House Review: 8x18 A Lifeless "Body And Soul"

DAHLINGS -

“House,” you have abused me long enough. You have bewildered me with your nonsensical plot lines, badly written dialogue, anvils dropping faster than summer rain…but this time, “Body And Soul” crossed the line.

 You ruined my makeup. 

It was the reverse of the Season 6 finale, “Help Me.” That was a shattering episode with a horrendous ending. Let my guest blogger, House’s leg, explain:

 Greg drags me to hell and back in this giant wrecked parking garage, I get bent all kinds of ways, we have to go home WITHOUT the cane! So I’m not only throbbing, I’m burning, stabbing, aching, off the charts on the pain scale!  Greg doesn’t take the fucking Vicodin! It’s not a moral decision, jerk-off, it’s PAIN! What about PAIN don’t you understand at this point? Man, I was seriously pissed, but it’s not like I have hands or a mouth or free will. I’m just a goddamned leg, for Christ’s sake.

Then Cuddy showed up and I had to act like I wasn’t in shrieking pain because Greg was getting all like “wow, she’s here, I’ve wanted to bone her since the Crusades! And I looooove her.” They kiss and through some sort of magical endorphin boner process, I’m not supposed to hurt. AFTER ONE OF THE WORST DAYS OF MY LIFE.

Yes, the leg was extremely upset.

In reverse, last night’s episode was horrendous with a shattering ending.

The press release claimed the story was about dreams. There were dreams, and hallucinations. Why, why, WHY do they keep going back to hallucinations? If it weren’t for hallucinations, vomiting blood and paralysis, “House” would be ten minutes long.


Plot A:

The POTW is a cute little eight-year-old boy from Hmong ancestry. Whatever that is. Somebody in the comments can explain it, because I don’t care enough to look it up. Besides, the Hmongs on the internet are complaining the show got it all wrong. Amazing how many people this show can piss off.

Cute Hmong Boy dreams he is being choked by his late grandmother and wakes with acute respiratory distress. House brings several boxes of files to the team about Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome among males in the Hmong community. They eventually decide to look into infection, as well as the possibility of inhaled toxins.

Hmong Mom is an engineer, but Scary Hmong Father-in-Law is convinced that Cute Hmong Boy is possessed by demons. The young lad does have a collection of symptoms as assorted as a Halloween trick-or-treat bag. The most striking symptom is levitating. (And no, they never really explain the levitation, which sucks since it’s the only interesting symptom and looked good in the promos).

"Man, that is some seriously sick shit."

 Cute Possessed Hmong Boy speaks in tongues, wakes up from another choking dream with bruises on his neck, and crashes every five minutes.

One of the boy’s dreams involves Scary Hmong Father-In-Law choking him, which not only looks real but also seems possible. Even logical. It hints at possible child abuse. In earlier days, child abuse often played a part in family secrets. But that was when the show made some sort of sense. Instead, oooo, is it disease or is it …SATAN? 

Once again, it’s “Faith vs. Science”. This dead horse has been beaten until it’s the consistency of chopped liver.

At the patient’s home, the doctors discover a slaughtered pig and assorted voodoo-type thingies in the boy’s bedroom. Sleeping in an abattoir, now THERE’S a recipe for PTSD. Cute Hmong Boy’s father went crazy and killed his boss. Scary Hmong Father-in-Law thinks his son was also possessed.  Your faithful correspondent thinks it is because the son was choked and forced to sleep in a room with large dead animals.  Be that as it may, SHFIL convinces Hmong Mother to ditch common sense in favor of an exorcism. And slaughter another swine in the boy’s hospital room. Now I truly believe the show is written by the interns while the writers sit out by the pool and smoke crack.

During the exorcism, which involves pretty red cloth, Cute Hmong Boy crashes (again). Against House’s orders, Adams injects ibuprofen into the boy’s IV because she believes he has patent ductus arteriosis, which starts at birth but for some magical reason never manifested until now. Guess it was the demons.

But we’ll never know. Or care.

Plot B: 

Park has a sex dream about Chase. Chase has a sex dream about Park, which is quite funny. Any time I can get to see Jesse Spencer without his shirt is a good time. At the end, Park decides that the reason they have sex dreams about each other is because they’re good friends and comfortable with each other. So she farts.

(I hope that means I’m good friends with George Clooney.)

Plot C: 

Adorable Dominika is now the Dominika The Wonder Whore, as she demonstrates that she is a crack shot AND an ex-cop who reads about quantum physics in the tub. AND she’s made thousands of dollars selling knishes AND she knows how to fix small appliances AND she knows how to tilt her head adorably while delivering appalling dialogue in an adorable accent…she is House’s “dream girl”!
 
I’ll be in the lavatory retching if you want me.


Ahem.

Dominika reveals that she has fallen for House...they start kissing…ick augh bleagh Creepy Grandpa and That Girl blechh…when the INS calls and halts this abomination.  Dominika discovers House done her wrong by throwing away her INS notifications. Farewell, Dominika! Don’t let the door hit your adorable ass on the way out.




 "It's been real--oh, wait--"

 Just as we’re settling back with an ice-cold martini, House visits Wilson to tell him he’s “surprisingly depressed” that Dominika has left. Wilson emotionally coldcocks House by announcing, “I have cancer. Stage Two. ” The promo for next week shows Wilson coughing up blood on House’s couch, refusing to die in the hospital.

There were three possible reactions on the part of yours truly.

The first is: “Are you joking? The oncologist gets cancer? House’s only friend gets CANCER? In time for May sweeps? Are they so cynical that they think all of the millions of fans who deserted the show will come back in droves because Wilson is probably DYING? What kind of manipulative merde is this? Why did I ever think this show had a shred of integrity?”

The second is: “Wow, Robert Sean Leonard is going to knock it out of the ballpark!”

The third is: “OH GOD NO NOT WILSON PLEASE DON’T KILL WILSON IF WILSON DIES THAN HOUSE HAS TO COMMIT SUICIDE THEY ARE NOTHING WITHOUT EACH OTHER PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON’T KILL WILSON OH MY GOD THAT PROMO IS UNBEARABLE TO WATCH I HATE YOU DAVID SHORE DIE DIE DIE I’M GOING TO ROLL UP IN A BALL AND CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP.”

Mine was number three. Mascara was smeared. Eyeliner washed down the cheeks. Tears streaked the NARS blush. Martinis were gulped down between sobs.

“House,” this will not stand. Pardon the pun. It was only this afternoon that one and two kicked in. Yes, I am mortified at my initial reaction. 

If Wilson dies and House does an “Out of the Chute” redux, I want him to miss the pool and hit the pavement. Now THAT’S what I call a finale.

Random observations:

I’d much rather see Chase and Park get it on than Chase and Adams.  Why do they keep insisting that Park is ugly and Taub is a ladykiller?

Hugh Laurie continues to look weird. And old. Someone is not moisturizing enough.

If the last two episodes involve a grieving House drinking, taking pills and staring into the middle distance, how we will know it’s actually the end of the series and not any other episode?

Feel free to discuss this episode in the comments, and remember, I am always right.

Ciao,
Elisa & Fletcher

House Review: 8x17 "We Need The Eggs" Is Rotten

DAHLINGS -

Ladies and gentlemen, we might have a winner in the race for the worst script for House before the show leaves the airwaves for good. Sarah Hess and Liz Friedman had a strong lead with “Man Of The House.” It was neck and neck with “Gut Check,” written by David Hoselton and Jamie Conway.

But leading the pack by a length as we go around the home stretch is “We Need The Eggs,” written by Sarah Hess and Peter Blake.

Imagine you have a friend-of-a-friend, an obnoxious drunk who brays with laughter at his/her own jokes. Now imagine that friend-of-friend is a shambling, fetid zombie.

(Note to self: do not watch the Season Two arc involving “the love of House’s life”, Stacy, played by Sela Ward, on the same day a new episode airs. Said arc is sensitive, well-written, two adults behaving in a believably screwed-up way. “Distractions” begins House’s hiring of hookers for uncomplicated sex.)

This ostensible premise is a large slab of fatback about how we all want love but fear it too much, and the substitutes we choose instead. “We Need The Eggs” is a quote from Annie Hall:

I thought of that old joke: This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well why don't you turn him in?' and the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

OUCH! That anvil hit my foot! And so early in the episode! House says the movie is a critique of “our modern mores”. (Annie Hall was made in 1977.)

The underlying premise is how the show demeans women at every opportunity. Not just House, the show itself.

