House: Both Sides Now

Oh gee! Do Chase and Cameron resolve their relationship issues for the fifth season finale of House? Do we get to see the wedding for May sweeps? I know that’s the number one concern I had going into the last House of the season, and thankfully, the answer to both questions is a resounding yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank the lucky stars the showrunners found a way to include this completely pointless narrative strand involving two inane, pointless characters that should have been written out of the show years ago.

Okay, that complaint aside (and it is a definite complaint), the season finale of House is pretty decent. But of course, therein lies the rub: for House to be just decent is disappointing, because this was once arguably the most compelling, original show on network television. I don’t know if the writers are running out of steam or just if, after five years, House as a character and the incessant formula of the show is getting stale. Either way, I find myself becoming strangely indifferent to the proceedings.

The patient is a guy with a split brain problem. The left side of his brain and motor functions are all fine and dandy, but the right side has a sporadic will of its own. Or maybe I got it backwards. At any rate, his right hand is a monster that throws things at people and even slaps his girlfriend across the face (damn that was funny though).

But House isn’t initially interested in the patient because he’s too busy gloating and pinching himself over sleeping with Cuddy. He wakes up at home with lipstick on his face and Cuddy’s lipstick tube on his sink. Iron clad proof that it happened. He takes the lipstick tube and starts rolling it around in his hand. In fact, he spends much of the episode doing that.

House comes into the hospital all-gasp!-cheerful and upbeat. His team wonders if he has finally lost it. But almost before he can enjoy the first good mood he’s had in at least a decade, Cuddy herself comes in to his differential room and tells House that they need to go talk in his office. Uh oh. Nothing good ever comes out of postcoital conversation. She tells House that she is his boss and that he is an employee, that people who get close to him just get hurt. House asks her if she is just overreacting after last night, saying “isn’t this a bit like locking the barn door after the horse has put his face between your breasts for an hour and a half?” I couldn’t agree more.

What’s House’s next step? Talk to Wilson of course! And that he does, telling him in one fell swoop that he slept with Cuddy and has been off Vicodin for 24 hours. Wilson says “wow” twice, once for each revelation. “This is fantastic…how are you going to screw it up?” asks Wilson. And that’s the question that viewers have no doubt been thinking ever since House and Cuddy did the deed last week. Wilson tells House to go for it but to be careful, because Cuddy is either in love with House or thinks the other night was a big mistake. Um, gee Wilson…aren’t those the only two options there could possibly be? So how does that pearl help House?

Of course we have to keep cutting back to the A storyline, the guy with the monster hand. We go through the usual of Taub and Thirteen going to the patient’s house and looking for clues, then we have Taub talking with Chase about Cameron’s unhealthy attachment to her dead hubby’s frozen leftovers. But does anyone care? I know I don’t. All I care about is seeing what happens with House and Cuddy in the aftermath of their torrid, surprisingly sober night of passion.

House starts trying to make Cuddy angry, just to provoke some kind of reaction from her so that they can start talking about what happened between them and what it means. For once, Wilson not only approves but encourages House to act like a child and terrorize Cuddy. And House doesn’t disappoint, employing his usual tricks including patient bodily fluids, stealing of coffee cups, and strippers. None of it seems to work though. Cuddy is remarkably unfazed. Wilson then, in his infinite wisdom, deduces that House is using his relationship with Cuddy as a replacement for Vicodin, relying on romantic endorphins or whatever to cover up his pain. But House counters that he found oxytocin in Cuddy’s coffee, which is the chemical involved in emotional bonding apparently. So he has to make her angry to make her break her façade. Either that or she kills him.

As if all that’s not enough, House gets saddled with another patient, this one being an old guy who has been like a bird uncontrollably. He’s played by veteran actor Carl Reiner, most recently seen in the Ocean’s films. It seems like a nothing, comic-relief patient, but since he’s being played by a celebrity, of course you know it will turn out to be something more.

Anyone who watches House knows that, especially in recent seasons, the show likes to play with reality versus fabrication and all the kooks and quirks of House’s brain. The season finale twist involves one of those and sheds new light on the events of last week. Cutthroat Bitch returns from the dead yet again, as does Kutner. Cuddy finally reaches the breaking point and fires House, but there’s clearly more to the story than what we’re seeing. I don’t want to ruin it, but suffice it to say that House definitely has some more detoxing to do, and he may have some serious mental issues.

The season ends not as dramatically as last year’s, but it does provoke thought as to where House can go as a character and what new dilemmas he can face. I will continue to watch the show when it returns, but I really hope the writers find a way to subvert the formula somehow. Get rid of Chase and Cameron and even Foreman, get some new blood, maybe take a break from the procedural aspect of the show and take House to a new venue.

Season 5, Episode 24: ­­­­­Both Sides Now (originally aired May 11, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Be on the Lookout for Evil Symbolic Imaginary Lipstick by Robin Reed.

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Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Michael Yarish