House - Anatomy of a Relationship "After Hours" 7.22

Anatomy of a Relationship
An Episodic Examination of Huddy in Love
“After Hours” – 7.22

WOW! What an amazing episode. Absolutely amazing. And we learned a bunch of helpful things as well. We learned that most decisions we make will have long-lasting consequences. We learned that it’s important to put your trust in the right person. And we learned that performing invasive medical procedures at home is NEVER a good idea.

And my favorite thing about this episode? I, the writer of a blog dealing with the Huddy relationship, once again have new Huddy relationship material to write about! Hooray! Okay, into the deep end of this cool pool.

This episode takes place entirely after all our beloved characters have headed home for the day. There is no case. There are no board meetings. Just personal life. And that gets less than relaxing very quickly. 13 has a prison pal show up on her front step. The friend, Darrien, has been stabbed by her crack-dealing boyfriend. Man, can NO ONE on this show have a functional relationship? Anyway. Darrien makes 13 promise to not take her to the hospital. And 13 goes with this. Whatever. It was fortunate for all that the writers brought Chase into this storyline or I would have fast forwarded the whole thing. And seriously, 13 didn’t think to put something on her couch before letting the bleeding ex-con lay down on it. I would have made the con stand in the hallway until I had dragged my big blue camping tarp over the entire living room. Sheesh. Okay, moving on.

Taub receives life-changing news after hours as well. Ruby, his young diversion…ah lover, tells him she’s pregnant. Foreman takes Taub out to a strip bar to try to calm him. Instead, Taub tries to distract himself from the whole situation by diagnosing a possible cancerous mole on his private dancer, who looks nothing like Tina Turner, by the way. She gets him thrown out for touching her and when he waits for her after her shift she pulls a gun on him and almost shoots him. So apparently any medical procedure done outside of the proper context is not a good idea. Please make a note of that everyone. Although this experience does help crystallize his thoughts about being a daddy so all was not lost. Taub decides to go for it and I immediately feel bad for Ruby and picture her sitting at home with a newborn while her hubby runs out and around on her. Sad. Hey, this show only has two main themes: people lie and people don’t change. Thus the image of Ruby alone.

So now to the HUDDY! First we discover that House’s wonder drug is not so wonderful after all. When he spills the rest of his RatBlow(TM) after dropping a guitar amp into his coffee table during an attempt to impress his dulcimer playing prostitute, he heads over to the hospital. It seems like he’s having some trouble. His leg cramped up and made him drop the amp and he’s using his cane more as he walks into the lab then he did at the end of last week’s episode. We find out that it’s because of the humongous tumors currently growing in his leg from all that RatBlow™. The researcher tells House that things have gone horribly wrong. All that Princeton Plainsboro donor money has been wasted on a great rat poison. House asks if there were any indications of the tumor growth. Just cramping and stiffness, replies the researcher, and we hear the anvil drop of doom echo throughout the lab. So House promptly goes to the MRI and confirms what he feared: tumors in his leg muscle. (Did anyone else wonder why he didn’t check his other muscles or was the RatBlow™ labeled as specifically for the damaged right thigh of a major television drama lead character?)

House returns home and sets up an Operating Room in his bathroom where he succeeds in getting one tumor out but shock and pain overwhelm him and he realizes he has to call for help. And I finally removed my hands from my eyes. Mr. Laurie. Amazing. His first call is to Wilson, who sleeps through it. We see team member after team member ignore House’s cry for help as well. They all know that going out in the middle of the night to help House can get a person killed. Just ask Amber. Oh wait. You can’t. See?! Finally, in desperation and against his natural flight instinct, House calls Cuddy.

As I said last week I LOVE the fact that it was Cuddy who came. Everyone else let House down. They always have, in his opinion, but Cuddy…you can always count on Cuddy. House has known since day one that Cuddy’s combination of respect for him as a doctor, sense of overwhelming guilt in all she does and her underlying feelings of love towards him will always push Cuddy to him. Cuddy has always stood up for House, lied for House, turned the other way and turned the other cheek for House in their twenty plus years of history. Even when he, as a lover, lied to her about doing illegal things in order to solve a case she was upset with him as a lover; not as a doctor. She never even thought of turning him in or blowing the whistle. And Cuddy comes through again for him. She has dragged herself and Rachel out of bed at midnight to answer House’s call for help. I had to laugh, somewhat in embarrassment, when I realized that House wasn’t calling for help to get to the hospital. No, he just needed help to get the other two tumors out. No biggie. That’s why he called Wilson and his team first. He knew he’d be able to convince them to do his bidding. But he knew Cuddy wouldn’t fold and would force him to go to the hospital. Although by the time Cuddy makes this decision it doesn’t look like House cares much.

