House 7x15 Bombshells
Mar. 10th, 2011 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flippet Okay, so, just a couple of thoughts on the episode.
I've been discussing it in various places, but these thoughts popped up on their own.
On rewatching, I noticed that when Chase comes in to sit with Cuddy - she tells him that she trusts that House will come - she says that in all these years, House has never been able to stop trying to annoy her for more than 15 minutes, and now he can't even walk into the room.
But she doesn't stop to ask why that is?
And then Chase says 'love hopes all things' - instead of simply pointing out that House is scared. I think if he had, perhaps that might have gone a ways towards defusing the situation.
And then Wilson tells Foreman 'he'll either get over himself, and be who she needs him to be, or he won't.'
But here's the thing. He is who he is.
In Now What, Cuddy said that she didn't want him to change. He laid it out clearly, that he's unlikely to be able to change himself, that he'll continue to do things to hurt her, and she told him flat out that she didn't want him to change.
I guess everybody lies.
If Cuddy needs someone who will be there - someone who won't get scared so shitless at the mere thought of losing her that he'd fuck up a year and a half of being clean just to be able to cope with it - then she doesn't want House. She wants some baggage-free gomer that she can mold into whoever she wants him to be. I don't know where she'd find such a loser, but it's clear that she really doesn't want House, with all his quirks and yes, all his faults.
Her Butch/Sundance dream, she says that she was hoping he'd find a way to handle all this, but maybe he can't, because he's still a child. He says he can do better - and then she says 'it might be too late'.
That was just *before* he showed up, stoned.
I think she was already thinking about ending things, even before the vicodin came into play.*
But back to Butch/Sundance - that movie ends with them running out together, firing on the troops - and then freezes, with just the audio of gunshots. You don't know who's winning, but you suspect it's not B/S, as outnumbered as they are. So in her dream, Cuddy's running out with House, but she gets out into the line of fire, and he's vanished, while she calls for him. I think her subconscious was saying - 'yeah, you get out there where you're fighting for your life, and you'll be doing it alone - he won't be there.' But what her subconscious missed or ignored is - he *did* run out with her. And it still froze, with the sound of gunshots. It's not like House never ran out with her, or ran the other way - he went with her, but what if his disappearance was because he was getting mowed down?
His fear was incapacitating him. He wanted to be there. He tried to be there. He simply had a stronger, bigger enemy.
I don't think that's his fault.
His enemy (fear, addiction) is enormous, and yet it seems that she's blaming him for not being able to fight Goliath all on his own, and come out the winner.
*When she wakes up, and House tells her she doesn't have cancer, she says "there are so many things that I could be afraid of, and most of the time I manage to lock them up behind doors, but this happens, all those doors just - burst open." Her dreams brought out those fears - that he's *not* 50's perfect, that he's either untrustworthy, or too vulnerable to count on. She's been afraid of these things all along - afraid of him. Of being in a relationship with him. That he's all show, and no substance. And these fears came out with a vengeance.
Sigh. And her 'keeping everyone at arms' length so no one can hurt you' - I think she's been keeping him there. She's been so resistant, all along. She doesn't want anyone to know they're together until 'later', she doesn't want him to come over because of Rachel, etc, so on, so forth. Yes, she walks over those thresholds, but not eagerly, not without extreme hesitation.
I'm not saying that it's wrong of her to not want to be hurt - that's perfectly valid. House isn't an easy person, and she's likely to be hurt. But to complain that he's the one not being open to someone else's pain.....honey, ya wanna take the log out of your own eye, first?
"You'll choose yourself over everyone else, over and over, because that's just who you are'. Uh, yeah. Did you just now figure out who he is? And honestly - most people make choices based on what's good for themselves. Occasionally they're altruistic to a point, occasionally they'll put someone else first, temporarily, but if they *always* put everyone else first, they're in danger of losing themselves. And if Cuddy wants House to always put her first? Isn't there a bunch of selfishness in that too?
Oh - and in Recession Proof, she doesn't let him break up with her (or so she thought), because he's 'too drunk to do this'. But yet, she's not too scared/in pain/still recovering to break up with him? Apparently what's good for the gander isn't also good for the goose? (I really think that her look at the end, there, was realizing just *how* deeply House was getting into it - and realizing that she wasn't also at that depth.)
So - you put all that together, and I think the vicodin was a rotten excuse for her to give in to her own weaknesses, to not own up to them, and to break up with House. Sure, he needs to get clean on his own, for himself. Not arguing that. And sure, Cuddy can make her own decisions about who she wants to be with, and who she wants around her child, etc.
I just think to take his trust and hope like that, then shatter his heart, is a pretty shitty thing to do.
Edited to add - I was thinking last night, and realized that in Recession Proof - House is declaring that he'll always choose her. And we believe him, because we've seen it - we've seen how he is intending to attend the event, and is even planning a surprise for her. But to be fair, Cuddy kind of didn't see what we see - she hears him say 'I'll always choose you' at the point when, to her, it looks like he abandoned her, abandoned his promises to her, to go off drinking, avoid the event-ing that he generally loathes, and to get mired in his own head. I can see how she might see that as just the opposite of 'choosing her'.
