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I feel almost certain that you've talked about this before but tumblr claims you've never made a post in your life so: opinions on house's flanderisation as the show goes on? I feel like after Chase, house is the worst offender for this

tumblr is right! i've talked about it for chase and foreman, but not house. i think because it sort of feels... obvious? blatant? like, we all agree it happened, right?

i think we first start to see it in s4, which is when the show makes several obvious and less obvious tonal shifts. there's the obvious hiring games, but i think that's part of a larger shift: house the show and character take on a new meta edge. house has always been funny, but he's suddenly self aware, intentionally acting out tropes with a wink to the audience; he's always had goofier moments, but he starts to lapse into jokes. what was once an offhand line about internet porn becomes him watching it onscreen as his fellows observe; everything becomes a joke. house's default mood in earlier seasons was actually fairly serious -- he was always sarcastic and could be both angry and somber, but his default was a kind of focused impatience, you know what i mean? slowly, his default becomes quips and sarcasm. he jokes about everything, he takes everything far less seriously. he used to spend his spare time absorbed in various (solo) hobbies: watching tv, playing video games, reading, making or listening to music; more and more he spends his time pulling pranks, causing chaos, being a force the rest of the world must react to. he becomes more of a schemer: house would always lie and manipulate to get his way, of course, but now he schemes just for the sake of pulling a fast one. compare his faking cancer in s3 -- something he tries to hide and downplay and refuses to indulge conversations/speculation about -- and his elaborate "i'm faking being dumb because i want to see what people do about it" scheme in s8. the episode handwaves that he had a larger purpose (although i'm drawing a blank to what it was -- chase guesses it was 5d chess, but even that is awfully convoluted), but it goes from "house has clear motives and is doing it for himself" to "5d chess for the sake of a scheme." he goes from a sincere introvert with a sarcastic streak to a sarcastic extrovert with a sincere streak.

s8 is a course correction for the show in a lot of ways (they fix chase and foreman's flandarization to large extents), but house still has prank wars and schemes and is unserious first, somber later. the show becomes character and House Focused, not procedural and story focused. it's not bad (usually), but there's a reason i start to lose interest after s5.

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this robert sean leonard interview from 2007 is making me lose it 😭 house md was at the peak of its viewership and he rly said oh don't get it confused i'm just here to get paid

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wilson's ties in every episode: 

Season 3 Episode 9: Finding Judas

1/3

2/3

3/3

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u can't have a band where everyone is into heroin it'll never go anywhere you need at least one bitch on coke and or type a calling up everyone's house to make them come to the studio

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one day im gonna get to heaven and god is gonna welcome me in and hand me a dvd case and im gonna ask whats this? and god is gonna say thats your copy of 2004 robert sean leonard in little shop of horrors and im gonna say but isnt rsl a little too conventionally attractive to play seymour? and god is gonna say not here. not in heaven

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house md kinda the show of all time cuz how is every character in this scene having breakfast with their partner, their ex-situationship, and their partner's ex-situationship

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the turn from cameron and wilson being our house-related co-conspirators to it being cuddy and wilson is so fast you don't even realize it. you go from season 2 to season 3 and all of a sudden wilson and cuddy are around each other so much more, and the premiere of that season solidifies them as our new co-conspiring duo.

i think it's really easy to go through the entire show and feel like wilson and cuddy were close the entire time but... they weren't. prior to season 3 they had very little to do with each other. i wouldn't necessarily call it a relationship retcon; Meaning seems to imply that they had grown closer in the two months between the end of season 2 and beginning of season 3, and even before that with the date in Forever. but there is a very distinct jump in their closeness and likelihood to share a scene or scheme between seasons.

prior to season 3, it was pretty firmly cameron and wilson playing the roles of The Ones That Care About House--not that cuddy didn't care about house at that time, just that she did it solitarily--so i find it interesting that they all but completely ditched the cam/wilson duo for cuddy/wilson in this season.

the reason that i believe this happened is quite the boring one; cuddy needed more screentime, and it evens out the character dynamics. they're trying to solidify her as being a Main Character, now that she's getting her own storylines, as well as the fact that this season is the one where the role of 'love interest' for house undoubtedly shifts to cuddy, where it'll stay for the rest of the show. the closer cuddy gets to house, the closer she has to be to wilson. the less that cameron is interested in house, the less she feels the need to seek out wilson, and vice versa.

