An episode title taken from a Doris Day song allows me a moment to reflect on the ways in which Dr. House and the singing actress are similar. Um, they're both carbon-based life forms. Except strictly speaking, I guess the fictional House isn't, though it's safe to assume his portrayer, Hugh Laurie, is. Yeah, it's a tenuous connection, but it's all I've got. In "Que Sera Sera," House and his patient of the week obstinately stick to the philosophy that whatever will be, will be, and turn it into something just a little less sunny than Day's tone would suggest.
Pruitt Taylor Vince is George, a 600 pound man who lapses into a coma and, when he mysteriously revives a couple of days later, insists that whatever is wrong with him has nothing to do with his weight. All the tests seem to indicate he's right — at least, the ones the team can feasibly do on a man whose weight prevents him from being put in a CT scanner, causes him to break the MRI machine's table, and makes him unable to undergo a lumbar puncture.
Vince faces a nearly insurmountable acting challenge with his face nearly obliterated by the fat suit, and with a symptom of twitchy eyes that takes those away as a clear form of expression. Still, he manages to give George a sense of dignity and humour that charms Cameron. Of course, Cameron is charmed by the uncharming Dr. House, too, but George is an instantly likable guy who knows his flaws and refuses to apologize for them, or be defined by them. It's that first and last part where he distinguishes himself from House.
After spending a night in jail as a result of his encounter with David Morse's Detective Tritter, House shows up to work later than usual, and even more disheveled than usual — yes, apparently, it's possible. He sends his team off to run tests after he declares he's run out of clever names to call George. Yeah, it takes a sharp mind to call a fat guy a hippopotamus and Shamu. A night in jail has dulled House's insulting wit.
He's even mean to Chase, with no apparent punchline. Early on, House tells him to sit on his ass while the others perform diagnostic tests, and that's the last we see of him. Next week's patient of the week: the inexplicably invisible intensivist? I've been puzzling lately over why Chase gets so little to do in most episodes — not that I really want more of him — but this one is particularly puzzling.
Article comments
1 - Joan Hunt
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2 - Grace
What about the fact that they blinded George?
Do you think that had a double meaning as well?
If Cameron drugged George, why was she so anxious to have him pass out outside of the hospital instead of inside? Outside he could have cracked his head open on the concrete. I don't get this part. I also thought I head Cam say that she didn't drug him. Am I hearing things?
Grace
Nice review BTW!
3 - Diane Kristine
They didn't blind George - as Cameron said to him, it was a symptom of the paraneoplastic syndrome. What she told him when he was being discharged was that he should stay in the wheelchair until he got in the taxi ... so he would be seated when he passed out. That didn't quite go according to plan. She told House and Foreman that she drugged him, but to George she just said "it's all explained" when he asked if the disorientation was related. Yeah, just not by the cancer.
4 - Morgenstern
Weren't there hints in Season 2 that Chase had money problems? I am too lazy to dig out my Season 2 DVD but I seem to remember something along those lines. Maybe he has a second job somewhere else? Would explain why he disappeared completely . . . And now for something completely different: I liked the fact that House was only able to diagnose the patient by touching him. Yes, everybody lies. But I like the fact that the writers are trying to put a little counterweight to House's brilliantly "brainy" methods of diagnosis by throwing in an episode from time to time where he has to act like a "real" doctor would and actually has to see and meet and touch a patient to be able to come to the right conclusions.
5 - Diane Kristine
Yes, Chase has money problems and there are a million other possible explanations for why he disappeared. This episode just didn't give us any. With so little screen time even when he doesn't disappear, they haven't exactly made him an indispensible character lately, so there's not a lot of tension built into why left the case. If he left to go to another job without telling his boss and colleagues ... not good. But hardly a compelling plot.
If a Chase disappears in the forest, does anyone notice?
6 - kali
I don't agree with you about Cameron's motivation during the episode, why she acted the way she acted pointed me to a different direction altogether - and not another layer of mystery, rather an old layer very consistent with who Cameron is and her date with hosue and their relationship therefater.
think it's pretty clear why Cameron acted the way she did throughout the episode. The parallels between House and George were drawn throughout the whole episode and reading a little bit between the lines made Cameron's motives for acting the way she did pretty cleat! And to me, the final dialogue at the end of the epi between her and House basically spelled it out: she did what she did because she saw House in George. The prolem is that House still has trouble grasping the whole concept of Cameron ACTUALLY caring for him - beyond him being what he calls a "charity case". And Cameron knows that very well, she's been there before - repeatedly - and has learned the hard way that it's no use telling him why she did what she did because he wouldn't believer her anyway. so, she has learned to talk to him in the only way he'll understand: leaving a mystery in the air, not pushing him when it comes to emotions!
and because of this - the whole interaction between them was so consistent with everything they've been through and everything we know they are (kudos to the writers and David) - it just blew my mind!!! still does actually!