Open with a man out on a date with a woman, Molly, who is not his girlfriend. She likes him and tells him she wants more. His eyes promptly begin to bleed. Way to avoid commitment.

I have to admit here that I was filled with excitement because the arcade game owner was played by my old pal Eddie Pepitone.

The POTW, Biff, is in love with a rubber sex doll, Amy, played by a rubber sex doll. He’s had it customized to look like a yoga instructor he dated for the length of your average high school crush. He loved her but she didn’t love him.















"You come here often?"


Perverted Biff adores Amy (reminding your faithful correspondent of both Lars and The Real Girl and “Mannequin 3: The Reckoning” from Supernatural, in which a man is in love with a—surprise!—rubber sex doll). Speaking of Supernatural, the segment I enjoyed the most was when Amy became “real”, climbed on top of Perverted Biff and proceeded to gush blood from a wound on her torso all over both of them. But of course it’s a hallucination, the go-to device for damn near everything this season.

His illness is from using tap water in a neti pot.

Parallel with this is a sitcom so tawdry I wanted to erase it from my mind half-way through. One imagines the guffaws in the writer’s room: “That’s really sick!” “Let’s go there!” “Omigod, House and his hooker—genius!” “We make hot chicks to do sexy things—no, STUPID sexy things!” Greg Yaitanes: “Ka-boom!”

House’s favorite hooker, Emily, is quitting to get married. He needs a new hooker/rubber sex doll! OUCH! That anvil hit my other foot!

House interviews a parade of prostitutes at his office. One is rejected because she can’t fix small appliances. The last one is reduced to standing on her hands and spreading her legs wide open. Cue laugh track.

House goes to Wilson for advice, Wilson points out that House is married to a beautiful, intelligent woman—adorable Dominika! House enlists Dominika in an adorable plot to break up Emily’s marriage. They hide in her truck called “Knishing On A Star”. Har har.



















Bond Girl and Creepy Grandpa coming up with a plan

Wearing a wire, Dominika propositions the fiancé, a fat man (visual gag: beautiful woman, ugly guy, the uber-pairing for most sitcoms) who is ready and willing, but—wait for it—he’s not Emily’s fiancé. He's her brother! Cue laugh track to hysteria and applause.

House begs Emily to reconsider. It creeps her out that House is living with a fake wife. Maybe she would be okay with a rubber sex doll.

“I see the way she looks at you. I see the way you look at her,” wise hooker Emily says. “It’s not the way my pimp looks at me.” Oh, wait, that last line might be a misquote.

House is stunned at this revelation. He and Dominika might be in love. At least for this episode’s purposes. For a character David Shore said they weren’t bringing back, Dominika is getting an awful lot of screen time. All right, so it’s not Karolina Wydra‘s fault that she’s trapped in this crummy storyline. But why is she so cursedly adorable? Why are all of the women such ciphers?

Oops, I forgot, this is House.

In other boring relationship news, Adams and Chase debate why neither of them have relationships. Yawn. Taub invites a woman over by lying to her. Yawn. Park meets a fellow nerdy music lover and they play guitar together. That’s cute.

House almost kisses Dominika when she says she fixed the blender. You see? A hooker couldn’t fix the blender! Dominika is the woman he’s been searching for! She’s adorable! Then he pulls away—he’s scared of love—his relationships always end badly—he’d have to run his car into his own apartment--!

But when he opens a letter that says Dominika has been approved for citizenship, he throws same into the trash. Much the way he deleted the message on his answering machine while Wilson was staying with him, saying there was an apartment available.

In Episode 10 of Season 2, Stacy compares House to hot vindaloo curry. She starts to tell the same Woody Allen joke, but before she can deliver the "egg" punchline, House interrupts with "curry."

God, I miss curry.























"Why am I even here?"

NOTES:
House + Dominika = Eeeeeew
I’m starting to wonder if Hugh Laurie isn’t just high on life.
Robert Sean Leonard is mugging his way through his scenes with a palpable air of disdain.
The rubber sex doll is the perfect actress for House.
I wish Dominika was played by Eddie Pepitone.
The “Park looks nerdy but says shocking things” is getting old.
After this episode, I’m going to my doctor to get checked for an STD.

Ciao,
Elisa & Fletcher


DISCLAIMER: I am a reviewer, not a recapper. There’s a difference. You want a recap, go to another site.

To those who ask, "If you hate the show so much, why do you keep watching?"

Because I need the eggs. OUCH!

House Review: 8x16 "Gut Check" = Airsick Bag

DAHLINGS –

A while back I mentioned that the writers of House are in a race to see who can write the worst script before the series’ end. Sarah Hess and Liz Friedman have a strong lead with “Man Of The House.” But there is a serious contender, “Gut Check,” written by David Hoselton and Jamie Conway.

Disclaimer: I do not usually use the vulgarities written here. But desperate times and all that.

Words cannot adequately convey what sheer torture your faithful correspondent endured watching this. Director Miguel Sapochnik has directed some of the worst episodes of House (“Larger Than Life”, “Family Practice”), and he truly let out all of the stops on this suckfest.

The program’s slide into the cesspot is positively meta. Is the show itself some sort of sick House-ian screwing with the audience, putting us through the wringer for their own amusement? Are they teaching us a lesson, as House so often does? If so, the lesson is: never take for granted that you have viewed the suckiest episode of House. There’s still more manure to be mucked out of the writer’s room.

The patient of the week…oh, the hell with it, he’s Hockey Biff…is an “enforcer” on a hockey team, the big guy who punches out the smaller guys on the rink. In the opener, after the usual fancy slow-fast-loud-silent things they like to do when there’s action, they go straight to the inevitable scene of the patient vomiting blood. Although this time it’s on ice. Very pretty. Points to the art department.

House just happens to have a hockey table game when the case is brought in, which made me want to take an axe to my television. Does House have a secret underground bunker of toys suitable for every case? The show likes secret underground bunkers (oh, dear, yours truly is going to be called out because it was an above ground bunker in “Perils of Paranoia”).

Taub hates Hockey Biff because he reminds Taub of all of the bullies he endured in school. But then Taub likes Hockey Biff because…um…sorry, I have no idea.

Biff and Taub share a moment.

Hockey Biff has the requisite paralysis, the word “sarcoidosis” is thrown around, and Hockey Biff grows breasts. Didn’t a gentleman lactate on this show recently? Taub diagnoses Hockey Biff: the man has mononucleosis, which back in the day was known as the kissing disease. Dear readers, I suffered from mono in my youth, and the most dramatic symptom was lassitude. But then, I already had breasts.

For an instant Hockey Biff considers no longer being an enforcer, but his moral dilemma is neatly solved by a $2.1 million dollar contract.

But Hockey Biff is merely a footnote to two of the most unbelievable, intellectually insulting and badly acted character arcs—wait, that’s been most of the character arcs recently. In any event.

For the “wah-wah-wah” part of the show, Park wants to escape living with her parents, so Chase offers her his spare bedroom. Adams has been firmly pushed into the background so that Park can say and do wacky things. Expect Charlene Yi to land a quirky role in a sitcom next season. That’s obviously what she’s being prepped for. Park moves in, but so does her grandmother, Popo. Chase takes a liking to Popo. Short but seemingly never-ending short story short, Park moves back in with her parents, and Popo stays with Chase.

Wah-wah-wah!

The egregious, deplorable House/Wilson plot is the cement shoes tied to the feet of “Gut Check” that pulls it to the bottom on the swamp. On the one hand, we get to see more of Wilson than we have all season. On the other hand, we have to live through moronic shenanigans that make the Three Stooges look like Chekov.

The set-up: Wilson cannot sleep because the new baby next store is keeping him up all night. House makes the instantaneous deduction that in reality Wilson regrets not having children. House reveals to Wilson that Wilson impregnated Beth, a falconer (a falconer! How delightfully random—NOT) eleven years before, and as a result, there is a male heir to the Wilson name. Wilson, having had a lobotomy this season, is overjoyed and doesn’t question for a minute that his best friend of many years never mentioned this before. House vowed to keep it a secret. Since when has House successfully kept a secret from Wilson? Since when has House wanted to keep a secret from Wilson? In reality---oh, God, this show is so bad I’m referring to earlier seasons as “reality”—House would have lost no opportunity to browbeat Wilson about his love child.

Instant child! A little boy with glued-one eyebrows meets Wilson, they have everything in common, Beth never appears, and on the second meeting, Duncan declares, “I love you, Dad,” and gives Wilson a big hug. How did House manage all of this with such lightning speed? How did he know that the conversation with Wilson was going to happen? Oh, I forgot again, making sense stopped making sense to the creative staff by the end of Season Seven.

