I've been reading this board since S3 and managed to go through the Tritter arc without registering to bitch about it, but now I really had to. Is it me or did House's personality change abruptly in this season? Up until the very end of season 4 he mostly pushed people away. Refused dating Cameron, refused to acknowledge he liked his team up until they all moved on, refused to let Wilson partake in his poker nights and even tried to get rid of (then stopped trying, then eventually got rid of) Stacy, the person he most wanted to be with. He only left his state of denial of human contact when it couldn't be avoided, because of pride or a desire of self-sufficiency. Now apparently he lost his lone wolf spirit. The old House would never crawl to Wilson upon being rejected - he'd probably just let him go, after a few arguments, and then dismiss everything and just close himself more and more. The Cuddy kiss I couldn't believe because House always seemed to admire sassy, confident and witty, not vulnerable and depressed like his friend. And he always rationalized, he always took a step back and said something. Especially when Cuddy was fragile, he should have analyzed the situation, but he didn't. What bugs me is that I haven't actually seen a reason for that and House has gone from a wounded beast that wants to be left alone to a prick that just won't stop butting in. Granted, both parts always coexisted, but they seem to have shifted their sizes. Instead of just letting go of his hermit ways for massive curiosity, now he only resigns to being alone when he has absolutely no one to hang out with. Even if that may be a reaction to almost losing Wilson (again feeling writers afraid to change the show) Makes me feel like the show is becoming a little too 90210ish. Am I alone in this?

I think a lot of it goes back to the "bus" conversation he had with dead Amber in Wilson's Heart. He spoke of not wanting to be miserable and not wanting to be lonely. And because of that, he's seemed to become a lot more clingy to the two most important people in his life, for better or for worse. And he always rationalized, That was the whole point of it, I believe. For once in his life, House stopped rationalizing, stopped being objective, stopped being an arrogant asshole, and just acted on his emotions. And now we'll see the fallout of that: Will he confront whatever feelings he has for Cuddy? Will he repress them? What happens either way? Makes me feel like the show is becoming a little too 90210ish. Am I alone in this? There definitely have been more soap opera-ish elements to the show as it has aged. I think that comes from a general desire on the writers' parts to explore more of the character and to peel away more layers of the onion that is House (as Hugh likes to say). For a lot fans that's very attractive, for others, not so much.

yeah
I agree. One of my friends hates House, says that he never changes. But he has changed a great deal since season 2. He's much less self-sufficient and reserved, more manic and gratuitously cruel. On the other hand, I think that maybe the show gives a panopticon view of how a person goes through a slow, long, painful unravelling of his self -- lots of pain tends to make an already astringent character even more bitter and...out-of-whack, and dependent. It's kind of fun. Like watching a year long train wreck.

Is it me or did House's personality change abruptly in this season? Up until the very end of season 4 he mostly pushed people away. Refused dating Cameron, refused to acknowledge he liked his team up until they all moved on, refused to let Wilson partake in his poker nights and even tried to get rid of (then stopped trying, then eventually got rid of) Stacy, the person he most wanted to be with. He only left his state of denial of human contact when it couldn't be avoided, because of pride or a desire of self-sufficiency. I think House indeed did push people away as a default, but I don't think things were quite so black and white in earlier seasons. He refused dating Cameron for a reason, and we've not seen him look like he regretted that, in any season. Nevertheless, he showed Cameron loud and clear that he wanted her on his team when she resigned, and was very supportive of her during Informed Consent. He actually told Foreman he needed him at the end of season three. The only duckling who didn't get much from House was Chase, but I thought House showed Chase he cares when he silently asked Chase to come back in season four, and later went bowling with him. And when he was nice to Chase when he hugged him. House only didn't want Wilson to join his poker game because Wilson can lie to him--as we found out in that very episode. He deleted the message on the answering machine to keep Wilson living with him, and asked him if he would move back in when he left. He also made sure he and Wilson were alright when Wilson said no. His feelings about Stacy were always complicated, but he showed very clearly that he had deep feelings for her and would act on them. He didn't end up committing to her, but again, lots of reasons why. I think this season, as Chipmunk says, we're seeing the fallout of Amber's death and House's recognition on the bus that he didn't want to be miserable and he sure didn't want to lose Wilson. He's looking at his relationships this season and in his own way, he doesn't want to lose them. I also think the kiss between House and Cuddy was beautifully written, because despite the attraction and flirting, both characters have barriers up--and probably for good reason. It took both of them feeling raw and vulnerable to have House's emotions for once overwhelm his analytical side--a side he uses to deflect from dealing with his emotions. And if he's attracted to Cuddy when she's her usual smart, sassy and confident self, I don't believe that would disappear when he saw her hurting. Not everyone likes the shift from concentrating mostly on the cases, but I think the show is growing naturally. I'm really glad we're getting fallout from Wilson's Heart. And the POTW was really cool this last week.

