One Night I Gave You Everything You Wanted: House/Cuddy

Cuddy is evidently a very slow learner. The fact that she even remotely considers having any sort of romantic relationship with him after his years of publicly humiliating her makes this whole pairing beyond absurd and mostly laughable. Well, House is as slow a learner as she is then. Why did he stick around after she bossed him around and humiliated him in front of his team in "LTEC"? (She moved into his office, took over his desk, cleared his office of all the furniture and ordered him against doing the brain biopsy). Why did he stick around after she humiliated him and physically hurt him again in "TGG"? Why did he accept her job offer after he’d resigned and had job interviews lined up at other places in "TSS"? The reason he put up with her crap is because she puts up with his. And the reason he has been so patient with her is because he knows that he’s the one who upset the equilibrium they had when he acted insanely jealous about her adopting a baby and then compounded it by kissing her when she was very much minding her own business and trying to move on with her life. The reality is that he needs her to be a part of his life just as much as she does. And yes, to some it may seem like a juvenile, unhealthy and laughable relationship, which is fine. But the fact remains that they are both very much a party to it. Like they say, it takes two to tango. Oh, I agree that House is every bit the slow learner. Frankly, with Cuddy around, I think I'd always be sleeping with one eye open. What with her participation in his debridement, her puzzling collusion with Wilson in teaching House lessons, her arbitrary standards for what sort of pain regimen House should be on and her frankly deranged idea of setting up trip wires and shutting off utilities, I'm hard pressed to find the romantic angle from House's perspective as well. What it often seems to me is that in the middle of this hospital drama, the writers think they're having this great screwball style, battle of the sexes comedy. But neither House or Cuddy are as charming as Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn and mostly the tone just turns out all wrong. What I mostly feel when I'm watching House and Cuddy is an abusive relationship and one that has gotten to the point where it isn't "fun" to watch them at all--it's downright painful and demoralizing. I think the writers entered very problematic territory when suddenly mid-season 3 Cuddy became virtually everything to House which brought too many conflicts to the dynamic for the viewer to conclude that either one of those characters was remotely sane. Which is probably not something that we're supposed to be wondering about....

By BAILEY, "I think the writers entered very problematic territory when suddenly mid-season 3 Cuddy became virtually everything to House..." DS formed House as a Picasso-style Sherlock Holmes. But when that character was translated through Hugh Laurie it became much more. Unlike the empirical Holmes, House became a man of suppressed passion and compassion with desires to connect and exchange; a man of delightful wit. Add into the mix Cuddy played by Lisa Edelstein. The writers could not ignore the virtues and abilities of their actors.

Oh, I agree that House is every bit the slow learner. Frankly, with Cuddy around, I think I'd always be sleeping with one eye open. What with her participation in his debridement, her puzzling collusion with Wilson in teaching House lessons, her arbitrary standards for what sort of pain regimen House should be on and her frankly deranged idea of setting up trip wires and shutting off utilities, I'm hard pressed to find the romantic angle from House's perspective as well. What it often seems to me is that in the middle of this hospital drama, the writers think they're having this great screwball style, battle of the sexes comedy. But neither House or Cuddy are as charming as Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn and mostly the tone just turns out all wrong. What I mostly feel when I'm watching House and Cuddy is an abusive relationship and one that has gotten to the point where it isn't "fun" to watch them at all--it's downright painful and demoralizing. I think the writers entered very problematic territory when suddenly mid-season 3 Cuddy became virtually everything to House which brought too many conflicts to the dynamic for the viewer to conclude that either one of those characters was remotely sane. Which is probably not something that we're supposed to be wondering about.... This is pretty much what I said a few pages ago that nearly started a row, but I still stand by it. They are both seriously screwed up people, but there are honestly time I've thought that House is the LESS screwed up of the two, and I don't think we're supposed to be thinking THAT either. I come back to the abuse thing: House is an abuse victim, and despite all of his personal quirks, characteristics and failings, he will be an abuse victim until the day he dies. Worse yet, he was a childhood abuse victim, and one that has not yet dealt with and moved past those issues (and I suspect never will). Since an abused child has no "out" of the abuse, they learn to live with it and feel trapped. That is why House will not actually end his association with Cuddy: she has him pretty much convinced that he "belongs there." This isn't to say House is angelic. We've seen that time and time and time again as he deals with people who are not Cuddy. The man has serious toys in the attic. All I'm saying is that when dealing specifically with Cuddy, I think a lot of his actions are reactions to her manipulations and unpredictable actions and due to his past background, he does not realize that he can leave. However, since they are both so dysfunctional, there is a way that they relate to one another and a sick way in which it works, but it's still not pretty to look at. Instead of bringing out the best in one another, they seem to accentuate each other's neuroses and unhealed wounds.