Despite Duncan neither acting nor speaking like an eleven-year-old (he prefers prosciutto to peanut butter) Wilson is delighted that he has a son. Robert Sean Leonard sells the heck out of the subplot, but underneath he seems to be saying, Are they really asking me to say this crap? But when Duncan wants to move in with Daddy because Mommy is moving to Costa Rica to save wildlife (ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?) lobotomized Wilson believes it and freaks out. In the past, Wilson would have seen right through the scam, and played House against himself, perhaps pretending to be overjoyed with his new “son” and telling House that from now on, his “son” was going to take all of his time, so bye-bye, House.

But no. House unmasks that “Duncan” is Wendel (with one l, thank you to the reader who picked up this error), a child actor he hired to show Wilson that he never really wanted a child. Wilson starts to get angry, but then remembers that was the old Wilson, with a brain and a backbone. So he sits back on the couch and gives a forced chuckle. (I swear, Robert Sean Leonard looked like he was dying of embarrassment at that moment.) At the end, he is shown happily making pizza with House. Insert agonized scream from yours truly.

Lobotomized Wilson: Kid? What kid? You want some prosciutto?

What has happened to Wilson? Why didn’t he have more of reaction when he found out his best friend had kept his son a secret for eleven years? Why didn’t he have more of a reaction when he found out the boy he’d bonded with was a hired actor? Why is he there at all? For House to make mildly lascivious homosexual jokes to? For fan service? If he has to be there, at least give him back his frontal lobes.

Random Notes:

Hugh Laurie continues to look weird. Are they foreshadowing cancer, or does he just look weird?

Odette Annabelle is definitely being sidelined. Now that they’ve got adorable Dominika, the man fantasy girl-with-boobs quota has been filled.

Until next week, that is. From the press release 8x17 :

Meanwhile, House is interviewing for a new favorite hooker, since his current favorite, Emily, has decided to get married and leave the business


We can hope that House is using this plot for sly commentary on the objectification of women on television. But probably not.

Ciao
Elisa & Fletcher

Note to anonnonablog regarding "Chasing Zebras": you have to go to Amazon to buy the book.

House Review: 8x15, "Blowing The Whistle"

DAHLINGS –

It can be shattering to discover that someone you worshipped has shortcomings. That is what happens to the POTW, Army Biff, in “Blowing The Whistle”, when he finds out his father’s death was not honorable, but a drunk-driving traffic accident in which Dad killed a pedestrian.

Now for the important, shattering, truth: at times I have mixed feelings about House MD. I actually shed a few tears after the episode. Not because of the episode. Your faithful correspondent is deeply saddened that the show she has been intimate with for years is packing its bags and leaving. I know you are all shocked and amazed that I have any shortcomings, but there you are.

With only a handful of episodes left, so it’s hard to tell what is important or unimportant, or unimportant now and extremely important later. In latter seasons, they built up to some major astonishments (for example, in Season 6, discovering that Dr. Nolan, House’s psychiatrist, had been advising him behind the scenes all season without the audience’s knowledge). This episode is surprisingly good, which this season means mediocre in any other season.

Perhaps one of you out there could explain the POTW’s A-story to me. Army Biff (Arlen Escarpeta) leaked a video of a civilian massacre, yes? He will go to prison, yes? His by-the-book brother is well and truly pissed, yes? Army Biff feels it is a matter of honor to let the public know what the military is doing. Biff’s Brother (Sharif Atkins) feels it is a matter of honor not to let the public know what the military is doing. Have I gotten this straight?

Army Biff was a more significant presence than most of the season’s POTWs, with a more compelling story, even if I had trouble following it. Army Biff refuses treatment unless he is given a public forum for the video he leaked and his reasons for doing so. Both sons venerate their late father and each feels in his own way that Dead Dad would approve of what they are doing. Biff knows that his dad died in an accident, but he suspects a military cover-up. However, it is Biff’s Brother who covered up the accident. I did wonder why it would be so shattering to find out that your father killed someone accidentally while drunk…well, perhaps that would upset one a tad. My apologies.

The show might have cast two actors with a passing resemblance to each other. Atkins does a lot with a little, most of which consisted of standing about scowling with disapproval.

House sits with Army Biff and gives a speech about honor. It sounds fairly close to an old-time House monologue :“You’re not doing this for honor. You’re doing this to please your father. And the pathetic thing is, the man you’re trying to please never existed.” (House daddy-issues alert!)

The B-story, taken from “Half Wit” and a few other episodes, has House pretending to have liver failure. In "Half Wit" he faked brain cancer to get experimental drugs to get high. It would have been much more fun if he had let Wilson in on his scheme, as he had when he faked having syphilis to screw with his team in an earlier episode.

"Breaking The Record" for scenes set in the men's room while House is taking a crap

Adams is the one who diagnosises hepatic encephalopathy from a few vague symptoms. Everyone gets very freaked out. He's sick! Maybe he's dying--again! It is obvious that House is again trying to screw with his team. It is Chase, the team member who has known House the longest, figures out how House has been doing it. I mean, Chase has been to this rodeo before.(Note: Jesse Spencer has shaved his neckbeard! God, he’s beautiful. But I digress.)

There were two clinic scenes this time. As often happens, those were some of the best parts of the episode. However, in the first clinic scene, Wilson sounds so much like House that it’s possible Hugh Laurie wasn’t available that day and Robert Sean Leonard was swapped in. But still, highly amusing to see the patient busted for compulsive nose picking. In the second, House has a hungover clinic patient hop on one leg while singing the “iCarly” theme song.

Taub has been freed from the confines of that godawful marital soap opera, allowing him to be the Taub we all know and love. (His gaming name is Taubinator!)

Yet another gaming scene. Taub wins, which means House is dying.

Park gets to be the self-righteous one this go-round, and she is more entertaining to watch than Adams. I may dislike her intensely, but she has a personality to dislike intensely. But if you were deathly ill, would you want someone nattering away at you about right and wrong? If he wasn't so weak, my bet is Army Biff would take a swing at her.

Wilson is around more, which is always a treat. As I wrote above, I do wish House had let Wilson be his co-conspirator, rather than let his friend worry along with the others. Wilson looks harried and unhappy in most of his scenes. I am hoping that this is the character, not the actor. But then, Hugh Laurie has been phoning it in all season and it’s almost over, so why try too hard? It’s still a shame.

After the past two episodes, “Blowing The Whistle” is a definite improvement. Let us hope the upward trend continues. In what fashion the series ends is anyone’s guess. Your faithful correspondent hopes that the series ends with House and Wilson getting married.

Feel free to discuss in the comments. Bear in mind that I am always right.

Ciao,
Elisa and Fletcher

Random notes:

Seizure in the cold open - check
Blood in odd openings - check
Sarcoidosis - double check

Hugh Laurie looks weird.

Thank God Dominika wasn't around.

Nothing can make me care about Adams having sex. Seriously. Nothing.


DISCLAIMER: Before all of the House/Cuddy fans explode, yes, I miss Cuddy and I miss Lisa Edelstein.

House Review: 8x14, "Love Is Blind" Has A Tin Ear

DAHLINGS -


In its continuing efforts to make us forget that this was once a brilliant, ground-breaking television drama, writer John C. Kelley (late of NCIS) and director Tim Southam bring us this listless effort.

While not as bad as “Man of The House” (but really, what could be?) instead of a profound examination of a family mired in duplicity, and how House came to be the man he is, the viewer is treated to a parade of sloppy jokes and lazy clichés. The reason it has taken so long to write this review was that I kept delaying having to rewatch it.

Consider this: you have approximately 42 minutes of time to fill. You have to make choices about what to fill that 42 minutes with. Let’s divide it into chunks, like a large sundae.

Chunk One, melted Wavy Gravy:

WHO IN THE NAME OF JESUS THOUGHT PARK HAVING AN ACID TRIP WOULD BE FUNNY? And those cartoony visions of Chase, Adams and lastly, Taub as the tooth fairy? What show is this?? If I want to watch “Who Shot Roger Rabbit” I’ll go to Netflix, thank you very much.

Apparently the POTW was hoping to have hallucinations, so he laced his ice cream and candy with LSD. During the usual search of the patient's dwellings, Park ate some of same, and so we are inflicted with Disney-itis.

Under the influence, Park attacks Wilson. Wilson tries hard to give a shit.

