it is almost like she is trying on different personas, trying to find one that "fits" - a process most of us go through in our late teens and early 20's... Yes! That's exactly how I see Cam's character. A lot of aspects about Cam's character seem to be that of someone much younger ( the girlish clothing, tendency to see things in black and white, her schoolgirl crush on House, her teenage temptress act around Chase, acting like House because she thinks it will appeal to him). I wonder if there's a reason she never worked past that stage. Was she too sheltered, traumatized, or something else entirely?

Was she too sheltered, traumatized, or something else entirely? My opinion was that her life was really interrupted by her experience with Poor Dead Husband. She continued on professionally, but emotionally she was somewhat stuck in that time and found it hard to move on. That's also why I found it significant through her reaching out to Chase that she's finally finding it possible to move on, to reach out for something new, something that's not certain, someone that wants her, rather than needing her and feeding into her need to take care of others.

To complicate it a bit more, I think House's suggestion was that Cameron's choice of PDH indicated a level of pre-existing damage as well. There's an interview from last summer with Jennifer Morrison where she says she and David Shore discussed Cameron as coming from a background of loss that shaped her personal definition of love as a need to fix. This still nicely meshes with Namaste's observation that Cameron's choice of Chase indicates movement forward with this. Assuming she is actually committed to the relationship.

For some reason, this fan video really touched me. It is a sad fantasy with Cameron (and Chase and Foreman, but no Wilson or Cuddy) reacting to House's accidental death. It is pretty well edited and the music is perfect (Slipped away by Avril Lavigne) I watched it last week and still remember it. http://youtube.com/watch?v=teuZgLR6kpE

Did she ever mention a name for her darling husband? The guy in the picture with her in 'Spin' isn't named, other than 'Joe' who is his best friend. Several fanfics name him as Brian, but no one really can tell me!!

thnx. I dub him 'Brian Cameron.' Because she is so nice, she took his last name and decided to keep it, so he's always got family....since she married him because he didn't want to die alone.

moving the conversation about Half-Wit here from the speculation thread: I never had any doubt that the kiss was more about Cameron who didn't want to lose an opportunity than about a blood test. At the time she was thinking House was ill, she used her concern as an excuse to get close and do something she had been wanting to do for a long time - the same with the hug in W&D. Like she always does, she convinced herself that her action would benefit the "patient", when in fact it was more about benefiting her. The thing about Cameron is that she has the ability to be hypocritical with herself! And I don't see any reason why she would have changed. This is who she is. Chase seems to love her, anyway. And someone like Cameron - who always thinks about herself first even when she tries to disguise this with concern about the others - would never settle with the second best, if she's with Chase is because she wants to be with him.. If she used a situation to get what she wanted all along, that's something that she shares with House, for whom it's a way of life. Also with Chase, who I'm pretty sure had wanted a hug from House for a long time. The idea of being able to take blood from someone while kissing them is sp absurd I don't know why it was in the script other than to get the kiss in. This was the time when KJ was saying they wanted to put more sex on the show and they did, whether it made sense or not. I don't think she went in there intending to kiss House but everyone sees it differently. Getting him to sign her recommendation may have been a manipulation (although I don't know to what purpose) but she didn't kiss him until he stood up and moved towards her, asking her not to leave yet. That suggests to me she was seizing an opportunity. I'm trying to think of situations where she convinced herself that her actions would benefit the patient when really they were benefitting her. Other than taking the skin for biopsy from Jeff's thigh and being rough with Hannah during the test, which seem to me like losing her temper rather than benefitting her, she was following House's orders to get a skin sample from Ezra. She reported Alex's father sleeping with her in Skin Deep but she was genuinely afraid House would punish her for it. She knocked George out in QSS but that was to keep him in the hospital to diagnose him as House did with the soap star in Living the Dream. She asked House to relieve Chase's mind in Control about not firing him but I don't see how that's about benefiting her. I agree that she wouldn't settle for second best but why should anyone unless they're too insecure or too poor to make it on their own? Since she's still with Chase, she's getting something she wants out of the relationship. Whether it's what she wants permanently, or what he wants for the long term as well, we've yet to find out. We don't even know if they're living together yet. In IAWL, Chase said that that he keeps secrets from Cameron and hopes she keeps some from him. Of course you don't tell your partner every little thing that happened in your day but hoping your partner keeps things from you because people have a right to secrets doesn't sound like a healthy relationship.

What I'd like to hear is how Cameron's attempting to siphon blood from House is different from Thirteen running the test on House in YDWTK, other than the fact that Cameron got caught before she was able to pull it off. Thirteen got blasted for what she did, even though it was good for the POTW and helped them get their diagnosis. When Cameron went after House's blood, it was to solve a case that House had told them specifically not to solve. So basically, where were the calls for Cameron's firing after that little stunt? Thirteen may have failed to use anesthetic, but how the hell did Cameron actually think she was going to get blood from that position?

Chipmunk, I'd love it if they both got fired! I don't like either one of them. I do think that 13's stunt was worse, however. Cameron's stunt in trying to get blood from a conscious person who doesn't want blood taken is bad (but mostly just stupid, because how did she expect it to work?). Cameron was being stupid but wasn't going to cause serious harm in getting blood from him (if it had worked, which it wouldn't have). Actually drugging someone with narcotics (especially someone who already takes narcotics and therefore has a lot in his system), letting him stand and fall and almost hit his head, and then doing three biopsies on him against his will, including one without lidocaine while he is conscious--that is far, far worse. It was invasive, intrusive, harmful. She should have been fired on the spot. Her actions were outright malicious. All House had done is "drug" her with caffeine. Hardly equivalent.

Back to Cameron, there is one thing about her that has been bugging me forever, and that was in Honeymoon when she mentioned to Mark in front of Stacy how awkward it must be to be treated by the former lover of his wife. What the hell?! What purpose did that serve at all? Does anyone have an explanation for that? As far as I can tell, Cameron was jealous and angry that Stacy was around after she realized how House felt about her, and she thought that if she could make Mark just as upset, he'd leave (taking Stacy with him, of course) and either see another doctor or maintain that nothing was wrong with him. Cameron wanted Mark and Stacy gone from the moment she learned that Stacy was the woman he used to live with. Cameron was the one who kept insisting that there was nothing wrong with Mark. Honeymoon is the episode that made me start to see Cameron as very narcissistic and self-serving, particularly near the end when she saw House, clearly hurting, watching Stacy and Mark cuddle. It was a private moment for House, but she intruded - and somehow thought that (a) it would be okay to approach him at that time, (b) it would be appropriate to say something all about her at that moment, and (c) it made sense to compare her "date" with House to his 5-year relationship with Stacy with her "You just couldn't love me" speech. Furthermore, her saying that she thought he was too screwed up to love anybody because he didn't reciprocate her feelings showed that the idea that someone wouldn't love her back was completely foreign to her (but we saw that on the date as well, when she insisted nothing House could say would convince her otherwise), was condescending, and quite out of line. I know that was more than you asked for chipmunk_love, but mention of Cameron's behavior in Honeymoon pushes my buttons. :wink:

Actually, you've done a really good job of helping understand what was going on. Seriously, we were watching the episode on dvd last weekend, and after Cameron approached House at the end, I heard my parents say "What a strange girl." So...yeah. I agree with your assessment.