probably there too (there are all the crane victims so don't think she's been home). She might have asked L to come in to end it with him and sent a nurse to stay with Rachel while Cuddy came over to see House. She would have known when he left and followed him soon after because she just couldn't wait one more minute and she knew how exhausted he was and what he might do.

Me being the spoilerwhore that I am, I seem to recall the original spoiler had Cuddy emerging from the building and Lucas was waiting for her. That would seem to make sense as to when the breakup took place. Perhaps this was the original plan but they decided against having Lucas in the scene since his popularity went over like a lead balloon and why waste MW's time for one scene?

I think it was just badly written. I can't fanwank this no matter how hard I try.

Don't worry, you will have *lots* of fanfictions to explain this, and then you'll choose yours. Preparing for lots of readings this summer - happy hiatus, at least!

In the final scene, House was distraught and beyond hope, crushed by all he had experienced in the previous 18 hours. Cuddy was open, raw, and scared. In these extreme circumstances, I can't imagine the two engaging in a detailed discussion of the logistics of how Cuddy broke up with Lucas, or arranged for babysitting, or providing a timeline for their movements during the night, or revealing whether she showered before coming to House's apartment. The idea of inserting long, involved expository passages in this highly charged scene seems preposterous to me. Thankfully, we got plain, economical, unsentimental sentences that spoke from their hearts. I think the writing here was beautiful in its simplicity and power, just a few lean phrases pared to the essential. The actors delivered with conviction, control, and passion. It worked for me.

Agreed, blacktop. I've found that when I'm in highly emotional moments, I forget about the routine questions out there like showering or remember to eat or brush teeth. I know that other people, however, can only focus on the routine. As far as Rachel, Cuddy had obviously made arrangements for her before we even saw the first scene, when she was dressing to go to the accident scene and would have obviously had some emergency situation set up. (Considering Lucas was often seen working nights with his detective work, I suspect there other other alternatives regardless of his status.) Maybe her sister came to spend the night? We know Sis's place is a couple of hours drive away, but no reason why she couldn't drive down and take over for the nanny. Maybe Cuddy even has special arrangements with the nanny for overnight emergencies, considering her time consuming job and the possibility of emergencies.

In these extreme circumstances, I can't imagine the two engaging in a detailed discussion of the logistics of how Cuddy broke up with Lucas, or arranged for babysitting, or providing a timeline for their movements during the night, or revealing whether she showered before coming to House's apartment. The idea of inserting long, involved expository passages in this highly charged scene seems preposterous to me. Thankfully, we got plain, economical, unsentimental sentences that spoke from their hearts. I think the writing here was beautiful in its simplicity and power, just a few lean phrases pared to the essential. The actors delivered with conviction, control, and passion. It worked for me. Not to diss the writers' effort but to me it was just another example of lazy writing, especially after Peter Blake explained that many hours passed before Cuddy came to House's house <lol> It definitely didn't make sense as it'd imply e.g. that House spent hours wandering somewhere without his cane before going home or that Cuddy couldn't find a spare minute for a quick change of clothing <confused> I really don't demand any kind of detailed explanation but this kind of sloppiness with details starts to irritate me, especially when it could have been very easily avoided. But I guess my irritation stems mostly from the fact that quite recently writers managed to lose not only a few hours but a whole decade :wink: ETA: I have no problem that Rachel wasn't mentioned, I accepted long time ago that Cuddy's motherhood's not the most believable thing in the world and I'm actually kinda grateful we don't have to deal with her babysitting problems in every second episode. I hope it won't change in season 7 :)

Well, House did have to walk home. Or wait for a cab, or find a bus. I believe his motorcycle was still at the accident scene. So that gave Cuddy plenty of time to break up with Lucas. :wink: I don't get too hung up on details like that. It gives me reasons to look forward to fan fiction. One of my main reasons for loving this show is watching the actors hit things out of the ball park like this whole episode. I'd rather have to suspend my belief than hear them talk about how they made it home or why they didn't shower.

Not to diss the writers' effort but to me it was just another example of lazy writing, especially after Peter Blake explained that many hours passed before Cuddy came to House's house Except, how do you know the decision that Cuddy is still wearing the dirty scrubs from the accident scene was the decision of the writers and not Greg Yaitanes? Just as an example. I'm not going to argue/counter every single 'what if' and 'who did what' scenario, but there are many people involved in the making of an episode and a lot of possibilities are discussed and then disregarded for reasons we will never know. HL himself said that when he double checked why something was the way it was, he often got the answer that it was discussed or even tried differently but here's the reason why not.... <insert specific incident>. For me the scene worked very, very well. I'm glad, cause I can't imagine what a downer it must have been for you to only think about the logistics of who got where at what time and what happened to the kid, while such a beautiful scene played itself out, instead of just immersing yourself in it.

I don't want the writers to explain everything about all daily routines, but they did make a decision to have Cuddy wear scrubs. Had she been wearing jeans the question would not have come up. The Cuddy/Lucas relationship has been an important storyline this season, and I would have liked it better if they had given just a little more attention to the details of how it ended. Still an awesome episode, though.

Not to diss the writers' effort but to me it was just another example of lazy writing, especially after Peter Blake explained that many hours passed before Cuddy came to House's house Except, how do you know the decision that Cuddy is still wearing the dirty scrubs from the accident scene was the decision of the writers and not Greg Yaitanes? Just as an example. I'm not going to argue/counter every single 'what if' and 'who did what' scenario, but there are many people involved in the making of an episode and a lot of possibilities are discussed and then disregarded for reasons we will never know. <...> For me the scene worked very, very well. I'm glad, cause I can't imagine what a downer it must have been for you to only think about the logistics of who got where at what time and what happened to the kid, while such a beautiful scene played itself out, instead of just immersing yourself in it. ok, good point, now I have a director to blame (just kidding, I really enjoyed the way this episode was directed :) ) Don't worry about me, while I was undoubtedly unhappy during this whole scene, I actually didn't immediately start thinking about the logistics. I had some more vital problems to address :wink:

My guess was, that they were making Cuddy wear scrubs to confuse the audience the first moment we see somebody entering House's bathroom. Foreman was wearing pink scrubs as well and I wasn't sure if it's him or not watching for the first time. After he said that House shouldn't be alone it certainly was a possibility for me that he's having a look. So maybe it was a dramatic device.

I agree that I sometimes want those details. Personally if they had shown Cuddy break up with Lucas prior to coming to House's place, the ending wouldn't have been as powerful. I was shocked. And her explaining how and when they broke up in the bathroom wouldn't have fit either. It would have taken away from everything so intense and raw in that scene. So I'm not sure where they could have fit it in or how they could have done it?

I certainly would not have wanted to watch that break up scene. It's just that this way it looked (to me) like Cuddy had not taken any time to end a relationship where she had just agreed to marriage. If they shown us she had been home, that would have given us more reason to believe she had had the decency to have a real conversation with Lucas. That's why I like Namaste's earlier theory that Cuddy had split up with Lucas even before House gave her the book.

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