Good point about the scrubs, Elompanti, I know lots of people thought about Foreman or Wilson then. Must admit, though, that the moment I saw the scrubs I was sure it was Cuddy coming. Don't know how to explain that :D 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'm not a writer by any means, but let's have it like this: Cuddy: Lucas... House: Oh, great. You're feeling uncomfortable again (and the rest of it) Cuddy: He was waiting for me. I ended it. or just have her say: I decided to end it I'm really not saying they should have given us a big and long-winded explanation but I tend to have problems with plot holes recently :wink: anyway, I guess I've bored everyone to death already so maybe I'll wait till some other aspect of the finale is discussed :) ETA: and here goes my resolve... That's why I like Namaste's earlier theory that Cuddy had split up with Lucas even before House gave her the book. I've been thinking about this theory but I'm not sure I can rationalize Cuddy's speech about moving on and House having nothing if she'd already broken up with Lucas :huh?:

I've been thinking about this theory but I'm not sure I can rationalize Cuddy's speech about moving on and House having nothing if she'd already broken up with Lucas Because she's just as mad at herself -- if not even more pissed off at herself -- for failing to move on. She expects that she knows better than to get hung up, and she should be better at this part of life than House is. So her anger has more to do with her own actions than House's at this point, though of course House's actions set it off.

An easy explanation for the child care would be that she has has a nanny and something like an au pair -- a student who isn't available during the day but is there overnight in return for room, board and a minimal stipend. When Cuddy has an emergency, she just needs to contact them both so they make sure they overlap. The nanny stays a couple of hours later than usual if need be and the au pair does her studying at home that night. (And, in a scene like the one in Under My Skin, when she told House her nanny was off the clock at 7:30, in the real world that is what people would say, not "My nanny is off the clock at 7:30 and my au pair won't be home until after 9 tonight so I have to leave on time.") I'm not saying that's the solution Cuddy is using but a single mother with a lot of money can make arrangements.

Ok, I just wanted to clarify that I personally never had any problem with the last scene and its logistics! It's just that when I read other people's opinions of it, it felt like every other person was complaining about it and frankly it annoyed me, so I gave it some thought how it could have happened theoretically, and I'm still convinced that this is how it most likely went down. (Lucas decided to visit Cuddy at the accident site or even pick her up, shortly after House had left in the ambulance, she broke up with him right there and went straight to House's apartment, Rachel was still being looked after by her Nanny, because Cuddy already informed her that the crane incident might keep her at work longer than usual. House had taken a cab home and was still as distraught as when he left the hospital because not much time had passed). But then the writers mentioned in that interview that many hours had passed since Hannah had died, and I found it a silly notion, because as I already said it makes even less sense, mostly because I can't reconcile that scenario with House's state of mind when he enters his apartment, because he looks/feels like he went straight home from the hospital. Also, I contemplated a second scenario, which is also a possibility: What if Cuddy didn't break up with Lucas and was just planning to do so but decided to look after House first? And she told House that she already endet it, because in a metaphorical sense she did, she already made up her mind and now she only needs to perform the deed, but these logistics are not essential for House in that moment. 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. See, that's exactly what I meant when I said that I can buy the scene. Even though the concept or the general idea is cheesy, the dialogue and its delivery really sold it for me, and I'm surprised so few people feel the same way about it. Also another thing that I enjoyed about it is first, seeing House that vulnerable, and second, in front of someone/Cuddy. For me those are always the most intriguing scenes on the show. He sounds like a little boy when he says "I'm the most screwed-up person in the world", that kind of exaggeration is very childlike, and he sounds so resigned. Cuddy really got to him with her speech earlier ;). Which I loved, by the way, because they managed to make it an understandable and justifiable reaction unter those circumstances and also with House's and Cuddy's history and House's past behaviour and treatment of Cuddy. But at the same time I blamed Cuddy for it, because it felt like she was kicking somebody who's already down and being the "winner" she could have taken the high road and not let herself be provoked by him. But of course her intense reaction was also a clue to her real emotions ;). So yeah, I thought the speech and her subsequent profession to House was really well done!

Something is bothering me: I have never quite understood why the loft apartment was so important to Cuddy. (And I thought Lucas was already moved in to Cuddy's place by "5 to 9", so I'm not clear on why their co-habitating would be such a big step, either.) But Cuddy mentioned her "new house and her new fiance" in the final scene, but it looked like earlier, House was asking Wilson to gather information about any possible real estate transactions. So has Cuddy purchased a new place in the city and moved, yet, or was she just planning on it, and did that plan change with the breakup?