I think somebody should make a tape of every last scene of this season so far and send it to the Emmy judges. We have seen so much emotion in them, and such terrific acting from 3 great actors. ep. 1: I don't think we're friends anymore ep. 2: scene at Wilson's door ep. 3: music, House is capable of some sort of joy ep. 4: 'My dad died" ep. 5: Cuddy is happy (let's forget about that short scene after that, OK :? ) ep. 6: "I don't know" and some other things that happened in that scene :D . I'm still not sure if I will buy the sea. 4 DVD's, but I would buy "House, the final scenes" in a shot

I'll agree with the "not a lone wolf" side of things. House has always shown that he wants to keep people around him -- though he wants to control things. Consider the roommate arc with Wilson -- he erased the messages dealing with Wilson's potential apartment. In "Babies & Bathwater," he clearly felt guilty for Wilson's predicament, and even though he didn't say anything, he kept unpacking Wilson's boxes throughout the entire conversation with him. He actually apologized to Wilson during the Tritter arc, and was very sincere after "House V. God," to make sure that they were OK with each other. But in light of the bus conversation (and also building on the moments he opened up to Cate in "Frozen," I think) he has been making these attempts more visible. He's been more willing to put himself out there, albeit in these odd ways that House would do it. (Because House would hire a private investigator, rather than calling his friend to find out how he's doing.) Now, granted, in the pre-season interviews, cast and creators both mentioned that they were spending more time in this season looking at the characters' personal lives. It's a good time to do it. Why should it have taken five seasons for Foreman to get to the self-realization that he's boring? Why not follow up on Cuddy's quest for a baby? I think they've struck a good balance between exploring their inner lives -- and I'm all for peeling away more layers of the onion that is the character of House -- while still retaining the medical mystery that's at the heart of the show. Of course, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you don't explore the prospects of House becoming more human and reaching out, then the creators are accused of merely having an ass at the heart of a series that's nothing more than a procedural. If you do explore emotional aspects, then you're accused of making a soap opera. I think they're striking a good balance, personally, but then I've always been about exploring the character of House. He's what makes the series unique.

I agree that the characters (and House especially) are what make the series. And I didn't know they were planning on putting the characters on the spotlight during this season. It makes sense, since it's been a while since I can even remember a patient. House's subtle changes are very good for exploring him (and everyone else). And it can be perfectly acceptable since it didn't come from nowhere - there's the whole Amber arc to explain it. And it's like trimming out the clinic - we get more screen time for the characters, but it was an important part of the show and I miss it. Too bad I was very fond of the way the show had of trying to fool us into thinking the POTW was on the forefront and giving character development and interaction as a side dish (this is arguable, especially in oddball episodes like One Day One Room, Three Stories etc, but I really feel it did). Also in any TV show the characters tend to amplify their most perceived traits to the point they can become charicatures of themselves. Take any series - say Friends, that I can reacall was a clear case - and compare the earlier seasons to the later ones. I believe it happens because we and the writers start to feel more and more at ease and familiar with them and more prone to suspend our disbelief of their absurdities, and I also believe it has happened to House more markedly since Season 4, when the newly acquired team seemed already more used to the way he acts than the old one ever did, even after three years.

Yeah, I've found it a little odd that House's new team barely bat an eye at his insults. Sure, there will be the people who can handle House's crap upon first meeting him, but it kinda takes the fun out of what he's saying when nobody responds to it.

Yes, it got annoying sometimes when Foreman rolled his eyes or Cameron got indignant with him for looking at her medical file or doing something unethical but at least it wasn't boring or gone without any payoff. But, CCF are so used to him now that they don't really react to House's antics either. What's the difference? I know people are annoyed that TKT seem totally used to him so early on and CCF definately...weren't in the beginning but they are now. If CCF were still a team they would have nonreactions to House's intrusions and insults too, because they expect that from him. That's the way it was by the end of season three, none of them barely batted an eye at what House did, so I just don't understand that argument. CCF still can't be shocked by House after all this time, but they did fall for the syphillis thing without question, so maybe they can be.

