REVIEW

TV Review: House - "The Jerk"

Written by Diane Kristine
Published May 22, 2007
Part of House
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Foreman is a bit of a jerk this episode, but he's got reason to be. Someone called to cancel the interview he had lined up with a hospital in New York, starting a chain of suspicion and denial throughout the episode that starts and ends with House. Foreman accuses House of interfering, too childish to ask Foreman to stay instead of playing games with him. House denies it. "Yeah, it was one of the other petty socially repressed assholes I work for," Foreman scoffs.

House accuses Cuddy of being the saboteur in her efforts to keep Foreman:"You are one evil, cunning woman. That's a massive turn on." She denies it, then Lisa Edelstein performs this wonderful chain of expressions from puzzlement to dawning realization. She accuses Wilson, since she thinks it has to be someone who likes House: "It's either you or the weird night janitor who wears his pants backwards."

Wilson denies any involvement, saying he wants Foreman to leave to teach House that he needs someone who will stand up to him: "House is a six year old who thinks he's better off without parents." She doesn't believe him – about the not sabotaging Foreman, not his assessment of House — since that kind of lesson-teaching doesn't fit the role of Wilson as enabler. I diagnose amnesia: the poor woman has forgotten Wilson's previous attempts to teach House a lesson role in "Detox" and with the Tritter deal.

We get Robert Sean Leonard doing the face of dawning realization, then continuing the chain by accusing Cameron, using the same rationale Cuddy used on him. He also tries to manipulate her into a confession by saying Cuddy thinks it's him and is going to fire him, but she's not fooled for a second. "You so would have fallen for that three years ago," he sighs.

She denies being the one to ruin Foreman's interview, with a bonus denial of not being in love with House, and then Jennifer Morrison gets to do the face of dawning realization. She accuses Chase of canceling Foreman's interview solely to be a jerk, and he bristles, implying she's a jerk for thinking so, but still managing to spit out his weekly reminder that he likes her and wants to go out with her. It's about as unromantic as you can get without being House, and yet it still made me say "awww."

Chase, not usually the cleverest of the bunch, is the only one to figure out what's going on. Of course he had the advantage of being the last in the chain of accusations, assuming the night janitor who wears his pants backwards was never seriously in the running. He accuses House of not only sabotaging the interview, but manipulating the team into "chasing ghosts" and Foreman into rejoining the land of doctors with contributions to make.

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Diane is a publications manager who's addicted to television, movies, and books and justifies her pop culture obsessions by writing about them for Blogcritics. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news and information about Canadian television series.
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TV Review: House - "The Jerk"
Published: May 22, 2007
Type: Review
Section: Video
Filed Under: Video: Drama, Video: TV Recap, Video: Television
Part of a feature: House
Writer: Diane Kristine
Diane Kristine's BC Writer page
Diane Kristine's personal site
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Comments

#1 — May 22, 2007 @ 06:13AM — Amrita [URL]

Such a perfect jerk though :)

#2 — June 3, 2007 @ 23:33PM — Phillip Winn [URL]

Was the season finale too upsetting to write about? I'm jonesing for your opinion!

#3 — June 3, 2007 @ 23:49PM — Diane Kristine [URL]

Heh, sorry, it was a hectic week and I'm still working on it. It should come tonight, though!

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