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charliewrites99 · 23 hours ago

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house md rewatch: 3x24, "human error"

"how do you fix something if you don't look at it?" is one of my lines in this whole show!

happy season finale!!! stay tuned for my traditional season review/wrap-up post coming (sometime) after this one.

while this is no 2x24 "no reason," i think this finale is an unsung hero, and the scarce moments leading up to house firing chase never fail to put a pit in my stomach. AND what a hell of a setup for season 4!!! but i'll talk about all of that more below, along with more characterizations of house as a dethroned deific figure to the 3 fellows.

i think the heart of 3x24's conflict comes from the unique parallel drawn between house and the patient marina's husband, esteban. during her MRI with cameron, marina explains esteban's ethos regarding prayer: "he refuses to pray or worry. he believe if you don't have one, you don't need the other." she explains this after taking off her crucifix necklace for the procedure, implying that marina is deeply religious, but not her husband.

esteban believes that he can and should take temporal matters - like getting himself and marina to the US under horribly dangerous conditions - into his own hands. he treats prayer, as we see later in the episode, as a last-ditch and rarely effect resort. house has his own equivalent of this belief, too; he will puzzle out the case before he ever considers faith and prayer. i think this is why he can build such solidarity with esteban, and why house makes a rare visit to the chapel in good faith (LOL); he knows that this isn't what esteban wants to do, only that it's his last resort.

seeing esteban deconstructing his own beliefs in his time of need demands introspection of house, however. by this point in the episode, house has effectively alienated everybody - chase, foreman, and (soon) cameron. thinking back to 3x07, he has, in fact, pushed "till it breaks." introspection would therefore imply that he investigate the real "human error" afoot here: his own interpersonal failure.

this is why one of foreman's lines during the diagnostic process is so exciting to me: he announces that "it is possible to have the same symptom for 2 different reasons." just like house and esteban - a dissolution of faith because of their unique life experiences!!

and it's not for nothing that wilson is the one to formally announce the episode title to house. invoking another angel-over-the-shoulder moment, except this time house is watching wilson work, pestering his conscience for advice that he doesn't really want to hear in the first place: "of course it's human error. you don't want foreman to have made a mistake because...that would put a crimp in your brilliant plan of keeping him by having a breakdown and firing chase."

the human error wilson is harping on is how marina went into cardiac arrest during a procedure, eventually having to be placed on bypass and presumed dead. barring any other medical explanation, it makes sense that foreman messed up the test, until house disproves this by finding a congenital defect in marina's heart that explains her freakish resurrection.

contrary to wilson's insistence, it wasn't human error; it's a flaw in "god's" creation; it's certainly not house's error, either. this reminds me a bit of 3x01 and 3x02 where he did, in fact, cure the patient, but they kept this from him in order to deescalate his mounting god complex.

it's this deific revelation that, i think, gives house the vehemently false impression that he's ready for change at the end of the episode. marina's heart restarting is a clever way of implying a complete emotional transformation.

to continue with the season's long theme of "what is meaning?" 3x24 features the discovery of the answer, but the failure to uphold it. everyone leaving house highlights that it's those very people, those relationships, that give life meaning, yet house spends a lot of season 3 hyper-focused on himself, to his detriment, forgoing the lesson that cuddy and wilson intended to teach him from day 1.

house's decision to change isn't a bad or completely disingenuous one, of course. the guitar detail at the end is a lovely and understated way to close out a pretty bombastic season. but when house talks with esteban at the end about how he's just lost his entire team, esteban not only looks fondly on his wife, who he has NOT lost because he did NOT give up on her, but he also seems to understand what lurks beneath house's facade: worry.

