The patient of the week in “Spin” is a cyclist, Jeff, who disproves House's pet theory that everybody lies by readily admitting to a variety of bizarre performance enhancing techniques. This unexpected development leads House and his team to ponder multiple possible causes for one symptom – respiratory distress – rather than the usual multiple symptoms with an unknown cause. And, as the episode title suggests, “Spin” offers viewers various takes on the issue of athletes who cheat.
Unfortunately, it did little but make my head spin. House is normally brilliant at combining self-contained episodes with a steady, slow building of character, until a quick, devastating moment reveals something unexpected about these people we've come to know. This week's “Spin,” however, was not part of that smooth ride. Instead of the usual crackling dialogue, most of the lines were of the not-particularly-funny, tell-don't-show variety, offering us large chunks of backstory on the characters with little context or subtlety.
We do learn significantly more about Wilson and Cameron, but the attempt to equate cheating on a spouse with cheating in a race isn't as compelling as most of the thematic tie ins on this show. And the attempt to link House's drug use and handicap with Jeff's doping and performance enhancement is an awkward fit, too.
Cameron, Chase, and Foreman offer us the Cliffs Notes version of the ethical debate – bike racing is just a game, anyone who idolizes athletes deserves to be duped, we all try to enhance our performance (caffeine, anyone?), athletes enter into an arbitrary, accepted set of rules and should abide by them, doping is dangerous, blah blah blah. Cameron drew the short straw and got to be the voice of judgement, seeing the black in an issue that had far fewer shades of grey than we're used to seeing on House. It's preachy, from a show that rarely preaches unless it's going to turn that sermon around on us.
Article comments
1 - DrPat
Predictably, I loved it - it was so obviously biased and based on outside views of Lance the Golden. We even got the cynical take of Jeff the cyclist as he forgave House for mistakenly causing him to fire his manager, because "10 percent of a Nike contract is a LOT of money."
I found Wilson and Cameron's interaction a lot more intriguing than House's determined pursuit of his ex, although he obviously was acting more out of competition than emotion. And hey - that's what this episode WAS about. How far will any of us go to win?
We saw some of the answer from Cameron (not very far, making her strict take on Jeff's "cheating" in character for this year - she's allowed to grow, right?). We saw some from House, who was willing to be his usual jerk-self with Mark - and even willing to dig into Stacy's therapy notes.
And, wonder of wonders, we finally got a deeper insight into Wilson, the careful foil for House's assholiness in most episodes. It was wonderful to see him open up, just a little. I love where they have him going this year.
2 - deekay
Well, I'm glad to hear from someone who loved it, because it made me sad not to! Seeing House in competition mode for Stacy's affections, stripped of emotion and without actually trying to engage her affections, just didn't work for me. And Cameron both defending House's ethical lapses, making one of her own, and being so judgemental about Jeff's in the same episode didn't work either, especially when we're seeing the side of House whose ethical breaches can be for personal gain. I do love the Wilson progression, but I thought the character exposition in general in this episode was far less subtle than usual - it didn't seem to come naturally from the story, for me.
Anyway, there's always next week. This was the only weak episode of the season for me.
3 - nanfont
I was with deekay all the way -- thank you for expressing what I was supressing -- but I'm glad to hear DrPat's view, because the episode makes more sense now. Still doesn't resonate with me, but "how far will you go to win?" does explain House's unsubtle interactions with Stacy's husband, which made me squirm rather than laugh or nod my head in agreement. The preview for next week looks highly intriguing and sure to throw more light on the Stacy/House thing.
4 - DrPat
Who's up for a prediction? I expect we'll see a severe strain on Cameron's hero-worship-like yearning for House, from two sources: his pursuit of his ex, and Wilson's gentle appeal to her better senses.
Maybe even a breach between Wilson and House over it! (Hmm... House did satirically suggest in "Spin" that Wilson should be fired. How long until he's actively campaigning for it, if Wilson and Cameron get together?)
5 - Bliffle
I think everyone misses the central point of "House": House is a singleminded puzzle-solver. To that end he uses whatever methods he must to solve a mystery. If he manipulates people it is not for power,as most do, but to stimulate things and produce a new experimental result. Thus, his manipulations of his ex and her husband are not to regain his lost wife but to understand what is going on. Notice that no matter what he does or says he is constantly making progress on his patients welfare. The hospital is NOT just a place where he can show off his doctor feathers to people and attract lovers, it is a sort of game field, a very serious and deadly game field, where he must succeed as an intellectual warrior.
In fact, he is a very good problem solver: he refuses to be seduced by the easy answer, he has enormous breadth of understanding, and he always has an initiative to explore the problem. In fact, he is an excellent diagnostician, which is the hardest specialty in medicine according to some doctors I've talked to over the years. He is the modern manifestation of the old Lew Ayres Dr. Kildare movie series.
Indeed, one of House' capabilities is his ability to discount the emotional distractions and to correctly understand only those emotional expressions that are pertinent.
You might disparage him as having Aspbergers syndrome. But then you have to grapple with the fact that we now know that many many people in our society are the same. Many of them in our own families and among our acquaintance: the programmers, computer geeks, musicians, writers, etc., whom we always derided in High School as 'nerds' etc. But now we see that those same people are effective in society, that they work, prosper, marry, have children, etc., and that there are many of them. Perhaps it is those whose cherished emotional play dominates their lives rather than rhyme and reason who are defective. Perhaps they are Aspberger-challenged.
6 - deekay
I would dispute that anyone is missing the point that House is a puzzle solver, both with his cases and with the people around him. That's an obvious character trait we see over and over again. But it might be missing the point to think that there's nothing to his interest in Stacy and her husband but his desire to understand, or to think that his own emotions aren't involved. He already understands that she still loves him - she's told him so twice - and that Mark isn't "the one". What he doesn't seem to understand is what he hopes to gain by his manipulation and deceit. Wilson keeps asking him what his goal is, and he hasn't quite answered that yet.
House is acutely aware of other people's emotions and how he can provoke a reaction out of them, but he's pretty good at denying and burying his own emotions, as Wilson and Cameron keep reminding him. With Stacy, he's not discounting emotional distractions - he's distracted by his emotions without fully realizing what they are. Like Cuddy said, his complaint that she can't get over their history and focus on the job is completely accurate, as long as you reverse the pronouns.