Wilson’s “plan” is to goad House. He thinks that House is deteriorating because pain is making him slack on his rehab. “I want you to run,” Wilson says, throwing a bottle of Vicodin at House, still believing that it’s simply the pangs of middle-aged muscle soreness holding House back from his exercise. But House knows better; the defeat in House’s voice is heartbreaking. But Wilson continues to push, telling House that he’s been wrong more often than right lately. Way to kick your best friend when he’s down, Wilson!
But Wilson’s cutting words serve their purpose, provoking House to the treadmill (and to one of the more difficult to watch scenes of the series). In the darkened physical therapy room, House tries to push himself past the pain, desperately running until he cries out in agony. Stumbling off the treadmill, House pops a Vicodin before going at it again. More than simply running, House is trying to hang onto something that’s slipping away and out of his control.
House has seemingly paid a high price for attempting the radical ketamine therapy. In his “No Reason” hallucination House is angered when Cuddy performs the treatment on him. He argues that the potential loss of his reasoning skills (a side effect of the procedure) is too high a price to pay for a pain-free life. But provoked by his own subconscious (represented by the shooter), House chooses “life” at a critical point after being shot; chooses to take the risk for the opportunity of a “normal” life.
Now, only three months later, not only has the effect of the ketamine begun to wear off, House’s diagnostic acuity also seems to have gone awry. House (erroneously) believes he has lost the one thing about himself that he values — and for nothing.
Resigned and broken, unable to diagnose the patient in his care, he tells the team that they’ve done their best and to send him home, still undiagnosed. They have fixed the boy’s bleeding problem, and that has to be enough. With so much of House’s self-esteem tied up in his reasoning ability, he is wrecked as he watches everything slip quietly away.
Cuddy catches House as he’s about to leave for the day, case unsolved. She implores him to continue diagnosing the boy; to do the things he always does: make the insane, but eventually correct, radical decisions that almost always (eventually) lead him to the answer. Just the sort of thing Cuddy shut him down for only week before. She even gives him the green light to perform even the most radical of procedures — no questions asked. Now House is really suspicious.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
Very perceptive, simply amazing. What a show, and what a review!
2 - Sue
Again, another great review. I always get greater insight into the show after I read your reviews.
There was a great scene in the beginning, when House came back into his house. We didn't see his face as he grabbed his thigh. We didn't need to see it; we grimaced along with him.
We get to see House's private moments, the few seconds when he thinks no one is looking, when he can not help but grimace and withdraw in pain. Hugh Laurie is so brilliant in these moments.
As a chronic pain sufferer, three months of pain relief is worth whatever it takes to achieve it. House knew that Ketamine existed, and he could have tried it before. Did he try it because he was already going to have anesthesia? Was he at a point in his life that he was willing to sacrifice his mind for his body? Or, did he even consider that he could lose his ability to diagnose patients? Did Foreman's brush with death have anything to do with House's decision? In House's dream, Cuddy gave him the Ketamine. When we saw what really happened it was House who asked for the Ketamine. In the beginning of Meaning, House thanked Cuddy for "curing him." It really wasn't Cuddy who did it if House asked for it.
In this episode, was House lamenting his own decision to get the Ketamine, or Cuddy's decision to give it to him?
In this episode, the trust between House and Wilson diminished a little more. Wilson didn't give House the pills in Meaning, but here he is offering them to him. House knows Wilson believes he is experiencing the "pangs of middle age." Wilson offered the pills to fit into his own agenda. If House had asked Wilson again for the pills, would Wilson have said yes? I doubt it. House kept writing Rxs for the pills because he still knew that Wilson would not give them to him if he asked for them. Wilson's trickery about the previous case made House mistrust him even more.
3 - Barbara Barnett
Thank you Phillip for your kind words.
Ann--I agree that the Wilson's actions drove House's actions in the next many episodes. House saw no recourse but to do what he did (rightly or wrongly). He felt trapped and backed into a corner.
House took a big gamble asking for the ketamine and he lost big time. I think that in his hallucination, he asked himself whether it was possible to find meaning in life. Was he throwing his life away? Or should he take a chance on renewing himself. I think the scene in which he made that decision (the part of the hallucination, anyway) was when he was in the car with the shooter's wife, joining her as she died in the car. As his life slipped away (both in the hallucination) and in his own reality as he lay bleeding to death on the floor, he "chose life" and fought back, not giving into the "easy choice" of death. He held on. That's what Wilson was talking about in "Meaning" (and something House must've disclosed to Wilson at some point.
But I think that what happened during the hallucination (and what I think had been his own research into the experimental procedure) made him want to try it. Even after the ketamine failed, House continued in Season three (in the spring) to seek out other ways to overcome the pain ("Insensitive" and "Half-Wit" for example).
4 - susanne
Wow!! Again another great review for a great and heartbreaking ep
I felt so sorry for House and I really just wanted to smack Wilson (but I love him). I have the feeling that Cuddy was torn between not telling him and wanting to tell him. I loved Cameron in this episode being so protective or House and understanding how vunerable he was. I liked it how she stood up to them.
Hugh Laurie just surprises me everytime I can never get sick of him..I am still shocked/surprised that he hasn't yet won an emmy!
5 - ann uk
It seems to me that House would have an easier ride if he were a musical or artistic genius as society expects them to be eccentric. But House is a genius in a rule ridden, method driven profession, His relations with other doctors are like Sherlock Holmes's with the Scotland Yard detectives- they admire him , but distrust him because they can't understand the intuitive leaps by which he solves his cases.And yet, like Holmes, his intuitions are based on extensive research and wide knowledge.( like reading Hindi !)