If CCF were still a team they would have nonreactions to House's intrusions and insults too, because they expect that from him. That's the way it was by the end of season three, none of them barely batted an eye at what House did, But they did stand up to him and didn't let him get away with his crap the way the new team does. Foreman is caught in an emotional stasis machine but Chase and Cameron both stand up to House on an intellectual basis so while they are no longer shocked by House, they draw boundaries with him and don't let him get away with being an ass. That must be what Shore was talking about when he said he liked them in their roles now. If I look back at Frozen when the case was handled by House, Foreman and Wilson, Foreman stood up to House and the dynamic changed from how House treats his new team. Even Wilson and Cuddy still get shocked on occasion by what House does but they don't just let it pass as the new team does. If you find out your boss is looking into your bank accounts and monitoring your out-of-office behaviour, just standing there doing nothing about it isn't realistic behaviour. It's not entertaining either.

My apologies for the (somewhat gassy) mega post below. I started thinking about the season as a whole and it just all came out this way, more questions than answers... Looking at the themes for the season, first, I'd say, is change. Change and resistance to change has been one of House's trademark traits all along. He obsessively keeps tabs on those in his orbit. Perhaps it's because his curiosity knows no boundaries: he just has to know. Or because he cares, though not in a regular sort of way. He cares about teaching the fellows to be good doctors; he cares a lot about people making choices based on good data, rational decisions based on facts; and he does care and has affection for, those around him. But his strict rationalism and his professionalism as a teacher (and of course, his fears of intimacy) don't allow him to show that side of his character. Only a few know it's even there. So, S5 so far: Dying Changes Everything: "We're not friends. I'm not sure we ever were." Change happens as a result of a death, itself the result of a combination of unlikely circumstances. House is not directly responsible, but does he have some responsibility for Amber's death? Her death made him question the difficulties of his life, his self-worth, and whether or not he wants to face the life any more. He doesn't want to, but he has to: he goes back and does his job. So is he fundamentally changed by that experience? Wilson is. He leaves. He rejects House, his job, leaves it all behind thinking he'll change because of Amber's death. So is it true that dying changes everything? Accepting change, changing your life hoping that it will change your character, accepting your miserable life because it's your duty and you don't expect happiness: all those outlooks are explored here. Not Cancer: "You look sad." A livelier House, rejected even more absolutely by Wilson, accepting that they are no longer friends and still trying to bounce ideas off Wilson with no luck, but then the Wilson replacement, the PI, gives him the quirky thought that leads to the epiphany. House realizes things aren't as dark and ugly as the patient thinks they are: his view of life is more balanced than we thought; he sees the beauty that is there. And yet, when the sightless woman regains sight, his sadness is the first thing she sees and he perhaps realizes that he was just running from his unhappiness with all the changes: he is sad. Adverse Events: Bisexadrine. Cuckoldisol. Worldsauruskneesasil. Lies. Another Houseian trademark theme: Taub lies to his wife. House thinks she's lying to him and knows he'll follow up on it even though he shouldn't. The patient won't tell his girlfriend the truth so he lives a lie and nearly dies from the "adverse events" of multiple drug trials. 13 has taken up the annoying habit of introducing House to patients with sarcasm: why does she feel compelled to do that? To separate herself from him, to make a point of being "better" more sensitive than he is? More and more, she is in a competition with him to be the better doctor and she is far from it. Does she think if she's a better doctor, she won't die? Lucky Thirteen: "If you're happy, I'm..." 13's story continues, she's "spiraling out of control," it seems. Has sex with someone and gets an STD in her mouth, watches House diagnose the patient and is actually angry that he's right: would she rather the patient die if she can't be the one with the proper diagnosis? But all that is less interesting than the final scene where Wilson tells him to follow him and House arrives to find WIlson and Cuddy in the baby store: does he think at first that it's their baby? That would be a shock. But then, if not theirs, then Wilson still knew first and was Cuddy's confidante, is he hurt? The first changes of the season were from death/loss: Amber, his friendship with Wilson, his own unhappiness with how things are turning out. Now, he's speechless because the change that's rearing it's head isn't losing someone, it's potentially gaining someone; it's not death, it's life; it has nothing to do with his actions, it's from someone close to him changing their own life in a way that will take her away from him in any number of ways. He's thrown for a loop and doesn't how he feels, so he leaves. His efforts to control, keep tabs on, and predict those closest to him have failed: they can fly under his radar now and he doesn't know anymore what's happening next. Birthmarks: "My dad died." Starting with the change that Wilson has come back, House goes through a road trip where we learn how he and Wilson met. We are surprised to learn that it was a kindness form House that introduced them to each other, and House finally has to give the euology at his dad's funeral. Every fiber of his being wants the street justice of telling the truth about how his dad really treated him, but when he sees his mom and Wilson and the pain in their eyes as he starts to tear his father's memory to shreds, he stops. He changes direction. He says something less harsh, ackowledging that h is father made him what he is. Of course to him, that's not his idea of a good thing, but he knows it could be read as such by everyone there. And by taking the snip of tissue from his dad, he gets the confirmaiton of something he'd always known was true. But it turns out, it's not an escape route: the birthmark he inherited from his biologicall dad is just skin pigment: the real birthmark is what his father gave him in terms of how he lives his life. I suspect John House knew Greg was not his son, so he treated him harshly both out of concern and out of disappointment with his marriage. After all, there was only there were no siblings. In the end, House realizes his dad was the guy who raised him and that guy was now dead, another change, another loss, not without effect, as he had not expected. Joy: "Why do you negate everything? I don't know..." The patient's daughter says "I just don't get what the big deal about death is." Death/change isn't a surprising theme for a medical drama, but House explores the all too human evasions, fears, lies, rationalizations, and destructive behaviors that we get into when we are confronted with our own mortality or even the alteration in our daily routine or who we can or cannot trust. Cuddy wants a child to love and that has led her to agreeing to adopt a newborn. Change is confronted here when choosing life for the mother may mean death for the baby, the reverse is also possible and still a decison must be made. Is House sleepwalking through lis life, like the patient? Is he suffering from joyouslessness or does he just find joy from other sources than most people? From the beginning, we've known that House stays away from patients because when he gets emotionally involved, he becomes useless as a doctor. When we first met him, he did not see patients at all. Gradually, he has started to see them, sometimes without other staff knowing. Later, when he has an employee he is attracted to, he can't tell whether she is proposing a good idea or talking nonsense: again, personal involvement short-circuits what he thinks is best about himself: his diagnostic skill. And here, with Cuddy, he keeps after her to -*test*-('") her intentions, her commitment, her ability to be a good mother. It isn't, I think, that he doesn't trust her so much as that he doesn't trust himself to know these things about her. He's personally involved with her in all kinds of complicated ways having to do with affection, attraction, lust, power, guilt, gratitude and so on. So he comes to her to comfort her and, thinking he is giving her reassurance, tells her she would be a good mom. She's stunned, then furious and he has no idea why. And when she asks him why he negates everything, he's flummoxed. He doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know the answer, but he just feels intensely toward her and so he goes with that feeling because it is real and strong and he embraces her and kisses her and she embraces him and kisses him back. All those complicated feelings they feel have an intensity toward each other that plays out in that kiss, the kiss that could lead to a huge change in his life or no change at all, if they both step back from it. But everything has changed between them now, they both know it, yet they also know how impossible a real relationship would be for the two of them: they would have to give up the sizzling flirting and they don't know what's underneath that. There seems to be a need and a hunger for each other, but they (House especially) is in no shape to deal with that. So change seems to have been averted, but it really never is. Change is overtaking him, especially the more he cares and acknowledges that he cares about the people around him. The center is not holding, but is he heading for a bang or a whimper? Birth, death, circle of life, even House can't stay an observer forever. Or can he?

