House: Simple Explanation

Okay, so right before I sat down to watch this latest episode of House, I read that Kal Penn was going to work at the White House…which I must say I thought was a prank when I first read it…and that accordingly, his character was being written out of the show. So I knew that this was going to be the last episode for Kutner, but I was baffled at how the writers chose to get him out of there. There is no way to write this review without spoilers, so reader be warned, there be spoilers a plenty from here on out.

The episode opens with a woman standing next to her husband on his deathbed. Said woman is played by Colleen Camp, who I only know from the small part she had as a cop in Die Hard With a Vengeance, the best of the Die Hard sequels, and let me just say that she looks terrible here. I hope the creative team intentionally put bad makeup on her and made her look like hell because otherwise…damn. Anyway, she’s standing by her husband who looks like he’s about to die, but then suddenly a look of horror crosses her face, we see her throat close up and she starts to die. House has used this trick-where you think one person is dying and going to become the patient only to find it’s someone else-at least a dozen times by now, but as a frustrated, wannabe screenwriter, I can’t really hold it against them.

At the hospital, House thinks the woman, Charlotte, is suffering from acute respiratory failure because she is overweight. Charlotte claims she went to Hawaii recently, so maybe she caught something exotic there. But House isn’t really interested in the case because he’s more interested in where the hell Kutner is. Kutner didn’t show up for work. Taub tries to cover for him, but House doesn’t buy it.

Foreman and Thirteen are dispatched to check on Kutner. They go to his apartment and break in because no one has heard from him. The call out to him but hear no answer. They don’t see anything at first, but then Thirteen sees a lot. She sees Kutner, lying in a pool of blood (though we don’t actually see his face, which leads me to believe that Kal Penn had already left the show and they just used somebody as a body double). They try to call an ambulance but he’s dead. He shot himself in the head (hey that rhymed!). I saw this and said, “What?!”

Why the hell would Kutner kill himself? That’s what House and everyone else tries to figure out. Cuddy offers everyone the chance to talk to a grief counselor and take some time off, but everyone declines. Everyone except eventually Foreman, that cry baby. We never saw any real scenes of Kutner and Foreman interacting, they weren’t friends, and yet he’s just so distraught over his death that he has to take time off? Hell he probably just wanted to go home and grab some paid R&R. I wouldn’t put it past that guy.

Of course the episode keeps cutting back and forth between the Charlotte case and the fallout of Kutner’s death, but the real draw for viewers is of course the Kutner B storyline, which really takes center stage. The case is only really in there to hold the show’s formula in place. It turns out (rather obviously) that Charlotte was initially faking her deathly symptoms so she could spend more time with her estranged, dying husband in the hospital and maybe get closer to him. Neither one of them seems to have truly loved each other, but when the opportunities present themselves, both try to secretly end their lives so that the other one can benefit from their organs. I guess there is a thematic connection between that and Kutner’s death, as everyone questions the notion of what it means to commit suicide and if there can ever be a “good” or at least logical reason for it.

House is completely thrown by Kutner’s suicide because it’s not only a puzzle he can’t solve but one he never saw coming. House’s ability to see things and solve complex human puzzles is the sole thing that gives his life meaning. If he didn’t solve Kutner’s puzzle, does that mean he’s losing his gift, and therefore the only thing of any value he has? It’s a powerful, thought-provoking examination, and Hugh Laurie really shines. It’s also telling that House is so desperate to find an answer that he starts pursuing irrational avenues, something he would chastise anyone else about. He starts trying to prove that Kutner didn’t kill himself but was murdered, ostensibly by the felon who killed Kutner’s parents. The guy was going to be up for another parole hearing soon, and Kutner had testified against him at every appearance over the years. Maybe the guy had Kutner killed so he couldn’t testify against him. Sounds plausible enough actually, but it doesn’t pan out.

Of course it’s a compelling episode. Kutner’s death serves as a great catalyst for everyone on the team to look at their lives. But I really feel it was pretty cheap. It’s not like the writers were planning this out from the character’s inception; they only did it because Kal Penn wanted to leave the show. Obviously his death was unpredictable, but it was so unpredictable that I found it rather unbelievable. Now maybe the writers and the creative team behind House were trying to make the point that sometimes people are incomprehensible, that sometimes there aren’t warning signs, that some puzzles can’t be solved.

In theory that works, but I feel like they took an easy way out. There has to have been a more original, more challenging way to have written Kutner out of the show. I don’t know what it would have been because, like I say, I’m only a wannabe screenwriter. Maybe it’s not fair for me to criticize the writers for their choice when I probably couldn’t have thought of a better one. But you know what? House never worries about being fair, so I guess I won’t either.

At any rate, the one upshot is that if they’re killing off characters and it’s not even the season finale, maybe the writers have something really extraordinary planned for the season finale. We’ll see.

Season 5, Episode 20: Simple Explanation (originally aired April 6, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out The One Where Something Important Happens by Robin Reed.

For more on House, click here.

House, Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of FOX Broadcasting Company and IMDbPro