House Review: Bombshells

Everything old becomes new again.

At the end of last season House was sitting on the floor of his bathroom contemplating taking vicodin again. Last season he didn't, but only after Cuddy came in to save him. I remember thinking then that he had failed. You cannot rely on someone else to come in and save you like that. If he were truly going to beat his addiction that strength must come from himself. It must be his decision. As it was, with Cuddy coming in to save him, it made him completely dependent on her. Take her out of the equation and he would be right back where he was.

So, in a way, I'm glad that I was vindicated. On the other hand, this recent turn of events at the end of this episode explains a lot of what I've found so frustrating with House this season. I knew he was just circling the drain. I knew his relationship with Cuddy was doomed and that when that happened he would be right back where he was. There has been no growth and no character development. It's all been a waste of time as we've watched his hopelessly puerile antics edge him closer and closer to the edge.

Now, it is true that Gilligan can never leave the island or else there is no show, but in House's case, after, how many seasons now? I think it's different. We saw in this episode his friends turn their back on him. His team delt with the case of the week on their own and didn't want to bother House since he was dealing with his own crap. Wilson finally washed his hands of him after trying very hard to get him to do the right thing. And finally Cuddy cut him loose. All of these were the right things to do from their perspective. House has been using them all as enablers for years. But this leaves an important question: at what point does the audience follow suit? Are we going to stand by and watch House descend right back into drug addiction and misery . . . again? At one point House's self-centered and abrasive antics were charming but now he's just a drug addict. He's just a spoiled brat who chooses to be miserable. I just can't identify with him anymore. And his super powers as a doctor have been completely shot.

So where do they go from here? It seems either way the show was fucked. Either Gilligan gets off the island, thus forcing a permanent change in the show's structure, or you discover that there is no possible way for him to get off the island because he's been sabotaging the attempts all along, and that leads to a greater sense of apathy from the audience.

Oh, and the dream sequences bear mentioning. I actually kind of liked them, but they pretty much destroyed the mood of what should have been a very dramatic episode. It was like the writers didn't want you to take anything that was happening seriously (and that goes back to my apathy statement above.)

So ultimately this episode tied together a lot of the crap that I didn't like this season, making it one of the better episodes. However, the direction it seems to be going seems to be self-defeating. So I will have to wait to see how it all finally resolves.