charliewrites99

[charliewrites99]

i like when you watch a video essay from 5+ years ago and they make a joke/apologize for how long the video is and the runtime is like. 35 minutes. when we now live in an era of 3 hour intricate breakdowns of bad kids shows being everywhere.

[charliewrites99]

i think if twitter went down, TV writing would get at least 30% better

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[charliewrites99]

Has this been done yet?

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i think fiction should be abolished. if yo uwrite about a character dying you should be put on trial in real life for murder

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hate an x reader fic do not put me in a situation

[charliewrites99]

god eddie really just haunted buck and tommy’s relationship like a ghost it’s so fucking funny like why are you in his hospital room king?? every time tommy walks into a room it’s an eddie jump scare and im imagining tommy is like “wtf how is this guy always 800 steps ahead of me all nonchalant” and meanwhile eddie think this behavior is completely normal freak4freak for real

[charliewrites99]

Them 😢

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[charliewrites99]

one of the deans in beijing dance academy rehearses with students

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Image prompt

[charliewrites99]

house md rewatch: 2x08, "the mistake"

catholic chase isn't just a character feature anymore - it's its own major subplot.

2x08 is so solid all around. the format is unique, in the vein of "three stories," and it says even more about chase and house's relationship than we've seen so far, in my opinion. their respective portrayals of one another show the complexities, toxicity, and underlying love (yes, i think that's here) between them. i'm going to forgo a lot of plot-specific comments because i REALLY want to capitalize on a certain analogy that i think is the most compelling bit of the episode (grad school close-reading brain Activated).

first and foremost, chase is being catholic again. how saint jude, patron saint of lost causes of him. i'll be showing my hand as someone who was raised Catholic Lite (my family has never been super religious); i know a lot of the sacramental lingo, too, because i just got through teaching at a catholic university!

catholics have a sacrament called "reconciliation," or a kid's first confessional to a priest - i did mine when i was 8. returning to confession is typical practice in the religion because there are always things for which to ask forgiveness. it's a very private affair (whatever is said is supposed to be utterly confidential) and supposed to be organic, but stacy's practice reconciliation with chase is anything but.

much like a kid (maybe a catholic kid, around age 8?) would rehearse lies to their parents, stacy coaches chase in preparation for his disciplinary hearing. he's repeatedly reprimanded for adding sincerity and self-flagellation where it would weaken his case, and in the same breath chastised for being a shitty liar. the whole "first reconciliation" affair is highly ritualistic; you have to memorize the act of contrition, introduce yourself to the priest in a very precise way, and it's very intimdating as a kid.

even visually, this shot is organized like a confessional booth - which are intimidating in their own right. the doors divide priest (stacy) and sinner (chase) from one another, with the subtle space in between the go-between through which chase confesses. there's even a lectern-equivalent over chase's shoulder.

also interesting to note (not just in this analogy) is that stacy isn't wearing the crucifix that mark gave her.

as the tale that chase spins for stacy unravels, we see that chase became increasingly desperate and self-serving (in character of him from the vogler arc). at the near climax, he reveals to cameron and foreman that he plans on assisting the patient, kayla, and her brother, sam, in securing her a black market liver. this is, clearly, insane, despite chase's insistence that house would do something similar. foreman reiterates the underlying problem chase is experiencing: "this isn't gonna be your salvation."

this is becoming increasingly apparent to chase, especially as, in real time, the number of people ushering him along this sacramental journey is expanding - stacy, cuddy, and house are all involved in the interrogation now. he can't find a pragmatic way out of this predicament, just like he can't keep dancing around his fundamental (catholic) guilt over his error eventually killing kayla.

the next version of events he tells is the martyr's version. in chase's last-ditch fiction, he describes how he marched into kayla's hospital room to stop her from pursuing the black market organ, even as sam protests against it. he undoes an earlier mote of selfishness - telling a superfluous story about his tonsils to comfort patient hospital anxiety - by sharing about his deceased father (a new revelation to the audience!). it's this faux honesty, this nobility, that chase wants as his final testimony. noble, guilty, sacrificing, all in one.

yet the final version, the one nearest the truth, concealing everything but chase's reason for lying, is the most pitiful one yet: after kayla has died, chase confesses his error to same, who lashes out. chase bears the brunt of guilt; he feels he's been adequately punished...

so why does he keep looking at house at every turn?

chase wants to fall on his noble sword and get things over with - he says as much to stacy when he has the option of pushing the hearing date up. however, at every junction, he's downplayed the role house had in diagnosing and treating the patient. he's also afraid of house hearing all this self-sacrificing farce because he knows that he won't buy it. in this moment, stacy has lost her position as allegorical priest; house now embodies the role, sans the privacy of the confessional booth and the screen.

and, like clockwork, house clocks chase's real goal here: absolution. he wants to get through this pseudo-catholic-sacrament as intact as possible without showing any real vulnerability. when house takes chase aside, he says that, "you want him [sam] to sue you." oh, the catholic suffering of it all.

house does away with the ceremony and ritual of the confession. he confesses (!!!) to chase that he figured his father had passed away, and that rowan asked him to keep it to himself. this obviously pains chase, but, since it's house, and since no one can convince me that house isn't mean to be chase's Not Dad, he looks to him instead for a way forward. he's confessed; what should he do now?

nope - house only outlines his 2 options (tell the whole truth, or keep lying) and pledges that he won't say anything. the decision is entirely up to chase. this is a pretty non-deific (or not CATHOLIC, i should say) moment for house, refusing to intervene when a situation sorta calls for it. he's neither benevolent nor malicious, and we've seen him be both. maybe that's why he pays for his lack of a decision when the diagnostics department enters The Foreman Era.

so, in conclusion, this episode was an exercise in chase's catholicism, namely the sacrament called reconciliation/confession, that house subverts by not being the deific, unmerciful god who chase has come to expect in his life.

meanwhile, in wilson land:

hands not quite folded in prayer, divided by the walls of a non-confessional? discussing illicit sexual affairs? drawing admissions from house about his illicit affair? their dumb little game being vaguely penetrative? house's ball(s) being in wilson's metaphorical court? who's to say. i'm just a grad student.

[charliewrites99]

the head tilt brothers

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