This waste of screen time needs to apologize to its viewers.


Chunk Two, Vanilla:

The patient, who we shall call Blind Biff, has loud explosions going off in his head, like the deaf teenager a few seasons back. Biff has a deeply masochistic girlfriend/slave who has been taking care of him since college.

However, he’s met someone new who expects him to be independent. Biff is ready to be independent. He wants to give Masochist Melissa the old heave-ho and ride off into the sunset with Shiny New Girl. Who, for some reason, is never shown. A throwaway line, “I don’t want her to know I’m in the hospital” takes care of that. Good work, writers!

However, some treatment or other renders Blind Biff Blind Deaf Biff (say that five times fast) and before you can say “low self-esteem” Masochistic Melissa has thrown herself across Blind Deaf Biff sobbing how much she loves him. Blind Deaf Biff is no fool. Screw independence. Shiny New Girlfriend isn’t going to stick around with someone who is going to need full-time care. So, in a triumph of self-preservation that left me misty-eyed, he asks Masochistic Melissa to marry him. “YES!” she yells. Blind Deaf Biff is deaf no more! His hearing returned magically to hear her chaining herself to him for life! Now he is only Blind Biff!

I half-expected the wife from “Nobody’s Fault” to run in and scream, “He saved my husband’s life—whoops, wrong episode.”

Chunk Three, Rocky Road that fell out of the cone onto the sidewalk: House’s family.


Blythe comes to the hospital to see her son. Now, bear in mind that she was presented as a loving parent in “Daddy’s Boy” and “Birthmarks.” A veritable June Cleaver who looked the other way while Ward was beating up the Beaver.

House wants nothing to do with her, and wants her to think he was in Africa the past year. This makes no sense, particularly when she reveals that she knew he was in prison the entire time. Uh, Blythe, could you explain why you never bothered to contact YOUR ONLY SON during all of that time? She tricks Wilson into thinking she has cancer, causing House to show up at her hotel. House learned his manipulative skills from someone, clearly.

Blythe answers in a hotel bathrobe. House discovers she is in bed with…Thomas Bell, his biological father! Played by Billy Connelly, whom I adore and who did his best to sell this trash. (Diane Baker, who plays House’s mother, was born in 1938. Billy Connelly was born in 1942, which makes him seventeen years old when House/Hugh Laurie was born. Who knew Blythe liked them so young?)


"You were such a tender piece of young flesh, then, Tom."
"Thank you, Mommy Dearest."


You may recall some episodes back that House read a book of essays by Bell, who was a minister, and apparently quite devout. (This show will absolutely torture you if you have any memory at all.) Since then, he has morphed into a carefree Scottish man who was a chaplain in the American Navy (?) who did quite a bit of partying back in the day. Bell and House not only have matching birthmarks on their heads, they have them on what a romance novel would call their “manhoods,” as well.

We further learn that Blythe was quite the hippie, taking drugs, sleeping around, demonstrating against the war while ignoring that her child was being abused and seemingly not noticing that her husband was a Marine. There are enough disconnects here to cause a power shortage to the entire Eastern Seaboard. Including the fact that not only did she not feel it necessary to contact her son while he was in prison, but also that she got married to Bell two months after House Sr. died in Season Five. So she lied to House for YEARS?

Bell says quite rightly that he could “have done something for the boy” and House might not have turned into “a pill-popping sociopath”. This last is at a cozy dinner at a restaurant where House has brought Dominika because the company is lacking in adorable, and Wilson…because he’s there. House stands up and pulls out his manhood to show the matching birthmark.

I will pause here to note that Wilson doesn't look at all surprised. I assume he's seen it before.

Bell loses his cool, whereupon Blythe says the hoariest line in all of drama [if you don’t apologize to my son] “You will never see me again!”

Oh, really? The man you’ve been balling while your son is in prison? “You will never see me again!”

Now, honestly, who says that? And over a personal spat? Are the interns writing the scripts? “Dirk, get me a soy latte and write Scene 36 while you’re at it.” It’s a cheap line for a cheap moment of cheap drama.

Bell and his son bond later, I have no idea why. House says he “respected” his father and I did an honest-to-God spit-take. Champagne all over the Aubusson. The man he didn’t visit for a year while the guy was dying. (Am I sensing a pattern in this family?) Who he wanted to give a “bastardodgy”. If House respected his father, I am Lady Gaga.

The sludgy fake whipped topping to this sundae:

Wilson does a DNA test which proves that Thomas Bell is not House’s father after all. Let us consider this matter...Bell and House have matching birthmarks in the same two places; at age eleven House had catalogued all they have in common physically...but Bell is not his father?

“Your mom’s a slut,” Wilson observes. The House of yore would have had an actual reaction, instead of “She’s less boring than I thought.”

I wish I could say as much for this episode. Sorry for so few details, but I simply could not get through it more than twice. The second time I kept screaming uncontrollably, which is why my dialogue quotes aren’t more precise.

We are now coming to the final eight episodes. As much as I will mourn and miss this show (or what this show used to be) all I can say is, thank God.

Feel free to discuss this in the comments, and bear in mind: I am always right.

Ciao,
Elisa

Review: House, 8x12, "Chase" vs. God

DAHLINGS -

The plot of “Chase” can be summed up in one phrase: boy gets nun; boy sleeps with nun; God gets nun.

Watching this knowing that the show has been cancelled fills one with an odd combination of sadness and relief. The slackness of tone gives one the impression the writers were already looking for new jobs.

Like “Wilson” and “5 to 9”, “Chase” focuses on a single character. Jesse Spencer is one of the strongest actors in the cast, but he’s working with weak material. The episode attempts to tackle the subject of faith from a different angle than House’s impenetrable atheism. Chase was sent to seminary school, as has been mentioned over the years. The reason for his leaving? Crisis of faith? Disillusionment? No, being a horny teenage boy and having an affair with the groundskeeper’s wife. We’ve been waiting eight seasons for this?

Naturally, Almost-Nun is a blonde babe, like the “asexual” woman a few episodes back. Your faithful correspondent is not certain whether she is a noviate or a postulant, but honestly, who cares? She is going full-on Catholic, becoming a cloistered Carmelite nun, forbidden to speak, and presumably, stop dying her hair blonde and wearing underwire bras.

Chase and Blonde Not-Virgin-Mary have a number of dreary conversations about faith. These are eerily similar to the debates House had in “Unfaithful” or countless other episodes where he stumbled across some poor sap who believed in God.

If Chase is not sure he wants to return to PPTH, why is he hanging around? He’s on crutches from being stabbed in the heart last week (don’t ask). Somehow being stabbed in the heart doesn’t seem to have slowed Chase down. Including the inevitable scene where Chase and Not-Virgin-Mary tumble into bed and make sweet, sweet love. He even opens the tiny bandage for a reason that escapes me and we get to see the near-fatal, traumatic…pencil-sized wound.

After Wilson donated part of his liver to a friend in “Wilson”, he winced whenever he moved. Even after he left the hospital. But it clearly doesn’t impair Chase from cavorting with Not-Virgin-Mary.



"So, do you like to swing?"

But God has Other Plans for Not-Virgin-Mary. Post-coital in Chase’s bed, her neck swells up. She’s rushed off to PPTH for surgery! Which Chase performs! Huh? Hadn’t he decided he didn’t work there anymore? Did I miss something?

Not-Virgin-Mary has a vision during surgery that God is calling her. Somehow one night of sweet, sweet love has convinced Chase he loves her. But no. She’s going to put on the habit and leave our corrupt world behind. I’d care if they had bothered to give Not-Virgin-Mary a personality, but the writers forgot. They were too busy writing YET ANOTHER PRANK WAR, this time between House and Taub. Although it was a pleasure to see Taub without those dreadful twins, the prank war…it’s so tedious that describing it will set off my narcolepsy.

"Ha! I win!"

Chase goes weeping to House, who gives him a fatherly talk about Chase reassessing his life after his mistakes. No, don’t ask me what that means. It didn’t stop Chase in Season Two when he killed a patient in “The Mistake.” (Maybe he reassessed his life that time during the commercial breaks?) Perhaps one of my darling readers can explain the to me in the comments.

The upside of all of this is that Adams and Park have virtually nothing to do. The downside is that Wilson appears for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him scene.

Feel free to respond in the comments. And yes, the show was canceled. All the talk of “deciding to come to an end” sounds suspiciously like public relations hooey. Let’s hope the series finale leaves the cast alive—most of them, anyway. When you comment, remember, I am always right.

