Everything you said made sense except for the part I’ve emphasized. Was that in English? Those words just don’t go together in my head. 
I don’t want to piss on the gloat parade, but a very different conclusion can be drawn from that story line. And I think it’s a credit to these great writers that they can write this sort of interpretive drama. Another take on the situation is that what House did is confirm only what awaits HIM and him in particular. It is a quite natural conclusion, given his complete lack of faith. Why would a nonbeliever expect to see the same thing a believer sees in the afterlife? I mean, they saw things very differently in regular life, didn’t they? Maybe House merely confirmed that faith is, as Jesus teaches, a prerequisite to seeing God’s kingdom.
Or as I told SimWife - what House sees or doesn’t see has absolutely no bearing on what someone else sees or experiences (or doesn’t).
Gloat parade nothing. I said it takes courage these days to suggest anything other than there is a God and an afterlife on US TV and it certainly does.
If you want to reinterpret the ending based on your beliefs, go ahead. I’m not judging the rightness or wrongness of the expression itself just that it was gutsy to do so. Especially as Networks do fear backlash from viewers who don’t like bits and pieces of their shows.
I was slightly annoyed with the Foreman story (it tried a little hard to be like a parallel-universe version, down to the attractive female adminstrator), but I liked what they did with it. Foreman had quit because he was afraid of becoming too much like House, and to prove he isn’t like House, he treated his team with respect and consideration. And then he went ahead and pulled a dangerous House-like stunt with a patient, and got fired for it.
I really enjoyed Chase this episode.
"Get me fired? Didn’t you already do that?
Listen, if you want me to help you, I’m here. But if you just want to vent, leave a message."
It shows he’s over kissing House’s ass.
As for the dog, I’m not an expert about service dogs, but the dog eating his master’s pills didn’t ring true. Aren’t service dogs usually trained not to eat the master’s pills? Or anything else that could be harmful? They didn’t show anybody else taking care of the dog, feeding him, walking him, etc., although I’m sure there must have been somebody volunteering to do so, but I couldn’t see the dog eating the pills even if he were hungry.
Unless he recognized the pills as something his master might have needed and accidentally swallowed them trying to bring them to him.
I’m confused by the pill thing- did the guy want to die, so he knocked the pills down and the dog accidently got them?
Or did the tray get wheeled away, or someone knock them over so he couldn’t get them- then why didn’t he ask for more?
Can anyone fill in the gaps for me on the Foreman storyline? I think I missed part. What happened between Foreman getting shot down for his cancer theory by his boss, and his boss firing him?
As I recall, the dark haired doctor was about to give the patient his pills when a bunch of the guys came in to run tests on him, and I think the pills just got forgotten in the ensuing chaos.
Foreman went ahead and did the treatment anyway. His diagnosis was correct, and his patient was cured.
He asked for water to take the pills. Then the men’s team came in, pushed the tray table away and sufficiently distracted everyone so that everybody forgot if he took the pills or not. They probably got knocked over what with 6 or 8 doctors milling around in the room. It happens. Even the female doctor wasn’t sure if he took the pills when House confronted her. (“The correct answer should have been, no, you didn’t see him take the pills.”)
The patient afterwards was in so much pain that the subject of the pills wasn’t even remotely in the front of his mind. And everybody assumed the initial diagnosis of worms was wrong, so he went along with what the doctors were telling him.
Ugh, really? I hated Chase (and Cameron) in this episode, and if the nasty smugness with which the writers are infusing those two characters is a sign of the direction they’re going to be taking this year, it’s an interesting choice.
Thing is, what Chase did in this episode wasn’t a sign of strength or independence. It didn’t show he was free of House’s influence. He’s just as pathetically eager for House’s attention as he ever was - it’s just now, instead of kissing ass, he’s moved to being a dick. He’s gone from the two year old at Daddy’s knee all the time to the smirking adolescent trying to drive Daddy crazy.
What does Chase really have to be proud about, to be smug about? He let a junior colleague lead him by the nose to do something that is against the hospital’s rules - something that could lead to disciplinary action - for absolutely no purpose other than to fuck with House (remember, Chase thought that Blonde Ambition was completely wrong in her diagnosis based on his reading of the imaging - he wasn’t doing it for the patient). Then, when rightly confronted by House - who outranks him - about this, he gets all smug and obnoxious.
Are those the actions of a person who is free of the influence of House? Chase still lets his own actions be dictated by how House will take them, which is a rather sad thing to get all smirky about. Had Chase actually freed himself of his pathological need to have House’s attention, he would have simply refused to help Blonde Ambition on the grounds that she was wrong, what she wanted was against the rules, and he didn’t give a shit what would or wouldn’t drive House crazy.
I don’t think I’ve "re"interpreted anything at all. If they wanted to do something courageous, they’d make an atheist be something other than a sour old curmudgeon who hasn’t a philanthropic or compassionate bone in his body.
I thought House just stuck the knife in the socket to prove to himself and everyone else that there was nothing out there, that he would see nothing. However, I suspect that he did have some sort of experience and just hasn’t revealed it yet.
An atheist on network TV at all is pretty courageous. House has also openly espoused pro-abortion sentiments, casual racism, committed unrepentant perjury, and is a drug addict. If you watch HBO, this is all de rigeur, but network TV usually can’t stomach it.
House’s open atheism is definitely a breath of fresh air for doctor shows, which often promulgate a non-specific secular spirituality and sentimental pro-life attitude that can get pretty saccharine. House is the antithesis of saccharine.
If I had been Chase and House, outraged, complained to me about breaking the rules I would have collapsed in uncontrollable laughter. Literally. House is pissed because rules were broken? Perhaps the single most untrue note in the entire episode.
Yeah, the preview didn’t leave me breathless with anticipation for next week like it usually does. I’m sick of the “House is an atheist! House hates religion!” theme. I agree that it’s very unusual and refreshing in a way to have a main character like that in a network drama, but I’m tired of being beaten over the head with it.
What I don’t understand, I guess, is why the presentation of an atheist in that light is any sort of consolation to thoughtful atheists. It’s like portraying a gay person as a sex addicted child abuser with low self-esteem. I mean what the hell.
The doctors might have forgotten about them, but I don’t buy that the guy did. He was intensely curious about the treatments (and had been in communication with House about what was being done to him) before his lungs started to fill up - we’re supposed to believe he wouldn’t say “Uh, how did you treat me for the worms? I never got those pills…” But he also didn’t seem to want to die until they made grimmer prognoses so it doesn’t seem as though he’d of been inclined to throw the pils away. Weak plotting.
I was actually kind of glad they killed off the dog, too. Old dog, dead master, deeply ingrained conditioning to help someone that would no longer be fulfilled? Poor dog was probably better off dying than trying to learn to be a pet.
I was kind of hoping the dog would live and House would take him, but with the dog’s habit of eating pills I guess he wouldn’t last long with all the pills around House’s house.