I like the way she handled the Baltimore situation. She did not sulk when House walked away from her, understood that this case was so important. I think I would have blown a fuse when that had happened to me. Perhaps it's calculating, because she knows House would not like it if she made a scene, but still, everytime I see that scene, I like her for it. Also enjoyed the scene later on where they are sitting together in the deserted airport. After that, things went donwhill. I liked the Stacey arc, for the opportunities it gave Hugh to show that other side of House. I believe it would have had more impact if it had happened later in sea. 2, and not in 1 already. Perhaps that 's because I watched the rest of sea. 2 first, and then later saw this on DVD. It made me more aware of how different and difficult this situation was for House.

In my post above, I meant to say that House was selfish too. In that sense they were alike. And I think they were both very work driven -- House for the work itself, with Stacy it was probably a little more a question of ambition. And her schedule would be a little more flexible. There are lots of real (and serious) deadlines for a lawyer but they're not usually of the "could you not die in the next 2 hours as I have a dinner date" type. I'm sure that before he was sick they had plenty of happy times. We saw her being affectionate with Mark so she is capable of softness. But unless what House was looking for in his one true love was a smart, sexy verbal sparring partner, I agree with you that they would have eventually imploded.

I disagree so much with all this "Stacy was self-centred" talk. Even more with the idea that House was only with Stacy because she was the best he could get. As for Sela Ward's portrayal of Stacy, I think she did a fantastic job. Stacy is not an easy character to grasp, and she's a character that could have seriously been ruined by bad acting choices. Sela Ward brought out both Stacy's good and flawed qualities and made a very believable portrayal of Stacy, imo. I'd love a Stacy thread, except most people seem to be more interested in bashing her/making out she was bad character or bad for House, or whatever else. I don't know why everyone is always so quick to jump on the hate bandwagon with her. She was good for House. She loved him and you could tell he deeply loved her. Still does, imo. To me, they're the couple that are meant to be together but just can't be because of the way things turned out.

It's complicated, I think, ticcy, because, ethically, the situations House and Stacy are bound up in have some issues that are right/wrong and some that are right/other right. When they were in the airport and she had arranged for them to share a bed, he went along with it but you could see he was wary, he was thinking that she's a married woman and wondering if he should ask what it meant that she had set up this situation. When they were walking to the room, she even says "Mark knows I always have an escape plan" and she looks up at House I don't think the irony of that (House being her escape plan if Mark doesn't work out) was lost on him. So he makes a conscious decision to start on a real course toward adultery with a married woman and he realizes that's not a trivial concern, yet Stacy seems to take that aspect of it much more lightly. You don't see her agonizing, she just wants to taste some curry. She doesn't know whether she wants House forever, but on the chance that she still does, she starts an affair with him (or rather takes him up on his continuing offer which never would have progressed beyond harrassment had she not done something definitive), and then after she sleeps with him (which he seems to have considered proof of her feelings for him and that it meant she was leaving Mark) he is stunned to hear her say she's thinking of not telling Mark. This is not who he thought she was, so he is hurt. He realizes he doesn't know her after all. He thought they were together and they're not. She had her curry and she didn't really get that it cost him something to open up to her and then realize she never meant to leave Mark (at that point). She didn't think, was thoughtless and careless at best, selfish at worst, but went after what she wanted, which, yeah, does seem selfish to me. I don't see much point in a Stacy thread since she's long gone, though I do agree they had great chemistry here and there and Sela Ward did a fine job of bringing the character to life. But we'll never see her again. Probably.

My objection to Stacy is that she was perfectly willing to have an affair with House while staying married to Mark, and I saw no evidence that the morality of this bothered her. IMO, she was using both men. I've never seen Sela Ward in anything else, and didn't dislike her or have any particular issue with the characterization. I just don't like the character the way she was written. It's too bad, because in TS when she was introduced, there was a vibe between them and she came off like a strong, smart, funny person, a good match for House. But a lot of that seemed to go away starting in Honeymoon. If she had really loved House, but intended to stay with Mark, she never should have told him he was the one. Knowing how he felt, and his vulnerability, to use him as her escape plan was wrong. IMO.

I disagree so much with all this "Stacy was self-centred" talk. Even more with the idea that House was only with Stacy because she was the best he could get. I'm not attempting to bash Stacy, merely understand her. And she's no more self-centered than the rest of the world -- after all, we all see ourselves at the center of our personal universes. What I see as different is the fact that she acts on that self-centered outlook and allows it to color her interactions. (And House is just as self-centered, hence the pending implosion that I think would have happened sooner or later.) In "The Honeymoon," she says that Mark made room for her -- not that they made room for each other or that she made room for Mark in her life. She continually talks about how House pushed her out or how House couldn't forgive her, not her own actions. I think "self-centered" is less the phrase I'd use -- because I'm not attempting to say that she's selfish -- but rather that she's Type A. She's a very strong personality who wants things done in certain ways. Of course so is House. Put the two of them in a room and things may go very well for some time. But once there's a conflict of some kind -- in this case the infarction and her role during that period -- and they'll keep bashing heads like a couple of rams, with neither one ever intending to give an inch.

because in TS when she was introduced, there was a vibe between them and she came off like a strong, smart, funny person, a good match for House. But in TS Stacy was a character from House's tale. She was not the "real" Stacy, but more the Stacy seen through the House's memories. We only met the real one in Honeymoon.

