Maybe House/Cuddy will break up at the same time that Wilson/Sam does. That will get the boys back together. :lol: Cuddy wanted to be with Lucas because she needed someone she could rely on every day now that she's a mother. Lucas is not that guy. In Moving the Chains he said "I still don't understand why you wouldn't let me retaliate, though." so he did all that stuff after Cuddy knew Wilson bought the condo and she said to forget it. In 5 to 9 he cut Cuddy off from information about Rachel twice -- by unplugging the phone so he could get some sleep and then taking the nanny's cell phone. House is an emotional mess. But, in his own way, he is totally dependable. And, just as important, he's totally upfront about what you can't depend on him for.

I really liked that ending image of them holding hands. That just seemed so much more signifant than the kiss.

No matter what, I am in the camp of being thrilled that Shore and his group continue to tell the story of this complicated character their way. I trust them with whatever direction they go. It's never predictable and that's what keeps us watching and talking about the "what ifs" and what might be next. They keep peeling back the layers of House's character and I still can't wait to see the next layer.

They keep peeling back the layers of House's character and I still can't wait to see the next layer Me neither! I already can't wait to find out what is next in store for House. This is going to be a long summer.

Pre-finale scene, I thought the episode was utterly brilliant. I muted the commercials, and I was riveted by everything that was going on. The actress who played Hannah was stunning; that was a hell of a difficult part. At this point I almost except HL to be amazing in every scene, so no surprise there. I loved Foreman...so subtle, emotions playing quietly while everyone else is exploding. I have claustrophobia, and particularly when House was first digging for the survivor, I felt like I couldn't stand it another moment. Actually, I thought Cuddy's blow-up felt absolutely authentic and long-suppressed. That was part of the huh? of the last five minutes. I expected his leg to magically heal next. (Every time a patient dies, an angel gets its wings.) ETA: Because nobody ever gets to be happy on this show, and the dialogue was the sort of soap opera cliche' House hallucinated with Cuddy last season, I'm guessing the ending didn't actually happen the way we saw it. Taub rules, BTW.

I'm highly upset. I was terribly sad and I cried when Cuddy practically butchered House, dismissing him as a person and telling him it would have been better if he had died back when he had his infarction. When she rubbed it in his nose that he was alone. He did everything and got just hatred back. To top it all, she conned him into giving up his beliefs and browbeating the woman into agreeing with the amputation. Had he stand up to her for his patient, the women might have survived, and lived to tell the tale. In pain or not. The ending made me mad. By all the love of the world, I'd have expected House to send Cuddy where she came from and at least tried to off himself. But maybe he is even more broken than I believed him to be. I'm not saying I don't wish House luck, but I'm saying that I have hardly any positive feeling about Cuddy deserving his devotion and forgiveness, what she did was unforgivable in my book.

I was terribly sad and I cried when Cuddy practically butchered House, dismissing him as a person and telling him it would have been better if he had died back when he had his infarction. When she rubbed it in his nose that he was alone. He did everything and got just hatred back. To top it all, she conned him into giving up his beliefs and browbeating the woman into agreeing with the amputation. Had he stand up to her for his patient, the women might have survived, and lived to tell the tale. In pain or not. She wasn't dismissing him "as a person." What she saw was a doctor who was putting his personal feelings in front of his job. After all, he was the one who tried to discuss romantic relationships IN THE MIDDLE OF A DISASTER AREA. Whether or not she deduced correctly that he was arguing against amputation because of her is beside the point (although admittedly narcissistic - but what's new with Cuddy?). She hit the nail right on the head that only he was holding himself back. Everyone else was trying to move on, but he kept himself stuck. And there's no guarantee that the patient would have survived any more than she would have in the situation they were eventually in. In fact, it was looking less and less likely. The point is... does one really want to live like House? Is it better to have a leg and be a burden on your loved ones or to amputate your leg and move on with your life? In a way, one can think of this as the beginning of the end for House/Cuddy. They've finally gotten out what they've been childishly skirting around for a couple years now. And now they can finally screw it up once and for all.

I just now finished watching the episode. It reminded me of any one of the season finales of ER. I was half expecting Doug Ross or Peter Benton to show up and help out. It's just not what I expected or what I've come to expect. I know nothing about disaster relief but shouldn't Cuddy have been at her hospital managing things there? I can't believe there aren't enough surgeons and emergency medicine specialists in Trenton to help at the scene. And House. How come no one suggested he or Cuddy wear a hard hat inside the rubble? The lack of hard hats really bugged me. I found the last scene to be a bit too sentimental for my taste but I do sort of like the idea of seeing where the Huddy leads. I would be interested to see what House looks like when he's in a romantic relationship. I'll tune in next season.

I think Zach Handlen at the Onion AV Club captured my essential problem with the ending of this episode on two points (aside from the fairly strong, if not the best, episode it was before the ending). The first thing that I took issue with was that Cuddy's "realization" comes after a period in the episode where House has been especially cruel to her - something which is not new, so it can't be argued away as situational cruelty (as if that would be justifiable anyway). I find it disturbing, as a woman, that that is where they want to take the Cuddy character - your true love can treat you like crap, but he's just a wounded bad boy, so that's okay, because your love can redeem him. Which is the other point I agreed with the AV Club writer about - I expect better of this show than an ending where a character, especially one like House, is alone and miserable and suddenly the one he's pining for shows up at the door and makes everything better. That's Grey's Anatomy territory, not what I come to expect of House, a show that I've always found emotionally realistic (if not realistic in other ways). Mainly though, the continued assassination of Cuddy's character saddens me. We've spent years now trained to treat the men who call her out on her favoritism of House as villians - and we were expected to sympathize with Cuddy over her humiliation and anger at House's "I slept with Cuddy" stunt last season. Now Cuddy will presumably be dating House and also function as his boss? That will just completely destroy whatever credibility she was supposed to have as a professional (and that was not much, after the past few seasons). This development also has disturbing implications to me for Cuddy as a mother. I don't believe that House is a big secret softy who just needs to gaze into a baby's eyes and he will then become a stable and consistent father figure. I think he's a damaged and extremely flawed individual who has made it clear many times that he has no interest in being a parent, and has been downright cruel about Cuddy's child in the past, right to Cuddy's face. Since she is a mom and anyone in her life must also be in Rachel's life, I find that disturbing. The show made the choice of having Cuddy become a parent and so they need to deal with that, and I can't see any decent parent wanting to hook up with House, nevermind how much I like the character.

I don't buy it
I don't buy it. He's alight with hopefulness. Gosh, even the lighting is hopeful -- the light almost casts a halo around him. If it weren't for the fact that the writers DO NOT like repeating themselves in this show, I'd say the whole thing was a hallucination. And, if it's not a hallucination, that kind of sucks too, because that means Cuddy is actually honest with House for once, and for once House gets what he wants, and he is sensitive and joyful....and this is not the show I signed up for. But good on Shore and the crew for mixing it up.