I agree that while their obvious chemistry is consistent, and while the rapport between RSL and HL never fails to amaze me, every writer on the show seems to have a different interpretation of their relationship. From what I understand, Doris Egan thinks they're dysfuctionally fascinating without potential for physical romance, Lawrence Kaplow thinks Wilson should just forever be relegated to being evil!House's Greek Chorus or Jiminy Cricket, David Shore is completely uninterested, Thomas Moran likes to play with the subtext... etc. Their relationship seems to change with every episode, and while I'd like to think it's that our understanding is deepening or that the characters are being fleshed out, it can get confusing when trying to figure out where they stand with each other. And that's purely the result of having all these writers that so clearly see the ostensible-friendship so damn differently.

Siriusly - you've articulated my inner most fan!fear. *sigh*.

Yeah, it sucks. It's also disappointing because he and Katie Jacobs do those episode commentaries, and they're just kind of like, "Production blather House is so cool Oh my god I wish I were House Oh wow I wish Cuddy and House would get together or Cameron and House blah blah blah"

OH NO. Now I'm really depressed. They're really saying that? :( *jumps off a roof*

Yeah, it sucks. It's also disappointing because he and Katie Jacobs do those episode commentaries, and they're just kind of like, "Production blather House is so cool Oh my god I wish I were House Oh wow I wish Cuddy and House would get together or Cameron and House blah blah blah" And that's exactly why I've never bothered with the commentaries. *is stubborn*

I'm a commetary whore, but I can't get myself to watch the ones on the House DVD's just because of the people involved. Oh, word. I love commentaries, I can't get enough of them but for House when it's only DS and KJ, combined with the episodes they choose to do commentaries on just leaves me uninterested.

Well, that's what the commentaries on S2 were like. But I love this show so much that I did watch them two times each, and I will watch the ONE they've given us for S3. Because, while RSL and HL and the Hoyay are of course the reasons I obsess about "House", I do really love the show and pretty much any insight into it whatsoever is completely eaten up by me.

I'm moving this discussion over from the Wilson thread--my apologies for interrupting whatever is going on here but, you know, topicality.... I'm addressing whether Wilson was correct in his assumption that House is depressed and needs antidepressants. My contention is that Wilson was wrong and is based on two arguments. The first is that there is other evidence that throughout the season House has been shown to be looking for substitutes for the failed ketamine treatment, i.e. a way to "cure" his pain problem rather than treat it with narcotics. This supports my belief that relief from pain is the real reason for House's faked cancer scheme, not the depression Wilson believed it to be (or the "to get high" that other idiot who is supposed to be a doctor said... :wink: ). My second argument is that House's behavior while on Wilson's anti-depressants demonstrates that they did not work for him, thus he does not need them, therefore he is not depressed. While there are several other ways to interpret House's behavior while on the ADs in real life--such as he just needs a different dosage or to try a different AD--I hold that in the short hand of tv drama, the scene between House and Addie and her parents is intended to represent "House on anti-depressants". I want to have this scene in front of us so we are all on the same page... :) From the transcript: HOUSE: I'm sorry. Addie you're dying. JODIE: Are you sure? HOUSE: Yes. Your infections will get worse, the toxins will spill into your blood. ADDIE: How long? HOUSE: Two days, maybe less. You have a condition called... ADDIE: It doesn't matter. HOUSE: It's a very rare protein deficiency that only... ADDIE: I don't want to hear it. HOUSE: Ok. It's what's killing you. This is what's killing you, you're not interested in what's killing you? ADDIE: Will it make any difference? Will I live any longer? JODIE: Please, could you just leave? HOUSE: What's the point in living, without curiosity? Without craving the... ADDIE: So I'm screwing up my last few hours because I wont listen to you? BEN: Get out of here. HOUSE: It's, it's, it's like the... dark matter in the universe... ADDIE: You're smiling. HOUSE: No I'm not. You can only diagnose a problem by looking at what's... Missing... oh god... I have to go.