it's strange how unnoticable this change is when you aren't paying attention, though. because it doesn't come out of nowhere, it does build, it isn't like wilson and cuddy have never plotted before (hello! Detox!) or that cameron and wilson stopped having scenes together completely. it's just that things are changing. in a way that feels... sort of natural, so it doesn't really catch you off-guard. it's kinda jarring on paper, but in practice i think it works.

character dynamics are changing. character roles are changing. change is a big theme of the season, and though it's quite hammered in by the finale, it starts at the very beginning. with these two!!! there's a reason the first real scene of season 3 is of cuddy and wilson conspiring in her office. it's solidifing this change, without us even realizing it.

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new sabrina carpenter might just have to be my first house md edit

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no more mr nice guy is really the craziest house episode ever. house having acknowledged and accepted wilson and amber's relationship still openly tries to sabotage it and assert his dominance. he openly admits he knows wilson loves him and it's one of his vices. constantly relates everything in their case back to wilson because he can't stop thinking about him. "oh my god. you're sleeping with me." the whole joint custody scene. house being unable to answer wilson when he asks why he's being so annoying about it all and then when house just stares longingly at him says "well if you'd looked at me with those flashing eyes before i was involved..." house knowing that wilson can't get it up when he's drunk (?????) and making sure he can't have sex with amber after their night out. house accepting amber as someone who's good for wilson eventually and showing her his softer and more caring side, sharing a genuinely tender moment with her as the only other person he trusts to have wilson as completely as he does. wilson secretly being incredibly turned on by the fact that these two beautiful powerful terrifying people are squabbling like children over him. the whole time the ducklings think house has syphilis.

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house md rewatch: 1x07, "fidelity"

they took a bunch of soap opera tropes and stuffed them full of painful ethical qualms about love. i love it.

i love this episode for many, many reasons; it shows the writers' skill in adapting preexisting medical drama tropes into much more rewarding and complex viewing experiences. but, more shallowly, i gotta admit that i'm thrilled by the Walking Ethical Qualm who kicks things off:

him and his fuck-ass "i want to look pretty at work" green tie. gone are the days when he is nothing but house's conscience! wilson does all the exposition work by foregrounding the moral issue of the hour: infidelity, and how it can be twisted by those who commit it and those who suffer the consequences. i'll save my wilson-centric yapping section for the end of this post lol. for now, let's take how house describes wilson's endemic cheating problem informs the rest of the episode: "you love everybody. that's your pathology."

the adulterers in the episode - wilson and the patient, elyse - both claim that they love their partners in spite of their behavior. house seems either A) unconcerned because he's seen his best friend have this problem a dozen times before or B) disinterested because he needed elyse's truth to solve the puzzle of her illness, not the downfall of her marriage. he's content to leave things where they lie - everybody lies.

cameron, however, is abundantly not content with this. and though they never share a scene together in this episode, cameron is profoundly affected by wilson's fidelity question in 1x07. house doesn't let cameron engage with elyse and her husband, ed, because he doesn't think she's prepared for those hard conversations post-1x04, the baby crisis. i think it's a valid concern, and it's one that wilson notoriously highlighted when he had to take the fall for cameron in 1x04. by all accounts, she isn't ready.

which is why it's shocking (and a little satisfying) to hear cameron tell ed that he is a shitty person for hoping his wife dies because she cheated on him. because house md loves to prod at the uncomfy parts of ordinary life, they've honed in on a moral grey area - surely it's not okay to wish death on someone for cheating...

and while it sorta feels like, on the surface, cameron is being something of a girls' girl here, she's actually sabotaging her own belief system and coming to the meta-textual defense of someone she's been shown not to agree with: wilson (hear me out on this lol). in the subsequent scene, cameron confides in house that her husband died at around 21 years old of thyroid cancer after they were married for 6 months (sidebar: this is arguably one of my very favorite pieces of backstory for all the characters). this is why she's so impacted by things like loss, betrayal, and lying. she acted on such pure intentions that it's especially jarring for her to witness cruelty, despite being very familiar with how hard Life (capital L) can be.