Well, the moving in question never quite jibed, because Cuddy already had a big comfortable house (on the other hand, some couples want to start fresh in a new place with no old associations...that's what we did). Also, if you want to get really nitpicky, there's the question of extremely unequal income. Who knows? But it seemed to me the loft wasn't that important to Cuddy; she tried to buy it, lost it, moved on, as evidenced by her conversation with Wilson where she gave him the name of a decorator. With her kind of money she can afford just about any place she wants. Plus there's the resale price of her house (does anyone want to get technical about the state of the economy? NOOOOOOOO.) Next season should answer some of your questions, I'm guessing. I feel better now that I wrote a rant from the point of view of House's leg. It was very cathartic. 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. This seems to me to be unnecessarily rude; some of us found the scene spoiled by the unrealism. I don't think one side can convert the other, but that is no reason to call someone else's thinking a "downer."

I said, it's a downer that the person in question didn't get to enjoy the scene. I didn't say the person's thinking is a downer. There's a difference. If my grasp of your language is not firm enough and there actually isn't, someone let me know, please. ;) That's what I thought, too! Sometimes it helps to take the time and read the exact words someone used, doesn't it? I was wondering if you were going to explain yourself. So, the writers claim that the ending of the episode had been planned like that right from the start, do you believe that to be true? I mean, the episode does run over a minute, that could indicate that the ending was changed at a later stage, but it could have also been a red herring to keep it secret for a long time among the crew, hm...

I believe the writers when they say that the ending has been planned. It goes along with GY's tweet from months ago when he said something along the lines of "if you only know what we have planned." It was in response to people complaining about Luddy and wondering when it was going to end.

It felt to me that the final scene of this episode flowed smoothly from all that had preceded it in both this particular episode and in the season as a whole. I had no sense that the scene was tacked on or hastily composed. My feeling is that so much of that exquisitely constructed final scene were direct call backs, either in gesture or words, to previous episodes of the show that this could not possibly have been an after thought. For example, the location in the bathroom was directly related to "Under My Skin." The reference to Cuddy leaping across to take the pills was a direct reference to what she did in House's hallucination in UMS. So many parallels: The close-up shots of the Vicodin bottle in House's hand, long look in the mirror (this time in anguish, in BSN in ecstasy), the explicit questioning of the reality of the kiss. Though the references to Cuddy or scenes with Cuddy were few and far between this season, I think they were strategic and telling. We saw House open himself up to her by telling her he "felt funny" in "Brave Heart." He told her of his version of their one-night stand in "Known Unknowns," revealing how much their brief encounter had really meant to him almost 25 years ago. When she shot him down with the clumsy uncovering of her affair with Lucas, House was deeply wounded, a fact he did not hide from Wilson in subsequent episodes. In "Knight Fall" House tried to initiate some good karma with the gift of an expresso machine and he revealed to the dying patient Nash in "Lockdown" that the brief affair with Lydia had shown him that he did not want to continue down the path of loneliness and despair. "Baggage," of course, had Nolan pulling back the scab of the wound Cuddy had dealt him in a raw and deliberate way. I think all this points to the final scene being very closely planned out as a capstone to the season and a direct and carefully scripted response to the traumatic season five finale. The idea of House coming round full circle does not feel like a last minute addition. I think that like past season finales, this one is designed to both wrap up themes of the current season and set up the major dramatic threads for next season. I suppose it is possible that Shore and Co. did not think of what they wanted to do in season 7 until after they had completed major shooting for the season 6 finale, but that doesn't feel like their m.o. to me. My guess is that the careful wording of Cuddy's declaration will serve as a template for season seven: "I love you. I wish I didn't, but I can't help myself." I can easily see the House/Cuddy relationship following each one of those turns of emotion in a dramatic rollercoaster through the course of the next season:from ecstatic transport to regret to resignation and then to mutual appreciation and understanding.

I was not searching other people's posts, I was reading the thread, and pardon me for my misinterpretation of what you wrote, to21be. I certainly did not mean to insult your intelligence, and I apologize if that's what my post implied. Some months ago I tweeted Greg Yaitanes about the one thing he wanted more than anything on the show (he was asking for questions), and he responded, "More Huddy."

Well, I don't think you have to worry about Huddy taking over the show. Yes, their relationship will be dealt with, but you will still see plenty of House/Wilson interactions, I am sure. Plus medical mysteries.

From Bea: So, the writers claim that the ending of the episode had been planned like that right from the start, do you believe that to be true? I mean, the episode does run over a minute, that could indicate that the ending was changed at a later stage, but it could have also been a red herring to keep it secret for a long time among the crew, hm... According to danaan999, a very reliable supplier of spoilers, the initially plan from TPTB was to end the episode with House alone in the bathroom and taking two Vicodin pills. I whish that they had stayed with this plan. It would have been a better cliffhanger IMO. I also think, that Cuddy don't deserve House. Here comes a possible spoiler: It was also initially planed, that Cuddy and Lucas are still together at the beginning of season 7. End of Spoiler The scene with Cuddy and the kiss has been added short before film shooting closing time. The decision to film and add this scene was made quasi in the last minute.