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House: Joy
by Jen Creer, posted Oct 29th 2008 11:15AM
(S05E06) Maybe it's just me, but one of the things I love best about House is that the writers often use the medical mystery as a parallel for the mini dramas occurring between House and his staff. Last week, with "Lucky Thirteen," the patient's fate actually coincided directly with Thirteen's, because the two women were lovers and were, briefly, both dying. This week, the patient(s)' symptom of sleepwalking was synonymous with House and Cuddy both sleepwalking through their desire for each other, and their waking to that desire paralleled the successful treatment of the patients. I really liked the parallel structure of the dual plot points, even though I thought it was a little obvious. One of the things that keeps me hooked on House is that even when they do obvious, they do it pretty well.
"Joy" was a great episode because there is a lot to unpack. And let's face it-one of the joys of House is peeling back the good doctor's layers.
If the show were only about medical mysteries, we probably would have all tuned out along ago. (Okay, that's a lie, but the other materials do add to the show's greatness). Let's look at the patients a bit: Cuddy is younger than House, and the daughter is younger than the father. The fact that the patient pair is father and daughter is troubling to my parallels unless you want to get all Elektra about things, and I don't. So let's just say that the only similarities we are going to focus on here are: the daughter's dark hair; the father's 5 o'clock shadow and drug use; and the duo's seeming indifference to each other until they are successfully treated. Literally and metaphorically they wake up.
The patient, Jerry Harmon, aka Jamal Hammoud, lies about his identity. House does not lie about his name, but he lies to himself and everyone around him about who he is and his own motivations for things. We are catching glimmers of this, as at the end of "Birthmark," a couple of weeks ago, House tells Wilson, "My dad is dead."
Jerry Harmon can't believe he has done cocaine; he insists that he is not the type of person to do things in his sleep that he wouldn't do awake (and how would he know?). House has always claimed that he does drugs because he is in pain, but in this episode, he asks Thirteen, "Is that why you do drugs? Because you're happy? Most people do 'em because they want to be happy."
House has always insisted that everybody lies, so it only follows that he is probably the biggest liar of them all, never owning up to his own misery. Instead, he focuses on distracting himself and everyone around him by making everyone miserable too. This doesn't mean that other characters on the show haven't repeatedly pointed this out to House; it simply means that he has never owned it.
House's poking and prodding of Cuddy has amplified. He has always treated her rudely, but he is really pushing the boundaries of any relationship with his insistence that Cuddy will be a terrible mother, that her planned adoption is a mistake. He tells everyone, including Cuddy, that Cuddy will change her mind, that she doesn't really want the baby. This, of course, is a lie, but for most of the episode, we are supposed to be too distracted by this to focus on the truth he is really protecting her from: The reality is that many birth mothers change their minds about giving up their babies. If he keeps the ground shifting beneath Cuddy's feet, perhaps he is trying to keep her from being too happy about the adoption because he doesn't think it will happen for the reason that, in fact, it doesn't happen.
House lies again at the end of the episode when Cuddy asks him why he has to negate everything. He says, "I don't know," but then the kiss between them says it all. Okay, truth here: I adore House, and I think he's hot, but that kiss kind of skeeved me out. But anyway. He might be the consummate liar, but people's bodies do not lie. Now that he and Cuddy have woken to their desire for each other, will either of them be honest enough to continue it? After five seasons, having them kiss is a risk, but with Gregory House, it's a pretty safe bet that things won't get boring.
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