Last night's "House"--WTF? (SPOILERS)

[kay1864]

Okay, nice twist at the end with the Vicodin and "Voldemort", I gotta admit, and Hugh Laurie's acting was great as always. Cuddy was excellent on the stand. And the judge's slapdown of the cop was good.

But the MEDICAL case...

THEY NEVER ONCE ASKED THE WOMAN HOW SHE FELT ABOUT THE GUY? I mean, maybe, just MAYBE, she was secretly in love with him instead of his brother. The unrequited love WAS, after all, what was causing his heart attacks.

So maybe they didn't want her to feel guilty for not loving the guy, so they didn't tell her. Okay, I can buy that. Still, you'd think she would have wondered what was going on when her clothes and everything checked clean. BUT...

They're going to do friggin' ELECTROSHOCK on the guy, WIPING OUT his memories, and they don't even check with the woman to see if his story is true first? Uh, maybe BEFORE you take away the guy's career, his childhood and adult memories, and make him dependent on his brother, you follow up on the "patients always lie" rule? Heck, the blond doctor (forget his name) even brought up that rule earlier.

Sloppy writing. Not the norm for this show.

[Hugin]

1. It must be hard to come up with those twists and turns as often as they do...

I can understand a misfire now and again.

Did they not develop the woman's character enough?

[kay1864]

4. Well it wasn't so much the character development

But that they had to NOT talk to her about anything substantive for the plot to work. Overall it was a bit contrived, since (a) she would have wondered what about her was causing the heart attacks, since it wasn't her clothing etc. and (b) surely they would have verified his story before wiping his memories!

[bicentennial_baby]

2. I missed most of it....what happened?

Help!

[kay1864]

5. From TWOP:

And it all comes down to this: House goes before a judge who will decide if the state has enough evidence to charge House for his various felonies. He finally realizes that he's in a real bind and, after some prodding from Cuddy, apologizes to Tritter. But Tritter says he trusts people's actions, not their words. So House actions himself on over to rehab, where he professes a belief in the higher power of André the Giant and enjoys arts and crafts. He even apologizes to Wilson for the past few months of crap he put him through, although an apology to Cuddy does not appear to be forthcoming.

But even rehab isn't enough for Tritter, and House's case continues. Until, that is, Cuddy is called to the stand and she totally lies and says those drugs House stole from the dead guy were sugar pills. And even though the judge hates House, she has no choice but to let him go -- after, that is, he spends a night in jail for contempt of court, where Cuddy tells him off for forcing her to save him by lying on the stand (not so loud, Cuddy!) and Wilson realizes that House has been paying off a rehab worker to sneak him Vicodin this whole time. So he didn't change as much as everyone thought he did, and that is great news for the rest of us.

There's also something with the Patient of the Week where the only way to save him is to zap all of his memories of his love for his co-worker and brother's fiancée -- along with his memories of everything else -- away. They do this, and then it turns out to be completely unnecessary. WHOOPS! That's what you get for strangling Cameron, I guess.

Anyway, to sum it all up: House is still on Vicodin, Cameron is still a sap, Cuddy is still awesome, and Tritter is GONE! Rejoice!


http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a12731/

[sakabatou]

3. Not the best of episodes...

[kay1864]

8. Agreed...

Although the courtroom scenes kicked ass. House smarting off to the judge, *knowing* he's going to be found in contempt and spend a night in jail, but also knowing the life of the patient is more important.

Dang I love this show. Gotta admit this is the first plot slip-up I've seen, so pretty dang good record overall.

[hedgehog]

6. Not to mention - although electro shock therapy is associated

with some memory loss, I highly doubt that it would be as selective and effective as shown.

[kay1864]

7. I think that was the problem

That it's *not* selective--they couldn't just remove the guy's memory of her "engagement"; rather, almost *all* of his memory was getting wiped.

[Nickster]

9. Did you see that Dr Cameron and Dr Chase got engaged in real life? Weird. n/t

[kay1864]

10. Dang you are on top of things!

Only place I could find that on the Internets was Yahoo Canada--posted 7pm yesterday.

Cool!

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

11. I was disappointed, as well...

Cuddy's lying on the stand was so transparent that no judge would allow it (and she would be subject to prosecution for making a false statement to the police). And David Morse's character suddenly getting all warm and fuzzy at the end was a total sham.

But the worst was learning that House had been faking his rehab. Ha! Ha! Ha! I'm still a junkie and the story arc was one big pie-in-the-face for viewers. Want to explore new dimensions of House's character as he struggles with life without drugs? Nah! Bring on the formulaic plots!

Not since Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower has their been a worse plot device.

This show offically jumped the shark last night.

[kay1864]

13. Well I wouldn't go that far...

House is the same manipulative bastard that he's always been. Faking the rehab to get what he wants is just more of the same.

Cuddy's statement may have been transparent, but there's no way to prove her wrong. She knew that the police didn't have the meds House stole from the dead guy, but only the pharmacy log. I was expecting her to say she told the pharmacist to put sugar pills in the bottle (whereupon they could get the pharmacist to testify), but the writers did it smarter than that.

