Dr Cuddy - Tumblr Posts
Dr Gregory House, his girlfriend the Honda CBR 1000RR and Dr Lisa Cuddy
Lisa Edelstein protesting with the writers of House MD in the 2007 WGA strike
i need to be put down (i finished watching house and im going crazy over the lack of content compared to other shows/fandoms)
TV Show - Dr. House | House M.D. VI
So, we're now at episode 10/11 in the third season, and while House gets a visit from Tritter in rehab, Tritter shows his true colors, or rather, House reveals them.
I find it good that the judge clarifies again that Tritter acted completely out of line, and she can't quite understand why he was after House so much. But as described before, and also shown by Cuddy's reprimand, zero attention is paid to the fact that Tritter started it all. Yes, we're at a stage where all involved have made mistakes, serious ones even, Cuddy just a few moments ago. But as House pointed out so nicely, if Tritter doesn't get his butt kissed by everyone, he loses it! Plus, what really gets me mad is he's still chewing those gums even though he was told he'll lose his manhood if he keeps at it.
And yes, the judge said House provoked Tritter, and I won't argue against that, but the fact that House rarely does anything without a reason and no one asks about the real reason, namely that Tritter was the worst patient until then, is not questioned. Here I see a missed opportunity to delve deeper into House's character, even though it's been done many times before, but here they could have explored his motives a bit more, and I think that would have done the character quite good!
Fortunately, this storyline is over, even though I like it, it really raises my blood pressure!
Fun Fact: The prosecutor from episode 11 has the voice of Rüdiger Schulzki in German, who probably won't ring a bell to anyone, which is okay, but he's known for voicing the intro of the Galaxy Rangers and has voiced many characters in series in the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, he passed away on August 5, 2022, in Hamburg! We don't talk enough about voice actors, which should change because every time something comes to us that wasn't produced here, it's the voice actors who are responsible for making the medium enjoyable in our language. And yes, sometimes dubs aren't really great, but believe me, that's rarely if ever the fault of the voices, but rather the dubbing directors who regularly dump one in the brain! So, enough rant for today!!
TV Show - Dr. House | House M.D. IX
Over the weekend, I finished watching the fourth season, what a wild ride!
The team breaks up and only House remains. Of course, one could say that he also needs a team because he is the top diagnostician, but that would be short-sighted. Without the constant brainstorming and influences of the others, the diagnoses would never come together. Unless he's at Wilson's and has a brainstorm again. Still, he needs the team or a team to go down this path, a lesson House doesn't really need to learn, but it seems Foreman does. He briefly has a team and behaves like House, but it's a completely different dynamic.
What's really interesting, though, is that the old team never really goes away. While the new team is very different, because it's familiar, you still get to see the old faces here and there, namely Chase and Cameron. Foreman is always around anyway. It's a bit like changing your diet, where you're eating completely different foods but still occasionally have a cheat day, so your head, not just your body, is on board with the whole thing.
I especially like that they've thought about the nerds with the new team. Kutner often waves this flag by bringing in pop culture topics, asking about Star Wars stuff, or just being a bit childishly naive. I don't mean that derogatorily; in such a serious series, I think it's pretty good and necessary.
Since the production of the fourth season falls during the writers' strike of that time (2007-2008), we have a very short season with only 16 episodes. This gives us relatively little time to process everything that's happening. First, there's the selection process for the new team, then Wilson's new relationship with Amber, and before we know it, we're first in "House's head" and then in "Wilson's heart". The impactful double feature at the end of the fourth season really throws the world around House out of whack, not to mention Wilson's world. This is also where the rift between the two begins, which lasts until House's father's funeral. I particularly like the reconciliation between them, or rather House's welcome back to Wilson. First a prank, then a donut and a carton of milk; that's true friendship and yes, also a bromance, for sure.
As I write, I always pause the current episode I'm watching. Right now, I see that I've already reached the tenth episode of the fifth season. The episodes themselves, I don't want to say are standard, but they don't have major implications for the overall House world, except for dealing with Amber's death (important topic!!!).
However, two important new story arcs are starting. First, we meet Lucas, the private detective hired by House to shadow Wilson. We'll see more of him in a prominent role later, but it's still quiet around him for now. But an even bigger impact is Cuddy's increasingly strong desire to have a child, which has been around for a while but is becoming more concrete until the episode where she's almost there but then gets disappointed by the mother of the child she was going to adopt. Kudos to Lisa Edelstein, because the pain she experienced in that scene, or rather her role, came across very convincingly, and she manages to carry that pain subtly through several episodes. And yes, I noticed the kiss between her and House, don't worry. But I also count that as part of this pain.
