i have a problem with the pain problem
May. 6th, 2009 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swatkatOf all the ways for House and Cuddy to have sex on the show, it had to be post-detox hurt/comfort. David Shore, are you screwing with me? *g*
I did enjoy this episode, very much, and the fact that I have wanted House and Cuddy to have sex on the show since, oh, 1.1 should not be a surprise to any of you by now. But that said, the hotness of the kiss notwithstanding, there were elements in the episode that left much to be desired. And so, um, I seem to be extremely verbose today after three long sleepless nights, and my poor brain is frazzled, what with education and hot kissing, and if none of this makes any sense, do forgive me.
i have a pain problem:
I have a problem with the pain problem. While it's one of the things that make House who he is and make the show what it is, and while the show usually succeeds in dealing with the issue of House's pain in a more or less sensitive manner, it often feels like David Shore's personal hurt/comfort fantasy to me. And I… don't do hurt/comfort. That leaves me in the minority, I know, and since the show loves, I have to go along with it (and to be honest I sometimes even enjoy it). But this is my first problem.
The show has two great weaknesses: continuity and pacing; two great strengths: characterization and Hugh Laurie. The strengths and weaknesses are evident everywhere, but never more so than in these 'pain problem' episodes. Fandom loves Detox; I think it happened too early in the season, and was a bit too rushed. Fandom has a love-hate relationship with the Tritter arc for a variety of reasons, but the real problem for me was the pacing, which was all over the place. There was 'The Softer Side'—another pain problem episode with a very rushed plotline. And now there is this episode, with an extraordinarily rushed plotline and an equally rushed detox (complete with sex afterwards—how is that even physically possible?). I'm not actually saying that I wanted to see more of the detoxification process itself—did I mention I'm not a fan of hurt/comfort? But I would have preferred an indication of time, or even some medical explanation why the detox happened so fast.
The pain problem episodes also invariably come back to House, Wilson and Cuddy. Fandom loves Detox, usually without reservation; while I think it is excellent characterization on the part of the authors to have Wilson come up with the sneaky plan and push Cuddy forward for the bet, I also think the sudden 'I challenge you to go without a week without Vicodin' coming from Cuddy in Season One needed some explanation because at that time, given their relationship? It came out of nowhere. The Tritter arc had similar problems, with the writers focusing on House's pain and the detox and skipping on important things like coherent motivations for Wilson and Cuddy, who then came across as dark!Wilson and dark!Cuddy, torturing poor w00bie House (albeit for his Own Good). And okay, I'm speaking in hyperboles here, but you get my point. And again we have 'Under My Skin', with House, Wilson and Cuddy, and House turning to Wilson and Cuddy in his hour of need. Which is, in theory, perfect. Except that Cuddy was nowhere to be seen in the first half of the episode and Wilson was nowhere to be seen in the second half of the episode, and again we have to fanwank and explain things like 'why did House go to Cuddy for the detox?' and 'what happened with the rehab thing?' when it's the writers' job to tell us that. And no, I don't think it should not have been Cuddy (we'll come to that later), but that we needed some more explanation, hell, maybe even Wilson and Cuddy working in tandem from the beginning, or Cuddy appearing on scene after the insulin shock. It was clunky writing, to say the least, and the two halves seemed to have little connection with each other except for House himself. After five seasons, you'd think the writers would have learnt something about pacing, but apparently, who needs coherent plot when you have Hugh Laurie?
i'm not here protecting hospital property:
Now that we have put my issues with the giant gaping plot holes aside, let us come to the Watsonian: House, Wilson and Cuddy. Frankly, I am a little disappointed at House&Wilson fandom's (not necessarily the slashers) insistence that it is very wrong for House to turn to Cuddy in the middle of the episode not because it's a giant freaking plot hole (through which Wilson disappears, presumably), but because how can Cuddy possibly provide House with emotional support when it is always Wilson who has performed that task? There are two implications to this: that Cuddy does not have enough hold on House to provide him with emotional support; and/or Cuddy can't provide House with emotional support because only Wilson is allowed to be his friend. I… don't think there can be any possible response to the second one, but the first assumption is very strange, given the character developments that have happened over the past few seasons, which have brought House and Cuddy closer not just in the physical but emotional sense of the term. Given the fact that she held his hand and sat by his bedside at the end of last season when Wilson could not be there, so that he woke up and did not feel completely alone. Or did I just hallucinate that scene, and every other little instance of emotional intimacy in the past five seasons?
Ahem.
But my issues with fandom and the plot holes aside, I actually think it was an inspired move on the writers' part to have Wilson help him with one part of the episode's ordeals and have Cuddy help him with the next, with that odd little scene where House learns about the patient's puzzle and brings up the question of 'cheating'. Arguably, it could have even worked if it was vice-versa, but the writers do know their characters, and it made sense.