"so, they all quit. it's very hard to lose your people. must be very upset...but you're not?"

esteban is disbelieving here, and i am, too. even without what i know about season 4, this sudden transition seems too good to be true, especially after the blow out between him and foreman. house is changing, alright, but it's hardly for the better. it's hardly in the name of what gives life meaning: other people.

that's why i highlighted esteban's line at the beginning: "how can you fix something if you don't look at it?" to avoid introspection, to avoid admitting that he cares about people, house shoves them all away. he won't look at the problem; he abandons it completely. he won't look at himself.

like i've alluded to, this refusal to look inward has disastrous consequences! house commits Many A Human Error in 3x24! in this "breakdown," to use wilson's words, house dethrones himself as the deity the show has positioned him as all along. this was already being majorly shaken (like in 3x09 and 3x10, especially), but one look at chase while he's being fired lets you know that things are fundamentally different now.

this is needless punishment and blatant favoritism. foreman mouths off to house all the time, as well as cameron and chase, but foreman having the favorite spot on lock undoes everything. not criticizing foreman here - they all should yell @ house to their hearts' content all day, every day. i can't help but think back to 2x08, one of house's most distinct moments of solidarity with chase, and how, through everything, chase still banked on that bond he assumed they had, one that would guide chase out of the darkest moments.

what's extra impactful about this moment of finality and alienation between house and chase for me is the record we have of chase's contentment with existential uncertainty. while he does everything and then some to preserve his temporal conditions (i.e., his self-preservation instincts in the workplace leading him to traitor behavior sometimes), he's expressed several times his fluidity in faith/spiritual and religious beliefs. he's such an interestingly syncretic character, and The Episode Of All Time (2x19, "house vs. god"), speaks to this.

if you'll allow me the several 2 dollar words lol - house was the ultimate meeting-point of temporal materiality and non-secular existentialism for chase. he represented both his work and his creed, something that chase always needs UNTIL NOW. he's without belief now. you'd think this would propel him into similar, symbolic atheism as house, but, with knowledge of future seasons under our belts...

does he or does he not look a little guilty here btw.

and what's extra impactful for me about cameron's departure is that she has learned the lesson. she has adopted the heart of meaning-making - relationships and love with the people around her - into her moral ethos, her unwavering compass, and removes herself from her search for goodness in house. she knows it's in there, but she also sees true love and goodness elsewhere (with chase and beyond). that she's the last fellow to formally leave is an unexpected gut-punch, and i think reaffirmed to casual audiences (i.e., people who aren't as insane as we are) that guess what?! she is, in fact, a fully-fledged out person, and she won't be molded by house.

"i've gotten all that i can from this job" = she's (rightfully) given up on house in this capacity.

"i expect you to do what you always do. i expect you to make a joke and go on. i expect you to be just fine."

twisting the knife with a refrain of "people don't change" coming from the fellow who was the most devoted to finding goodness in house is SO GOOD.

re: the wonderful chameron of it all, i don't have many intelligent things to say about them FINALLY being together. maybe none at all. but how chase says "hi" when she shows up at his door gets me teary-eyed every time. as far as we know with seasons 1-3 context, it seems like they can flourish now that they're out from house's thumb, which is wonderful for them and double-damning for house.

i fucking love tuesdays.

lastly, i want to break containment again in order to properly loop cuddy into this recap. i've already mentioned in other posts how crazy the 3x24 and 4x16 connections are (and i know 4x16 was unplanned because of the writers' strike), and this one scene in particular with house and cuddy looks and feels so much like the one between cuddy and wilson in 4x16. yet they both yield fundamentally different results based on the premise of "human error."

at the point of the episode where cuddy advises house to let marina die, she, too, has an injured sense of belief in him, though it's way kinder and sympathetic than the fellows'. she feels for him, which is why she insists that he give esteban the news. she, too, believes in the human error, but factors it in as an inevitable part of life. house's routine violations of her advice uproot this, much like 3x01.

4x16, meanwhile, features the inverse in almost every way. cuddy appeals to wilson because wilson's keeping of amber on bypass is cruel and useless. unlike with marina, there is no medical secret to uncover that will make everything undo itself. what kills amber is a fact of the universe's cruel random chance, like marina's congenital heart problem, but this one can't be undone because it's out of house's purview. there is human error afoot - wilson's - and yet, even if he'd solved those errors, it didn't matter. cuddy assures wilson of this while she advises him to do what's right.

wait actually my final real point is house's insistence that he doesn't care about marina. that he doesn't care about the outcome of the case. that he has no reason to NOT pull the plug apart from the puzzle. this begs my favorite wilson question about kindness and ends/means: if house's puzzle solving is based in a selfish need for the truth, but engenders medical miracles and life along the way, is it so bad? and doesn't this imply that he does, in fact, care, to cuddy's point?

fake misanthrope. in that way, house hardly ever changes.

i'm a little ashamed that i didn't remember this finale as much as i should have! i really enjoyed it, even if it's outshined by its predecessor a bit. above all, i think it's confirmation of what meaning is, its affirmation that house is still struggling with/to change, and its springboard quality make it an excellent season send off.