The scenes in the hospital ER were touching. Cuddy is concerned for House. Rachel is too. All of them seem so comfortable in each other’s presence. They look like the cute family they could have become. Rachel and House bonded. She misses him and he missed her, the mangy bilge rat. House is calm. He knows that Cuddy will get the best and quickest possible care for him. Cuddy looks tired. Finally, House is in the prep room for surgery. They come to get him. He and Cuddy have been staring each other down. Neither one is talking. Cuddy looks worn down and so tired. I know it’s probably 4 in morning by now, but it’s not just a physical exhaustion I get. Her whole countenance looks downtrodden, although that’s such an old fashioned word it works here. She’s emotionally exhausted. When House stops her from leaving and confesses to her that he’s scared and needs her; that he trusts her and her alone; she looks no more enthused. I was thinking this might help Cuddy realize she truly loves House; or at least maybe Cuddy would approach House’s bed and hold his hand and offer her support. Maybe even House pulling a ring from behind the pillow. (Okay, I never once thought that would happen.) But no. It looks like that last statement from House weighs Cuddy down even more. She slowly nods to the nurse to take House and then wearily follows his bed out the door. I realized then that Cuddy is finished. She’s not there out of love or hope or compassion. She’s there out of duty. She’s there because this is something that she would do for any one of her colleagues in the same situation. And out of guilt. She demanded the same attention when she was facing a life threatening situation and she knows she’d be hypocritical to abandon House now. Put a fork in her she’s done. When she had to drag her little girl out of her home in the middle of the night and expose her to the chaos and insanity of House’s world she knew she had to cut the cord. Cuddy tells House. "You're not unhappy because of our breakup. You're just unhappy. And unhappy people do reckless things." She needs to keep her daughter safe.

Cuddy knew firsthand that “people who get close to (House) get hurt.” She has seen House destroy relationships and people numerous times. She’s had a ringside seat to the punches and jabs and ducks of the boxing match that is House. And she doesn’t want to watch anymore. The sheer madness of this last stunt combined with the fact that she had to involve her child, who still wants to be with House, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She stays until House is out of surgery. She lets Rachel write him a get well note. (I bet Rachel NEVER asks when Lucas is coming over again.) And then she leaves. House wakes up to Wilson, who promptly insists, and rightfully so, that House can’t go on this way. Something has to change. House agrees. Maybe, if Cuddy had been there when he woke up, House would have had some hope that he could overcome this latest lapse in judgement. But she’s gone and he knows he’s messed up for the final time. She’ll not indulge him anymore.

I have to wonder what Cuddy was thinking as she looked at her former lover laying in the hospital bed. You know she’s trying to decide if it was worth it. You know she’s filled with regret. Maybe remorse? She started this whole thing. You know she’s wondering if going to House’s apartment that early morning a year ago was the great idea it seemed like at the time. House never would have begun the relationship. Never. One theme of this episode was the long-lasting consequences of our decisions. Cuddy’s decision to leave Lucas and try to be with House was huge and its consequences life-altering. Cuddy may have thought at the time that hey, if it didn’t work out, they could just resume the warped friendship they shared before. But, no. They can’t go back to what it was. Too much has changed. House has benefitted more from this relationship, definitely, as we’ve seen some new growth and new attitudes. But in the end he was right. Again. House did stupid, hateful things to Cuddy again. So does Cuddy think he’s still the most amazing man she’s ever met? Or does the deeper look into House’s psyche just make her want to run away?

The other theme was trust. I talked in earlier blogs about the fact that House does trust Cuddy. He can always count on her to be straight with him; to be there for him. But Cuddy was never able to fully develop that trust for House in return. Just as it was starting to blossom, House popped vicodin to deal with the problems and whatever trust she had in him died. A quick painful death. Like those rats with huge tumors in their little legs. Just say no to RatBlow™.

I hate to admit it, my fellow Huddies, but I do believe Huddy is over. Cuddy could maybe have put up with all this garbage a while longer, but she realized she had to think about her daughter. How was all this going to affect Rachel? She’s right. It’s not productive to see your mom cave into helping that weird guy House every day. Although, the older Rachel may think, that weird guy House does have amazing blue eyes….. And Cuddy needs to be away from House I think to find her old self. She became a wimpy shell of her former self this season. Being constantly beaten up by House and his dysfunctional ways would make the strongest Type-A personality drop down a grade or two. Cuddy has to distance herself from House or he will destroy her too.

The preview for next week is making me crazy with anticipation. Is House gonna go all Unibomber on Cuddy’s house? Is he gonna take a long rifle to the clock tower at Princeton Plainsboro? It’s possible as it also looks like he escapes to a tropical country. Although it could just be the Bahama Bucks on the Jersey Shore. I’m nervous. Mr. Shore and Ms. Jacobs are the king and queen of cliffhangers and as they were filming those last couple of episodes for the seventh season they didn’t even know if they’d have an eighth season. I look forward to your responses about my thoughts on Huddy in this posting. Am I right to be throwing in my Huddy towel; you know, the one with the photoshopped picture of Huddy on their honeymoon at the Eiffel Tower? Or have I been brainwashed with all the hopeless-themed plots this season and I’m just not thinking straight? Let me know. Talk to you next week!