I don't agree -- not with the idea that Cuddy wants a friends with benefits relationship, but rather that that is what House is offering. House isn't a "friends with benefits" guy. He's scared of a real relationship but I'd bet he'd take her up on it if she wanted an FWB and slid into it slowly. As he said when he ended it with Stacy, after a while he would start leaving the toilet seat up and they would get on each other's nerves and it would end again. He doesn't want to be hurt like that again. If he saw she could take him for who he is, I suspect he'd be more willing. But that leaves the question of whether she can take him for who he is. There have been a few hints this season that she wants the man she thinks House is, not the man he really is. I think the reason that DS once said that if House was going to have a relationship with anyone it would be Cuddy is because in many ways, Cuddy is the female House. I think he said that "if House is going to have a relationship with anyone right now" it would be Cuddy. I always thought that Stacy was the female House, just as self-centred and workaholic as he is. Cuddy wants tenderness and she wants family. She's also going to put the interests of the hospital first and compromise where she needs to whereas House will never compromise on the medicine for the sake of avoiding a lawsuit. Ayma, everything on TV is exaggerated, of course. And you're right, House isn't the kind of person to be in a normal relationship. As Chase said in season 1, if you want him, you'll have to jump him. But I think part of the problem is that the characters on the show expect House to act like everybody else. Not just Cuddy (e.g. the lie in Meaning (as Cameron pointed out) and learning humanity but both Cuddy and Wilson in how they want House to be in a relationship right now. Cuddy wants him to be the kind of person who will go to her baby naming ceremony and behave himself even though he's bored; Wilson wants him in a relationship with Cuiddy (or maybe with anyone) without pointing out to her the huge pitfalls. What they want for House is something normal and he's not a normal kind of guy. I think the writers entered very problematic territory when suddenly mid-season 3 Cuddy became virtually everything to House which brought too many conflicts to the dynamic for the viewer to conclude that either one of those characters was remotely sane. Which is probably not something that we're supposed to be wondering about.... I was just talking to a friend about this, that Words & Deeds was the point at which the show took a hard turn in another direction, where House's emotional connections were limited to Cuddy and Wilson (as opposed to also connecting with his team as he did in the first 2 1/2 seasons), Chase and Cameron dropped off the map in terms of anything more than B plots or comic relief, and Foreman began an endless and boring multi-episode resignation arc. All these elements remain at this point, House's only emotional connections are to Cuddy and Wilson, Foreman has endless arcs and C&C are still off the map. (Incidentally, mid-season 3 was also the point at which I moved from liking Cuddy to rolling my eyes to later disliking her because the writing for her character in order to prop House was getting so ridiculous. The chemistry and the fun was great as long as they were both equals and each had their own strengths. House was a brilliant, rule-breaking doctor but Cuddy knew how to keep him in line. Now she jumps between letting him take away her authority and walk over her (e.g. Mirror Mirror, the thong challenge), coming down too hard on him (Softer Side) or having expectations of him he can't meet. She has to be not only the force that keeps him in check but his very good friend and on top of that his love interest. I don't think it's possible to write one character as successfully being all three. They are both seriously screwed up people, but there are honestly time I've thought that House is the LESS screwed up of the two, and I don't think we're supposed to be thinking THAT either. The problem is that since they started actively shipping Cuddy with House, she's been becoming more and more screwed up, maybe to make him look good since House always ends up being the one to look good when his relationships end. When we saw the Cuddy of the pilot episode, or even the Cuddy who checked with House that he was okay if she hired Stacy or who mimiced what Stacy would say in Need to Know, that she would end up setting up tripwires and hiding his cane to punish him?