#i remember watching this as a kid for the first time #and being so sad the og fellows left

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charliewrites99 · 2 days ago

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house md rewatch: 3x23, "the jerk"

in hindsight, it's incredibly obvious that the og 3 fellows' times are coming to an end </3

full disclosure - i used that picture for the banner this time just because of how hot he looks during that conversation. like. button that shirt up, whore (please don't).

this episode feels like a return to paranoiac-form, the mood that set the tone for the season from the moment house "borrowed" wilson's prescription pad back during the dark ages. this time, it's all the result of the mysterious Foreman Interview Sabotage. i especially like how the paranoia characterizes each involved party, and, even more especially, i love chase's role because It's So Inconspicuous.

i'll discuss each iteration of paranoia on its own, i think!

first, foreman's paranoia is the most justified and is ratified by the episode's end. his gut instinct is correct that it was house who sabotaged his interview, and we can extrapolate that it's this gut instinct that makes house especially pained in 3x23 to let him go. arguably the most powerful point in the episode, however, is house's assertion that "you're not ready" because foreman consistently defers to his judgment, even with rage on his mind.

house even gives foreman yet another chance to defy him by "forcing" him into a pointless all-nighter, and there's a huge look of disappointment on his face when foreman doesn't take the opportunity, doesn't even consider taking it. this is a masterclass moment in all the contradictions that make up house - a desperation to keep foreman around combined with disappointment that he's just failed the standards that would seek to keep foreman at PPTH. he barely knows what he wants because, in foreman's words, he won't pursue the issue "the adult way."

even foreman's immediate appeal to cuddy signifies a persistent reliance on authority that house really hoped foreman would shake off in time...but this would, again, contradict what house really wants in the end, which is for nothing to ever change and for foreman to be his fellow forever.

cameron's paranoia, while not featured as much, is strictly interpersonal and emotional. she makes a cold judgment of chase that he would sabotage foreman just to sabotage him, seemingly buying into the act that both chase and foreman put on - that they don't like each other (which makes me laugh every time i hear it). i think the main takeaway from this conversation is that chase is hurt by cameron's harsh characterization of him, and that it doesn't really matter because it's tuesday again and he still likes her. funniest (and sweetest) moment of the episode for me.

what's WAY more interesting to me about cameron in this episode is my favorite conversation, the one between her and wilson. what an excellent callback to the days of old, where wilson either patronized the hell out of her and doubted her capabilities as a doctor (1x04), projected his own unchecked emotional neediness onto her unyielding, immune-to-temptation armor (2x06), or pointed the "surely you have to care about house as much as i do" finger (3x10). every time they talk it's a thrill for me, and the way she can scathingly read through wilson is excellent. by nature of his 3-years' worth of bullshit, she's removed her rose-colored glasses about him.

"you so would have fallen for that 3 years ago" is so special to me.

speaking of wilson, his paranoia is so melodramatic, as are most things about him, but also a little under-explored compared to the rest of the characters. what his time in 3x23 exemplifies are his Evil Little Shit tendencies for manipulating people, and how they're not as fool-proof as they once were!

he's so certain that at least someone on this earth has a bleeding heart for house, and it comes as a surprise to him that the one person he thought he could rely on for that has moved on. my only other major wilson note is how hilarious it was when he gripped the elevator door like the incredible hulk to keep it form closing.

also. girl (wilson). shut the hell up. ofc cuddy wouldn't fire you. i'd argue that wilson has even better job security under cuddy than house does.

cuddy's paranoia shows an immediate attunement to her classic bridging character role: the legal and the ethical and the moral. with plenty of evidence to back it up, she runs to the presumed scene of the crime because wilson has shown, on many occasions, that he'll pick house above any of the other considerations she has to balance (1x18; house is the baby, after all!).