house is fascinated by this contradiction, and draws it out of cameron that she knew her husband was dying when they got married. then, my favorite exchange between house and cameron transpires: "and you married him anyway. you can't be that good a person and well-adjusted." "why?" "because you wind up crying over centrifuges." "or hating people?"

i said before that house can never take what he dishes out, especially to cameron, and this truly was the gag of the century that will follow house until the very end of the series. she sees such kindness in house, is so dedicated to seeing and unveiling it, that it actually breaks my heart.

but back to cameron and wilson. cameron's devotion to her husband was completely absolute. it's astonishing to house (and to the audience, i'm sure). so when, by the episode's end, she's pleading with ed to stay with elyse despite the betrayal, cameron has evidently experienced a huge readjustment of not her morals, per se, but her way of seeing those morals in the world.

she still believes in the absolutism of love. i don't think anything will take that away from her. but cameron forces the audience to confront the idea that love is imperfect right as she's confronting it, too. if house asserts that wilson's pathology is loving everyone, can love itself be a problem? cameron is wrestling with this: can something inherently good and pure be so destructive?

in wilson's life (and in his evil little adulterer way), yes, love is destructive. he's so far down the adulterer pipeline that he's bastardized the hard reality cameron is trying to grapple with in 1x07. but house himself has established, textually, that both cameron and wilson are defined by how much they love. one is clearly sick and twisted and based on lies, the other not so much, yet this doesn't mean the world gives preferential treatment to either.

the face of someone well accustomed to how twisted relationships can be vs. someone who's learning about that fact for the first time:

not to read too deeply, but wilson being in a dark suit coat for the duration vs. cameron's white lab coat seems significant, too.

above all, i love how house presides over this dilemma. he remains as distant as possible, just observing another one of wilson's relationship flops and the dissolution of a fraught patient relationship, until cameron. cameron draws vulnerability out from house in a way only wilson has thus far, and caps it off with a profound understanding of why he's Like That. the goodness lurking in house is as painful for him as it is for cameron. she can see that.

now (more) about wilson :)

that fuck-ass green tie being compared to a breast augmentation. the breast augmentation that was intended to get the clinic patient's husband to sleep with her. the breast augmentation that failed because her husband was already POISONING her to decrease their sex drive. the green tie therefore dooming wilson to another failed affair because it's about Needing, not fulfillment, not anything long-lasting. the green tie/breast augmentation parallel being tied to someone's sex drive. wilson being so far in the closet that -- *gunshot*

let's not even mention the fact that house intuitively knows that wilson's current wife (who tf is julie lol) would never get him a green tie in the first place.

later we hear what becomes, in my opinion, one of the most vital character traits in all of house md: wilson's need for neediness. or, to use house's words about the new oncology nurse wilson has so kindly been ~having lunch with~ - "she would certainly have the neediness you need." doctor james evan wilson you make me crazy!!!!!

viewers at this point have no clue why wilson needs neediness. it sounds very superfluous and highly misogynistic/manipulative (not that it isn't in the long run, but we learn about the deep pathology as time goes on ofc), probably a callback to how they just ogled the clinic patient together. big yikes. with some imagination, however, we can guess that this Need For Neediness coincides nicely with his oncology practice - those patients will always need him. and he will love all of them (somehow), as house points out: "you loved all your wives. probably still do. in fact, you probably love all the women you loved who weren't your wife...as long as you're trying to be good, you can do whatever you want."

i remember watching this for the first time and being like "holy baggage. is wilson the villain?"

all that is to say this was a HELL of a fun episode with an insane patient plot twist - ELSYE CHEATED ON ED WITH HIS BEST FRIEND! WHO WAS JUST ASKING ABOUT ED'S SEX LIFE! i love the cameron centrism, was thrilled to hear her backstory reveal, etc., etc. this made up for 1x06.

my last bit here is very divorced from this episode but spoilers the series finale:

6 months. she married him anyway. "i watched my husband die of cancer." cameron seeing the same good in house that inspired her to love and stay with her dying husband. staring down a clock together and living the best life they could. i know the series finale was not planned. i hear that parroted all day, every day. but seriously. how tf did all these parallels happen.