I think Tritter (David Morse) was just doing that to yank House's chain one last time, not to be warm and fuzzy. "Good luck. I hope you prove me wrong" was something where House could *not* get the last word. And the "hope you prove me wrong" was a subtle way of saying "I can still keep my eye on you if I want".

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

15. I think it's still a good show...

and if Hugh Laurie gets snubbed for the Emmy one more time, well, somebody's going to pay.

I'm just really disappointed at the creative meltdown that went into that episode. I read somewhere that the Tritter character was presented to be a foil for House -- somebody that he couldn't bully and abuse -- but as it turned out he was as much of a pushover as Cuddy or Wilson.

[kay1864]

16. Mmm, I wouldn't go that far either...

Tritter was never a pushover IMHO. Even after House agreed (at the very end of the two-day limit) to Tritter's terms, it was "Too bad House, I've got the pharmacy log, you're screwed."

And in court he protested (against court decorum) to the judge about Cuddy's testimony. But he *had* to fold his cards once the judge said there was insufficient evidence.

Note that he didn't shake House's hand when he said "Good luck". Now *that* would have been warm and fuzzy (and way inconsistent).

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

17. He freezes Wilson's bank account...

but lets Cuddy get away with perjury? That's pretty much like Captain Ahab deciding to let Moby Dick off with a stern warning. After Tritter's obsessive pursuit of House, his acceptance of the outcome makes no sense.

And I still say only a brain-dead judge would allow uncorroborated testimony by a person who has a lot to lose by having her star doctor sitting in jail -- not to mention the bad publicity it would cause the hospital.

[kay1864]

18. Because he knew he couldn't prove it was perjury

Since he didn't have the actual "sugar pill" meds.

And the judge had to accept her testimony, absent any evidence to show otherwise. Like I said, if Cuddy had said she'd involved the pharmacist, well then that's another matter. But Cuddy was the only "witness".

Judges can't go by "what looks bad", they have to go by the evidence presented in court (assuming it's not out of the bounds of reality like "Little green men flew down and swapped the meds just before House got them"). If unchallenged (or unchallengable), then the evidence stands.

It's not like the judge can say, "Come on, Dr. Cuddy, do you really expect us to believe that?" That's not what they do. They weigh the evidence presented. If unchallenged, it's assumed to be valid.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

19. In this venue the judge can do just that...

Granted, this is Hollywood and everything needs to be taken with multiple grains of salt.

But a hearing of this nature is about determining whether there's sufficient evidence to go to trial (what would otherwise be known as a Grand Jury). Given the highly suspect nature of Cuddy's testimony, a judge would be inclined to allow the trial to proceed and leave it to the District Attorney to prove that she's lying. Otherwise, friends of the defendant could all just perjure themselves all day long and no case would ever go to a jury.

BTW, New Jersey uses grand juries to indict accused persons and their system does not allow specators. To my knowledge, the presiding judge does not have the power to dismiss the proceedings.

[kay1864]

21. I think the judge knew no DA could prove she was lying

Esp. since it's hard to prove a negative. At best they could get the pharmacist to say he didn't see her in the pharmacy around that time, but that doesn't prove she didn't substitute the sugar pills--he could have been on another row of the pharmacy, etc.

And it's not necessarily suspect, since Cuddy did have a motive for keeping House from stealing Vicodin.

I'm sure that friends of the defendant DO perjure themselves all day long--"Yes, he and I watched TV that night and he never once left the house". Usually there's other eyewitnesses though (otherwise there's no case in the first place). But with this, we'd need an eyewitness that says Cuddy never left her office to go to the pharmacy. Which in that hospital would be really hard to find.

Okay, this is way too much analysis of a fictional event :silly:

[Shell Beau]

24. I knew he was faking his rehab! It was House, come on. He's

not giving up on is Vicodin. No way!

[slj0101]

12. I used to love House,

but my suspension of disbelief was tested way too much. I stopped watching last season when Cuddy mentioned that 40% of the hospital's lawsuits involved Dr. House. I don't care how much of a miracle worker he would be, in real life, he'd be out of a job.

[kay1864]

14. Agreed.

Somehow I missed that line. Geez Louise!

[rug]

20. Yes, that was lame. Short-term memory loss is a side-effect of ECT, not the aim of it.

I don't think any reputable hospital would authorize ECT for this purpose, especially since the main damage is not to long-term memory.

[hedgehog]

22. Where did Voldemort get the vicodin?

[Sequoia]

23. I totally agree with you. I was thinking the very same thing

before they did the electro shock thing which blew me away because good lord I know someone who went through that when I was a very small child...my mom. I wonder if her memories were wiped out. I'll never know because she and my dad are both gone.

Yes, I was a bit upset that they didn't ask her about him, just assumed. I for one am not a believer in shock crap from Frankenstein's laboratory. Glad to see the mean cop lost! And he was such a nice doctor on St. Elsewhere.