HL, Calamitous Boob Grab? We can rechristen LTEC with that name since the fake POTW in that episode, DeeDee, fake died from fake breast implants.
"Balance" - The POTW, back at PPTH, is a beloved children's swim instructor who loses her balance everytime she comes out of the water. House, at Mayfield, is hypnotized by his deliciously handsome therapist who is reminiscent of Paul from "In Treatment" (Gabriel Byrne). House is taken back to his childhood where we see his father teaching little Greg, 4 years old, to swim by forcefully holding his son's head underwater. From that moment on, Greg has endeavored to make breathing superfluous.
Calamitous Boob Grab.We can rechristen LTEC with that name since the fake POTW in that episode, DeeDee, fake died from fake breast implants.
I like that. So true.
"Moment of Truth" Season 6, Episode 3. The House-less team tries to treat a pathological liar with life threatening cardiac issues, but soon realizes they are out of their league and need to consult the "Lie Whisperer" (House). Meanwhile, at Mayfield, House is confronting lies of his own and realizes that perhaps only the truth will set him free.
By the way, jim, I loved your "Balance" episode summary. Gabriel Byrne. Yum. House's father "teaching" little Greg to swim. Makes sense. However, anytime I hear "little Greg", I only think of one thing. (If Cane in hand = "little little Greg", then "Cane" in pants = "little Greg"??)
Another scene in BSN successfully reversed a previous House and Cuddy "missed opportunity" to match up that took place in TSS, but it was only reversed unilaterally in House's deluded mind. That is the scene in BSN when Wilson asks House, "Do you want to be the man with the answer or the man with Cuddy?" House immediately throws Cuddy's coffee cup in the trash (the answer) and asks Wilson what he should do to succeed with Cuddy. This is the complete opposite of rational House's actions in TSS when he threw the methadone in the trash (representing a chance for happiness with Cuddy), said, "This is the only me you get.", and limped away, leaving Cuddy and himself in darkness.
This, "...only me you get" House is difficult to reconcile with the opposite House deciding to strive to deserve Cuddy and willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. But I suppose both cohabitate in House's brain.
But the new question is what House is willing to do to reassemble himself and if he will be arranging himself in a way that will refocus his intellect without excluding a closer connection to Cuddy in the future.
jim, I think House wants it all, and really, who among us doesn't. He wants his intellect, he wants Cuddy and he wants to be pain-free. I like your spot on analysis of the two symbolic acts of throwing something away. It's as if he's looking at this in black and white, thinking that to keep one thing he has to give up another. But what he found in BSN is that he's losing his intellect, he's still in pain and he doesn't "have" Cuddy (not the way he thinks he wants her, anyway).
I agree that Season 6 will be an interesting journey for House as he decides what he is willing to give up to get what he wants.
Their relationship fascinates me. I think they have tons of sexual chemistry, yet sometimes their relationship is like mother and child. It is so weird.
Yes, he's often called her "Mommy" in several episodes, or "Moooommmm..." like a sulky teenager.
House is like a child in many ways and there is a parent/child element to his relationship with both Cuddy and Wilson. They do tend to parent him at times and he does enjoy their undivided attention and focus on him. But I don’t think either House or Cuddy view each other in mom/child terms when it comes right down to it.
I think he first called Wilson “Moommmm” in “Daddy’s Boy”. Hee. He only started making the mommy references to Cuddy at the start of the fourth season and there have been only three occasions on which he’s called her “mommy” - “I did it all by myself, mommy” in “Alone”, “Mooommmm” in “The Right Stuff” and “Not sleepy, mommy” in his dream in “House’s Head”. My theory is that he has always looked for reasons to explain away Cuddy caring for him, partly because he isn’t able or willing to accept that she loves him for himself and partly because she is hard to read and doesn’t make her motives for caring about him clear. When she stood up for him during the Vogler arc, he put it down to her saving PPTH and her own job. When she perjured herself for him during the Tritter arc, he put it down to guilt that she felt over her role in the treatment of his infarction (we saw him test that hypothesis in “Needle in a Haystack” with him asking Wilson “How guilty does she look?”). When she expressed concern for his welfare in “Alone” and insisted that he hire a new team, he figured that she was treating him as a substitute for the child she had been trying so hard and unsuccessfully to have. Same thing when she went to his place to look after him in "House's Head."