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house md rewatch: 1x04, "maternity"

it was pretty insensitive of wilson to look so distractingly good during such a serious episode.

1x04 is one of my very favorites of the season because of how emotionally heightened it is, and i can't think of a better character to carry this message than cameron. i was sooo locked in on jennifer morrison's performance the entire time, and cameron's (underutilized) chemistry with wilson was the highlight for me. more on that point soon! to get to all the thoughts i want to write down, i'm going to bounce out of order a bit.

cuddy is great in this episode now that they've started drip-feeding us many precursors to her defining characteristics and conflicts throughout the show. i know i complained/grieved about her lacking characterization so far, but i'm also coming to appreciate the slow-burn reveal. her immediate and dire interest in the outbreak (after house is proved right over some crazy, impossible hunch that the babies are about to get sick before it even happens), she becomes the kind of mother we see in later seasons - firm, to the point, kindness over niceness, with an unending well of love to give.

house also gives us a preview into his flawed understanding of cuddy that, among other things, spells out their eventual downfall: "the hospital is her baby." he says this like she's a nuisance not just to himself, but to the rest of PPTH. and not to venture into any freudian territory (i hate that guy & had to read way too much psychoanalytic theory in grad school so far), but the behavior house criticizes in her is VERY motherly. she's the fabric that holds PPTH (and house, ofc) together. and while house initiated the search for the virus, she implemented all the logistics.

house, meanwhile, is dipping into a decidedly genderless "parent" role, back into deific, godly territory. house doesn't engage in any motherly behavior - duh lol - but he also doesn't repurpose any fatherly behaviors highlighted in 1x02. he actually invites cuddy and wilson into the DDx process, undermining an overtly masculine tendency of his to control every social interaction. and while he isn't affectionate or soft toward the babies, he's not detached, either.

the scene where he autopsies the dead baby is one of the show's most grim, and one of his most vulnerable moments (especially in the early days when his stoicism was extra prominent). the tragedy lies in his examination of new life in the reverse, divorced from the process of creation, which the parents of the surviving baby even highlight in the episode's opening scene: "can you believe we made this little creature?...it's the most amazing thing we've ever done."

the resulting contrast is painful:

for someone who claimed that humanity is an annoyance not so long ago, it sure seems like the loss of humanity weighs heavy on house, too (ofc we observe this throughout the show, but, again, i love seeing how early these threads crop up!).

another godly trait house performs in 1x04 is the decision to give each baby a different drug, another diagnosis via preemptive treatment. house, and the team, emphasize the "random chance" of it all, but when house literally flips a coin to see which baby gets which drug, he's implementing that random chance. hiding behind that shield doesn't absolve him of the decision itself.

even amidst an episode crowded with major tragedy, major character choices, and lots of tears, cameron stands out the most by a long shot. at first, 1x04 bates us into sharing foreman and wilson's frustrations with her weakness in the face of patients' loss. she seems overly soft, unprofessional, etc., which wilson pretty cruelly calls out. yet when she argues to house that "it's easier to die than to watch someone die," she begins to unfold. genuinely, that's one of the most intriguing and striking lines from her in the entire show imo.

but it's not only about sympathy for the mystery sadness that lurks in her backstory! now that we can pinpoint the psychosomatic pieces of house that each of the ducklings possess, cameron's becomes extra apparent: she has house's selfishness, but the moralistic remix. whether or not this belief about dying/watching death of hers is true or not, it's a selfish belief to apply blanketly. it's certainly one that house will come to embrace by the series' end.

i love the mirror cameron holds up to house when she declares that he "can be a real bastard," (so true, queen). she's the first of the ducklings to stand up to him like that, but she also shows how house can never take what he dishes out. if they share that selfishness, at least cameron has the courage to wear it on her sleeve. our girl is Empathy Poisoned, fr.

SPEAKING OF BEING EMPATHY POISONED.

wilson, being the reining champion of characterization by way of foiling, is explosive with cameron. i truly don't think we get many rawer exchanges between anyone in the entire show - yes, i'm being that bold. it's insane how house md not only twists empathy into selfishness, but also shows how that selfishness can manifest in polar opposite ways.

wilson is angry with cameron for giving the parents false hope for their child's survival, for which cameron pays dearly. if i'm limiting my knowledge to only what's been presented about wilson in episodes 1-4, this attitude stems from his oncology and the inherently grim nature of his work. the rest of the show slowly but surely unveils wilson's own relationship with loss and his wry realism -- until the final hour, of course, but that's getting ahead of myself.