Ciao,
Elisa & Fletcher

Review: House Season 8 Ep. 11, Tumor Ex Machina

DAHLINGS -

The opening of “Nobody’s Fault” is a disheveled hospital room, covered with spatters of blood. A bottle of Lidocaine lies of the floor. It’s one of the best cold opens in a long time, but then, I love gore.

I spoke too soon. We are plunged into an extremely dark room, House sits opposite a Dr. Cofield, played with a stunning lack of charisma by Jeffrey Wright. Cofield is the head of Neurosurgery at New York’s Mercy Hospital. He was once Foreman’s mentor, so Foreman has brought him in to cover his own ass. (Why a head of Neurosurgery is involved in this is one of those things best not thought about or your ears will start to bleed.)

Director Greg Yaitanes loves effects that draw your attention away from the story to the direction, so the first few minutes are spent puzzling, “why hasn’t PPTH paid its light bill” and “This is a modern hospital, why are they sitting in room straight out of the 1920s?” .

Cofield is there to investigate a violent incident involving the POTW, a chemistry teacher who collapsed while jogging and now cannot feel his arms or legs. Since once again I don’t remember the patient’s name, let’s call him Biff. House begins by saying the incident is “nobody’s fault.” That bad things happen. Since Cofield seems never to have been in a hospital before, he is inclined to disagree.

The case is examined from each team member’s perspective. During the case proper, the lights are on, but when it returns to the investigation, the lights go out and there is an eerie blue tinge. Make sure to watch this in a darkened room or you won’t see a thing. And somehow Jeffrey Wright manages to suck all of the energy out of each scene he’s in., which affects the overall pacing of the episode.

"Do you think you could turn on the light on the table?" "No."

Biff was involved in a classroom chemistry explosion but for some reason nobody thinks that has anything to do with what’s happening.

The only member of the team who acts as though he is not spoiling his trousers with terror is Taub. Park and Adams are both…well, they’re Park and Adams.

In keeping with this season’s direction, there is a pointless prank war going on between Chase and House. But more on that later.

Biff has a rash under his arms, so House orders him pumped full of steroids in hopes of making the rash worse. Unfortunately, this gives Biff a major case of ‘roid rage. In one of those “this needs to happen even if it makes no sense”moments, Chase and Adams decide to biopsy the rash. Chase wheels in a table, revealing that he has a scalpel and a bottle of Lidocaine. Biff goes berserk and stabs Chase with the scalpel. There is an excellent shot of a stunned Chase not realizing that he has a scalpel stuck in his chest.

(For the record, Jesse Spencer knocked this out of the park. He tends to be criminally underused.) They rush him to the OR. With Cofield, Adams blames herself. Taub guesses that Chase might be at fault for bringing a scalpel into a room containing a psychotic patient. (YA THINK?)

There is a temporary moment of dramatic tension when Chase can’t feel his legs, but by the end of the episode he’s in physical therapy. When House opens his Vicodin bottle, it explodes (prank war). This gives House an epiphany, so he sprints out of the hearing the same way he sprinted out of the hearing during Season Three when he was on trial for abusing drugs.

ANYWAY, House realizes that Biff’s being in the explosion loosened cancerous tumor cells from his lymph node which proceeded to go through his entire body. Since we’ve completely forgotten about Biff, my only reaction was “Huh?” However, Biff’s wife isn’t buying it and rushes Biff to another hospital.

As usual when we reach heavy dramatic moments toward the end of the episode, it starts pouring rain outside. The entire team gathers to hear Dr. Cofield give his verdict. It’s something along the lines of House being brilliant but a complete disaster, when they are suddenly interrupted! By Biff’s wife!

House was right! Biff will be cured by House’s diagnosis! “He saved my husband’s life!” she exclaims breathlessly to Cofield.

Your faithful correspondent dropped her drink, exclaiming, “You have GOT to be kidding!”

But no. Cofield announces that the incident is indeed nobody’s fault. House, ever maddened by good news, yells at Cofield for being a coward. Then he visits Chase, who’s walking on a treadmill, and says, “They were wrong. I’m sorry.” Chase and House share a manly moment of silence before the end credits.

Next week, the episode is about Chase. Since we see him talking about leaving PPTH in the promo, then in a lab coat, it's a good bet that the status quo will be preserved. People don't change.


Ciao,

Elisa & Fletcher

Review: House Season 8 Ep. 10, "Runaways"

DAHLINGS -

It would seem that, in its return to basics, “House” has established several ongoing motifs.

1) The team does almost all of its work without him. However, House
occasionally swings by for the epiphany. Or to say “put him on interferon”.
2)There is an amazing amount of time spent on meaningless mind games and
high-larious pranks.
3) Park is quirky and says “surprising” things.
4) Adams is a hologram.
5) Foreman is in almost every scene. Which is odd, because he’s not on the team
anymore. As Dean of Medicine, he’s getting more screen time than Cuddy did. I adore Foreman, but really. Doesn’t he have a large teaching hospital to run?

On a cheerier note, your faithful correspendent could actually recall this week’s episode, “Runaways.” Last week’s episode, “Better Half,” was so dull it could have been a filmed blocking rehearsal. Even now I can’t remember the plot…oh, yes, early onset Alzheimer’s, a fascinating, tragic disease that the show managed to make neither fascinating nor tragic. It was even irritating when House spoke Portuguese. Yes, House knows every single language ever invented, but please, just once, show, have a translator come in! There was some kind of prank war. And fisticuffs.

What “Better Half” clearly demonstrated was that the chemistry between House and Wilson seems to have evaporated. The rapport is no longer, the relationship is no longer there, it’s two actors in a room. Neither of them particularly interested in what’s going on.

Hmmm, I remembered more than I thought I would.

Back to “Runaways.”

Right at the top, House announces for the 107,406,321th time, “People don’t change.”

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, BANISH THIS PHRASE TO THE BLACK HOLE OF WRITER’S PURGATORY! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE NEVER USE IT AGAIN! IS IT SO MUCH TO ASK THAT IN A SEA OF CLICHÉS, YOU CAN’T LEAVE OUT ONE???

Ahem. I beg your pardon. It’s a bit of a sore point.

A teenage runaway arrives the clinic with an ear bleed. This was once the hospital where seeing House was truly the last-case scenario. Desperate people came from other countries because he was a world-famous diagnostician. Now, it seems, all one needs is a trip to the clinic or the ER and House pops up, ready to go.

The teenager is supposedly homeless but she has set up shop in an abandoned house. Can’t recall her name, so let’s call her…Biff. Poor Biff has Druggie Mom. Druggie Mom and Biff briefly reconcile when Druggie Mom tells Biff, “I only did drugs after you were asleep, honey.” “I love you, Mom.”

House no longer has an ankle monitor on, so he drags to team to oh-so-wild-and-crazy places. Such as a shooting range, where he dresses like Elmer Fudd. Then a turtle race, in which Park gets to be quirky at a turtle.(Don’t these doctors have tests to run? Laundry? Anything?)




House’s biting wit is on display when he can’t stop giggling over the name “Pooholtz.” Straight out of Oscar Wilde’s playbook.

Foreman’s extramarital affair ends when he learns the wife has told the husband and the husband doesn’t mind. It makes no sense, but it’s just as well, as the wife is an even worse actress than Park.

Taub…remember when Taub was a wonderfully dry, snarky doctor? About two decades ago? Taub’s storyline is one of the best arguments for Planned Parenthood that I’ve seen yet. He bonds with the Sophii by telling them about football.

ANYWAY, Biff’s diagnosis is worms. Rather like the girl who went fishing with her parents and ate undercooked trout and ended up with tapeworm, Biff went swimming with Druggie Mom and contracted worms. Druggie Mom goes to bond with Biff. But Biff has run away once again, just as…somebody else ran away. I mean, the B-plot is always the A-plot on training wheels.

And there were two wacky civil way reenactors.

My hand on the Bible, I am not making any of this up.



Next week’s episode is supposed to be iconic.

ETA: As I was writing this, the Fox network announced that it is bumping “House” off the schedule for the month of March, extending “Alcatraz” in its place. You may draw your own conclusions.

ETA Part Two: Feel free to discuss this review in the comments. However, personal attacks will not be published.

Ciao,
Elisa

Review: House Enjoys "The Perils of Paranoia" 8.06. And "Pencils."

