House: Don’t Ever Change
By fred | February 6, 2008
(S04E12) I have very mixed feelings towards this episode. No, not about the episode itself, but about the fact that what we saw here might be the last episode of the season, due to the writers’ strike. Of course, it could not be the case, should things go as good as possible the strike might be over by next week, people back to work soon after that and there may be four or five more episodes added to the season. Or not. We’ll have to wait and see.
Either way, this was about the third episode in a week ! Last week we had the Christmas episode (nope, no mistake), just this Sunday after the Superbowl we had another episode, and here we are, with yet another new episode. Such a thing would usually please me very much, but with the ongoing strike I get mixed feelings, because even if things should be resolved very soon it’ll be weeks, if not months, before we get a new episode. In such a situation, maybe it’d have been better to spread the remaining episodes over a little longer period, rather than airing them all within a week or so.
Anyways, House might be gone for now, but he didn’t leave without another great episode !
On to another episode of House version religion, although it didn’t focus that much on religion really. Religion was only a symptom, not the topic. “People don’t change. For example, I’m gonna keep repeating, people don’t change.” It was all about change, about whether or not people could change. And while the medical mystery was pretty good, it wasn’t the main plot here.
What was was the follow-up on last episode’s revelation : Cut-Throat Bitch is back. Well, not really, but she is dating Wilson. And while this episode was really good at showing how she had changed, how Wilson changed and eventually how House himself changed, I think we knew Wilson had changed for a little while now. And it seems this change even started before he started to go out with Amber.
This season, Wilson did face House, he did fight back, in ways he never had - or never would have - before. I still remember how shocked I was to see that he indeed had not only kidnapped House’s guitar, but he trashed it down, he actually killed the guitar. Taking it away from House was nothing new, and threatening to destroy it he could have done before as well, maybe, but actually doing it, that was new. That wasn’t the Wilson who kept lending House money every time he asked without really asking why.
No Wilson changed this season, just like when he walked around with House, not going anywhere but because he knew it hurt. Wilson is getting stronger, his relationship with House is evolving, maybe helped with his new-found love, one that he was able to hide from House for some time, proving again that he’s gotten better at that game he and House are constantly playing. And if last time I was shocked to discover who he was dating, cutthroat bitch, I have to say that this week we actually get to see who he really was dating, Amber, and it seems to make much more sense actually.
She was different than she used to during the “game”, she wasn’t really the same. Even, or especially, with House. When they first met, at her place, she wasn’t completely transformed into someone else, but she wasn’t dressed the same, her hair was different, and her attitude was too. She was no more under House’s power, trying to get his approval. As she later told him, when she called him Greg, they were now equals.
You want some Cameron analogy, here’s some : she was feeling liberated, the same way Cameron did when we first saw her this season, when she explained all of this to House. And so she interacted with him in a different way, and when she told Greg that with Wilson she discovered what it was to be both respected and loved at the same time, I did believe her.
I did, and it seems obvious that House did too. House is changing this season, people. Maybe I missed it, but in the recent episodes I feel that he’s been popping a lot less pills than he used to in the past, his addiction to vicodin has not had such a prominent role as it used to in the first seasons, and he’s been less angry or even more caring on occasion.
This time, when he realized than maybe Amber really liked Wilson, and that maybe the two of them were not that bad for each other, as she left he actually smiled at her. House isn’t one to smile much, he’s cranky, a smile doesn’t show on his face if it isn’t a sneaky one, not if it is not because he was proven right. This time, he basically smiled as he realized he was proven wrong.