Ever since House tried to 'kill' Chase in the previous episode, I have been wondering if this House spiralling into madness arc is a callback to the Tritter arc, which, as we remember, ended rather abruptly, with no significant change. This episode, with its talk of rehab and detoxing and Vicodin overdose definitely took me back to the Tritter arc. Then there was House's lovely little line about Cuddy's 'bastard child' (and Cuddy's subsequent 'screw you,' thank god), reminding me of 'Finding Judas'. And with this episode's 'problem', if we can call it that—possible-Vicodin-overdose/rehab/cheating/detox-at-home, I'm now quite certain that they're trying to push the very limits they were afraid to cross in the Tritter arc, because this episode's problem was most certainly an echo of 'Words and Deeds'. That is, the episode where House checks into rehab, pretends to be detoxing, and cheats by paying the guard to give him Vicodin—in the end, nothing changes.
Okay, so I confess: I have watched that episode more times than is healthy, just to watch Cuddy slam the files on her desk, making House cower. And to hear the judge say that House has better friends than he deserves. But that, I think, is the real reason House brought up the question and backed out of the rehab, even pushing the fact that he hadn't solved the puzzle away to insist on the detox instead. Because House has tried the rehab route once—and cheated his way out of it. And that is why it had to be Cuddy and not Wilson who watched over him during the detox, because Cuddy has at least nominal authority over him, and (very marginally) better track-record than Wilson in terms of enabling House. Because House has already made Wilson go through the 'House nearly killed himself and I had to watch' trick once in this episode. And because House has been trying to expose a vulnerable, human side to Cuddy through out this season, and Cuddy hasn't really been inclined to believe him.
I cheered when Darth Amber said,
'If you take the pill, you don't deserve her. If you secretly take the pill, you don't deserve anyone.'
Which, of course, is an echo of what said when Judge Helen Davies started to talk about Cuddy as his 'employer', stopped midway, and said instead: 'You have better friends than you deserve.'
In 'Words and Deeds', House promptly went on to prove that he really did not deserve his friends, because his rehab was faked. But things have changed since the Tritter arc (dying, as House said, has changed everything), and almost everything House has done to reach out in this season has ended in frustration. Which, again, is why it was imperative that he showed honest emotion for once ('Wilson, come get me'; 'I need you') and that he went through that detox not because it was stupid bet or a faked thing but because he had to deal with his own frakking problem instead of locking himself up in his room and pretending he will rather stay in his rut all his life.
And I also cheered when Cuddy said, 'Is that why you think I'm here?', almost offended. And, of course, 'I'm not here protecting hospital property,' saying what she should have said when he asked in 'The Softer Side' (another pain problem episode), 'Why do you care if I'm happy?' Because she's his friend, that's why.
i kinda hit that last night:
Of course, the fact that she audited that endocrinology class as an undergrad also implied that she had a crush on him—or at least that she was interested enough in the 'legend' that was Greg House to check him out for herself. (Since it was an endocrinology class I also assume that that was the time Cuddy made up her mind about what she would be studying next. Backstory! \0/) And before saying, she fidgeted with her earring!
And then they done sex. Which was hot (even if it was somewhat implausible given House's detox and completely unnecessary for the plot of this episode; presumably the fallout will be in the next episode).
However, let me predict how this will play out next: House will be juvenile, Cuddy will pretend to be a rational adult, Wilson will not meddle at all (what do you mean he likes to meddle?), and meanwhile there's the entire question of House losing his mind and House hurting people he cares about (Chase, foreshadowing) and House not being able to handle intimacy. I do not like the prospect of House being particularly nasty to Cuddy, but she has walked into it, and now she has to handle the mess. The crash and burn, it will be epic. And I will die happy. Because as I've said time and again, I love House/Cuddy, but I don't like to call myself a shipper. Because 'shipper' implies I'm interested in the romantic relationship alone, and I'm not. They are a lot of things to each other, and I love all of it.
Etc:
* Chase and Cameron! What is up with you two?
* Foreman was reassuring House on the phone. Aww.
* Anne Dudek is fantastic. Fantastic. She gave the creeps.
* The House shaking on his couch scene was some of the finest acting I've seen from HL, seconded only by his look of fear when Amber began to sing. It helped that he had AD hitting it out of the ballpark with him, and able support from LE and RSL.
* TAUB! I ♥ you.
* Can Vicodin really cause hallucinations? Where are they going with this? I honestly have no idea.
* It is also interesting to put aside the bad writing and think how House's separate approach to Wilson and Cuddy did not allow them to gang up on him, as they tend to do. It's possible that Cuddy, after being rebuked by Wilson in 5.20, is right now hesitant to talk to him about House at all. Hmm.
