TV Review: House, M.D. - "Humpty Dumpty" - Page 2

Now the worst. There's Cameron (Jennifer Morrison). I want to like her. I do like one of her. But like a reverse soap opera, it's as though the character has a sappy twin wreaking havoc in sassy Cameron's life. In previous episodes, we've seen an earnest Cameron unable to deal with telling patients difficult news, and unable to deal with her feelings for House without turning into the kind of 12 year old girl I used to make fun of as a 12 year old girl. Last episode, as she has been in many others, she was competent, compassionate, and funny without crossing those lines.

In "Humpty Dumpty," when the patient's mother complains that she looks too young to know what she's doing, Cameron replies very much not comfortingly: "There's five doctors working on the case. The others are older." This is not a med student, intern, or resident. This is a fully qualified doctor, who specialized in immunology and is now undertaking a fellowship for an additional speciality, who might as well have said "well, yes, I'm stupid, but the others are pretty smart." She then goes on to do a very stupid thing just to highlight the point - tells House the patient is dying while standing outside the door to the patient's room, in earshot of the patient's mother. Way to get over breaking bad news, Cameron.

And then there's the character development I'm undecided on. A circle of jealousy was revealed in "Humpty Dumpty," with Cameron quizzing Cuddy on her past with House, Cuddy calling her on her interest, and Stacy quizzing Wilson on the possible chemistry between House and Cuddy. It's amusing so far, and House's interactions with Cuddy and Stacy crackle with the possibility of entertaining attraction, though I worry about the romantic entanglements getting too, well, tangled. It's also a bit puzzling that it seems perfectly normal to me that every woman on the show might be attracted to a man who is so caustic, cruel, and only occasionally kind. But when that kindness is wrung out of him, as it is in this episode, its uneasy honesty is worth more than anyone else's easy platitudes.

For more of the best and worst, the plot entertained me, increased my love for most of these characters a little more, made me think, and frustrated me in equal parts. The patient of the week tied in to Foreman's clinic patient this episode to bring up questions of race and class, but more than usually, the case itself faded into the background. That in itself is not a bad thing, and neither is the show's uncanny ability to raise issues from different sides and let the viewers decide on a point of view for themselves. What felt dismissive this time was the enormity of these issues compared to the lack of time devoted to them, and the easy outs we're offered to let us dismiss their importance.

Article Author: Diane Kristine Wild

Diane writes about boring things by day, pop culture things by night. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news about Canadian television. Follow her on Twitter @deekayw for more random thoughts.

Visit Diane Kristine Wild's author page — Diane Kristine Wild's Blog