I don't know if there is a limit on post length here or not but it seemed better to me to break it up. First, I want to say that everything here is my opinion and my interpretation only, not demonstratable fact so I won't have to preface every sentence with IMHO. Okay? So, in this scene, which represents and defines what the anti-depressants do to House's behavior, House behaves abnormally in three ways. First, his emotions are inappropriate (is there a stronger word for that?) for the situation. Second, his inappropriate behavior is unconscious, outside his awareness and control. This is what makes it different from House's usual inappropriate behavior. Third, House's behavior is somewhat manic and focussed to an obsessive degree on his own concerns to the point of being oblivious to the strangeness of his behavior, the reactions of the patient and the family to his news and to his behavior, and to anything else except forging ahead with what fascinates him--explaining the puzzle. More in a few minutes...I am going to consult a thesaurus....Stay tuned! :fishy: ...Okay: House's behavior is inappropriate to the circumstance. I have to try to be careful here because I don't want to be intolerant or offensive but it is really difficult for me to see how one could interpret House's actions here as anything but extremely unfitting and unacceptable. House is breaking the news to a young woman and her very devoted and caring parents that she is dying, there is no cure, nothing they can do, and she has only a couple of days to live. And yet House is happy, his mood is elevated, eager; he can't stop smiling and is even unaware of it--denies it. In addition to the inappropriate affect--smiling and happy when bringing such devasting news to those it most intimately concerns--House is rather manic: elevated mood, unreasonable enthusiasm for forcing the explanation on Addie in spite of her protestations that she doesn't care and doesn't want to know and her parents' angry insistence that he leave the room. He starts to leave and is painfully unable to do so and turns back to continue to force the information on her. His thoughts and actions seem disorganized, obsessional and confused. He can't distinguish between his need to know and the patient's desire not to be told; he either doesn't pick up on or respond to or respect the cues from other people--even ignoring their outrage at the unacceptability of his attitude and words. He is so fixated on his obsession (at this point, I think it bleeds over into compulsion) that at one point, he is practically babbling. How can his incoherent words about "the dark matter in the universe" be considered helpful to a dying teen-ager? His fixation on the need to explain over-rides everything else--and this is an extreme and delicate situation. One may argue that House has behaved just as unsuitably on many other occassions and this is true. However, the major difference here is House at other times is fully cognizant of of how rude, shocking and improper his behavior is and he always has a reason for his very carefully calculated insults and outrageous behavior. His reason may be as simple and unimportant as that he's bored and wants to get a rise out of someone or it may be as important as it being his most effective tool in getting at the truth he suspects will save a life. But there is always intent and always a reason and always self-awareness and self-control. (Of course House sometimes get angry or distracted but this is not typically what makes him act inappropriately with patients and their families.) Not so in this scene. He over-rides and ignores Addie's reasonable argument that knowing won't help to insist that knowing the explanation is important though she has just told him it isn't. He is unaware of his unseemly smiling and can't stop doing it even after it is pointed out to him. To me, that says, "not under his control". If you can control something you can stop doing it. He couldn't and I think that discovery (along with his realization that Wilson had been drugging him) appalled him and he abruptly left, saying he had to get out. In the next scene, in which House confronts Wilson, he says he has been feeling "hazy". I saw his behavior as more manic and compulsive but I can see how his compulsion to make the diagnosis would make everything else going on around him hazy. He was certainly missing--not, imo, ignoring, as he usually does--social cues and context. He was so concentrated on his preoccupation that he seems unaware not only of what was going on intellectually and emotionally with the patient and her parents, but even unaware of his own (inappropriate) emotions, speech and actions. How is being uncontrollably "happy" when breaking the news of impending death a good thing and a sign that the meds causing this behavior are just what House needs? How is being so fixated on your own compulsion that you are unaware of your own and other people's emotional conditions indicative of a properly corrected mood? The drugs may well have made him more cheerful but the down-side imo made him much worse--much less sensitive, must less responsive, much less aware of others povs, wishes and needs and more driven even than he usually is. And that's really saying something. Looking at this scene, I find it impossible to conclude that tptb behind the show are saying that the ADs where exactly what House needed, that depression is indeed his "problem" and Wilson has finally "fixed" House by slipping him a prozac mickey. I think, in House's case at least, depression is merely another straw bull thrown in front of us as the key to House. We found out it wasn't his broken heart with the Stacy arc. We found out (I think... :wink: they said we did...) it wasn't addiction in the Tritter arc. I think this season has offered us several other possibilities--notably childhood abuse and depression--and think we will find that neither of these is the key to House either. My position is that House...is. I don't think there will ever be a clear reveal or insight which explains or justifies him. Nor do I want there to be despite Wilson on-going attempts to discover "the problem" and to fix it. Obviously others' take on the character, the friendship, the show and this scene are going to be different. I am really curious to see how others interpret this scene and reconcile it with the contention that House is indeed suffering from depression because Wilson's ADs worked well for him....