But they don't *talk* when they need to. What if, rather than just silently expecting House to vaguely 'be there for her', she'd simply said, 'House, I'm kind of scared. Would you please sit here with me?'
Men aren't really mind readers, House especially, when it comes to relationships, and it starts to bug me when there are severe, blindsiding consequences like these, when people don't ASK for what they want, yet the other person is expected to pony up in precisely the way the first person requires anyway. It becomes a guessing game, with a deadly, painful end. It's also a way to wield power - to use that unspoken threat to make the other person jump exactly when you wish them to, because if they don't - buh-bye.
I've been discussing it in various places, but these thoughts popped up on their own.
On rewatching, I noticed that when Chase comes in to sit with Cuddy - she tells him that she trusts that House will come - she says that in all these years, House has never been able to stop trying to annoy her for more than 15 minutes, and now he can't even walk into the room.
But she doesn't stop to ask why that is?
And then Chase says 'love hopes all things' - instead of simply pointing out that House is scared. I think if he had, perhaps that might have gone a ways towards defusing the situation.
And then Wilson tells Foreman 'he'll either get over himself, and be who she needs him to be, or he won't.'
But here's the thing. He is who he is.
In Now What, Cuddy said that she didn't want him to change. He laid it out clearly, that he's unlikely to be able to change himself, that he'll continue to do things to hurt her, and she told him flat out that she didn't want him to change.
I guess everybody lies.
If Cuddy needs someone who will be there - someone who won't get scared so shitless at the mere thought of losing her that he'd fuck up a year and a half of being clean just to be able to cope with it - then she doesn't want House. She wants some baggage-free gomer that she can mold into whoever she wants him to be. I don't know where she'd find such a loser, but it's clear that she really doesn't want House, with all his quirks and yes, all his faults.
Her Butch/Sundance dream, she says that she was hoping he'd find a way to handle all this, but maybe he can't, because he's still a child. He says he can do better - and then she says 'it might be too late'.
That was just *before* he showed up, stoned.
I think she was already thinking about ending things, even before the vicodin came into play.*
But back to Butch/Sundance - that movie ends with them running out together, firing on the troops - and then freezes, with just the audio of gunshots. You don't know who's winning, but you suspect it's not B/S, as outnumbered as they are. So in her dream, Cuddy's running out with House, but she gets out into the line of fire, and he's vanished, while she calls for him. I think her subconscious was saying - 'yeah, you get out there where you're fighting for your life, and you'll be doing it alone - he won't be there.' But what her subconscious missed or ignored is - he *did* run out with her. And it still froze, with the sound of gunshots. It's not like House never ran out with her, or ran the other way - he went with her, but what if his disappearance was because he was getting mowed down?
His fear was incapacitating him. He wanted to be there. He tried to be there. He simply had a stronger, bigger enemy.
I don't think that's his fault.
His enemy (fear, addiction) is enormous, and yet it seems that she's blaming him for not being able to fight Goliath all on his own, and come out the winner.
*When she wakes up, and House tells her she doesn't have cancer, she says "there are so many things that I could be afraid of, and most of the time I manage to lock them up behind doors, but this happens, all those doors just - burst open." Her dreams brought out those fears - that he's *not* 50's perfect, that he's either untrustworthy, or too vulnerable to count on. She's been afraid of these things all along - afraid of him. Of being in a relationship with him. That he's all show, and no substance. And these fears came out with a vengeance.
Sigh. And her 'keeping everyone at arms' length so no one can hurt you' - I think she's been keeping him there. She's been so resistant, all along. She doesn't want anyone to know they're together until 'later', she doesn't want him to come over because of Rachel, etc, so on, so forth. Yes, she walks over those thresholds, but not eagerly, not without extreme hesitation.
I'm not saying that it's wrong of her to not want to be hurt - that's perfectly valid. House isn't an easy person, and she's likely to be hurt. But to complain that he's the one not being open to someone else's pain.....honey, ya wanna take the log out of your own eye, first?
"You'll choose yourself over everyone else, over and over, because that's just who you are'. Uh, yeah. Did you just now figure out who he is? And honestly - most people make choices based on what's good for themselves. Occasionally they're altruistic to a point, occasionally they'll put someone else first, temporarily, but if they *always* put everyone else first, they're in danger of losing themselves. And if Cuddy wants House to always put her first? Isn't there a bunch of selfishness in that too?
Oh - and in Recession Proof, she doesn't let him break up with her (or so she thought), because he's 'too drunk to do this'. But yet, she's not too scared/in pain/still recovering to break up with him? Apparently what's good for the gander isn't also good for the goose? (I really think that her look at the end, there, was realizing just *how* deeply House was getting into it - and realizing that she wasn't also at that depth.)