All I'm saying is that when dealing specifically with Cuddy, I think a lot of his actions are reactions to her manipulations and unpredictable actions ITA, a lot of this arc has not been instigated by him, but by her. He made the move to kiss her and that's pretty much it. She handled very well for a few episodes, then she had to move into his office and tell him to kiss her (yes, he also made the desk gesture), then she physically hurt him because she was p*ssed off and he made no move to fight back, then she screwed around about the baby naming thing and was still sad that he didn't show up. It's just seemed to me that for the most part, he's been pretty passive in this whole thing while she just finds a new personality every episode and makes an @ss of herself in a new way each week. Truth be told, I would rather Cuddy change than House, because I don't want House to change. But, they did have to change her to make this arc...work is a bad word, how about happen. To me, that says there's no way it will work. If they can't fit together, even temporarily with both of their personalities and sanity intact, they shouldn't have taken it this far, YMMV. It's too bad, Cuddy's become like Cameron to me, no matter what she does now, it won't make up for her insane behavior this season, I'll never want to see her happy and I'll probably always enjoy seeing her get knocked down. Just as I do with Cameron. I doubt I will ever like her again. I just can't stand seeing people behave like this because they're "in love" or whatever. There's no excuse for the way she's been acting.

I think of Cuddy as a female House as well. She's much more of a match for him than Stacy will ever be, in my opinion. I think he said that "if House is going to have a relationship with anyone right now" it would be Cuddy. His exact quote was: "If House is capable of having any relationship with anyone, it is Cuddy." What they want for House is something normal and he's not a normal kind of guy. Isn't that one of the premises of the show, though? That House can't change? If everyone suddenly started to accept him for who he is, the appeal would be gone. I agree with Ayma that we simply can't hold the show to normal/real life standars.

