House: Que Sera Sera

(S03E06) Hello, my name is Jen, and I will be covering House for Tom Biro this evening. To our right, please notice that Michael Tritter, policeman extraordinaire is still with us, and searching House's house for narcotics. Tritter has been called the anti-House, but let's examine the evidence. He is vengeful, like House. He breaks into people's apartments and searches for evidence, just like House. He is addicted to Nicorette gum, just like House. I think House even points out correctly that Tritter is taking out his anti-smoking frustrations on House-- why not? House takes out his pain on everybody else too. Especially when he can't have his drug of choice.

I spoke with a doctor I was working with today about House, because she is a big fan of it too. In the interest of full disclosure, House is my favorite show on television (unless Battlestar Galactica is on. If they were both on at the same time, my head would explode). So, when I was working with this doctor today, I asked her what she thought of the show. She said a lot of doctors love it because Gregory House says everything that they can't. So, it would seem that Tritter has a bone to pick with House -- if he had received more respect from House, would he really be going out of his way to punish House for his Vicodin habit? The doctor with whom I spoke today also said that House needs methadone. It will be interesting to see whether that turns out to be the treatment.

It is interesting, isn't it, that not only is Tritter like House but the patients also seem to embody certain elements of House. I can't speak to last week's episode because we accidentally taped the wrong channel, but Cameron's reaction to seeing the patient's apartment was pretty visceral. It was unmistakably like House's. Though how the patient was physically mobile to cook gourmet meals let alone play his musical instruments is a mystery to me.

That brings me to the left side of our plane tonight: The Case. What will be will be -- que sera sera. Is it more than just a Doris Day song? For someone who didn't want to die and who was willing to let the chips fall where they may, our fellow looked pretty unhappy to find out he was dying of lung cancer. Do you think it was unreasonable for the medical team to assume that perhaps the fact that the patient weighed 600 pounds was somehow related to his coma? Does the fact that it was NOT related to his weight mean that they were misguided in checking the obvious clues first? On the other hand, as they pointed out in the very first episode of the show, "Just because you hear hoofbeats doesn't mean you have a zebra."

This case wasn't as medically compelling as some of the cases have been-- breaking the MRI machine was funny, but clearly the things we were supposed to pay attention to were more than the medical components of the case. Cameron lied to guarantee the patient the same quality of care that any other patient would receive. Wilson lied to Tritter about prescribing all of the medications for House. Come to think of it, remember when Cameron forged House's name on a letter to patients and he said the signature looked like that of a junior high girl? Did anybody else think that the alternate James Wilson signature looked a little feminine?

Why, when Wilson clearly agrees that House has a drug problem and that House's pain is primarily psychological-- so why does he continue to prescribe House's meds? Is he prescribing placebos? Cuddy's morphine placebo clearly worked-- so why wouldn't Wilson try the same thing? He has conspired with Cuddy against House before. But that raises the question of: "What is House getting when somebody else prescribes for him?" And is it Cameron? Or is it House? Would House really jeopardize his and Wilson's careers for his addiction? And why is Wilson so willing to be House's fall guy? What is he hiding?

We never find out why Cameron was so attached to the obese patient. She says it's complicated. She likes damaged people -- so is she invested in keeping House damaged? As long as House is damaged, he needs Wilson. Wilson likes to be needed. They are both invested. But even more interestingly, even though we find out the answers to one puzzle -- what was causing the patient's major symptoms-- we did not find out his critical secret. Why was he so obese? He obviously enjoyed eating, and he obviously had no intention of changing his behaviors. He didn't believe it was killing him-- and indeed it wasn't. But that didn't end up changing the fact that what he had was fatal anyway.

Is this a clue to House? House also doesn't think he has a problem -- or, more to the point, he can't see any reason to solve his problem because his life is working for him. He is addicted to his misery and his own addiction. He thinks his pain causes him to be able to think more clearly so he can solve cases -- this was clear in his hallucinations after he was shot. When he couldn't feel physical pain, he was mortified that who he was had fundamentally changed. House needs to be the best at solving puzzles, no matter what the cost. But is the clue that we are supposed to be looking at the fact that it was lung cancer that killed the patient -- when he had never even smoked? Is the Vicodin actually just a red herring? Is there something else more sinister going on with House-- and more fatal? I don't think that Tritter is what is interesting about this new dimension of what is going on with House -- no offense to the actor who portrays him. But he is just a tool, just peeling back the onion skin. He has little to do with what we will find underneath.

Stay tuned, and hopefully we'll find out. Without fundamentally changing House -- or House.