Oh. I thought he did, both in jail with Wilson, and this time.
I didn’t know what to make of this episode. On the one hand, I laughed a lot (House’s reluctance to touch patients, the conflicting advice from the ducklings). I was also relieved that they broke out of the “Freak of the Week” mold for once.
However, the entire time that I was watching it, I got a sense that the writers were screwing with us a la the gunshot episode. Because something was “off” and House was acting so out of character that you knew that something was up. But then this episode didn’t turn out to be a dream and it left me thinking WTF.
I do appreciate the backstory about House’s father being abusive and emotionally unavailable, which explains why he’s so impervious to emotions, but it doesn’t answer why he told this to whatshername. Did the Grinch’s heart suddenly grow 2 sizes because Cindy Lou Who was raped? Sorry, but that just doesn’t make sense given how he’s acted in the past. This was the same guy who was so calloused towards the dwarf kid, etc.??
It seems that the writers have written themselves in a bit of a corner, giving House’s drug addiction and injury a front seat this season rather than an interesting backdrop for a whodunit type show. Trouble is that they’ve pushed him from “eccentric” to “anti-social.” And I guess they realized it and decided to soften him up. But it’s too much, too soon and it’s jarring.
But AFAICR there was nothing in the whole episode to suggest that. I was looking very closely, because that’s where I expected it to go. But all she said --and very firmly – was “Abortion is murder.” There was never any hedging or equivocating.
One may well imagine a devout pro-lifer in that situation having a crisis of belief, and one could make a compelling episode showing that crisis; but it has to be shown. Having a third party show up and just tell us that she changed her mind, with no indication as to why, is a poor writing choice IMO.
A possibility: the episode as originally written was all about House and the girl, but they shoehorned in the Cameron storyline for whatever reason, and to make time they cut out scenes showing her wrestling with the choice.
The whole Cameron subplot, which seemed poorly-thought-out (for reasons others have given above), weakened it, but it was still a terrific episode.
I was thinking exactly the same thing! Especially since Cuddy was so adamant about House being in the clinic–I thought, “She wanted him there so that he would be there when the “rape victim” showed up.” Of course, her real physical conditions (VD, the OD in the hospital) didn’t support that theory.
This was really a polarizing episode. Interesting.
I like the show, but I find it to be too formulaic many times -
Weird patient, toss out possible explanations, an LP, lupus, an MRI. Before the fourth commercial break, zoom in on House’s eyes as he gets inspired by a throwaway line from one of the ducklings -
meaning the actual plot is irrelevant 99 % of the time.
Fine. But to advance the Characters, there has to be some forward motion, some challenges to their personalities, something to make them grow. I thought the rapee (is that a word?) was an excellent challenge for House and I liked the espisode very, very much. It seems YMMV.
I didn’t find her pro-life statements very convincing. Her attitude reminded me of the way that young kids will say things with a great deal of certainty just because they heard Mommy or Daddy say it. They may or may not really grasp what they’re saying, but Mommy or Daddy said it, so it has to be true.
In any case, I’m glad they didn’t belabor the point. If they want to write an abortion episode, they can do that another day. This episode already had a message to convey, and too much abortion talk would have just fuzzed things up.
You found an actual message in that dreck? What, pray tell, would that have been?
If I had to endure one more exchange of; “Why do you want me?” “I don’t know,” or simply the response, “I don’t know,” to any question anyone asked, I think my head would have burst from sheer madness! Was that the freaking message – we can’t know everything? Well DUH!
And why on earth would House give two flying flips “why” that patient wanted him to open up to? House doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else’s feelings, including his very best friend(s), but suddenly he has a soft spot for this particular, not-even-physically sick patient, where there’s absolutely nothing to cure? Please.
This episode was so high on the stink-o-meter, I nearly had to clip my nose to make it through the entire thing. If the next one – any other future one – is anything even remotely as saccharine and “philosophical” as this one, I’ll gladly take back that hour of my week every week.
I didn’t intend to address whether it was a good message or a bad one. I was just observing that I thought it was better, from a storytelling standpoint, to stick with that message instead of abandoning it two-thirds of the way through and going off on a pro-life/pro-choice tangent.
So early in the episode House says to the girl “You were raped less than a week ago” and she says nothing to refute his timeline. So how the hell do they know she’s pregnant already? If I remember bio correctly, it can take 2-3 days to even have the egg implant… and can they really do an abortion that early? I thought 4-8 weeks was the norm.
It was a strange episode all around.
Didn’t like the ep. House is the only doctor character I’ve ever encountered on television who’s cynical and crusty who isn’t a comic buffoon. TV and the movies swarm with caring, feeling, warmly human doctors. Ptui. Anything that softens House’s character makes him more like them, and is therefore Evil and Wrong. Whole ep stank to high heaven.
I was going to bring that up, but I nitpick about these things every week that I thought people would start throwing paper wads at me.
Rape victims do indeed get a pregnancy test, but it’s to determine if they were pregnant already. There’s no test that will determine pregnancy the same week as conception. (Ask any woman who has gone through in vitro.)
Yeah, but in all fairness, the show isn’t a documentary.
This ep. must have caused quite a stir all around. Somebody wrote a whole column about it in today’s LA Times, Calendar section.
I thought the episode was mediocre, If we weren’t coming off the Tritter arc I probably would have disliked it more but to be away from him was a major boon for it.
I liked that they mixed it up some but the discussions lost me and I turned the episode off halfway through to come back to later, something I very rarely do. I also go lost in their little dialogue in the break room at the end, I didn’t follow it. I’m not really curious to follow it again either. I’ll just go with it and look for next week, which looks to be much meatier!
– IG
Actually, Liberal, to me this is probably an extremely on-target observation on your part.
My pregnancy test was positive within a week of conception.
Does anyone know the name of the song at the end?
Ah, gotcha.
Thanks for pointing me to that (Hey, Fox, ‘House’ doesn’t need remodel). I agree 100% with the author.
Maybe this is part of the nuance you’re talking about, but I think it’s more accurate to say he hates the idea of God. Obviously he doesn’t personally believe in God, but what he really hates is using God as a replacement for thinking.
I’m in love with House and he (and the cast) can do no wrong.
I thought the episode was good.