But the moment that impressed me the most was at the end of the fourth season when House is sitting on the white bus with Amber (what an incredibly good metaphor). Perhaps this is indeed the only scene where we get to know a House who is happy, and not just a part, a small piece, or a fragment, but 100%. His words that he wants to stay there because he has no pain hit me to the core because I also suffer from chronic pain. I don't mean to say that they are as severe as House's, but they are there, and I can relate to that so well. This has nothing to do with suicide or anything like that, please don't get me wrong. It's just the desire for a certain form of normalcy. To wake up in the morning and have no pain, not to worry about whether you'll make it through the day or have to take a step back somehow. I felt incredibly understood in that scene, and I think that, in turn, is an important point of the series. Showing people that they are not alone with their problems, that they are seen, and giving them a pleasant form of representation so that other people also notice that they exist. Especially because in my case, except for a slight limp, you can't tell, just like with House, for example.
So much evidence that this series is incredibly good and that on so many levels. I don't watch many medical series anymore, except for the first season of The Good Doctor, but I can't remember much beyond the first scene with the little boy. And unfortunately, I feel like it's the same with many of these series because they just don't have the impact that House does. I don't want to badmouth the other series, absolutely not. They have their place, no question, but they just don't have the scope that House does; they're more for pure entertainment and have chosen medicine or a hospital as a setting.
TV Show - Dr. House | House M.D. X
So, we're still in the fifth season but we're already on episode 16. We just found out, after a shocking cardiac arrest with House, that he's on methadone and actually doesn't need Vicodin anymore since his leg doesn't hurt anymore.
Episode 9, "Last Resort," is now behind us, and I mention this episode on purpose because it's one of those that ranks relatively low for me. Yes, I can understand the dude with the gun quite well, but just shooting around isn't a solution, even if there are countries in this world where people live who have a different opinion. Besides, Thirteen suffers too much here. Yes, it bothers me because I simply like Olivia Wilde and her role, but it's also annoying because she already suffers enough due to her illness. Strangely, this is often observed in series, that there's always a character who gets a lot of suffering. In Star Trek: Voyager, for example, it's Harry Kim, or in CSI: New York, it's Danny Messer. If I think about it more closely, I'm sure I can come up with more examples. In House, it's only occasional and not spread throughout the entire series, since Thirteen isn't there for the whole series, but it's still noticeable.
Episode 12, "Painless," I also found interesting because we have a kind of mirror image of House. Only in the basics, but still interesting enough to see where House might end up if things continue like this for a few more years. Sure, both characters are fundamentally different in character, please don't get me wrong, but here you can deduce a lot of things that we will encounter in the following seasons. Maybe one could even go so far as to say that this episode is a key experience for much of what follows, which brings us back to the episode mentioned at the beginning. Because precisely because they are so different, and House maybe doesn't want to end up at this point, he does all the things that are still to come after this episode.
Let's come to the episode mentioned at the beginning, "The Softer Side." House has a cardiac arrest right in the office, while it seems like he's taking a nap. Everyone is worried, and the immediate assumption is that he's taking heroin. After dinner with Wilson and House's subsequent confession, it becomes clear that it's even worse because he's taking methadone. After throwing away his cane, he just walks away. What immediately strikes me here is the fact that although he's pain-free, as he says, he's still limping. Which makes sense, because the muscle in his leg is completely destroyed. But the strange thing is the limping, because a few seasons ago we had a similar case where House was pain-free and he could walk normally, even though nothing has actually changed about his leg between these two incidents.
Cuddy must then confront House with a cruel choice, but House chooses painlessness, even though it's much more risky.
What is also addressed in this episode should not be ignored! It's about a baby being born with both male and female genitalia and being forced by the parents to grow up as a boy. The episode is from 2009, so it's still quite early for such a topic, kudos for that! However, you shouldn't listen too closely to the parents of the baby because it's repeatedly shown here that the child itself has completely different wishes and needs than the parents dictate, hence my statement about coercion! I also think that Thirteen acted completely correctly here, not regarding the suicide story, but definitely regarding the "vitamins"! It's even the second time this topic comes up. We already had a "teenage supermodel" (female) who suffered from hermaphroditism, resulting in an unusual form of testicular cancer being detected too late.
Yes, there's also the relationship between Foreman and Thirteen, and you could talk about that for a lot of words, but I find the whole thing actually relatively uninteresting. Even when they wanted to outsmart House! Where did Foreman work in the past few years? Outsmarting House? On the way to not becoming like House, he becomes more and more like House, which can also be seen in altering the medication for Thirteen. What happened to the study actually?
We mustn't forget about Cuddy, of course, as she now has her daughter named Rachel. On one hand, I'm happy for her, but on the other hand, I can also understand the patients who have been driven nearly insane by the baby's crying. Yes, I understand why this was done here, to trigger symptoms and lead House onto the right track. Nonetheless, I find Cuddy's behavior simply unacceptable, because to call in the middle of an operation with a crying child in her arms and not hang up is outrageous. Yes, children often cry, and that's just part of it, but I find it simply unacceptable behavior, and I really took it against her that she didn't hang up after Rachel cried so intensely!
Since I'm watching on Prime, I can see directly which episode is coming next, and there we have the patient who always tells the truth due to a condition and practically has no filter between thoughts and speech. Also very interesting, because you often wonder what absolute honesty and openness could look like. Here we get a taste, and personally, I think it tastes quite bitter sometimes. Sure, you shouldn't lie or gossip and talk about others, but that's something completely different!