I always thought House had mommy issues growing up with a mother that just stood by when he was being abused. Maybe that's where House learned his fatal flaw of inaction under extreme emotional pressure. Cuddy is like the antithesis of his mother, always there to save him when he needs it...until now. But wait, she was there in his head!
It’s very likely that House has mommy issues given what we know about him and I like your take on them. I think that House has reached enough of an understanding of his mother’s behavior that he doesn’t resent her for it – he did tell Cuddy that he didn’t hate her in “Daddy’s Boy”, he did call her after his overdose in “MLC” and he did turn the eulogy around when he saw it was hurting her in “Birthmarks”. Of course, now he has solid confirmation of the fact that she passed off another man’s child as her husband’s but again, it’s something he’s suspected since he was a kid. Having said that, I think he hasn’t quite dealt with that confirmation yet which is why I thought the bastard child remark was partly self referential. And I think that one of the reasons he hallucinated a Cuddy who tells him a story from their past is because it gave him a much needed sense of belonging.
He even used a Cuddy look-a-like prostitute in "The Softer Side", complete with badly curled hair and cheap professional suit and blouse, as the woman to keep him alive through the night or prevent him from dying alone. (a precursor to the help from delusion Cuddy?)
House seems to have a thing for petite, curvy brunettes in general and there’s no way of telling whether that pre or post dates his past fling with Cuddy. But I do think that we were meant to think that the woman he hired in “TSS” was a Cuddy replacement, just like we were meant to think that he hired Paula because he was having a hard time getting over Stacy. The woman in “TSS” was a curvy brunette with curly hair dressed in a revealing top underneath a business suit and skirt of the same color and cut that Cuddy was wearing in the scene where she ordered him off the methadone in the men’s room. The only detail they changed was that Cuddy was dressed in a low neck, slightly revealing light pink top and the call girl was dressed in a high neck, slightly revealing dark pink top. Their clothing was too similar for it to be a coincidence. About the “variation on the menu” you mentioned somewhere - I think he goes for blonds when he’s looking for fun/running away from himself – Honey, donkey girl and most importantly, tattoo girl, who was his distraction when he was running away from the possibility of a relationship with Cuddy.
And going back to that scene in the men’s room in "TSS", you could see the hurt look in House’s eyes when Cuddy ordered him off the methadone, saying he couldn’t be on it in her hospital. Like in “LTEC” she was pulling the boss card on him at a time when he expected her to express personal interest and concern about him. He then went and hired the look alike to tend to him. When a caring Cuddy did show up at his office with the methadone in the last scene, he asked her why she cared if he was happy. But instead of telling him she loved him, she looked away and told him he was afraid to change. Looking back on it, the hiring of a Cuddy substitute signaled something of an end to their romantic/sexual relationship and also foreshadowed his hallucination of her in “Under My Skin”. Cuddy was right when she told Wilson that things between them would start off exciting but that eventually she would get frustrated because of his inability to open up to her.
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.
This season showed me (not that I ever needed any convincing) that he doesn’t just view her as a sex object and the hallucination showed me that he’s accepted his need and desire for her as a woman. But it also showed me that he’s unwilling and/or unable to act on that need even when he’s in a desperate situation.
But I honestly thought, and still do, that there was a 50-50 chance that House, himself, indicated to Cuddy the depth of their intimacy together in his delusion when he broke down in her office. There was a conversation there that we were not privy to. The last time we saw House in Cuddy's office he was in shock and he and Cuddy were awkwardly reaching out for each other, she with her left hand, he with his right.(left - involuntary vs. right - voluntary) His face was a stone. By the time Cuddy escorted House to Wilson's office his face was puffy and his eyes were red hollows. He looked as if he had aged years. Part of me believes he told her everything, causing his emotional dam to break from deep inside and creating that devastated visage he showed in Wilson's office. Golden Globe and Emmy!