DAHLINGS -

I didn’t review last week’s Parents because I had so little to say. Team: Teenage girl has MPD and cancer. House: dead child was deaf. It was supposed to have a “shocking twist.” If it was the child’s elaborate sarcophagus being opened, one must assume the promo monkeys never saw a few episodes of NCIS. Or one episode of Supernatural, where the gore-covered bodies pile up like cordwood. As usual, the episode botched the presentation of mental illness. The creators must dislike the mentally ill almost as much as they dislike women. House got punched a few times. Everybody had a glass of sangria and sobbed despairingly on the lawn.

Moving on to The Perils of Paranoia, the cutesy title warning of the stinking mound of ordure that was about to happen. My agonized screams could be heard for miles. My assistant Leo came in with a peach mango martini pour moi and stared at the flat screen in disbelief. “Why are you watching this crap?”

“I don’t know…” I gasped. “It used to be Hugh Laurie but he’s had all of this plastic surgery and he’s phoning in his performance. And Robert Sean Leonard but he’s not even trying to hide his contempt for the material. And Lisa Edelstein, but she’s gone. BUT I CAN’T STOP! GOD HELP ME, I CAN’T STOP!”

Leo shook his head with a sigh and took a seat.

You know when you see a comedy and all of the decent jokes are in the trailer? That was this week’s “prank war” between House and Wilson. I was so looking forward to it! Wilson believes House has a gun in his apartment. When he goes to ransack the place, an improbable hunting net traps him in the air, which is a funny image. What followed was ludicrous slapstick. Wilson finds a gun in a box marked “House,” in case House forgets who he is when he opens the box. In a scene that lasts approximately ten years and is written in crayon, House waves it around, points it at himself and Wilson, demonstrating with a pencil that the barrel is blocked. “You win,” Wilson sighs.

“Naturally Wilson doesn’t call the police because the crazy felon who runs Diagnostics has a gun,” I remarked to Leo.

"That’s ‘cause they’re married.”

The POTW is a prosecutor, who collapses with a heart attack in the cold open, but of course it’s not a heart attack or we’d have no show. We barely have one as it is. Turns out the uncharismatic patient has a secret bunker behind a bookcase on his wall (OH, COME ON!) loaded with a small infantry’s worth of automatic weapons and C-4 explosives. His wife does not take the news well.

"Sorry, honey,” he tries to explain. “I totally forgot to tell you that I built an underground bunker."

"Why?"

"Well, I had a free weekend..."

He only eats food he cooks himself—I’m assuming he grows his own meat and vegetables at his secret farm under the back porch—and drinks bottled water. The world is going to hell in a hand basket and this guy wants to go vigilante on the bad guys’ collective asses. Come to think of it, Hitler had a lovely secret bunker, with curtains. But I digress.


House thinks the paranoia is a symptom (that means that most of the GOP presidential candidates have diphtheria, too. Sorry to spoil this so soon). The patient didn’t have vaccinations. Do you think that storyline had anything to do with Fox News having a segment on parents refusing vaccines? Do it, Moms, or your kid will throw chairs through the window while hallucinating they’re being attacked by bears. Bears? Seriously? Vigilante Patient has an underground bunker and he’s afraid of bears? Does anyone even clock into the writer’s room?
"Oh, shit, bears!"



Speaking of ham-handed product placement, Adams, the pretty one, while driving with Park, the one whose voice annoys me so I want to reach down her throat and pull out her vocal chords, mentions her Ford cruise control. And a minute later we sail into a Ford commercial! My dear readers, I hoped the creators had a shred of integrity intact, but the Ford ran over the last shred. At least Adams didn’t crash the car into the patient’s house.

Long story short: the patient is paranoid. And he has diphtheria.

Park is paranoid that the rest of the team doesn’t like her. Unfortunately, she’s right. She goes to House for consolation. She is an idiot.

Wilson is paranoid that House has a gun. Wilson should be.

I’m going to make a stretch here to say that Taub is paranoid that Foreman has no personal life. Never mind the details. Foreman hooks up with a horrifically buff former America’s Top Model contestant who’s married. One saving grace of this episode was that Taub was relegated to snarking on the sidelines.

When Vigilante Patient is on the mend, he promises his wife they’ll move to a new house without a secret bunker. “Oh, honey, can it be English Tudor?” she asks, caressing his cheek. “Now that I know you’re an insane time-bomb who still might go off any minute, I love you even more.” Cue heartwarming music. VP plans to donate the arsenal to the Peace Corps. As long as the new house has no bears.

I mentioned the show’s overall dislike of women at the beginning. That was code for “rampant misogyny.” As a friend tweeted, “This is a sausage fest.” They are trying to fill the void left by Cuddy’s departure (her name has been uttered once or twice). Cuddy was a confident, mature, sexual woman with an impressive job. Now we get, what, an anonymous pretty cipher and a teenage geek? And a passel of middle-aged men? Eeeew.

One feels a certain fondness for middle-aged writers and directors, getting back at all of the girls who wouldn’t date them in eleventh grade.

Meanwhile, during clinic duty, House barks out the names of female clinic patients until he gets to the standard-issue Hollywood Hot Babe, and takes her into the clinic room. Har de har har. Let’s laugh at the less attractive women in the waiting room. Is it me, or is House’s awful make-my-ears-look-big dyed haircut making him look more Creepy Grandpa each episode?

"It’s not you,” Leo assures me. “He is Creepy Grandpa.”

The crowning touch is a scene where Chase and Adams, the pretty people, are on the verge of hooking up when Park gets on the elevator. Standing on either side of her, they look like her parents. She gets up her courage asks Chase for a drink, causing him to squirm with a “kill me now” expression on his face, before he agrees. Ha ha ha! Less attractive women are so funny! Especially when they come on to cute guys who’d rather suck on a tailpipe than get naked with them. But, who knows, maybe Chase and Park will get it on. I'd rather that that Chase and Adams.

Side note: what is with the gruesomely thin women on this show? America’s Top Model weighs about 70 pounds but still looks like she could out-bench-press Foreman. When she walks toward Foreman in the gym, he looks like a sofa compared to her. At least women who don’t eat make cheap dates.

At the close, House puts the box with the gun on the upper shelf on his closet, and then takes out his father’s ceremonial Marine sword, caressing it gently before returning it to its hiding place. This was the “mid-season finale” (when did television start using that term?). I guess come January we’ll be watching House explore his daddy issues. Because, honestly, what’s left?

Watching this mess lurch to its conclusion, Leo and I touched glasses. “We lived through it,” he said.

“But at what cost?” I retorted, paranoid that my IQ level had dropped twenty points.

In January House MD will be back to slog toward the finale.
Feel free to express yourself in the comments. But bear in mind that I am always right.

Ciao,
Elisa

EDITED TO ADD: Hugh Laurie has announced he is leaving acting after the final season of House. That's too bad, but understandable. A weekly series is an unbearable grind.

If you are going to post Anonymous comments, let it be known that you have to sign them somehow if you want to be published.

Review: House MD "Parents" Ep. 8x06 - Clowns Shouldn't Reproduce

DAHLINGS -

The confusion over Season Eight has been cleared up at last! While we fans were wondering, “What happened to this show? When did it become such a car wreck?” there is now an answer!

In a recent interview, Hugh Laurie, former pillar of artistic integrity, is quoted as saying: "Whatever we're doing now on the show, we're doing it for its own satisfaction. I don't feel like we're struggling to prove ourselves to executives or critics. Not to be complacent about it, but I think we've moved beyond that stage.”
Source: http://tinyurl.com/c39t9q8

Clearly, beyond the stage of producing decent television. Mr. Laurie is making it clear that they no longer give a damn about what they are creating. (Those of us who have recently wondered if Mr. Laurie has been assuaging the tedium of playing the same character for so many years with, ahem, illegal substances can rest assured that “coffee” is what is keeping the company going. Naturellement .)

This week’s episode, “Parents,” was as multilayered as a tuna melt, with the same mushy texture.

I am going to cut directly to the shocking (!) family secret (!): Ben is a teenager who wants to go to Klown Kollege because of his loving memories of his Dead Clown Father. But Dead Clown Father isn’t actually dead. He shows up at the hospital where, after giving DCF a quick glance, House announces that DCF molested Ben and gave him syphilis when Ben was a wee bairn. (House deduces this from the way DCF is walking. Maybe it was from a stilt accident, but what do I know?) The family is shattered, Ben is ruined for life by finding out his DCF is a live CF and a child rapist and the police are called.

Oh. Wait. None of that happens.