I did enjoy this episode, very much, and the fact that I have wanted House and Cuddy to have sex on the show since, oh, 1.1 should not be a surprise to any of you by now. But that said, the hotness of the kiss notwithstanding, there were elements in the episode that left much to be desired. And so, um, I seem to be extremely verbose today after three long sleepless nights, and my poor brain is frazzled, what with education and hot kissing, and if none of this makes any sense, do forgive me.
i have a pain problem:
I have a problem with the pain problem. While it's one of the things that make House who he is and make the show what it is, and while the show usually succeeds in dealing with the issue of House's pain in a more or less sensitive manner, it often feels like David Shore's personal hurt/comfort fantasy to me. And I… don't do hurt/comfort. That leaves me in the minority, I know, and since the show loves, I have to go along with it (and to be honest I sometimes even enjoy it). But this is my first problem.
The show has two great weaknesses: continuity and pacing; two great strengths: characterization and Hugh Laurie. The strengths and weaknesses are evident everywhere, but never more so than in these 'pain problem' episodes. Fandom loves Detox; I think it happened too early in the season, and was a bit too rushed. Fandom has a love-hate relationship with the Tritter arc for a variety of reasons, but the real problem for me was the pacing, which was all over the place. There was 'The Softer Side'—another pain problem episode with a very rushed plotline. And now there is this episode, with an extraordinarily rushed plotline and an equally rushed detox (complete with sex afterwards—how is that even physically possible?). I'm not actually saying that I wanted to see more of the detoxification process itself—did I mention I'm not a fan of hurt/comfort? But I would have preferred an indication of time, or even some medical explanation why the detox happened so fast.
The pain problem episodes also invariably come back to House, Wilson and Cuddy. Fandom loves Detox, usually without reservation; while I think it is excellent characterization on the part of the authors to have Wilson come up with the sneaky plan and push Cuddy forward for the bet, I also think the sudden 'I challenge you to go without a week without Vicodin' coming from Cuddy in Season One needed some explanation because at that time, given their relationship? It came out of nowhere. The Tritter arc had similar problems, with the writers focusing on House's pain and the detox and skipping on important things like coherent motivations for Wilson and Cuddy, who then came across as dark!Wilson and dark!Cuddy, torturing poor w00bie House (albeit for his Own Good). And okay, I'm speaking in hyperboles here, but you get my point. And again we have 'Under My Skin', with House, Wilson and Cuddy, and House turning to Wilson and Cuddy in his hour of need. Which is, in theory, perfect. Except that Cuddy was nowhere to be seen in the first half of the episode and Wilson was nowhere to be seen in the second half of the episode, and again we have to fanwank and explain things like 'why did House go to Cuddy for the detox?' and 'what happened with the rehab thing?' when it's the writers' job to tell us that. And no, I don't think it should not have been Cuddy (we'll come to that later), but that we needed some more explanation, hell, maybe even Wilson and Cuddy working in tandem from the beginning, or Cuddy appearing on scene after the insulin shock. It was clunky writing, to say the least, and the two halves seemed to have little connection with each other except for House himself. After five seasons, you'd think the writers would have learnt something about pacing, but apparently, who needs coherent plot when you have Hugh Laurie?
i'm not here protecting hospital property:
Now that we have put my issues with the giant gaping plot holes aside, let us come to the Watsonian: House, Wilson and Cuddy. Frankly, I am a little disappointed at House&Wilson fandom's (not necessarily the slashers) insistence that it is very wrong for House to turn to Cuddy in the middle of the episode not because it's a giant freaking plot hole (through which Wilson disappears, presumably), but because how can Cuddy possibly provide House with emotional support when it is always Wilson who has performed that task? There are two implications to this: that Cuddy does not have enough hold on House to provide him with emotional support; and/or Cuddy can't provide House with emotional support because only Wilson is allowed to be his friend. I… don't think there can be any possible response to the second one, but the first assumption is very strange, given the character developments that have happened over the past few seasons, which have brought House and Cuddy closer not just in the physical but emotional sense of the term. Given the fact that she held his hand and sat by his bedside at the end of last season when Wilson could not be there, so that he woke up and did not feel completely alone. Or did I just hallucinate that scene, and every other little instance of emotional intimacy in the past five seasons?
Ahem.
But my issues with fandom and the plot holes aside, I actually think it was an inspired move on the writers' part to have Wilson help him with one part of the episode's ordeals and have Cuddy help him with the next, with that odd little scene where House learns about the patient's puzzle and brings up the question of 'cheating'. Arguably, it could have even worked if it was vice-versa, but the writers do know their characters, and it made sense.