(i have to mention it here: never forget that wilson is so selfish when it comes to "Caring For People" that he sleeps with a dying cancer patient. he's a villain. pay no attention to how the vast majority of my blog is devoted to loving him).

cameron, ignorantly (imo), thinks that false hope is a way to keep someone fighting long enough to get through the worst of a tragedy. the parents of the surviving child disprove this. they stand together through the darkest twists and turns, and cameron is forced to confront her selfishness head on. she doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, the same kind of bad news that hurt her so badly (re: her deceased husband, but we're not there yet).

where wilson's selfishness appears in this episode is how he treats cameron moving forward. he takes responsibility for informing the family that their baby died, which pisses house off - understandably. to a point, this is a kind gesture, but it speaks more to wilson's compelling need to Help, Assuage, Relieve, and All The Rest. if we squint, we can extrapolate this about him in just 4 episodes based on how he treats house and his addiction. the entire exchange is also incredibly embarrassing for cameron, which wilson worsens by suggesting she find a new practice.

i just love the dilemma created between these 2 very disparate characters. their temperaments are wildly different, as are their methods, ways about the world, etc., but their bleeding hearts create nothing but problems.

a final note about shot composition: i LOVE how they set up these oppositional frames of cameron and foreman. putting cameron off to the side implies instability, but she's also sitting closer to the parents, while foreman, commanding more authority, stands cold and distant before the other baby's family.

definitely one of my favorites. it's a grueling watch and the first of many episodes to slightly reduce house's centrality. i can tell i'm going to have a much deeper understanding and appreciation for cameron's character this time around.

my farewell note:

whore.

i have yet to shake the uncanny-valley-this-isn't-wilson feeling. tbh he probably won't feel like Wilson to me till the whole pharmaceutical speech debacle.

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the ballad of songbirds and snakes vs sunrise on the reaping

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wilson is diabolical in s3 ep2, especially because a few episodes prior its established that he eats neediness. if someone becomes independent from him, he can't stand it. typically this means he divorces them; but since house isn't his husband, this time it means he instigates house's psychosomatic depression.

both cuddy and cameron are on Team Tell House He Didn't Fuck Up, because they know house is on a quiet downward spiral. they know his leg pain's severity is tied to his self-worth/mental state.

but wilson? Mr I-Pathologically-Need-To-Be-Needed Wilson? he frames his Don't Tell House position as "teaching House humility" when really his motive is to get house back on vicodin and reliant on him. he even tosses a full vicodin pill bottle at house, claiming that it's so house doesn't skip rehab due to the pain. but if that were the case, why not give house something non-addictive? something OTC or non-restricted?

and i think there is an additional aspect in s3 ep1, too. house says he doesn't remember wilson "being this bitchy", and wilson replies that "the vicodin dulled it. in the sober light of day, i'm a buzzkill."

which could just be a dry humor remark, sure, but i think it highlights that their dynamic's going to change now that house is sober. and if their dynamic changes, it could threaten their weird codependent ecosystem that they live in. one where they both tolerate/exacerbate each other's worst qualities (house's misery and wilson's bitchiness). who will love me like he loves me? who will love him like i love him?

this is exemplified in that same episode. wilson shoots house down multiple times when house says he's a changed man, by replying: "no, house, you aren't."

wilson does this manipulative thing where on one hand, he's encouraging house to get better; yet on the other hand, he undermines any true progress. there is something so deeply wrong with wilson. he's so fearful of losing the codependency in his relationship with house, that he'll do anything to keep their fragile Boy Best Friend Status Quo. and that includes outright lying to house & actively sabotaging his rehab.

that also includes manipulating cuddy and cameron into keeping quiet. ironically, he's only able to do so because of his Boy Best Friend relationship to house. after all, who knows house better than wilson? who would know how to make house feel better more than wilson? who would know how to make house feel worse more than wilson? nobody loves house like wilson