House of Pain

There are reasons why the show is called House. It is built around a central character and is intended as a star vehicle for Hugh Laurie, who is consistently excellent. Lisa Edelstein and Robert Sean Leonard as Cuddy and Wilson perform important functions for the show, acting as checks and points of balance for House. They are appealing actors too (although I wish the show would give Robert Sean Leonard more to do besides whine and play House’s conscience). But the rest of the cast is entirely disposable in my book. Therein lies the problem with this episode: House is essentially a side character here. When he is onscreen, the show is worth watching. When he isn’t, the show isn’t either. So, much of this episode is virtually unwatchable, as it devotes an inordinate amount of time to Foreman and Thirteen, the former being a character I truly despise.

Our medical mystery opening is quite out there. We see a group of video game designers working in the virtual reality world of their upcoming game. So we get to see big CG aliens and critters and it’s like we’re in a sci-fi movie, not House. Hey, that’s a cool, visual opening. I’ll give them that. But of course, something has to go wrong, and it does. The fellas quit playing and step back into the real world only to find their boss Vince sitting on the couch staring at his hands and exclaiming that they’re on fire. They aren’t. Sounds like a job for House!

Except…House makes a surprising decision in the beginning of the episode: he quits his job. And I don’t mean he says he’s quitting to play some power game with Cuddy or make a point. He’s dead serious. He says he is moving to research because he can’t risk coming back to his old job and his old life, which drove him to the looney bin. Cuddy is taken aback but doesn’t try to stop him. Foreman though, being the colossal ass that he is, tells Cuddy that he wants House’s job almost before House leaves the room. Cuddy wants to dismantle House’s department, saying that she only created it for House. But Foreman weasels his way into getting himself a trial run.

Thus, Foreman needs to solve this case with Vince the video game guy. It’s make it or break it. So he puts Taub and his girlfriend Thirteen to work. And here comes the “problem”: he starts treating her like an employee instead of his girlfriend, telling her what to do instead of asking. This upsets her. Boo hoo! Somebody call the whambulance! Because that’s what we get for the majority of the episode, Foreman whining about how he wants this job and doesn’t want to fail, Thirteen whining about how Foreman isn’t treating her right. They whine alone, they whine to each other, they whine to other poor saps. All while coming up with diagnosis after diagnosis for Vince, who turns out to be a pain in the ass in his own right. He has no faith in the medical team, so he posts all of his symptoms online and offers up a $25,000 reward for whoever comes in and figure out what’s wrong with him. This of course causes all kinds of quacks to flood the hospital, and the team has to take care of them and convince Vince (hey that rhymes!) to let them do their jobs.

House, meanwhile, is struggling to keep it together. He’s still going to therapy with Dr. Nolan (Andre Braugher reprises his role and offers a welcome respite from all of the whiny crap), and he’s living with Wilson. Nolan tells House that he needs to get a hobby. House immediately conjures up images of making models or collecting stamps and tries to drown them with sarcasm. “I said you need a hobby, not a lame hobby” Nolan replies.

But House doesn’t have any hobbies; medicine is his whole life. So he tries to steal Wilson’s hobby: cooking. At this point he’ll do anything to take his mind off how much he wants more Vicodin for his leg, and cooking meatballs in the kitchen with Wilson at least offers up the opportunity for House to make infantile homoerotic comments about Wilson, which he happily takes advantage of. He starts attacking cooking with the same scientific, tactical approach that he takes toward curing people. He ends up being quite good at it, even obsessive. As he explains later on, House is obsessive about being obsessive. He can’t do anything normally; he has to obsess over it to a spectacular degree.

These scenes are enjoyable and well-acted; they just occur too infrequently. I understand that the writers are trying to focus on changing things up for House, that they can’t just have him hop back into his normal routine as if nothing ever happened. He has to get back gradually. So I understand it, I understand why House isn’t taking center stage in the hospital right now. But I still don’t like it. I can’t stand Foreman or Thirteen! Especially Foreman. He’s not remotely likable or interesting. I don’t want to watch him. If House doesn’t take center stage next week and kick Foreman back into his supporting role, I think I’m done. One glimmer of hope: Taub says he is quitting, although I’m sure we’re not lucky enough for that to actually happen.

Foreman and Thirteen reach a…pivotal…point in their relationship, but I don’t care. And as always, the medical mystery part of the show is interesting, but it’s just a device. Everyone knows that the formula of the show will involve the team making a series of wrong diagnoses before they finally get it right in the nick of time. I don’t know how the writers keep coming up with these obscure medical conditions. They must have teams of people wholly devoted to research, working around the clock.

House does come in to save the day towards the end, but in an amusing and atypical way. That’s a nice touch. He talks more with Nolan and says that solving the case was the only thing that made his leg feel better. Nolan says that maybe House needs his job in order to get better. Maybe it is what he actually needs. “The only thing worse for you than going back to diagnostic medicine is not going back,” he says. Next week, we will find out.

For another take on this episode, read Coming Full Circle by Stephanie Jaar.

Season 6, Episode 2: Epic Fail (originally aired September 28, 2009)

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Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

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