Ever since House tried to 'kill' Chase in the previous episode, I have been wondering if this House spiralling into madness arc is a callback to the Tritter arc, which, as we remember, ended rather abruptly, with no significant change. This episode, with its talk of rehab and detoxing and Vicodin overdose definitely took me back to the Tritter arc. Then there was House's lovely little line about Cuddy's 'bastard child' (and Cuddy's subsequent 'screw you,' thank god), reminding me of 'Finding Judas'. And with this episode's 'problem', if we can call it that—possible-Vicodin-overdose/rehab/cheating/detox-at-home, I'm now quite certain that they're trying to push the very limits they were afraid to cross in the Tritter arc, because this episode's problem was most certainly an echo of 'Words and Deeds'. That is, the episode where House checks into rehab, pretends to be detoxing, and cheats by paying the guard to give him Vicodin—in the end, nothing changes.
Okay, so I confess: I have watched that episode more times than is healthy, just to watch Cuddy slam the files on her desk, making House cower. And to hear the judge say that House has better friends than he deserves. But that, I think, is the real reason House brought up the question and backed out of the rehab, even pushing the fact that he hadn't solved the puzzle away to insist on the detox instead. Because House has tried the rehab route once—and cheated his way out of it. And that is why it had to be Cuddy and not Wilson who watched over him during the detox, because Cuddy has at least nominal authority over him, and (very marginally) better track-record than Wilson in terms of enabling House. Because House has already made Wilson go through the 'House nearly killed himself and I had to watch' trick once in this episode. And because House has been trying to expose a vulnerable, human side to Cuddy through out this season, and Cuddy hasn't really been inclined to believe him.
I cheered when Darth Amber said,
'If you take the pill, you don't deserve her. If you secretly take the pill, you don't deserve anyone.'
Which, of course, is an echo of what said when Judge Helen Davies started to talk about Cuddy as his 'employer', stopped midway, and said instead: 'You have better friends than you deserve.'
In 'Words and Deeds', House promptly went on to prove that he really did not deserve his friends, because his rehab was faked. But things have changed since the Tritter arc (dying, as House said, has changed everything), and almost everything House has done to reach out in this season has ended in frustration. Which, again, is why it was imperative that he showed honest emotion for once ('Wilson, come get me'; 'I need you') and that he went through that detox not because it was stupid bet or a faked thing but because he had to deal with his own frakking problem instead of locking himself up in his room and pretending he will rather stay in his rut all his life.
And I also cheered when Cuddy said, 'Is that why you think I'm here?', almost offended. And, of course, 'I'm not here protecting hospital property,' saying what she should have said when he asked in 'The Softer Side' (another pain problem episode), 'Why do you care if I'm happy?' Because she's his friend, that's why.
i kinda hit that last night:
Of course, the fact that she audited that endocrinology class as an undergrad also implied that she had a crush on him—or at least that she was interested enough in the 'legend' that was Greg House to check him out for herself. (Since it was an endocrinology class I also assume that that was the time Cuddy made up her mind about what she would be studying next. Backstory! \0/) And before saying, she fidgeted with her earring!
And then they done sex. Which was hot (even if it was somewhat implausible given House's detox and completely unnecessary for the plot of this episode; presumably the fallout will be in the next episode).
However, let me predict how this will play out next: House will be juvenile, Cuddy will pretend to be a rational adult, Wilson will not meddle at all (what do you mean he likes to meddle?), and meanwhile there's the entire question of House losing his mind and House hurting people he cares about (Chase, foreshadowing) and House not being able to handle intimacy. I do not like the prospect of House being particularly nasty to Cuddy, but she has walked into it, and now she has to handle the mess. The crash and burn, it will be epic. And I will die happy. Because as I've said time and again, I love House/Cuddy, but I don't like to call myself a shipper. Because 'shipper' implies I'm interested in the romantic relationship alone, and I'm not. They are a lot of things to each other, and I love all of it.
Etc:
* Chase and Cameron! What is up with you two?
* Foreman was reassuring House on the phone. Aww.
* Anne Dudek is fantastic. Fantastic. She gave the creeps.
* The House shaking on his couch scene was some of the finest acting I've seen from HL, seconded only by his look of fear when Amber began to sing. It helped that he had AD hitting it out of the ballpark with him, and able support from LE and RSL.
* TAUB! I ♥ you.
* Can Vicodin really cause hallucinations? Where are they going with this? I honestly have no idea.
* It is also interesting to put aside the bad writing and think how House's separate approach to Wilson and Cuddy did not allow them to gang up on him, as they tend to do. It's possible that Cuddy, after being rebuked by Wilson in 5.20, is right now hesitant to talk to him about House at all. Hmm.
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Date: 2009-05-06 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-07 01:27 am (UTC)