Good observations about the left hand/right hand and the red eyes. I can’t see him telling her about having hallucinated sex with her but we did see him very close to tears when he told her he wasn’t ok and we did see him rest his face against hers after he did that. So, I can imagine that he broke down and cried as she held him. Though a painful moment, that would be more emotionally intimate than sex. It would also be a nice parallel to the kiss in “Joy” where they connected during a moment when she was in pain. And continuing the parallel, I see Cuddy realizing the need to put some distance between them and forcing herself to do it, the same way he forced himself to leave after he kissed her. I see her gently sitting him down, perhaps getting him a glass of water, telling him that they should go to Wilson, leading the way to his office and then leaving.
I'm hoping that through the magical power of television, Cuddy just knows by the beginning of S6. That way, it puts the power of rebuilding their professional and personal relationship in the hands of House and Cuddy, rather than a psychiatrist or Wilson, whom I assume would be the only other people who would know the specifics of the delusion.
I too would like to see House and Cuddy rebuild their relationship on their own. I do think, though, that the only person who would know the specifics of every part of House’s hallucinations would be his psychiatrist. Wilson already knows that House has been having audio visual hallucinations and I am sure he’ll figure out that they have advanced to the total sensory stage the moment House tells him that the detox and sex never happened and that Cuddy wasn’t with him the previous night. Doubt House will tell him anything beyond some important highlights (such as where and at what point he started hallucinating Cuddy) and doubt Wilson will press for details.
Cuddy seemed to move on from her anger pretty quickly during that last scene in her office; I trust her to move on from the awkwardness of the delusion itself just as quickly, and better yet to do it off-screen. It also would completely circumvent any potential drawn-out plot about whether or not he should tell her. She would just know, and they could move on with their lives accordingly.
Hope this is how things happen as well. And I don’t want a scene with House saying sorry to her and Cuddy forgiving him, either. I want it to be something they instinctively know about each other. It’s pretty clear that House is vulnerable to her to an extent and in ways that he isn’t to anyone else - she is the person most essential to his professional survival and now he has also revealed his personal vulnerability to her in the most raw and painful way imaginable. An apology will only serve to needlessly highlight that vulnerability. On her part, Cuddy can signal to him that she’s forgiven him by doing everything she can to keep his department running for him while he recovers and making sure he has a job to come back to.
From the episode thread for “Both Sides Now”:
Cuddy Perspective: Cuddy sent this patient (parrot) to House to repair his acid reflux "squawking", like the acid words that also pop out of House's mouth and are ruining their relationship. (The Social Contract) House also used Cuddy as his parrot in his delusion, repeating to him what he wanted to hear.
The two patients in “Both Sides Now” were brilliantly used to explore the question of what causes House’s hurtful behavior. Scott’s alien hand syndrome is a parallel to the idea that House is hurtful to Cuddy because he is in pain and that his hitting out at her is involuntary, the same as Scott hitting out at his girlfriend. It also turns out that Scott may have never needed the operation for his seizures that caused a split in his brain that then led to his alien hand syndrome, a parallel to House’s possibly unnecessary operation for his infarction that then led to his pain problem and hurtful behavior. But Eugene, the squawking clinic patient is a parallel to the idea that House is an inherently hurtful person. House mistakenly attributes the squawking to acid reflux disease, a simple and curable problem, but later realizes with a shock that the acid is a symptom of an incurable cancer, a parallel to the idea that House’s hurtfulness has deeper roots in his personality. Which version of House is the real one? Both, I think. My guess is that House can be quite an ass even when he’s pain free but that the pain makes him do and say hurtful things that he ordinarily wouldn’t.
The patient’s relationships with their partners also provide nice parallels to the House/Cuddy relationship. When House asks 13 about Penelope, she says “Picture doesn’t change. She lies there in pain, he sits there worried” and we see her boyfriend holding her hand at her bedside, paralleling the timeless quality of the scene in which Cuddy held House’s hand at the end of “Wilson’s Heart”. The boyfriend literally supports Penelope and holds her up while dancing, while Cuddy figuratively does the same for House at their job at PPTH. And the boyfriend literally let’s his girlfriend down when his back gives way, while Cuddy figuratively does the same to House in the office scene when her patience for his inability to open up to her runs out. While Scott calls out to his girlfriend and apologizes to her as he watches her retreating back, House is unable to do the same when Cuddy walks out on him in her office. Scott’s girlfriend returns to him because she has an idea about what is causing his behavior, while Cuddy sends House the squawking clinic patient in order to get him to think about why he behaves hurtfully towards her. In his fantasy, House imagines that he’s an inherently nice and open guy like Scott and imagines that Cuddy will come and cure him of his pain, changing his life with a wave of her hand (paraphrasing from a Beatles song) much like Scott’s girlfriend does for him when she helps solve what’s wrong with him and cures him. In reality, of course, he cheats on her and takes high quantities of Vicodin, much like the way Penelope cheated on her boyfriend.
