House - Anatomy of A Relationship 7.12

Anatomy of a Relationship
An Episodic Examination of Huddy in Love
“You Must Remember This” – 7.12


This episode was a solid, middle of season, episode. We didn’t get a lot of deep introspection, although all House episodes contain a higher percentage of introspection than any other television show episode. Four out of five television viewers agree. We did learn a few nuggets of truth about House and his view on relationships.

The patient of the week is a waitress with a perfect autobiographical memory. She can remember everything that has ever happened every day of her life since puberty. The patient considers this her special gift but it’s more of a curse at it has created a precise tally of the wrong and right actions of people around her. If a person has been mean more often than nice, our patient can’t forgive. Also in this episode Taub is forced to select a tutor to help him pass the Pathology Board Test. He tanked it and will lose his license if he doesn’t pass. He chooses Foreman and an odd friendship based on mutual loneliness and low self-esteem blossoms. And by the way, those House producers are making sure they get their money’s worth with that FarScape video game created for Season Six’s “Epic Fail” episode. The third story line revolves around House discovering Wilson has adopted a diabetic cat and as all good bro’s would do in this situation, House tries to convince Wilson to kill the cat. When that fails, House figures a good hook-up or two will break Wilson out of his mopey state. He’s sort of right.

But let’s first talk about those few nuggets of truth we did learn this episode. The biggest nugget was that House, however sure he is that he wants to be in the relationship with Cuddy, is banking on things going sour. He’s enjoying the moment, which is really a big leap for him, but his half-empty psyche is keeping him from fully enjoying said moment. And he’s pretty sure the fall won’t be at Cuddy’s design. House has no trust in his own ability to keep the relationship together. Whatever is going to go wrong will be House’s fault. House shows us his reasoning when he talks to the patient about her inability to forgive and forget. He recognizes the fact that she always has all the facts and none of the emotions to cloud any of them. House says the patient has the most clear perspective on interpersonal relationships because of the tally she can keep. House is big on actions, we know. He judges people more on how they act than by what they say. Everyone lies. And he’s worried he’ll start acting like an ass again and Cuddy will kick him to the curb. He voiced this opinion in the season premiere. He tells the patient that everyone dies alone. Chase then tells the patient later that he doesn’t believe that and is pretty sure House doesn’t believe it anymore either, but I think most of House does. Well, I think most of House believes that House will die alone. He’s trying to prevent that, but again that half-empty perspective kicks him in the pants every time.

In the story line with Wilson, we see House showing his concern by meddling. Again. He’s just trying to keep Wilson’s green rating on the Datability Alert System. In this relationship, House will always know what’s best for Wilson and vice versa. They may stumble a bit here and there, but these two guys know what it takes to keep each other going. Here House is doing what Wilson did for him back after Kutner committed suicide. Remember, Wilson pranked House into thinking he was on some diet, only to get thing back to normal after the shock of Kutner’s death? Wilson told House then that he realized after Amber died he waited and waited for things to get back to normal when he should have just made them normal by himself and moved on. Wilson did this by pranking House and letting House figure it out. House is now trying to get Wilson back to normal by getting him out into the dating scene and away from the cat. House knows Wilson needs to be with someone. Wilson thrives on being needed. Well, House doesn’t need him much anymore. He’s got Cuddy. And House feels slightly guilty about this. He wants Wilson to be okay. And a diabetic cat is not House’s idea of achieving that state. Like House said, “Wilson needs some puddy tat that puts out.” Cuddy tells House to leave Wilson alone. She accuses him that he’s feeling guilty about being happy; that House doesn’t believe his happiness takes Wilson’s away. I guess that’s correct. House is a very ying & yang kind of guy, but I think that House’s actions are mostly governed by the fact that House knows Wilson has to move on and let go and he’s doing what any good bro would do in helping Wilson achieve that. Heck, he even lets the cat live.

As far as the Huddy dynamics in the episode goes things are smooth sailing. Like I wrote in my last post they found their groove again. They interact at work like they always have AND Cuddy has found a way to “almost lie” to House. She was able to sneak a half-truth by his Cuddy lie-detector and it did my heart good to see her justify it by saying that under “House rules” that totally wasn’t a lie. See, she’s coming around to his way of thinking. Well, she’s falling back into how she always dealt with him. Which was, yeah, his way of thinking. But it’s good. I like that the writers have taken them on this arch which showed them struggling to figure out a relationship and then finally realizing that the relationship they had all along worked perfectly.

The last scene of Huddy had me happy and wondering. It is obvious House is happy, but I thought I detected some wariness. Did it seem to you that he was analyzing things again? Maybe arguing with his shoulder devil which must constantly tell him he’s going to mess things up? It looks like he tries to stop the wondering by trying to fall asleep. I am worried that this is the calm before the storm. David Shore CONSTANTLY reminds us that House isn’t meant to be happy. Mr. Shore thinks a happy House is a boring House. And that’s probably true. It also makes it probably true that the big ol’ pile of crap sitting in the corner of Mr. Shore’s office is soon going to be hitting that fan on his desk. Put on your protective gear. To paraphrase Hugh Laurie, “ It’s going to be a messy ride.”



Thanks for reading everyone. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Nice thoughts, please. My skin isn’t as thick as Dr. House’s.