I believe that they want each other sexually, and that they care for each other in their own different ways. But that's not for a relationship. They've been getting it wrong for 20 years now. If they were meant to be, shouldn't they be getting it right by now? I think the idea of a being in a real and conventional relationship scares both of them. So weirdly enough, I do think they are getting it right because they are figuring out the best way to get what they need from each other without giving up the things that matter to them for it (for House it could be his independence and freedom, for Cuddy it could be motherhood). I always thought that of the four canon ships (Wilson. Stacy, Cameron and Cuddy), she's the one who idolizes him the most but gets who he is at his core the least. I don’t think Cuddy idolizes House more than anyone else and I do think she gets who he is at the core. I think House summed it up best when he told her, “You see the world as it is and you see the world as it could be. What you don’t see is what everybody else sees. The giant, gaping chasm in between. If you did, you never would have hired me.” He's scared of a real relationship but I'd bet he'd take her up on it if she wanted an FWB and slid into it slowly. I’ll bet he wouldn’t because nothing we’ve seen so far supports it. He likes Cuddy and he’s too smart and too cautious to get into a messy relationship that entangles sex and emotions. He literally ran away after he kissed her because he knew that things would get messy if they slept with each other. Cameron "gets" House, but romantacizes him. She knows what she'd be getting, but she thinks it's the hot rebellious bad boy and/or a mentor or father figure. She also wants to mother him and fix him. To me, the very fact that Cam wants to “fix” House tells me that she doesn’t quite “get” him. The reason House was intrigued by Cate and drawn to her was because she told him he didn’t need fixing. Cuddy just makes no sense to me….. She doesn't want him for who he is, but what she thinks he could be. Too bad he'll never be that, and he's told her that outright: "This is the only 'me' you get." She just refuses to listen or accept it. I don’t think Cuddy has ever really wanted him to change, but the kiss and Wilson’s advice (“Maybe novelty and hostility and forbidden-ness doesn’t have to end bad”) temporarily changed how she viewed House and what she thought she wanted from him, that is, a more conventional romance. I think she’s getting closer to the realization that their relationship works best for them when it’s unconventional, like it was before the kiss. And the last three episodes show that they’ve gone back to the dynamic they shared before the kiss, except they seem more close and comfortable with each other than they’ve ever been. I think Cuddy still knows a relationship with House would be a mistake, despite how attracted to him she obviously is, but I also think the baby has put her into "I need a man" overdrive, and she eitehr can't or won't get involved with other men, so House is the next "logical" choice. I don’t think the baby put her into a “I need a man overdrive”. I see her as oscillating between her need for a baby and her need for a partner. She tried to adopt Joy and failed. Then House kissed her and she got it into her head that a conventional relationship with him might actually work. When it became apparent that it wouldn’t, she adopted Rachel when she literally fell into her lap. Since an abused child has no "out" of the abuse, they learn to live with it and feel trapped. That is why House will not actually end his association with Cuddy: she has him pretty much convinced that he "belongs there." I don’t have a degree in psychology so I don’t know the specific ways in which childhood abuse manifests itself in the relationships that the victim has as an adult. But I would hesitate to draw conclusions about House even if I did because I don’t think we know enough about him. What we do know is that his father was a strict disciplinarian and didn’t hesitate to physically punish him when he failed to meet his standards. And what we have been shown over and over again is that House is a rebel who has a hatred of authority. My guess is that that the two are connected. I think that an important reason why his professional relationship with Cuddy has lasted as long as it has is that she doesn’t boss him around, at least, not in front of his team. We saw how angry House got when she did that in “LTEC”. And he curtly informed her she couldn’t control him when she told him that she was the only one who could control him in “TGG”. In “TSS”, he resigned when she ordered him to stop the methadone treatment and started looking for another job. He doesn’t have any trouble standing up for himself and I’ve never seen any evidence that he’s open to the power of suggestion, no matter who or what. He’s at PPTH because he wants to be, not because Cuddy has him convinced about anything Frankly, with Cuddy around, I think I'd always be sleeping with one eye open. What with her participation in his debridement, her puzzling collusion with Wilson in teaching House lessons, her arbitrary standards for what sort of pain regimen House should be on and her frankly deranged idea of setting up trip wires and shutting off utilities, I'm hard pressed to find the romantic angle from House's perspective as well. As far as the debridement goes, it was Stacy who made the final decision regarding House’s treatment. Cuddy is wrong to collude with Wilson but she does it because she believes that he has House’s best interests at heart. And her standards for his pain regimen aren’t arbitrary. House switched to methadone and nearly died because he was not following the required regimen. It was a natural response on her and Wilson’s part to be worried. She supported the treatment once Wilson and she were convinced that he was making it work. The pranks in “TGG” weren’t her finest moment but he’s the one who started the games way back in Season Two when he was obsessive enough to steal her trash in order to find out what medication she was on. Like House and Wilson, she is far from perfect. I think the writers entered very problematic territory when suddenly mid-season 3 Cuddy became virtually everything to House which brought too many conflicts to the dynamic for the viewer to conclude that either one of those characters was remotely sane. I don’t think the House character seemed remotely sane before season three either. In “Who’s Your Daddy”, he intentionally inflicted pain on his patient, a 16 year old girl, as a part of an unnecessary test (or at least one for which there were less painful alternatives) while seeming to enjoy it. There are plenty of other examples, but I’ll stop at that one. I also don’t think there was anything sudden about the direction the House/Cuddy relationship took in Season Three. At the start of the season, we found that House was teasing Cuddy about being pregnant both because he enjoyed the secret they shared and because he was genuinely curious if she was indeed, pregnant and this was his way of finding out. We also found that he had become openly flirtatious with her. Then to his surprise, Cuddy perjured herself to protect him from Tritter. And unlike the Vogler incident, this time it was clear that she did it for him and him alone. He realized that he could count on her and that’s when his interest in her started bordering on the obsessive. And I didn’t get the impression that Cuddy became virtually everything to him. He was still solving his medical mysteries, taking interest in his team members, harassing Wilson and trying out new pain relief treatments. He made the move to kiss her and that's pretty much it. But that’s a huge thing for the character, given how emotionally guarded he is and given that the kiss wasn’t playful but full of passion and need and yes, desperation. I agree, though, that it’s very hard to explain why she moved into his office in”LTEC” and behaved the way she did. Or why she brought him that case in “JTTW”. That was just bad, bad writing. I have much less of a problem figuring out where she was coming from in “TGG” and “Unfaithful”. Overall, way too many games and not enough talking but I’ve been fine with it because I love House/Wilson/Cuddy and will watch practically anything with them in it. I understand why those who don’t feel connected to House and/or Cuddy might have lost patience with their story this season, though.