Taub decides not to tell Ben how he got syphilis but they don’t show that part—because it might have involved some actual writing—and DCF shuffles out of the picture, presumably on the hunt for more young wanna-be Bozos. Bear in mind, this entire sequence of events, including the Magi-Cam during the “let’s just get this crap over with” explanation takes three minutes of screen time. Not even a final reaction shot from Ben, who is actually an interesting patient.

"Come here, little boy, and I'll show you my balloons."

The theme of this episode is parents. Good parents, bad parents, bad clowns who molest children parents, and Taub. I know there was supposed to be a connection to Taub's story and Dead Clown Father, as in, what's better, an absent father who molested you or a present father who doesn't touch your privates? Or something along those lines.

Taub's two illegitimate daughters are both named Sophie. Most of the episode is taken up with Taub’s—uh, Taub’s—Taub’s futzing around with the babies because the ever-annoying Rachel wants to move Sophie #1 to Portland along with her new BF. Meanwhile, Ruby, the other baby mama (be grateful she’s not named Rachel) bitches at Taub that she can’t afford a baby yada yada. I used to love Taub before his personal life became The B-Story That Ate The Show.

House isn’t around much for “Parents.” There is a passing mention of his two fathers. At last! An exploration of this pivotal shaping of House’s character and worldview. Oops. It’s a throwaway line. House wants to accompany Wilson to Atlantic City to sing ringside at a prizefight. So most of House’s storyline is devoted to getting his ankle bracelet off. Or dealing with a fat clinic patient who is convinced who has diabetes. Or randomly announcing that everyone's parents screwed them up.

Or trying to find out what Adams’s deep dark secret is. Adams, as usual, seems faintly distracted, as if worried she left her Iphone at the mall. Her big secret is that she was a good girl who ran away to see if she was a rebel, but she wasn’t. Is anyone even IN the writer’s room?

Most of my notes are along the lines of “Taub? Again?” and one notation: WILSON. Robert Sean Leonard has dropped any semblance of interest in his character—I don’t blame him—who has largely been reduced to sight gags. When one starts to feel nostalgic for the chicken bet, one is peering into the abyss. Foreman calls Wilson into his office and tells Wilson that it’s his duty as a friend to stay with House and watch the fight on television. Wilson realizes, shocked, that this is the truth as well as his higher duty (to be honest, the way RSL played it I was sure Wilson was faking) and takes the tickets out of his pocket.

The end of the episode shows Wilson coming to House’s place with pizza and beer, eagerly turning on the fight, only to see Foreman and House sitting ringside, toasting each other with a beer. Ruefully, Wilson eats pizza.

As my betters say, WTF?

David Shore and company are doing the artistic equivalent of leaving a flaming bag of dog poop on the audience’s collective doorstep.


POST EPISODE CONCLUSIONS:

Hugh Laurie has it in his new contract that he only has to work eight hours a day.

Robert Sean Leonard has gone even more meta than the show itself by delivering his lines as if even he can’t believe them.

Nice little anecdote about how Chase became interested in medicine.

Foreman as Dean of Medicine continues to delight—when he isn’t involved in stupid gags.

Terra Nova is on before House to make House sound like Chaucer. The strategy isn’t working.

Ciao,
Elisa

Review: House MD "The Confession" Ep. 8x05

DAHLINGS -

Confession: your faithful chronicler finds herself brought so low as to be groveling for a crumb of ANYTHING. The theme song is back! Amazing how the smallest things can make one ridiculously happy.

Everything's going to be okay! Brilliant of TPTB to wait 4 episodes until the theme song came back, along with Chase, Taub, and the diagnostics office!

Chase! Taub! Wilson! Whiteboard!

What does it say about an episode that the best thing I can say is that it didn't make me angry, and I chuckled a few times?

“House M.D.” is not even trying to be a serious program any more. The show has morphed into a meta parody of itself. The characters becoming caricatures, the "fun" back in the form of jokes that aren't funny, and wild n' crazy antics! And everybody involved knows that, so in later episodes we might possibly be spared any form of gravitas. "House" can't pull it off any more. It's back to hooker-on-a-Segway time. You want serious character development? Sorry, we got tired of doing that.

We open on a pleasant rural town, Cedarville, in the 1950s. Bob Harris, Champion Little League coach, Harvest Scholarship Fund treasurer, and owner of the town's only gas station, is receiving an award for being a pillar of the community at a county fair. (A county fair? Near Princeton?) He is watched by local beauty queen Miss Cedarville.

Quick cut to a motel room, where Bob is putting his pillar to good use having sex with Miss Cedarville. The inevitable happens: he has a heart attack on top of her. Rule Number One on House: Do.Not.Have.Sex.Ever. It either brings you to the brink of death or merely ruins your life. Or you drive your car into your ex’s house.


Suddenly we time-travel to the present. Chase and Taub stand before Foreman’s desk. There’s some old-school banter, then reality jumps the rails once again. Taub was counting on two days off, because he has to look after his two children. It’s not noted exactly why the mothers took off at the same time or why Taub can’t afford a nanny, but what the hell, the babies are adorable and good for some sight gags. Not to mention House torments Taub about the babies’ paternal origin. What happened to Season 4/5 Taub, who gave as good as he got, and more important, DIDN’T HAVE PLOT LINES THAT CLOG THE SHOW AS MUCH AS GREASE CLOGS A SINK DRAIN? He even gets Wilson (the head of Oncology, as if that matters any more) to baby-sit and roll them around the lobby, thus dooming Wilson’s chance of being taken seriously by any of the staff ever again.

The POTW (Jamie Bamber, late of Battlestar Gallactica) has “confessed” the truth to his wife. True to her 1950s values, she will stand by her man. Cutting to the chase (pardon the pun) the patient’s problems include:


Seizure. Check.

Liver failure. Check

Eeeew! Skin peeling off in sheets! Like the ballerina in “Under My Skin” in Season Five! Except this is even more disgusting. (Whatever happened to the cases where people had gone to dozens of doctors before they went to House?)

The entire town of Cedarville time-travels to PPTH to offer Galatica Guy a piece of their livers. However, Galatica Guy “confesses” everything from ripping off his neighbors to embezzlement to being a vampire—oh, wait, that’s another show. Cedarville promptly time-travels back to the 1950s.

If it hadn’t been obvious from the get-go that the confessions are the principal symptom, it’s evident that suddenly the team have forgotten they’re doctors and haven’t noticed Altruist Guy's and Galactica Guy's defining characteristics were overdone and obviously a symptom from the first scene. And both are diagnosed by one of the ducklings in the same crazy way. I mean, come on, it's one thing to repeat plot-lines from earlier seasons, but a plot line from two episodes ago?

Meanwhile, Adams and Park still haven’t learned to act, which makes Chase and Taub back quite refreshing. House rags on Chase for staring at Adams’s non-existent breasts. Later it’s back-story time for Adams, and forgive me, but I wasn’t listening. But it was probably a “confession” of some kind. The scenes between House and Wilson seem off-kilter. I’m guessing the actors are saying their lines and going home.

Without going into the details of House hiring a construction crew and Foreman never noticing, or how Galactica Guy’s skin peels off but his face reminds intact, or Taub’s two goddamn babies, TPOW is diagnosed with Kawasaki’s Disease. And is able to lie to his wife about having an affair. “I knew it,” she gushes, and they return to the 1950s.

The end is very funny but also preposterous. The construction has been to make a wall that rises at the touch of a remote that slides up to reveal—wait for it—
Wilson’s office. Why get into whether or not Wilson knew about it, or where the damn wall goes when it raises up, etc. etc. ?

The best thing to do is to pretend it’s a sitcom and wait for the canned laughter.

Ciao,
Elisa

P.S. When you respond to this review, please bear in mind that I am always right and do not approve hate mail.

Review: "House" & "Risky Business" Hit A New Low 8x04

DAHLINGS -

Viewers who thought the creative minds behind House MD had destroyed the character in the season 7 finale are in for an unpleasant surprise. Apparently House can still be plumbed for new depths, while being stripped of whatever compassion, sense of ethics, and humanity he may have possessed in the past. Moral turpitude found new lows in last night’s episode of House, “Risky Business.” At the time, the episode seemed merely stupefyingly dull. However, in the cold light of morning 8x04 is simply hideous.

To the tune of "Morning Has Broken," the patient of the week (Michael Nouri) is a business magnate who intends to move his company to China, thereby losing thousands of American jobs and destroying family tradition. His daughter vehemently opposes his decision. Unfortunately, her pro-America argument is interrupted by Nouri finding his hand very small.