7 - Diane Kristine
Sure, but to that I'd say: nothing's ever that simple. That motivation was already spelled out and left wanting, in my opinion. She didn't just connect to George because he reminded her of House - there's an underlying reason why she connects to people like House and George. And I've never believed that it's simply because they're damaged.
I'm not sure I believe Cameron's learned not to push when it comes to getting him to talk about emotions - I'll believe that when I see it. Seems like she's still doing some pushing and getting rebuffed lately. Fortunately, not in the "do you like me" way, but then I'm not sure she's acknowledging to herself that she still wants to pursue him.
And if it's consistent for her to object to the consent issue last issue on ethical grounds and then to drug a patient against his knowledge so she could thwart his right to leave against medical treatment, I don't want to see inconsistent. I'm not saying it's unbelievable, just ... that girl is as inconsistent as it gets.
8 - Phillip Winn
My assumption about Chase's disappearance is far more mundane. I assume that the actor had something come up, so they wrote him out over the scheduling conflict.
My wife has decided that she hates David Morse solely based on his portrayal of Tritter on House. Me, I love him, and so his character on the show is delightful to me. The fact that they've sown the seeds of the eventual escape in the form of the chewing gum observation is... interesting. The idea that Tritter is bullying everybody in his effort to take down the bully is delicious, and around and around it goes.
Great episode, and very nice recap.
9 - Diane Kristine
I actually suspect that too, Phillip, but then I think they could have done a better job of explaining it in a more interesting way. Who knows - I guess we'll see if they mention it next episode. If they don't, it was a quick and lazy fix to an availability problem.
To continue my Cameron musings ... I think the writers are in the process of a series-long exploration of what makes her tick, unlike a character like Chase who is being ignored more than unraveled. But if I had to take a stab at her underlying motivations, I'd go back to what she told House in season one when she told him she had to quit, about how she used to think everything he did for the patient, but actually everything he does he does because it's right. And what she told Wilson about why she wanted to be best friends instead of a doctor to Cindy, the dying cancer patient in Acceptance, and why she married her dying husband - that when a good person dies, someone should notice, and both Cindy and her husband were alone in the world.
I think she has something of a decency detector - that's partly why House sees her as similar to his dad, as that morality compass. I think she sees the good in people, even people like House and George who the outside world doesn't recognize for their goodness because it's buried under something else, and she's drawn to that, but also to their loneliness, because she thinks she can help alleviate it.
So much for my armchair psychology session. I'm not trying to convince you, kali, but for me, looking at Cameron only through the lens of her attraction to House is limiting and not as interesting as the question of why it seems to fall into a pattern for her. House thinks he has the answer to the pattern - damage - but I think that says more about how he views himself than how she views him.
10 - Uben Vladsev
what was the song house was playing in the closing montage? is was really good, but dont know who/what song he was playin
11 - kali
hey diane,
I actually agree with your last post, 100%, with your analysis of Cameron and especially with the last paragraph!!!
"So much for my armchair psychology session. I'm not trying to convince you, kali, but for me, looking at Cameron only through the lens of her attraction to House is limiting and not as interesting as the question of why it seems to fall into a pattern for her. House thinks he has the answer to the pattern - damage - but I think that says more about how he views himself than how she views him"
Absolutely, that was actually also my point...I didn't mean to say that there is no underlying reason for Cameron's motive n helping George and therefore also for her feelings for House!
You don't have to do much convincing work, already convinced about that! However, we all are attrcated to people due to our own psychological make-up, doesn't make those feelings less reals or sincere...that's actually the way it works, we see something in someone nobody else sees and love them for it and in spite of it!
I just think that House - who really doesn't like himself, though he admires himself - has much trouble accepting that someone like Cameron might actually like him for him, because he tries so hard not to be liked. So her feelings, since they can't be rationally explained - something feelings never can - have to be a symptom of what he calls her "illness". And that's I believe what Cameron was referring to at the end of their conversation: he has charged her repeatedly with being attracted to men who were dying or for putting the lable "damaged" on them a dn she's telling him that it's not that simple!
12 - Ben
the song which house was playing at end of episod e was onewhich Hugh Laurie wrote himself. Although it does have some hints of Pearl Jam and Jimi Hendrix
13 - Ben
The song which House was playing at the end of the episode was one which Hugh Laurie wrote himself. Although it does have some hints of Pearl Jam and Jimi Hendrix.
(Sorry about bad spelling in previous comment.)
14 - lizhi
yeah what's his son's name