There are a couple of points I think bear mentioning. During the infarction crisis, Stacy focuses on life, House on quality of life. He'd already had one coronary failure, and I think that was enough to terrify her. She simply wants him alive, and out of pain. The leg is a body part - she wants the person. But what I believe he found unforgivable was that she questioned his medical judgment. He resented and was hurt more by that than the leg, IMO. In fact, I don't think he is able to forgive her and even consider a reconciliation until she openly supports that judgment during the debate over giving Mark the "cocktail". That is when House realizes that when Stacy loves someone, she'd rather have a live coward than a dead hero. He begins to accept what she did, despite his continued disapproval and residual anger. Secondly, Marc is at probably the lowest point in his life. She has already left House at a similar point. Selfish would be to abandon Mark in this condition. Even though she recognizes that House will always be the man she loves above all others, if she didn't hesitate to leave Mark, I would call that selfish. Especially since the devastation would be far worse for Mark, knowing that she left him for another man (a dreadful blow that House did not endure), and that man would be House of all people - the one man Mark has feared could take her from him. Despite her questionable morality, I do find her conflicting sentiments understandable. And when it's clear that Marc will eventually make a full recovery, she then feels free to choose House. She clearly understands, and in fact (in part) loves House exactly for, that compulsion to solve the puzzle. The phone charger at the airport was a good example that has been mentioned. Part of his appeal for her is that wonderful mind - it's essential for her to have a partner who is intellectually functional, despite any physical disability. Exemplified by her horror at the possibility that Mark may have Alzheimer's. She can deal with a cripple - she would be devastated by a mental vegetable. Lastly, she exhibits what House wants from everyone around him - to show backbone, to say no, to compete at his level. E.g. - New Ducks in Frozen, Wilson sawing his cane. House likes to win, but he hates an easy win (or else he'd take easy cases). Victory is empty against a weak or begrudging "opponent". And no question she manipulated him to take Mark's case. But House admires skillful subterfuge and manipulation as well. (As evidenced by his delight at being conned by the Madonna Whore.) Besides, she is pushing the buttons she knows will work - maybe not admirable, but just as House often does despicable things to cure his patients, she does too, to cure Marc. It's her moral outrage at House that is irksome, more than her behavior. Now, I agree that constant competition is exactly what would destroy most relationships. Both parties would have to find it fun (and clearly Stacy and House did - for five years!), and each has to know the other's limit. Besides, if House can easily steam-roll over a woman, she would be consumed, he would be bored. Stacy shows a sense of self-worth and healthy ego, two things he lacks. She may be "selfish" in the sense of self-preservation and autonomy, but he is narcissistic to the point of being destructive to the people in his sphere. She is physically beautiful and sexy (face it, those things are very important to him), she loves word-play and metaphor, she apparently once had a keen sense of humor, she is just as passionate about her work, and she was obviously once tolerant of his negative qualities. If the infarction hadn't happened, we might still get to a parting of the ways, but it would actually have been a less emotionally messy train wreck than it is now. There'd be a sense of "can't live with you, but it'll be hard to live without you", but not the feelings of betrayal, distrust and conflicting loyalties. As to the "real" Stacy vs. the TS Stacy - we only get to see her post-infarction in her arc. If the "real" Stacy was a negative force in House's life, I would think that Wilson would have included that in his catalog of concerns (and probably lobbied Cuddy not to hire her). As it is, he only wants to protect House from being toyed with and hurt. He says nothing to House or Stacy about her being the wrong person for him. So I have to believe that there is at least some element of reality to the concerned, affectionate, and devoted Stacy in the TS flashbacks.

Poeia wrote: In the beginning of Three Stories, she was real. True, but I think the most strong impression we got from her in that epi was from House's memories, not from the little teaser at the beginning - at least in my case, I know it was.

I also think that House and Stacy wouldn't have lasted. It's not how couples are in good times that predicts if they'll last, it's how tey act in bad times. If the infarction hadn't happened then something else would have (probably not AS bad, but some source of conflict) that would have broken them up. My objection to Stacy is that she was perfectly willing to have an affair with House while staying married to Mark, and I saw no evidence that the morality of this bothered her. IMO, she was using both men. I'm not condoning adultery here, but I felt sympathy for her. Sometimes fans (I'm not accusing you, but generalizing) forget a simple but powerful fact: Stacy loved Mark. To us he was just a block in the road to House's happiness, but not to her. She didn't want to lose him either. It's a terrible position to be in. Her initial reaction of "keep both!" isn't admirable but it is understandable.

I really love Warycary's analysis of the relationship, and I think that's very much what the writers were aiming for. I think Stacy came off as more judgemental and humorless than everyone involved hoped, including Sela Ward, I would imagine. But I can see what they all wanted. I also think that House and Stacy wouldn't have lasted. It's not how couples are in good times that predicts if they'll last, it's how tey act in bad times. If the infarction hadn't happened then something else would have (probably not AS bad, but some source of conflict) that would have broken them up. I think all relationships are partly shaped by what we bring to them and partly shaped by what life brings to them. I don't think there's any way to predict how any relationship would survive the dilemma House and Stacy were in. I think it's like judging how a couple survives the loss of a child. Many marriages go under--is it because they were flawed and would have gone under anyway or because the two otherwise compatible people pull inward to handle such a terrible grief? The infarction and the life and death decision House and Stacy faced was far beyond a normal relationship stress. I wouldn't take it for granted any relationship he was in at the time would have made it through.

I also think that House and Stacy wouldn't have lasted. It's not how couples are in good times that predicts if they'll last, it's how tey act in bad times. If the infarction hadn't happened then something else would have (probably not AS bad, but some source of conflict) that would have broken them up. I got the impression that House and Stacy were doomed because she needed something from him that he couldn't give her. That even though they had forgiven each other for past wrongs (Hunting) there was no way around the fact that while she loved and wanted House as he is, she needed a different version of him. As he said in FtC, "...give the woman you love the life she wants. All you have to do is change." On a lighter note, ever since Mirror Mirror aired, I've wondered what would happen if the PotW were in a room with House and Stacy. Who would he mimic?