But, CCF are so used to him now that they don't really react to House's antics either. What's the difference? I know people are annoyed that TKT seem totally used to him so early on and CCF definately...weren't in the beginning but they are now. If CCF were still a team they would have nonreactions to House's intrusions and insults too, because they expect that from him. That's the way it was by the end of season three, none of them barely batted an eye at what House did, so I just don't understand that argument. CCF still can't be shocked by House after all this time, but they did fall for the syphillis thing without question, so maybe they can be. Yeah, CCF are behaving as expected - they got used to House and are now on different levels. Not his employees, not having to deal with his crap on a daily basis and with three years of experience. As Foreman once put it, "the fact that I grew bored by your insanity is proof of nothing". TKT, on the other hand, are behaving exactly the same while having none of those reasons. No matter what House does, they just ignore him (except for very few arguments with Taub and Thirteen that had to do with their "sensitive subjects" and were hugely relevant to the episode). They are not surprised nor outraged, which leads me to think that they had been watching the earlier seasons. And the syphillis thing was shameful. They should know better. "Fool me twice..."

I think TTK had a very different introduction to House than CCF did, and that factored into how soon they realised he does and says shocking things. They went through a two month trial by fire where House threw everything he had at them to see which ones he wanted. CCF had a gentler trajectory to getting to know House. TTK still don't know the many layers of House, so they have lots yet to get to know. But they know the jerky exterior pretty well, as House let them have it full barrells last year.