My personal opinion is that House is depressed. My other (unpopular?) theory is that House can't be anything but depressed. It is the semi-anhedonia (he's not completely unable to experience pleasure, he finds amusement in many things once in awhile, it is just something that happens much less often than with most people) that exemplifies the character. House's reaction to the anti-depressants was not the typical bi-polar reaction to anti-depressants of catapulting into a manic state. I think it was the reaction of a person so unused to being neither happy or sad that he's unable to process the sensation of what most people would consider a standard level of emotional comfort and it makes him act irrationally. To tie Wilson into this (other than the obvious): Wilson knows that House is capable of feeling good and knows that happy House is much more fun to be around than everyday House. Wilson will accept either. He's used to it. By slipping anti-depressants into House's coffee, he's trying to bring a little of the Laughing and eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve House to the people that only know Everyday Cranky House. Or it could be purely selfish on Wilson's part since he has to spend time with House he'd rather a grinning at inappropriate times, strange acting best friend-it's better than being called a coward and mocked for every life decision he's made ever.

*cries* Why did you have to bring up "Damned if You Do"?! I can totally cope with no Season 4 until you bring up Laughing and eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve with Wilson House.

Whew. Sorry I got so long-winded and involved. And after all that, I still have something else to say!!! :shock: I am not saying that House is not at all depressed or that he is functional and well-adjusted emotionally. It's confusing territory but I guess I make a distinction between normal-depressed, clinically Depressed, and a person for whom a degree of depression is an essential element of his personality. I think given House's mental and emotion equipment and his level and kind of social adjustment, he may not be doing as well as he could but he is not doing so very badly either. That's where I disagree with Wilson, I guess and think he doesn't "get" House as well as I do.... :wink: :roll: :wink:

Hi Sweet Fern. Happy to see you here (and also because my constant "permition denied" seems fixed :) ) I'm one of those who don't see House's behaviour as inappropriate - for me Wilson's behaviour with the breast thing!patient was inappropriate. how one could interpret House's actions here as anything but extremely unfitting and unacceptable. The patient and her parents couldn't, because they didn't know House, but we do. House's a curious man, for him it's impossible, even if you're dying, not to want to know everything (and I can see his point...). The antidepressants made him more social, but not more socially apt. His fixation on the need to explain over-rides everything else--and this is an extreme and delicate situation. As always! His patients are always in a very extreme and delicate situation and it didn't prevent him from tell them the true in his very blunt way. The difference here (IMO) was the lack of anger and cruelty - I'll pick just one example, a extreme one: Alex, from Skin Deep. With her he was being blunt, cruel but also he was telling her/him the true. That is for me the evidence that the antidepressants has an effect: he was still a very curious, blunt person but not a cruel one. In his last conversation with Addie he was being nice to her (even when calling her a moron...). He decided to tell her parents about the suicide attempt. Why? Usually, after solving the puzzle he didn't care anymore about the patient. He was seeing her in a more human light than he usually see the others. He wasn't so angry with the world anymore. We don't know how was House's behaviour before the leg problem. Can we speculate that maybe he was a little less cruel with everyone around him? But essentially the same? I don't think there will ever be a clear reveal or insight which explains or justifies him. I don't think either and I think it's better that way. Sure Wilson doesn't get House all the time. But sometimes I guess he does. I don't agree with his methods, but I do think that he had a point here. Sweet, as you can see, we have a completely different view of that scene. I find it fascinating because usually tv shows don't like to make the audience think. Despite the inconsistences, House is a smart show, isn't it? :wink: