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House M.D. but it's when Wilson and House says each other's name

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Cameron coming to visit Chase after he gets stab could make for some good angst

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I think every Chase fan imagines he looked like this when he was in the seminary school.

Very beautiful, very cute, and very small and edible.

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chase giggling and kicking his feet as house uses his motorcycle's engine to drown out foreman's voice to annoy him

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House's pets.

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is this anything

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house md rewatch: 1x13, "cursed"

daddy issues o'clock + doctor robert chase making me weepy

man, i just really like this one. no matter house often house md makes cancer into a plot device, it gags me every time.

i think i'll lead this recap with why i'm so excited by it - this is an unconditional love episode, even if so many people claim to dislike/hate one another. and this is a trait inherited from failed misanthrope number 1, of course. i'll build to that!

i adore all of the character work done with chase here. all of his strengths and weaknesses ebb and flow so well, also on account of the highly efficient flow of this episode. we see him at his absolute strongest so far - bonding with the patient, gabe, over his anxieties, secrecy, and fear of his dad - and then at his worst - testy, snarling, and petulant (UNDERSTANDABLY. heavy on the understandably). the degradation from kindly taking gabe aside to talk away from his parents to claiming that throwing diagnoses at the wall till something sticks "works for spaghetti" is STEEP.

i have very old but kind memories of having doctors like chase from my Dying Child Era, so i'm extra affected by his scenes with gabe.

chase's decline is, of course, inspired by the sudden appearance of his dad, rowan chase, whom he hasn't seen in a Long Time. All at once, we're thrown a lot of chase lore - his mother "drank herself to death," died ~10 years ago (which house somehow knew), chase was left to take care of her, and he and rowan have fundamentally different understandings of how their relationship devolved. we've also got another interesting trifecta among the ducklings: how they deal, or don't deal, with their past.

cameron, while hesitant to reveal hers, lets it inform her work and wears her feelings on her sleeve very righteously re: 1x07. this by no means makes her an open book, ofc. she also pokes back when house tries to needle his way into her head, highlighting their similarities, their opposition to being vulnerable, etc.

foreman just rejects the premise of divulging anything personal outright. even with wilson relegated to a borderline background character atp, we know more about him than we do foreman. i love that, especially knowing the weight of his story upcoming.

chase, meanwhile, gets nasty. he mouths off to house, throws some caution to the wind, and, when push comes to shove, gives in just to rip the bandaid off (he's a big bandaid-ripper, in retrospect). despite the similarities between house and chase so far, emphasized a little more in 1x13, they are not alike in this respect, in my opinion. this informs house's decision not to tell chase that his dad is dying of cancer.

this episode actually does a lot to deconstruct any tacit similarities we've drawn between chase and house and places house - quite obviously - in the fatherly role. amazing irony for someone who claims to be better off without the relationship at all. my personal favorite is the red mug:

rowan also wears red throughout the episode, if that adds anything here.

and in a scene soon after rowan chase arrives, house makes a jab at the obviously strained relationship, noting that "i know how protective kids can be of their parents" while handing chase his can, which chase receives without a second thought:

house also says sarcastically to chase: "prove your dad wrong. it'll solve everything," a remark whose tone implicates house wayyy later in 5x04 when he's so insistent on proving that his father is of no biological relation to him. seriously, do all roads point me back to that episode? we obviously don't know about house's poor relationship with his parents yet, but it was a weighted comment to make, and hugh laurie always lets us know through the eyes that there are around 3 more layers of machinations to house working at all times.

even the final diagnosis, leprosy, holds bearing on father and son. not only did gabe inherit the illness from his dad, but the historical/religious significance of leprosy implicates chase's upbringing. leprosy was often considered to be divine punishment in the bible and a mark of permanent social isolation and separation, so to inherit the "sins" of the father is doubly unfair. it's no fault of gabe's that his father gave him the illness, just like it's no fault of chase for how his childhood turned out. there's a terribly kind message buried in there.

re: unconditional love, chase all but spits on the concept when cameron confronts him about his iciness toward his father. she tells him that "all this hate is toxic" between chase and rowan, to which he replies: "then stay away." very superficially house of him, and obviously meant as a warning away from romantic interest (haha), but we know that's just it - it's all superficial.

small note: i always like the moments they seclude to this MRI observation room; the coloring usually implies a tense exchange is about to happen, and someone will inevitably get the 2nd act cold shoulder -- this all makes the time when wilson gives house an MRI infinitely funnier.

if chase had truly moved on from his father, he wouldn't make such a meandering speech to house about disappointment. he wouldn't feel disappointed about those disappointments. he would be able to talk about his past in a calm manner, thus making him a lot less human, a lot less like robert chase, and a LOT less of a disaffected misanthrope-lite.

i also think the scene between cameron and chase highlights cameron's persistent belief in love's absolutism, which was super present in 1x07.

this is where i think house and chase are conjoined. house is such a fake "I Don't Care Guy," he's just had a lot more years of practice, loneliness, drug abuse, and tragedy. i don't think house is aware of this about himself yet, but he does see a glimmer of himself in chase's speech about disappointment, which is what truly motivates him to keep the cancer diagnosis to himself. after just claiming that he likes meddling "because i like to know things," he puts a pause on that meddling for a greater good (thanks for the quick moral lesson, wilson). VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE OF HOUSE MD.

1x13 lays this on pretty thick at the end, but i don't mind. after learning about the extent of his father's lies, gabe tells chase that he doesn't love his dad anymore. chase shoots this down, insists that gabe does, and that there's "nothing you can do about it."

the final tragedy of the episode is that, when chase does submit to a very intuitive sense of unconditional love, rowan can't meet him there.

he flies back to australia without telling chase that he's dying. he's dug himself too deep of a hole, full of conditions, excuses, and supposed reasons for leaving chase that chase was prepared to leave at the door! rowan can't uphold unconditional love, and it'll be a brutal lesson for chase to learn as the show carries on.

good episode! foundational episode, even! when i started house md, i didn't expect the blonde australian to get to me, but he did then, and he's doing the same right now.

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how fucking insane would it have been if they had written this in as canon instead of the blackhole that is camerons family and childhood that we actually get, and this as the reason to why shes so fried.. can one of u beautiful house md psychoanalisers get on this asap

(this is from the house: official guide under cameron’s section)

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The cast of House, M.D. in a promotional photoshoot for TV Guide.

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Scattered thoughts about Chase and Wilson and how they seem to have this connection that isn't really explained in-universe. They're not really depicted as being especially close even on the level of people who are just work friends, but Wilson still goes to bat for/looks out for Chase and we're not really told why.

With the OG trio, Wilson's part of learning arcs for both Cameron (1x04) and Foreman (1x10). Chase? Not so much. In Kids (1x19), Wilson suggests that it would be kinder for House to fire Chase quickly rather than toy with him and believes that Chase "completely screwed [House] over" (also interesting that House supports Chase in that conversation and also backs Foreman when Wilson says Foreman "screwed us" in 3x21, Family, but that's another post).

Still, when House fires Chase in Human Error (3x24), Wilson is very much against it, both when he initially confronts House about it and also when he says, "Then you shouldn't have fired Chase" after House goes to him for help while Cameron and Foreman are busy. But he doesn't give a strong *reason* for why House shouldn't have fired Chase. Cuddy comes up with, "He's a good doctor," but Wilson doesn't add anything that's related to Chase's specific strengths or the role he serves for House even though he saw Chase put together the right answer in Airborne (3x18) when he was overseeing the team and heard about Chase's correct call in Finding Judas (3x09).

During Foreman's quitting arc, Wilson tells Foreman, "You know he wants you. You know he's good. You know he can make you good" (3x22) and tells Cuddy that House needs Foreman: "House has to realize he needs someone who stands up to him" (3x23). Wilson also later tells Thirteen that House needs her because, "He needs someone who doesn't need him. You're the only one he's never really been able to suck into his crazy House vortex. Keeps him grounded. His ego in check." Sure, he's coming up with something on the spot because Thirteen thinks he hacked her account and cancelled her ticket out of town, but just because he came up with it fast doesn't mean he doesn't mean it. He tells House, "She's good for you. You need her" (Instant Karma, 6x05). When Chase quits in 8x20, Post-Mortem, Wilson asks, "Why did you let him go?" but doesn't get into a conversation about *why* it's a big deal/why he's surprised House let him quit.

And yet. Wilson gives Chase a pep talk in Finding Judas and is willing to throw him a bachelor party in House Divided (5x22). After Cameron leaves, Wilson decides in Private Lives (6x15) that Chase should get back in the dating pool and invites him to speed dating (which is interesting because in the same episode, Chase seems surprised when Wilson joins him for lunch. If they're close enough for Wilson to know and care about how Chase is doing post-breakup and for him to ask Chase to speed dating, why is Chase surprised that Wilson would sit by him at lunch?).

When Chase goes to Wilson for a consult on a patient in 8x12, Chase, Wilson, though he's got to know that House has been trying to get Chase to talk to him, doesn't tell House about it. We don't get Wilson's take on Nobody's Fault, but Wilson not telling House about meeting with Chase and House turning to Park to find them instead of leaning on Wilson seems to suggest that Wilson agrees that Chase has a good reason to be angry at House after Nobody's Fault (and/or he cares enough about Chase's feelings here to respect them—and to respect them over what House wants—even if he doesn't agree with him).

It's just...interesting. A lot of it makes sense given where they need the story to go, though. Having Wilson give very convincing reasons for why it's a mistake for House to lose what Chase specifically brings to the table in Human Error maybe doesn't mesh so well with the "Chase is ready to move on even if he wouldn't have done it himself" message? And anyway, House knowing how good Chase is and looking to see if he'd come back in 4x02 and his genuine "Told you we needed you" in 4x12 does seem more powerful than it might have been if it looked like Wilson had had to draw his attention to it?

And in terms of Wilson being more involved with Cameron and Foreman, his strengths are more well suited to things they were dealing with in those episodes. Chase, for example, didn't need as much help with empathy or delivering news patients didn't want to hear. What he did need to work on more was standing his ground and not caring what House thought (though in early seasons, he actually did fight for his ideas more than he's usually given credit for), but that was something that was best hammered into him through experience with House—though Wilson's pep talk in Finding Judas did underscore the "Don't wait for House's approval" message.

It still leaves me with this sense of, "The show doesn't really suggest that Wilson and Chase are super close and there's no reason to think that they secretly are, but it also looks like there's more to the relationship than we see and Wilson will even side with Chase over House and also cares about Chase in a way that isn't related to House.'

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second favorite genre of wilson

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my favorite genre of wilson

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i always forget how sassy wilson is. there’s so much emphasis on house’s one-liners and attitude because he has more screen time and he punctuates them more but wilson is such a bitch

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house is writing y/n rpf right here

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I have no words

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😮😮😮⬅️why he did this. he is so silly

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Let’s play doctor. I'll go first. You owe me $3200.