Massage for the soul (A review of 'Massage Therapy)

[readingrat]

 During the first few seasons watching House MD was my equivalent of a massage by Brandi:

• A convincing medical case as a general do-over for my back,
• House being obnoxiously outrageous (preferably to his team, but in default to his patients) to loosen up those tense shoulder muscles,
• a scalp massage in the form of an insight that shows that although House's communication techniques leave much to be desired, morally he's spot-on, breaking open the shell of our social conditioning to reveal the pearl of truth within,
• gentle musical accompaniment in the form of House's private interactions (The key word here is 'accompaniment'. Just as I don't go for a massage in order to listen to the music, I don't watch the show for the sake of background stories. My favourite music is intricate House-Wilson fugues; House-Cuddy duets are fine as long as they sing counterpoint, but who wants solos by members of the team?) and
• a 'happy ending' in the shape of a connection between case and private dilemma.

After last night I heaved a sigh of relief. Okay, it wasn't a massage with much of a happy ending nor was the masseuse called Brandi, but as in all relationships we have to make compromises: House can't have Brandi and I can't get my first three seasons back. But at least I'm getting a massage again instead of music without a massage.

The POTW

Yes, I know, it wasn't exactly an innovative case. We've seen this before: the patient lying through her teeth, the unwitting spouse shocked to the core and wondering whether he can still stick it out with her, House doing marriage counseling in his own inimitable manner. Nothing new there. Compared to the last two cases, however, it felt 'right' somehow. The teenie and her brother in their selfless perfection had me gagging; I liked the writer as such (and I really liked the actress), but I didn't buy that, given the intelligence she'd shown so far, she'd fall for House's simple and absolutely see-through ruse. This case and its solution (a team member getting it so wrong that House can sees the faint light shining through the pitch dark of complete cluelessness) catered to the scheme that makes the show work. Besides, the case and House's team interaction finally got the weight they need to make the show work. If I come back to this episode in a few years and watch it as a stand-alone, not having in mind how many other episodes have similar plots, will the patient plot convince me? The answer to that one is yes.

It was, however, not really a 'happy ending' episode for me. If there was a connection between the patient and House's private dilemma - other than the very tenuous one of 'It's always hard'; that can hardly count as more than a platitude - I missed it. Okay, so the patient tries to shield a salient part of her life from her husband, just as Cuddy tries to shield Rachel from House, but there was a world of difference in the motivation, in the initial circumstances, etc., that I honestly saw no connection whatsoever. So, a 'sad ending' for me.

House and the team

Finally, finally, finally we got our old House back. No more being nice to puppy dogs and helping old ladies across the street. Did Chase dare to hire a complete bimbo because he thought House had gone soft? I wouldn't blame him - I'd been wondering too. All through the last season he was too tame for my taste. If the jerkiness was the result of his addiction alone, how come he had a reputation as a jerk before the infarction? I watch House because of the incredible feat that the writers produce in having someone flaunt all social conventions while at the same time living a strict moral code. The latter is boring without the former - then I might as well watch 'The Life of John Paul II'. Besides, it's always good to watch House take the stage, bully his otherwise arrogant team into complete submission and show exactly why he's the boss and they aren't, a major part of the effect stemming from the charisma that Hugh Laurie exudes. So is he back in pre-Mayfield mode? I don't think so. Once he's sure Chase got the point he back-pedals.

Oh, and I really enjoyed Chase taking Foreman apart in the stairwell, ddx-ing his motives and diagnosing him. It shows that he has learnt something from House, even if it is nowhere near enough to get by on. The return of his opportunism - not telling Kelly she isn't fired so he can 'take her out for dinner' - was highly appreciated, even if I don't think I can survive a whole season of having to watch Chase have sex with every available female. Didn't we just have Taub fornicating for all he was worth? Let's have something new.

Is the new doctor an innovation? No, we've had this before, too. 'Stupid boy meets stupid girl and they live stupidly ever after,' Wilson comments House's hiring of the FBI doc. The difference is that House notices himself that his hormones made him mess that one up. Here House points out to Chase (in the rudest possible manner) that he's making a complete fool of himself.