From the Gregory House thread: Since "The Last Resort", I surmise that House has felt a dread, a fear of his dangerous flaws; the ones he can't seem to control. He gave a gun back to the shooter because he was compelled to find out the answer and 13 almost died. I believe the KidnapperOTW in the beginning of that episode interrupted House as he was launching his first offensive in project Cuddy. (The desk drawer booby-trap) The end of the project should have been Cuddy's student desk arriving, which would have evoked past intimacies between them and nature could take its course. But his compulsive behavior during the hostage crisis reacquainted him with his darkest internal flaws. He probably went home, and after the adrenaline wore off, asked himself what he was thinking in even considering involving Cuddy in his life of fear and dread of his own uncontrolled actions. I think that is why he put Cuddy off in the next epi, LTEC. I think that by the end of “Emancipation” House had come to the decision to explore his relationship with Cuddy but in his own time and in his own way, which is to say, slowly and unconventionally. He decided to start by reminding her of their past and asked her mom to send her old med school desk over. But he needed to damage her existing desk so that a replacement would be necessary. And so at the start of “Last Resort” we saw him devoting his mind and energy to rigging it in an elaborate way. At the end of the episode, he indicated his desire to take things slowly to her. When Cuddy told him that they couldn’t become a “thing” because it would change their relationship at work, his reply to her was, “If you’re suggesting that you screwed up because of a non-relationship with me, I don’t know how I can help you.” He was pointing out to her that for all intents and purposes they were already in a relationship, that the non-relationship they shared was, in fact, the kind of relationship or “thing” that worked best for them. But Cuddy misread him and decided to go on the offensive, taking over his office in war mode and attire. He was taken aback and confused by her behavior but played along with her games initially, using them to smash her toilet to buy more time for the arrival of the desk. But when she ordered him not to do the brain biopsy in front of his team, he decided that things had gone too far and called her out on her behavior. When all he got was the rather wishy-washy “Everyone knows this is going somewhere etc”, he decided to step back from things. I think he saw an aggressive side to her which he didn't care for much and it was made worse by the indecisiveness that accompanied it. It’s why we got the bitter “Cuddy doesn’t always get what she wants” from him. And it’s also why we saw him baiting her with his sarcasm and jabs when she brought the case to his team in "JTTW". Then, of course, Cuddy embraced the baby that had fallen into her lap and we saw him look sad because he knew that she was now starting a new chapter in her life. What was interesting about that scene was that she was so focused on the baby that House’s presence barely registered on her and she didn't even hear his sad and wistful “Merry Christmas”. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it's a pretty screwed up relationship. LOL. But then again, that's an important part of the reason I enjoy it so much.