what's also very notable about cuddy's time in this episode is that she's the only character - until chase's confrontation with house at the end - who takes direct action. she makes the ultimate appeal foreman, thus canceling out most suspicions that she was the one to call and sabotage. far more than house, she sincerely wants the fellows to succeed by the books. plus, the subtle friendship foreman and cuddy have built during this season has been really touching.

i've also thought that this makes foreman an interesting/sensible replacement for cuddy (and edelstein by extension) come season 8. he rejects the dual diagnostics department offer because he would inevitably defer to house, who would never do the same even if the situation called for it. but he can operate truly above house, without impediments, in cuddy's role. more on that to come in the VERY distant future, though.

chase's paranoia is my favorite part of the episode, as well as how misread he gets by everyone else along the way.

nate, the evil patient who i've somehow not mentioned yet lol, immediately calls chase inexperienced and ignorant, which is very prescient right now as the specter of learning under house for Too Long grows deeper, darker, and more dangerous. it asks the subliminal/retrospective question - what has chase got to show for all this time?

cameron's guess that chase was the saboteur is so wrong, in my opinion, because chase has proven time and time again to do almost anything in the name of self-preservation, and foreman being house's favorite has hindered chase since day 1 (not that foreman hasn't deserved it and/or chase has, though). chase is itching for foreman to leave; he is completely uninterested in helping foreman on his way out, sure, but actively messing up his chances of success somewhere else doesn't have any career gain potential.

i know it's blurry but this screencap made me laugh too hard not to include lol.

i also think that chase's aggression toward nate is a way of persuading house and cameron that he can make up for foreman's loss. it's also reminiscent of his dynamic with the kid that bit him in 3x19 lol, which is funny because i highly doubt that cameron would ever be impressed by clearly out-of-character intensity and anger on chase's part.

the BEST singular line in the episode for me comes from house regarding chase once chase has put all the pieces together. after declaring the truth, that house really did sabotage foreman to keep him from leaving, house says with a smile that, "sometimes i forget why i hired you." and this is so devastating to me.

in an episode devoted to showing how aimless the department will be without foreman, one of the fleeting positive remarks from house about chase (in the entire series) isn't to compliment his doctorly skills. it's to highlight his interpersonal skills, his ability to read and dissect people, to get to the heart of the matter that house would rather avoid completely - the emotional part. how chase tries to get house to speak to foreman is actually very wilson of him, too. he tells him that hearing that house isn't so evil would be helpful, advises that he just simply "talk to foreman."

chase's willingness here to defy authority is what house wishes for in foreman. it doesn't have the same punch coming from chase, who he really believes is a brown-noser. i'm compelled by how much the devotee of all time, chase, is stuck between defiance in his deity and deference to it. this conversation is so far removed from 2x08, representing chase's closest strive toward freedom. but, as we know from the upcoming season finale, it's too little, too late.

house isn't paranoid here. he's the paranoia's epicenter, and he's got very real fears on his mind about his star doctor and his mirror into nurture OVER nature abandoning him.

unfortunately for all involved parties, nate is the embodiment of nature over nurture. house is so insistent that nate is struggling with a personality disorder that causing his aggressive behavior, while in the same breath ridiculing foreman for wanting nate to have an inherent goodness within him. what house doesn't/refuses to admit is that he shares in that want, at least a little bit. if nate can't be good, if his nature is that destructive, then house's might be, too, and that implicates foreman along the way.

finally, there's probably dozens of ways to incorporate the chess motif into this recap, but what i find most profound, and the most tragic, is how house and nate's game casts foreman as the king that house will inevitably lose.

in their first game, nate outlines the exact way in which he would win in real time. house takes hours to concoct another strategy in private and triumphantly presents the new answer to nate, along with the diagnosis. but his triumph is ripped out from under him when nate says that he was bluffing, that he knew the other way out of the strategic foxhole.

house bluffed all the way along this episode, banking on everyone "chasing ghosts," in chase's words, in hopes that it would amount to his desired outcome. but he's too much of a "jerk" to let what must happen happen. he has to give up The King. he got outplayed.

there's a lot more to say about this episode, but it was nice to stick to a streamlined form for once, and this was the most compelling plot thread for me. classic episode all around. plus...i can't believe that the season finale is next.

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