“UMS” and “BSN” showed us two couples with very different outcomes. Which couple are House and Cuddy like? The answer is both and neither. House is neither as simple and nice as Scott nor as selfish and reckless as Penelope. He shows his care and concern for Cuddy but he hurts her as well. He selfishly cheats on her with the Vicodin but he’s careful enough to not start something with her because he knows he’ll end up really hurting her. On her part, Cuddy is neither as hopelessly devoted to House as Penelope’s boyfriend was before he found out she cheated on her, nor will she walk out on him the way he did after he found out about the cheating. And though Cuddy can’t change House’s life with a wave of her hand the way Scott’s girlfriend did, she will always stand by him in ways that matter.
From the episode thread for “Both Sides Now”:
This is a very interesting concept. Is House selfish or unselfish when it comes to love? I think he can be both.
When Stacy came back into his life, he seemed to have a "score to settle" with her. He selfishly pursued her to the point that he was intimate with her and had her thinking about a relationship with him again. But he ultimately chose to (as you say) "protect her from himself" by not continuing the relationship, and this was unselfish.
With Cuddy, there is a somewhat different dynamic, but the same selfish / unselfish dichotomy exists. His selfish, prurient side always wants to be intimate with her, but his unselfish side does want to protect her from himself. He's shown that he thinks he must change to "deserve" a relationship with her, to be a "self" that he does not have to protect her from. He tried to change this past season. At the end of Under My Skin, in the ultimate proof that he wants to change and "deserve" her, he (it is revealed at the end of Both Sides Now) hallucinated a validation of this by detoxing, then being intimate with her.
HL61159, I completely agree with you about House being both selfish and unselfish when he loves. Your analysis of how those contradictions work with respect to Stacy and Cuddy is spot on.
And jim, I don’t say it often enough, but I love reading your posts.
And, Maya, may I say I loved what you wrote here? I love the complex relationship of House and Cuddy. Nothing is cut and dry with these two individuals other than the fact both are both very guarded individuals who don't easily open themselves up or make room for anyone else in their lives. Cuddy now has Rachel but I'm still not totally convinced that she is going to keep her.
In any event, I am anxious and excited to see where my Huddy goes from here.
maya, Thanks for the kind words. I enjoy reading your insightful posts so much I always wish they were longer. BTW, I found your dismay at how Cuddy and Wilson's characters in UMS and BSN were inappropriately used to propel the plot valid. Roger Ebert recently wrote, in praise of the characters in a film, "The Hangover", "The plot hurtles through them" (The three protagonists).
By maya, Cuddy was right when she told Wilson that things between them would start off exciting but that eventually she would get frustrated because of his inability to open up to her.
By HL, "Moment of Truth" Season 6, Episode 3. The House-less team tries to treat a pathological liar with life threatening cardiac issues, but soon realizes they are out of their league and need to consult the "Lie Whisperer" (House). Meanwhile, at Mayfield, House is confronting lies of his own and realizes that perhaps only the truth will set him free.
Opening up with the truth would be the only solution for House and Cuddy. Perhaps House's stay at Mayfield will start him on this path.
Shore once said that House MD is about truth. I think the dominatrix in "Love Hurts" was Shore's parrot about the truth in relationships. If the lovers talk to each other, engage in truth-telling, this leads to being completely vulnerable to one's lover. As a result, they trust one another more deeply which ultimately brings about a fundamental change in the lovers. (paraphrased)
When I stated that their relationship was a bit like mom/child, by no means do I think they see each other that way. I was mainly thinking about when Cuddy first announced that she was going to adopt, and House was almost acting like a first born who didn't want to lose his mom's attention. That was just where my mind went during that whole acting up.