maya, At the end of "Emancipation", I too saw a look of decision mixed in with yearning on House's face. Something like, "I'm heading in that direction next to get what I want." In LTEC, I was put off by Cuddy's Betty Boop impersonation but I'm not so sure House was. I think he felt angry at the position she put him in because her timing was off. Because he had lost his self-confidence in the previous episode, he didn't have the wherewithal to proceed even though he very much wanted to. In LTEC, House was probably finding it incredible that she would consider a relationship with a man who gives guns back to kidnappers. He is a noble jerk and wants to protect her from himself. I don't think we are supposed to look at this too closely or it will start to look like Cuddy only cares for House's welfare and no one else's, not even her own. (Like someone who loves?) In the end, he panicked and not only rejected her but disparaged her, causing her to keep her distance. As you know, she went back to House again after she received the desk! A wonderfully strange romance indeed. I was hoping that the music in "Under My Skin" would be Cole Porter. Oh well. :-)

Is it me, or is it just weird that this thread stops before the season finale, and the episode before it? Where did all of the shippers go? Did your heads explode? (Joke!) Cuddy and House's relationship has always made sense to me. There was an early episode (Humpty Dumpty) where House broke into Cuddy's house and volunteered to explore her bedroom. He smiled at the bed and said, "So this is where the magic happens," then bounced on the bed. Then he started looking through her underwear drawer. I think this was also the episode where Cameron was asking Cuddy about her past relationship with House, and it came out that there had been one, although it was left vague. These two understand each other too well. He is PISSED that she has that baby (as evidenced by the bastard comment, etc.), which means that her time and energy is being taken up by something important that is--gasp--not him! In House's world this is inconceivable. His ego is not as monumental as his friends think, but House does have a driving need to be the center of Wilson and Cuddy's universe and vice versa. Look at how upset he was by Amber, and how he sabotaged Cuddy's blind date. While the trip wire was a bit much, considering how much verbal abuse she's taken over the years and how angry she was, I could almost see it. I am glad she gave him back "Little Greg."

Hey, wackjob. We've been in hiding? :) It's definitely going to take a lot of understanding to get them back on something resembling a track next season. When it comes to their relationship, their problems are two-fold: personal and professional. I think Cuddy will be way more likely to trust him professionally before she will personally. They understand each other, but they're also very, very good at hurting one another.

Come out, come out, wherever you are! If anything makes for a rich debate topic, it's the last two episodes of Season Five!

wackjob, There is a lot to discuss. But everything seems to be on hold for House until he is healthy again. Plus, as you might have noticed, there are 14 pages of House/Cuddy and 140 pages of House/Wilson on this site. What do the hallucinations and delusions reveal about House and Cuddy? Cuddy has been almost absent in the last two episodes, so it is mostly about House's feelings for Cuddy and how and why he lost control of his mind. He hallucinated/deluded Amber, Cuddy, and Kutner. How was his behavior toward them in the past so unbalanced, unnatural, or unacceptable to a part of his mind that he eventually lost all of his mind to uncontrolled imaginings of them? House's actions set in motion the circumstances that killed Amber and in the past, he selfishly tried to sabotage Amber and Wilson. House should have just accepted the ride she offered and Wilson/Amber as a couple. Terrible guilt. Kutner committed suicide when he wasn't being "mentored" by House. House should have been a mentor. Terrible guilt. With Cuddy, House not only can't commit to her (the brutal rejection in "LTEC"), he doesn't want to lose her to anyone else, including baby Rachel, as you mentioned. His behavior toward her has been abusive, and given the delusion, against his own deepest desires. In "LTEC" when Cuddy said, "I think we're supposed to kiss now", House answered, "We already did that". I think he immediately and daily from that moment, regretted those words in some part of his mind. The delusion allowed him to rewrite their story. He was able to have a second chance and answer, "I always want to kiss you". House is full of regret and guilt for his betrayal of his own feelings and hers and his abuse of her. So, I'm guessing 3 heavy guilts and a deeply felt, painful regret plus a truck load of Vicodin equals a mind that takes matters into its own hands. Viva la Revolution! Cuddy has been so thoroughly and repeatedly emotionally abused by House, (He does not seem to have her best interests at heart) I'm glad she finally drew the line. He has reparation to make to her. I hope that is included in his journey back to mental health. If he accepted his need and desire for her as a woman and not just a sex object would he stop mistreating her? Probably not. That's what he does.

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