TV Show - Dr. House | House M.D. XI
The end of the sixth season is not only near, it's kicking the door in with a cane. Just now, in the last episode of the season, the construction crane collapsed. And man, have we been through a lot.
Towards the end of the fifth season, things really heated up. First, we got to see "The Social Contract," another very interesting episode, as I mentioned before. Then, with "Locked In" and "Simple Explanation," things got intense, and before we knew it, the tone changed, and House found himself in the midst of a crisis.
Of course, we can't overlook that this crisis had a trigger, a pretty intense one at that. One morning, Kutner didn't show up for work. Many assumptions were made, and when Foreman and Thirteen went to his apartment, they discovered that Kutner had shot himself.
This was already the case before, but from here on, the series unabashedly plays with colors (Color Grading). The mood is often supported by a dark, blue tone or a light, soft, slightly orange tone, making it even more clear to the viewer. This happens right up until the sixth season and occurs again and again, depending on how intense the various moods are dictated by the story.
I also found it intense that Amber was brought back into play here. She had become an important link between House and Wilson, even though it looked different after her death. This also reminds me of a description of Amber that I should have mentioned much earlier, where she is described as being like House and how Wilson actually wants to be with House. It's interesting because that's exactly what happens in the sixth season when House and Wilson move into the new apartment. For a brief moment, they're a couple, and it just fits incredibly well. It's just a shame that the lovely Sasha Alexander has to suffer because of it. It's fascinating how she has changed since the first two seasons of NCIS.
We wouldn't be with House if everything were easy. So, House himself has to go through hell again before he is actually taken to a rehab center on a second attempt. Anything else wouldn't fit, but I also felt a little sorry for him here because realizing that his dream was just a dream, where he didn't end up with Cuddy, was pretty harsh.
The sixth season then starts with House's stay in rehab or in a psychiatric hospital where he meets interesting personalities. This includes Franka Potente, who is mainly known from German productions, which pleased me at the time. She is also one of the few German actors who can dub themselves, which was very well done here. I really like this story arc because it shows the ups and downs of House and his realization that constant rebellion may not be the right path after all.
Of course, many important topics are addressed again in the sixth season, one of which is euthanasia. It has been shown or hinted at several times before, but here it appears several times. One time, it's even not from the patient's perspective but from the doctors', which is incredibly unusual. The most impressive was also the instance where House was locked in with a dying patient and increased his morphine dose in the end.
The other major topic is, of course, Chase's act. He caused the death of a patient who was a dictator. This episode has raised questions over and over again, and rightly so. Is that okay? Is that justified? Just as I write about it, I realize that I don't want to delve into this topic as much because discussions about it are exhausting and not good for me right now. But everyone has to decide for themselves, especially in such a profession, what all of this means for them, ethically and morally.
I've skipped over some episodes and topics now, and that's somewhat intentional. Because while the sixth season does focus on the patients' respective illnesses, it focuses even more on the developments of the protagonists. Foreman and Thirteen and their relationship. Taub and his wife, how does their marriage progress? Wilson and his love life! Cuddy, Lucas, and Rachel? And of course, House and his attempt to be happy, which becomes more than clear in the last or penultimate episode with a session with Dr. Nolan. All of this is extensively dealt with in the sixth season and leads to some back and forth, which I don't mean in a negative way. Because even though there were already developments before, those that occur in the sixth season provide a breath of fresh air and keep the series at a high level of entertainment.
However, to come back to the penultimate episode of the sixth season, I can really understand House. You do and try everything, work on yourself, do your best, listen to others and their expectations of you, but in the end, only others feel better, and you feel worse. It's an absolutely terrible feeling, to put it bluntly, and no, it's not just because he's depressed or the pain is getting worse again. House is an overthinker, and he has already thought about a lot. No, it's a realization of the fact, and this is then reinforced by what happened in the last episode (the leg amputation). I don't condone what he does, but I can understand it.
The last episode is almost finished, and I'm not sure anymore how season seven starts; I'll indulge in that in a moment. I still remember quite a bit, but as often happens, it's a bit jumbled, so it's even more exciting.
Bonus: There's one more thing I'd like to write about because it was an episode that personally moved me. "Locked In" was again an episode where I felt very understood. Because even though the Locked-in Syndrome actually exists, there's another variant that is rarely talked about, sleep paralysis. A completely normal process where the body, once it falls asleep, becomes paralyzed so that we don't use the body too much while sleeping and dreaming. But it can also happen that you wake up, can breathe normally, move your eyes, but otherwise, you're practically paralyzed. Absolutely not a nice feeling, but again, kudos to the series for bringing attention to the fact that this exists and is something serious.
Oh yes, of course, I also noticed that Meat Loaf appeared in the fifth season. A great artist who heavily influenced my music taste in the 90s. Unfortunately, he has also left us, but I hope he rocks hard somewhere else.