I am loving reading what you have all said about House/Cuddy relationship especially Jim and Maya. All of these posts are giving me lots of things to think about.
He shows his care and concern for Cuddy but he hurts her as well. He selfishly cheats on her with the Vicodin but he’s careful enough to not start something with her because he knows he’ll end up really hurting her. On her part, Cuddy is neither as hopelessly devoted to House as Penelope’s boyfriend was before he found out she cheated on her, nor will she walk out on him the way he did after he found out about the cheating. And though Cuddy can’t change House’s life with a wave of her hand the way Scott’s girlfriend did, she will always stand by him in ways that matter.
I particularly liked this part. I think it really expresses the House/Cuddy relationship.
I for one am really looking forward to seeing how House/Cuddy handle the events of S5 finale when S6 premiers.
Was wondering if Doris Egan chose “The Trolley Song” that House was singing when he walked into office the morning after he thought he’d slept with Cuddy for a special reason. I was struck by the parallel between that last scene between them in her office and the last paragraph of the lyrics:
Buzz, buzz, buzz went the buzzer
Plop, plop, plop went the wheels
Stop, stop, stop went my heartstrings
As he started to leave I took hold of his sleeve with my hand
And as if it were planned he stay on with me
And it was grand just to stand with his hand holding mine
To the end of the line.
Love how the writers took two essentially happy songs - "Enjoy yourself" and "The Trolley Song" and changed their tone by putting them in really dark contexts.
And I am glad you enjoyed reading my post, sdemar, jim and filmlover.
maya, Thanks for the lyrics to "The Trolley Song".
As he started to leave I took hold of his sleeve with my hand
And as if it were planned he stay on with me
"Hold on." might be a new theme for Season 6. "Stay with me." has become a recurrent theme for House when he is under extreme emotional pressure. It is a supremely human thing to say.
Taking a trolley is the opposite of the freedom of choice of a road trip (Doris Egan's specialty).
The metaphors in Seasons 4 of abandoning public transportation, whether it was the bus of death in WH or the airplane of artistic death in "Living The Dream", described making a dangerous decision to risk a life without guarantee of its destination (change) but with the enhanced control of a private driver or pilot (self-determination and freedom). Road Trip!
By contrast, permanently boarding the romantic trolley is the ultimate in security. The ride lasts till the end of the line and is the safest and most unchanging choice. Even the driver has few alternative tracks available to him/her. House longed for safe stability with his champion protector, Cuddy, but he woke up to mental chaos; a world without maps, much less roads. House has little choice now but to explore.
It is nice going back and rewatching old House//Cuddy scenes knowing that he always wanted to kiss her.
It is fun watching their interactions. How they invade each other's personal space. They will get right up in the other's face. They will sit close to each other where they are touching. Cuddy will pull on House or touch his arm.
I'm very interested in seeing how they will interact come S6.
I'm very interested in seeing how they will interact come S6.
Oh, yea, it should be all sorts of awkwardness. Wonder how long it will take House before he can make eye contact with Cuddy? I think the days of funbags, big ass, etc... are things of the past. I don't see how they can go back to the old way.
Very true. I also love how House's eyes would follow Cuddy's hand to where it touched him. I keep on remembering that brief, almost not seen way Cuddy touched House's shoulder when he checked into rehab in Words and Deeds in S3. :wink:
Oh, yea, it should be all sorts of awkwardness. Wonder how long it will take House before he can make eye contact with Cuddy? I think the days of funbags, big ass, etc... are things of the past. I don't see how they can go back to the old way.
Yeah, House and Cuddy will probably have to find a different way of interacting with each other. Especially when he first gets back.
I loved how this past season showed us how important Cuddy is to House. He does need her.
I was chatting with a friend about House/Cuddy. We were talking about how upset Cuddy got over what House said concerning Rachel in Under My Skin. It made us think how no one else in the hospital has the power to upset Cuddy emotionally the way House does. It reminds me of Finding Judas, and how Cuddy knows that House can cut deeply but that he usually holds himself back.