My metaphorical moment

I wouldn't have minded a bit more House-Wilson interaction. In fact, there's been far too little Wilson so far, and the bits we got were well below standard. I read a few posts in a Hilson forum where the posters thought that Wilson was adorably 'dorky' in 'Unwritten'. Dorky? The writer made him out to be a complete idiot. There's nothing dorky about that, and it's far below what one would expect of a clever character like him. This episode still left much to be desired, but one got faint glimpses of devious!Wilson in the first scene. Is he genuinely interested in furthering the relationship between House and Cuddy or is he sowing seeds of doubt so that he feels better about himself? I smelled the stink of self-righteousness seeping through: I have a mature relationship with my live-in girl-friend. You, on the other hand, are in an unstable arrangement and your girl-friend doesn't trust you with her kid. He's right about House and Cuddy, though not about his own relationship, and he loves being right. If his aim is to unsettle House and convince him of his own insufficiency, he certainly succeeds.

The metaphorical moment, however, came in the second scene in Wilson's kitchen. After giving House the crappiest advice one can think of, his food is suddenly in flames. That was a neat picture of his and Sam's partnership: avoid conflicts and it'll be in flames, too. Does one wonder that Wilson has been divorced thrice if he believes that issues such as the one House addresses by rubbing Brandi under Cuddy's nose can be dealt with by buying flowers or a box of chocolates? It was almost as good a moment as the one in the first episode where Wilson is stuck in the window of House's life and can't move in or out any more.
 
The private angle

I'm breathing sighs of relief that goofy!House is gone. House tiptoeing around Cuddy or looking for ways to connect with her may be endearing on some level, but it's boring viewing and somehow it wasn't House, the House we know. House so engrossed in a video game that he can't even be bothered to kiss her goodbye seems so much more likely! I also appreciated the irony of Cuddy being willing to play video games with him. There he was in the last episode, taking her out to a restaurant (did they ever get there?) and gokarting, when she would have been quite okay with an evening with him engaging in his normal pursuits. Serves him right. (Like Cuddy, I also think that 'common interests' are overrated, though the nonsense she spouted left me as unconvinced as it did House.)

The issues in the previous two episodes seemed forced to me - would someone as intelligent as House seriously worry about common interests? It's much more a 'woman' kind of worry and a premature one at that - but the issue that House addresses in this episode is one that is relevant. What I really like at the moment is that it's House who is the mature one in the relationship, refusing to let all those happy hormones blind him to the underlying dissonances which Cuddy seems determined to ignore.

The underlying theme is once again, how serious are they about the relationship? It isn't clear whose idea it is to meet only at House's place, whether it's a case where each think they're doing the other a favour or whether Cuddy is keeping House out of her private life and House is acquiescing because he's scared as shit of getting involved with Rachel. (I tend towards the latter interpretation.) House doesn't like being shut out by Cuddy, so he shows her in a manner that is bound to be unacceptable to her what can happen if he chooses to keep his private life just that and doesn't allow her a say in it. Similarly, Cuddy reacts promptly by giving him the kind of ultimatum that, while it makes logical sense, is incompatible with House's pride. Then comes Wilson's near-fatal advice. Luckily neither of them are blinded by it for long - Cuddy calls House's bluff and House in turn addresses the real issue. 

Do I approve of the way either of them initially deal with the problem? No. But their behaviour is in character, maybe the first time this season. House is the percipient one who can recognize double standards and hypocrisy a mile off, but who has no adequate tools for dealing with them. Cuddy, while often blind to the moral implications of her own deeds, is nevertheless capable of seeing through House's bluffs and verbalizing exactly where his rationalizations are faulty and is not scared to address the matter directly.

There was nothing tender in any of their interactions (one has to wear very rosy-tinted glasses to find House more or less ignoring Cuddy's farewell at the beginning romantic), but somehow - or maybe because of the lack of overt tenderness - the delicate balance between the characters seemed restored, at least in my opinion. Having said that I feel obliged to add that 'unresolved sexual tension' (as seen in the first seasons) is a lot sexier than 'resolved sexual tension'. Their interactions in 'Massage Therapy' seem in character to me, but the teasing lightness is gone, a victim of the serious turn their relationship has taken the past season.

The elephant in the living room
No, I didn't think Rachel was cute. My take on kids in films is as follows: Harry Potter would have been a good film if they'd left all those dramatically challenged kids out of it and let Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith do their jobs. The only good thing about that scene was House behaving as he always does with kids, namely neither showing any inclination to go all mushy over her nor jerking her around as he would an adult. What I also read into those few seconds (though I might be mistaken) is House's awareness that while this is a kid like any other, messing it up with her could cause a serious problem. When he takes the cane away from her he seems tentative about it, worried that he'll miff her, not because he's usually bothered about the effect he has on kids (he normally has little compunction about scaring the shit out of them), but because he's seriously scared that if he can't make it work with Rachel, then he's bust. Now this is an insecurity of his that I find believable (unlike the one about common interests). I see that Rachel (the problem called 'Rachel') needs to be addressed, but that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy any episode that does so in a major way.

