Catholic Ragemonkey

The "House" Finale

Prologue and First Segment
First, House is a total monster. I love it. Only the most curmudegonly human being could torture a patient while taking the history. Of course, the commercial advertising the special surprise sweeps moment of the episode totally defanged the episode. I guess I will have to be satisfied with the excellent acting of Hugh Laurie.

It's interesting how House can both be so in control and so completely full of denial and self-loathing. What's also a really interesting side of this story is how different it is when the doctor is forced to be the patient. Adding that there is someone who hates him enough to try to kill him (more to the point, maim House) and that he has to share ICU with the gunman adds to the suspense? So why did the gunman shoot House? Okay, now we know; the gunman's wife committed suicide after discovering the gunman had an affair.

The main disease story line is interesting. A guy comes in with a severly swollen tongue and they don't know why. Of course, there has been the requisite poking and prodding. Now, we find out he has a very attractive wife and the hubby is not particularly attractive. Surprise twist: the patient is bleeding into his eye... Ooooh, the eye just popped out. And House has collapsed...

Second Segment
What an amazing scene! House and the gunman had an argument about whose fault it was that the gunman's wife committed suicide. Hey, that gunman made a point I am constantly making: you have to choose a moral worldview, even if that world view absolute solipism, you still have to choose something to operate out of.

And of course, House has been miraculously healed of his limp, but no one is sure why the limp is gone. Part of the problem includes how this might have happened, that Cuddy may have experimented on him using a brain re-boot technique involving coma.

The patient's condition still continues to baffle. It is isn't cancer. It's causing a high fever and increasing intercranial pressure which sounds like an infection, but antibotics didn't help. Uh Oh, I think the patient's testicle just exploded. (That's a sentence you didn't think you would ever read on this blog...)

Third Segment
Uh oh, House is losing his edge. He's afraid -- and that is new for him. But here comes the betrayal. His best friend, Wilson, helped do the surgery. Except that it turns out to be a hallucination. Crud, this is getting good. And now he is losing his short term memory (but don't worry: it can't be that serious because the show's name after him.) And he is really scared -- and still hallucinating. Eeek, creepy, the gunman is just sitting there staring at him.

The patient's case gets weirder and weirder by the moment. No solution as of yet.

Please don't make this a two part episode that will have to wait all summer...I can't take it!

Fourth Segment
Okay, so now the hallucinations have gotten really interested. House is working it out in his mind, using the gunman as a symbol of rational function. But I suspect that the gunman is actually the wounded part of him, the part that is hard and cruel, the part that comes from the leg injury which had jaded.

The patient's case is reaching a critical moment. The patient is going to have a robot inserted into him so they can get a real sample of what is happening. It demonstrates the logic of one small sample doesn't always give the real picture. But the patient is still

"The only truth that matters is the truth that can be measured,..." so claims the gunman of House. Probably true. The metaphysical criterion of what does it reveal and what does it mean plays heavily in the scene. Even when he is saving a life, House dismisses that life as one more interesting case. And House is finding out that he is miserable "for nothing." And the beginning of the change is here: House apologized for his shortcoming.

Ah, the patient case is .... not real. The patient case is a hallucination or is it? Oh, crap... come on. Come on. Oh how cool. The patient was grasping the bullet which means the patient case was a delusion and the whole episode was a delusion. He hasn't been treated; he was being wheeled into surgery. Interestingly, he asked for the special treatment, that in the delusion cured him of his pain. Oh, and the interesting statement on House's part: "I want meaning." Like so many people, the surface fails to satisfy -- you must go out into the deep water.

Great Episode! I can't wait for the next season. Oh, rocking! All summer they are going to replay the entire season...oooh, I get to play catchup! Woot!