House: Dying of a Papercut

The other day I was flipping channels at the gym and I came across Uptown Girls – you know, that Brittany Murphy/Dakota Fanning movie from a while back that I never saw because everyone said it was really bad. There was a guy on screen talking, but we could only see his back, and he sounded really familiar, and I was like, “Noooo. That cannot be him. Clearly I am simply racist and think all Australians sound alike.” But then we got a close-up of the guy, who was of course shirtless, and yes, indeed, it was Mr. Jesse Spencer. I don’t know why that surprised me that much; after all, career-wise, it does indeed make sense that Jesse Spencer would have been backing up Brittany Murphy in terrible comedies six years ago. But it got me to thinking – which of them is better off now? I mean, Brittany Murphy has the name recognition, and more than one starring movie role on her resume, whereas Google searches for Jesse Spencer mostly turn up blog comments about that campaign that some Twilight fans launched to have him play Carlisle in the movies (which would’ve been hysterical, and made the movie a lot more entertaining, although I did think Peter Facinelli was pretty much perfect in the role). However, everyone in the world seems to now think Brittany Murphy sucks, whereas Jesse Spencer is still in the opening credits cast of a critically acclaimed top-10 Emmy-winning (for writing, but still) network TV series that only makes him take his shirt off, like, once a season. Plus, he only has to be in one scene a week, which means he gets paid for the full episode but he only has to work, like, half a day out of every 10. Who would you rather be? (Given that Jesse Spencer used to be engaged to Jennifer Morrison and is now dating this woman, my own choice is pretty simple.) (But in any case, the correct answer to “Which of them is better off now?” is actually Dakota Fanning. Which is pretty sad for everyone involved.)

Anyway, this week’s House was awesome.

The episode breaks the show’s standard format. This can be done well or it can be done badly. This time, it was done well. The familiar is comforting, though, which is the real reason procedurals like House rack up the ratings every week (yes, Hugh Laurie is amazing; no, I don’t think most viewers care about that), so I always appreciate it when the producers have the guts to go there.

The episode title, “Locked In,” refers not to those church youth group lock-ins I used to go to in middle school where they show you videos about hell and then take you bowling, but to something called Locked In Syndrome, which is just one of many horrifying concepts that this show has introduced to me. The patient, who was in a severe bicycle accident, can’t move or communicate. He appears brain-dead, to the point that a non-House doctor is about to harvest his organs. But his mind is mostly fine, so he hears and sees everything that’s going on. Stuff like his wife looking at him all sad, and Cuddy flirting with House, and doctors talking about, like, harvesting his organs and stuff. Much of the episode is told from the patient’s point of view – we see only what he can see, with blurry edges and disorienting camera angles, and we hear his thoughts and feel his frustration when he can’t make himself understood.

As a result, we see our guest star, “American MC and actor” Mos Def, very little, but we hear the words he’s saying/thinking a lot. It’s a great example of that phenomenon where the strength of a character stems primarily from the show’s writers rather than the performer. I’ve been thinking about this lately because of that guy Jack on Kings. The acting isn’t bad, but it isn’t anything special either; however, the writing for the character is superb, and after last week’s episode the guy arrived on my official list of favorite current TV characters. (Which also features Pam Beesly, Pete Campbell, Ben Linus, Tracy Jordan, and no one from House. (Sorry, Chase, you know I love you, but, although you’ve always made the best of what you got, they’ve never given you that much to begin with.))

But anyway, the upshot is that Mos Def’s character is compelling and brings with him a compelling storyline, without him actually having to do very much acting-wise. The character loves his wife and his kids and he wants to get better for them, and it really is pretty much that simple, but the way the episode is set up, it’s really very touching. Much more so than the usual loves-his-family-wants-to-live patients they have on this show. Weirdly, Mos Def also has great esteem for House, and keeps fantasizing about House hanging out with him on a beach. So the character is sad, and frustrated, and apparently he also works for Fox. I would guess that those things often accompany one another.

After the docs hook Mos Def up to a mind-reading computer and go through their usual round of inaccurate diagnoses (and we get to hear Mos Def make fun of everyone, especially Taub and hilariously Foreman, in what turned out to be my favorite Foreman scene in a long, long time), Kutner diagnoses him with having been peed on by a rat. What’s up with Kutner getting things right so often lately? Also, Thirteen caught the same disease, because Mos Def peed on her. Apparently she’s okay though, or else no one cares whether she’s okay because no one ever tells us.

Also mixed in is a boring subplot stemming from Taub’s faux-resignation last week – House forces him to prove that he wants to stay; he does so by stealing the credit from Kutner for the rat pee diagnosis; House interprets the theft as evidence of Taub’s commitment; blah blah blah – and brief visits from a mask-clad Chase, a still-clearly-at-least-a-little-bit-in-love-with-House-and-also-kind-of-sadistic Cameron, and an also-obviously-in-love-with-House-and-devoid-of-substantive-dialogue Cuddy. Plus, Wilson gets himself all into a tizzy about some mysterious House geographical movements that lead up to a big revelation: House went to a psychiatrist, once, and is never going back because he doesn’t think it works. Also, Wilson is hooking up with some woman who works on his brother’s psych ward. This, we’re told, is very embarrassing and dangerous, but personally I’m happy for Wilson that he’s getting some play.

The promos for next week suggest another “event” episode, but my DVR cut them off before I could find out what the event is, which is probably for the best. We should be entering the finale arc by now though, so I anticipate some more advanced House/Cuddy flirting, some development in the Thirteen/Foreman whatever, something establishing a basis for all the recent bizarre Kutner accuracies, and, hopefully, a couple of other patient stories as compelling as this week’s.

Season 5, Episode 19: Locked In (originally aired March 30, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Cameron Cubbison’s review here.

For more on House, click here.

House, Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of FOX Broadcasting Company and IMDbPro