After 'Unwritten' my gut feeling was that the sooner they bury Huddy the better I'll feel. After this episode my feelings towards Huddy are much the same as towards the POTWs: it doesn't matter whether they live or die as long as the diagnostic process is carried out with that mixture of acumen and asshoodedness for which we all love House. The same goes for Huddy. I don't know whether the status quo shown at the end of the episode is a good omen for the relationship - it seemed awkward to me -, but it doesn't matter. That status quo, whether signifying that they're on a good road or a bad one, was reached in a manner that for the first time in weeks felt like House-the-genuine-article again, and that's all that counts for me.

Well, not quite. No matter whether Huddy is to live or die, I'd like the decision within a reasonable time (say half-a-season) and then I don't want to be bothered with it again (and again and again). That's a decent time span to reserve for a relationship drama in House's life - Stacy got about that much - but then we need other stuff again. Let them live happily or unhappily ever after, together or apart, but do it off-screen.

Oh, and I want more Wilson.

Comments

[brighidsfire.livejournal.com]

Music without the massage . . . well put.

The medical mystery felt slapped together, though here in the States we did get a public service announcement at the end of the episode for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illess, nami.org), which was appropriate. (They did the same thing after Simple Explanation.)Agreed on the epiphany--it was in service of the formula rather than the genuine article, and it was quite obvious this was so. The correlation between the POTW and House's personal life was tenuous at best. Still, it was at least a return to the formula rather than ignoring it completely.

House and the team: we've got alpha!House back at long last. (I do like the dog pack social order metaphor here, it works quite well, aside from the fact that House will always be alpha.) It's about time. I enjoy House for the same reasons you do--that wonderful contradictory delight of outrageous persona over a core of ethics so stringent Diogenes wouldn't have needed to keep looking.

As for Chase . . . I had the distinct feeling that he put everyone through the wringer with the clueless hire so he could arrive at that last moment and get the girl in bed: rebound sex binging at its very finest. House had the situation pegged from the beginning, made his point, and then let it go. Pre-Mayfield I think he would have kept poking Chase to rile him up.

I enjoyed the stairwell moment with Chase and Foreman also. They snarled and growled and showed that they're both battling for the same position as beta (I think Chase is actually beta, despite appearances; Taub is definitely the omega).

I want more House/Wilson as well. Wilson has been setting himself up as Mister Know-It-All since the beginning, and now he's really pushing for exclusive use of the title, in the same way Daffy Duck always tries to outwit Bugs Bunny but can never do so because he's a born loser. The advice/burned dinner metaphor was sly and funny, but there just wasn't enough of it. I miss the incisive, witty point/counterpoint of a Doris Egan House/Wilson scene. *sigh* Oh well.

House and Cuddy: I LOVED House ignoring Cuddy while playing video games (and did you notice it was the same game being worked on in prototype last season--the one Thirteen and Taub got to play with?). Hugh was perfection--that moment when he reluctantly turns his face just a bit for a goodbye kiss while keeping his eyes on the screen was our beloved House back once more.

Personally I think House is far more realistic and ultimately serious about the relationship than Cuddy is. He is honest with her about Brandi, he tries to get her to see what he's talking about in a humorous way (the male hooker, who stole the scene and made me laugh quite a bit), and ultimately gives in because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll lose Cuddy and for now, that means more than pain management. (There's also a fair amount of fear of abandonment going on too, but that's pretty self-evident and has been for some time.) There will come a time however when Cuddy's going to demand something House is either not willing or not able to give, and then we'll see what happens.

I didn't think Rachel was cute either. I like kids, but am not blind to the fact that they can be obnoxious little shits, and Rachel will not be an exception if her behavior at the end of the episode is any indication. I really do not want to see House and Wilson involved in Adventures in Babysitting, but it appears there's going to be no choice in the matter. So I'll be grudgingly satisfied if we get an unsentimental House who doesn't bond with Rachel in any way, or if he *must* do so, does it in his own way.

"The sooner they bury Huddy the better I'll feel"--THIS. :D