Once we’re back at the hospital, Adams strides in, in a low-cut black dress reminiscent of the sorely missed Cuddy. Except that Adams is barely out of high school and the costumers had to pleat her chest to give her cleavage. As always, her cascade of hair is impeccable. It’s a bit disconcerting when she’s bending over the patient—wouldn’t a real doctor wear a ponytail or a braid to keep stray hairs from getting everywhere? (Your faithful correspondent has long, flowing hair, so I know whereof I speak.) Even Thirteen used to pin some of it back. Oh, wait, that was when this mess resembled an actual television program. Adams yammers at Nouri about ethics, which seems rather odd when he’s in an MRI. Aren’t the patients supposed to remain silent? (Correction: he was being radiated, as a commenter pointed out. My narcolepsy must have kicked in.)

House lectures Adams about the 99% and why they deserve to get the shaft. And why she should drive her car through her ex-husband's living room.


Oops. That was when David Shore et.al actually cared about what they were doing. My respect for Hugh Laurie drops another ten points with each episode. He practically slept through this one. (Not to mention that his hair and beard are still that bizarre ginger color.)

The bottom line: House buys stock in the company when it drops because of the news of Nouri’s ill health. He then makes a huge profit when Nouri decides to move the company to China! He urges the magnate to sign the press release, in front of the magnate’s horrified daughter. Way to go, you rascal House, you! Insider trading, ruining thousands of lives, losing thousands of American jobs, AND wrecking the magnate’s family in the process!

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Pardon me, I had to pause writing the review so I could vomit.

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The show has moved me, it has made me think, it has angered me, it has bored me. But except for last season’s finale, I have never felt utter DISGUST. Is this supposed to be cute? Is this “going back to the fun”?? What do they do in the writer’s room, torture kittens?

Dr. Park floats around the periphery, her disciplinary hearing won because, well, she’s just so adorable, how can you fire her? (Besides, she's signed up for the season.)

The POTW’s illness is described quickly with some medical gobbledy-gook. This season, the MagiCam has been used to (loudly) distract from whatever diagnosis House is spouting. The visuals have become as confusing as everything else. Can someone tell me what the diagnosis was? It involved a lot of spinning red discs, that much I know.

At the end, House buys back his old department with his ill-gotten gains and Wilson (who is on for a few nanoseconds) a check for $5000. I suppose this is supposed to make up for all of the money House owes Wilson, and it conveniently buys his friendship for the rest of the season as well. Which is nicely symbolic of Robert Sean Leonard keeping his job.

In the last moments, we discover that Adams is going through a divorce (gag me) that will supposedly give her character some depth. Given her age, she must have been married down South. House hands her a baseball bat and watches, grinning, as she destroys the orthopedic equipment that has occupied his “office,” as “Morning Has Broken” plays on the soundtrack. Yes, nothing says “catharsis” like trashing expensive medical equipment out of spite.

As one friend wrote to me:

The $5000 was money he stole from Wilson - he was just returning it.

Crimes committed by House in this episode-
Insider trading (twice)-
Blackmail of patient for money-
Theft of $5000 from Wilson-
Theft of a $200,000 piece of medical equipment (he pawned it somewhere presumably? must be a great pawn shop!)-
Assault on ortho guy (shining a light in his eyes designed to make him ill*), near assault on ortho guy (only saved by having an epiphany at the last moment)

Pretty good record for a guy on parole....

* I shall be honest and admit I had to cover my eyes during this section, because I have a mild medical condition where I cannot look at flashing lights.

On the positive side…

On the positive side…

Hmmm.

Wilson looks hot.

Foreman’s character is being fleshed out beautifully, after years of standing around looking sullen. He projects authority, intelligence, and humor.

Not to worry, House will have his minions tearing up Foreman’s office for no good reason before season 8 is over.

Edited To Add: The ratings are also hitting new lows. 6.55 million viewers, down 19% from last week. Oh, dear, I forgot the juggernaut that is Dancing With The Stars. And Two And A Half Men. And Mike and Molly at 9:30 EST.

Ciao,
Elisa

Review: Is "House" Now A "Charity Case" ? 8x03

DAHLINGS --

Episode 8x03, “Charity Case,” is aptly named. It sits on the street, legs crossed, begging bowl in lap, looking toward the viewers. “Please help me! Please, give me my demographic! Look, I gave you back the Magicam! The whiteboard! Clinic duty!”

This episode reminded your faithful correspondent of a rickety beach house. Boards slapped on haphazardly to keep the wind out. Poles keep the walls from collapsing. Years ago, this was a lovely house, but time, the elements, and spectacularly bad judgment have brought it to this sorry state. Very well, I’ll stop the metaphor there and leave out the part about the bad wiring.

In the open, as soon as the POTW (Wentworth Miller) talked to the woman at the shelter, I knew after his exit she would find a mysterious check for ONE MEEILLION dollars! (Pinky at mouth.) As soon as Mr. Handsome leaves, he collapses and we go to:


The utter lack of credits. What foolery is this? If you’re going to go “back to basics,” why not restore the song? Is NBC too cheap to pony up the money for the rights? Is it because Odette Annable might jump to the other show when it’s renewed and they’ve have to remove her credit? Just a sort of orangey picture and a huffing noise. Only “Supernatural” can pull this off.

Mr. Handsome is a gazillionaire who gives all of his money away and lives in poverty. Naturally, this does not sit well with his wife, who probably wants a decent three-bedroom apartment with a view. Like the environmentalist in S5 "Saviours," the POTW feels that other people are equally deserving--if not more so--than his own offspring.


House is sure Mr. Handsome’s extreme altruism is a symptom, that nobody is that generous.

As in:

S2: “Autopsy” – House believes courage is a symptom (no)
S4: “No More Mr. Nice Guy” – niceness is a symptom (yes)
S5 “Brave Heart” – bravery is a symptom (sorta)
S6: “Instant Karma” – millionaire gives up money to save his son (it didn’t make any sense at the time, either)
S7: Some guy jumps in front of a train to save a little girl – heroism is a symptom (can't remember)

13 puts in an appearance, telling House she has found the right girl and doesn’t want to be a doctor any more. Since we already know this is Olivia Wilde’s last episode, listening to her argue with House is tiresome. But—and this is bizarre—the most colorless character on the show suddenly seems like a STAR because she’s in the same room with House’s two new little girls.








These two actresses…I mean, why? Charlene Yi can’t act and has the most annoying voice since Cuddles, the Downy Soft bear. Odette Annabel can’t act either, but she is excellent at wearing her hair in a fetching cascade down one side. The reason why they have been hired might be that Laurie, Shore and Yaitanes are all having mid-life crises and nothing eases the pain like a barely pubescent female. In fact, this may be why Hugh Laurie is using Just For Men on his hair and beard, rather than the foxy silver it is in real life. From the front he looks like he’s wearing three reddish brown pom-poms on his head.

Getting “back to basics” means bringing back the Magicam (a welcome addition); a repeat of the scene where House pitches small objects (peanut shells) from the balcony toward the back of a janitor; clinic duty, which manages to be unfunny AND derivative. A kid is masturbating. Wow. Back to the fun, indeed.

Wilson puts in an appearance as House’s conscience and provides the epiphany, I forget how.

Foreman gets to break House’s balls over deliberately dosing Mr. Handsome to create symptoms before Mr. Handsome can be discharged. “You’re off the case.” I like this Foreman. But then, I’ve always loved Foreman.

Still, the void created by the lack of Cuddy is unmistakable. No mature female on the show, no interesting sexual politics, no one for a woman over the age of 18 to identify with. No woman who can act. Yi and Annable enact a subplot about Yi’s inability to accept charity (OW! That anvil hurt when it hit my foot!). Chase is going to appear ridiculously old when he shows up; House already looks like their horny grandfather.

To cut to the chase (God, I miss Chase), House and his two little girls/new team solve the case. Mr. Handsome’s altruism is a symptom of a nodule on his thyroid. Before he diagnoses Mr. Handsome, House tries to get a ONE MEEEILLION DOLLAR donation to get his team back. And presumably the office next door, now being used for orthopedics. He diagnoses Mr. Handsome, and no ONE MEEILLION DOLLARS for poor House. Oops.

Then it’s time for a last dose of altruism, as House selflessly sends Thirteen away to a life of Sapphic pleasure in Greece. And Ms. Wilde to a multi-million dollar movie career.

So perhaps it’s not altruism, it’s sour grapes.

Ciao,

Elisa