According to Entertainment Weekly, Penn is going to be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison. It’s been a long time coming. In '06, he started an international studies program at Stanford. He worked for the Obama campaign in 2008, got to know the Illinois Senator, and asked if he could work in the administration if Obama were elected.
He was content with working on House, but wanted to take his life in a different direction from acting for the time being.
As for the suicide, the writers designed it as a way to get under House’s skin. Kutner’s death is a mystery that will leave House unable to rest until he solves it. It will make him question the most important aspect of himself, which is the ability to find answers.
Unfortunately, I sort of had it spoiled by Twitter’s “Trending Topics” feature. I saw “Kutner” and thought, “why else would people be talking about him so much unless he dies or something else extraordinary in this episode.” I wasn’t sure, but I did have the inkling.
I thought it was a great episode. I’m loving the fact that House can’t figure it out, forcing him to explore the human side of his own existence. And I loved Cuddy’s line:
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
(House) “Don’t be. It wasn’t my loss.”
(Cuddy) “Then I’m sorry you don’t think so.”
…or something like that.
I also Like Taub and I was glad he finally broke down at the end.
I remember that too…OR we just imagined it because we wanted him to say it when he was asked to die on the table for his wife. “I would do anything for love…but I won’t do that.”
Question: are Cuddy and House together or was it just one kiss that went nowhere? Cause House and Cameron had great chemistry (I’m in the middle of season 3 on netflix), but Cuddy and House have zilch.
Taub confessed to his wife about an affair, several episodes ago, when she gave him the car.
So I think Taub’s wife had a revenge affair… with Kutner.
Kutner felt guilty about it, which was why he allowed Taub to take credit for last week’s medical solution.
Taub found out about the affair between last week and this week, and killed Kutner… which was why he kept avoiding the subject of Kutner’s death. You could probably also factor in jealousy of Kutner doing better than he was in House’s eyes.
I don’t quite think it’s true, but I guess it wouldn’t surprise me if it had turned out that way.
I liked the muted lighting used in this ep., as well as the shot of 13 and Foreman working on Kuttner but all we could see was their legs…and then 13 sliding back into full view across a pool of blood. Disturbing, but very effective.
I missed the episode in its entirety, recorded it, and then had Kutner’s death spoiled to me by a coworker, whom I shall, of course, eviscerate as a warning to the others.
As annoying as Kutner was (and really, he annoyed me 2X more than anyone else on the show at their worst) I was surprised at the turn of events. I thought the episode was exceptionally well done, and I loved how it was shot in about 75 percent close up. The actors and director of photography all earned their checks this week.
I nearly puked when I read the Entertainment Weekly article as to why Penn was leaving the show, but that’s just because of my political biases. I’m impressed the actor is doing something completely different that he believes in, even if I don’t agree with the effort he’s undertaking.
Skald the Rhymer - Kutner didn’t show up for work one morning. Taub said he was looking after a friend’s sick dog and would be in late. When he didn’t show up, Foreman and Thirteen were sent to his apartment. Thirteen found him dead from an (apparently) self-inflicted GSW to the head. Meanwhile POtW was the wife of a middle-aged heavy man dying from lung cancer. She collapsed at his deathbed. Usual mis-diagnoses and pointless tests ensue. It’s found that the wife had gone off to Rio with some guy when hubby thought she was in Hawaii (hubby had promised repeatly to take her to Rio) and she’d picked up a parasite. Meanwhile, House goes with Foreman and Thirteen to pay a condolence call on Kutner’s adoptive parents. Taub stays behind, angry at Kutner. Taub had made a suicide attempt when he was in college. House accuses Kutner’s parents of being the reason for the suicide because Kutner took their name instead of keeping is Indian name after his birth parents were killed. Foreman tells him to leave and he does, but postulizes that Kutner didn’t really commit suicide, he was murdered. Wilson tells House that it isn’t Kutner’s death that bothers him, but the fact that House didn’t see the signs, and House is supposed to see everything. House, according to Wilson, is afraid of losing his gift, and afraid of what his life will be like without it.
Back to the patient. House knows the wife needs a liver transplant. He convinces the husband that, since he’s dying anyway, he should agree to a partial liver donation. Because of his medical status, he’ll die on the table and they’ll be able to give the wife his whole liver. The husband says yes, since he only has days to live. Then House realizes that the lung cancer the husband has, isn’t lung cancer, and he can be saved. The guy says do the transplant anyway, that he’ll kill himself if they don’t, as long as the wife lives. The wife dies (too sick for the transplant, maybe?) and the husband lives.
House, Foreman, 13, Cuddy, Chase & Cameron go to the funeral, while still-angry Taub sits with the dying patient. After she dies, Taub breaks down, finally grieving for Taub.
Actually, IIRC, House doesn’t attend the funeral. During the closing montage, he was at Kutner’s apartment, sifting through photos, still desperately searching (in vain) for some sort of clue that would make the whole thing make sense.
I thought the whole episode was really well done, overall. I like the fact that Fox kept it under wraps as well as they did - in the era of internet spoilers, how often are you really surprised or even shocked by something that happens on a television show? Seems like nobody saw this coming.
And that’s really the point: In my (blessedly limited) experience with suicide, it can easily be something you never see coming, no matter how close to the person you might be. A friend killed himself in high school and nobody, not even his girlfriend, had any inkling that he might be suicidal beforehand.
I really liked the way they had House grasping at straws and coming up with absurd theories (the producers have made it fairly clear that Kutner most definitely killed himself, and was not murdered), because that’s his defining character trait: he hates uncertainty and takes great pride not just in being a great diagnostician, but also in understanding human behavior. When he runs up against something that he just plain can’t explain or deduce, it drives him crazy. I suspect we’ll see the aftermath of this for the rest of the season, as House grows increasingly obsessed with figuring it out…when the truth is that there’s nothing to figure out.
Please humor someone who doesn’t watch much TV. I have seen House – it’s one of the shows I really liked – but I don’t know who Kutner was. (To my surprise, IMDB says he’s been on the show for two years. How time flies.) Anyway, can somebody give me a synopsis of this episode, and fill me in who Taub is, for that matter?
Taub and Kuttner are two of House’s assistants. (Chase and Cameron are working elsewhere in the hospital.) There was a long “elimination tournament” last season, where they had about 30 people trying for the job; Taub (a plastic surgeon who got kicked out of his practice for having an affair), Kuttner (Indian by birth; he was adopted by a white couple after his parents were murdered) and Thirteen (real name: Hadley, though she doesn’t usually use that; she was a mystery throughout the tryouts until it was finally revealed she had Huntington’s) are the three that are left.
Taub has been having problems lately, and Kuttner has always been steady and unflappable. Thirteen is going with Foreman right now, who was forced to come back.