#If it isn't working I'll readjust and adapt

[kh-daybreak-cult-au]

Skuld, can you tell me anything about ‘Daybreak Town’? What was it like?

“Well, we had a lot of freedom before the war. We all had our own apartments, worked on our own projects, and would hang out with our friends. There were obviously the daily missions —the Foretellers, Luxu, and the Master of Master’s were technically in charge— but as long as we got those done we could do what we wanted.”

“After the Keyblade War, we were left in charge of keeping Daybreak Town running smoothly. Luxu was supposed to help us, but he disappeared. Everything was different after that…"

(Response date: November 25, 1941)

[housemdork]

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.