So - you put all that together, and I think the vicodin was a rotten excuse for her to give in to her own weaknesses, to not own up to them, and to break up with House. Sure, he needs to get clean on his own, for himself. Not arguing that. And sure, Cuddy can make her own decisions about who she wants to be with, and who she wants around her child, etc.
I just think to take his trust and hope like that, then shatter his heart, is a pretty shitty thing to do.
Edited to add - I was thinking last night, and realized that in Recession Proof - House is declaring that he'll always choose her. And we believe him, because we've seen it - we've seen how he is intending to attend the event, and is even planning a surprise for her. But to be fair, Cuddy kind of didn't see what we see - she hears him say 'I'll always choose you' at the point when, to her, it looks like he abandoned her, abandoned his promises to her, to go off drinking, avoid the event-ing that he generally loathes, and to get mired in his own head. I can see how she might see that as just the opposite of 'choosing her'.
But they don't *talk* when they need to. What if, rather than just silently expecting House to vaguely 'be there for her', she'd simply said, 'House, I'm kind of scared. Would you please sit here with me?'
Men aren't really mind readers, House especially, when it comes to relationships, and it starts to bug me when there are severe, blindsiding consequences like these, when people don't ASK for what they want, yet the other person is expected to pony up in precisely the way the first person requires anyway. It becomes a guessing game, with a deadly, painful end. It's also a way to wield power - to use that unspoken threat to make the other person jump exactly when you wish them to, because if they don't - buh-bye.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 05:40 am (UTC)Okay, I'm rambling. My thoughts are not concrete on all this. The one thing I know for sure is that this is episode 15, not 22. We're nowhere near the end of the season or the end of their story.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 01:18 pm (UTC)I'd be plenty hopeful, if TPTB had just shut their mouths. The story alone could be.
But two things annoy me. If there's hope, then TBTP are *flat-out* lying, and that's really rubbing me the wrong way. Why should you be so baldly deceitful to 'promote' your show? *Let* the story do the work.
But the other thing that bugs me is that yeah - Cuddy's got issues, and Wilson or someone needs to take her to task.
But no one ever does. No one even brings up the myriad ways in which she's not fair to House (number one being that she *is* expecting him to change - and Wilson was even backing her up on that one). It's like she's perfectly right, and House is the only one at fault.
We all apologize for Cuddy, we can all see where she's at fault, we can explain away her reasons for acting like she does - and we may be right - but *she* never does.
I don't understand it. Are we supposed to believe she's got the high ground? Or are we not, but they're being lazy and letting us do all the work of explaining it?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 02:21 pm (UTC)This is what we'll find out on Monday, I guess.
Part of me genuinely doesn't care whether or not they get back together. As much as I've always shipped House/Cuddy and thought that it deserved to be explored, I was also very suspicious last May about the way it all came together. That wasn't under the healthiest of circumstances, either. (I also want to say that I had them pegged for ending during February sweeps. That I was only off by a week-ish should still count, lol.)
But you're right. We've been explaining Cuddy's character and motivations to the rest of the fandom for seven years. Sometimes we get it right, and there's payoff, but sometimes she's still just as selfish and self-centered as House, and it's not nearly as adorable with her. What I am hopeful about is that with six or seven episodes left in the season, that this is part of something greater and something well-planned.
(Yes, the lying sucks, but it's not exclusive to House by any means. Such are the spoiler-whore times in which we live that TPTB have to lie in order to preserve any semblance of surprise.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 02:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, if they'd only lied when asked - I don't have too much of a problem with that. You can't reveal everything.
But *they* were the ones initiating this. That is really bothering me.
What I am hopeful about is that with six or seven episodes left in the season, that this is part of something greater and something well-planned.
A girl can dream, right?
:-P
I'm sure they've got something spectacular planned. And I'm always down for watching Hugh knock it out of the park. I'm just not hopeful that they'll bother to explain Cuddy. She seems to have been reduced to a device, and you don't explain devices. :-(
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 08:16 am (UTC)It's kind of personal for me, because my friend is a recovering addict. She's been clean for over a year now, and her friends never gave up on her, ever. It just makes me not like one of my favorite characters, because it's a huge flaw that she would give up so easily on someone that loves her so much.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 02:31 pm (UTC)Yep.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 02:37 pm (UTC)See, this is so much of it.
I can understand her wanting to put things on hold until he had gotten himself together. She's even entitled to choose NOT to deal with this.
But to know that he'd *just* fallen off the wagon, and do this?
It's like, 'oh, you were so afraid of losing me that you threw sobriety away - hey, here's your prize, now you get to lose me anyway! Hope you've got more of your stash on hand!'
Really. She's got to know that dumping him like that would drive him right back into the arms of the pills. Which he likely had more of.
I'm with you - she couldn't wait until he at least had a support net in place? She couldn't demand he hook up with therapy first? Even if she still intended to end it - cutting him loose into free fall seems awful, to me.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 06:42 pm (UTC)I just can't leave it alone, it seems.