I’m surprised there’s no thread already for this. I thought it was a pretty good episode overall–very emotional. Stuff I particularly liked:
Wilson’s breakdown in the car. “I want you to tell me you love me.” You could hear the ho-yayers screaming in pleasure all over the country.
House’s breakdown in the hallway. “I live in pain every DAY!” Man, I’d forgotten how intense Hugh could be!
The fact that Thirteen wasn’t annoying. I was concerned about that.
Something I didn’t like:
The whole over-the-top thing with the hockey tickets and the MRI and House getting his parole revoked just as he was coming to terms with spending Wilson’s last months with him. It was just too pat. “Oh, Wilson has 5 months to live? Let’s put House back in prison for 6.” If they don’t do something about that, I’m going to be a very angry panda. Not to mention the fact that if the toilets (and the ceilings!) at PPTH can’t handle a few hockey tickets, then that’s not House’s fault.
So what do you guys think will happen next week? I’m really looking forward to finding out. These last few episodes have been really good, after the mess that was Season 7.
Will Wilson die on-screen?
Will House kill himself? Will he go back to prison? Will he figure out a way around it? Will he and Wilson take it on the lam and spend Wilson’s last months lounging on a beach in South America?
I still think it’ll all be a dream. Laurie will wake up in a huge circular bed with Robert Sean Leonard, Bob Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette. Or possibly Stephen Fry.
Or Wilson and House will die together in a suicide pact, possibly after House tells Wilson that he’s planted C-4 throughout the hospital and needs only to throw a light switch to blow the place up. Wilson flips the switch.
I didn’t much like this episode, as it veered headlong and recklessly into Glurgetown. I realize they’re trying to wrap up loose ends, but I’m not really buying House’s sudden neediness, and lines like Park saying to House “you’ve been looking for the truth all your life, but sometimes the truth sucks!” just don’t ring true at all. Not just from a character perspective; it just sounds very “scripty” and not like something anyone would say in real life. (How the hell does she know he’s been “looking for the truth his whole life”? She hasn’t even been around that long and they aren’t particularly close on the show.)
I could totally buy House’s neediness, which IMO is not at all sudden. I’ve been watching this show since the pilot, and it’s been a thread throughout the entire series that Wilson is House’s one and only true friend. Everybody else comes and goes, but there’s something about their dysfunctional friendship that works for both of them. Particularly House. Wilson is the only person on Earth who understands him and still accepts and likes him unconditionally (with a few hiccups along the road where he tries to make a break for it, but he can’t do it because he needs House as much as House needs him). Without Wilson, House doesn’t have his “anchor” anymore. Even during the times when they were on the outs with each other, he still could take comfort in the fact that Wilson still existed and therefore could potentially be salvaged as a friend (which happened more than once). But once he’s dead (and remember, House is an atheist, so to him dead is done) then he no longer has anyone he can relate to as a friend on an equal footing. Sure, there’s Foreman and Taub and Chase and the others, but they’re not the same. He’s used to relating to them as subordinates, not equals. Plus he doesn’t like any of them as much as he likes Wilson (and none of them would put up with him like Wilson does).
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if House killed himself in the finale. I don’t think he will, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
Nor would I, except that the show will be syndicated until the sun goes nova, so their deaths at the end might mean the reruns would be less popular, so less money-making, than otherwise.
During the reruns, every time House does something bizarre, it wouldn’t matter as much (within the confines of the episode) because everyone knows he’s so nuts he’s going to kill himself anyway.
House’s outburst, “I LIVE with pain!” certainly put a spin on things, but he really needed to blast Wilson with that information.
Wilson’s cry for support ripped House to pieces, and Hugh Laurie did a FANTASTIC job of showing all the emotions on his face when they sat together in Wilson’s car.
Remember, House flaked out on Cuddy when she had her breast cancer scare, and it hurt her so badly she walked away from House.
House has spent his entire life running away from people, running away from emotional connection. He and Wilson are bound by a co-dependency that has benefitted them both, and I don’t know how House can function without Wilson. It would be like taking away his cane.
I was mildly surprised that Wilson didn’t step up and say HE flushed the hockey tickets.
(I REALLY wonder, though about the sewage system in a hospital that can get clogged so EASILY.)
Hey, did anyone notice that the POTW didn’t puke blood on a doctor?
~VOW
Like others, though, I found the whole business with the plumbing a little hard to swallow.
Someone’s already mentioned the issue of fingerprints on water soaked tickets. That struck me as soon as they said it.
Even if we assume that the sewage system could get clogged so easily, would it really cause collapsing ceilings and torrents of water (apparently from burst pipes)? wouldn’t the toilets simply back up?
If a clog could cause that much damage, wouldn’t this have already happened many times? I can easily imagine the occasional demented patient flushing, for example, an adult diaper.
I was personally really disappointed with the episode. While I liked the whole interaction between House and Wilson for all the reasons VOW listed above, everything else in the episode just sucked. I especially hated the flushing of the hockey tickets and it just didn’t go with the mood of the rest of the episode. It would work with a funnier tone, but when the episode is so heavy, it was just jarring. Worse, it wasn’t believable. I didn’t believe Foreman giving them to him, I didn’t buy that flushing them would do more than clog a single toilet, I certainly didn’t buy that flushing tickets would not only be readable with recoverable prints but would count as felony vandalism. The whole “oh, Wilson dies in five months and you’re going to jail for six months” over that just came off very poorly.
If they wanted to send him back to jail, they could have just worked the wife angle a bit differently and had him get a violation for that, especially since they basically just dropped that whole thing, or at least gone with the patient pressing charges for the assault and that violating his parole. That was really the best they could do?
You know, it has crossed my mind that the whole “you’re going back to prison” thing is a cruel payback joke by Wilson for the fake former patients (and the fake son), but it just seems too over the top and cruel for Wilson.
Hey, maybe the whole Wilson dying of cancer thing is a joke on House (and us). I certainly hope not. (Before anyone jumps on me, I’m not serious. House would figure it out if Wilson’s chemo drugs were fake).
Ya’ll fell for it, so I guess 2 points to Foreman!