| 1 | '''[[WMG: Series/{{House}}]]''' |
| 2 | * If all House cares about is solving the puzzle, hating to get involved with actual people, then why doesn't he just work by himself in some secluded lab, figuring out cures and solutions for diseases all by himself? I'm sure there must be an episode bringing this up, but I can't remember. |
| 3 | ** Having a team helps his process. |
| 4 | ** The exact same question was asked in an episode "Son of Coma Guy". House provides no clear answer. |
| 5 | ** Though House acts like a pure misanthrope, at the very least he seems to have some affection for his team(s). If they're willing to put up with his crap and get the job done, he becomes fond of them at least to the point that he's unwilling to let them go easily when they'll inevitably want to leave for some reason. Plus, House's many interactions with Wilson show that he truly cares about human interaction, even vitriolic friendship, to some degree. TruthInTelevision as even seemingly cold-hearted people usually have or want a small group of friends that aren't turned away by their misanthropy. |
| 6 | ** House, although annoyed by seemingly every human being on the planet, also has admitted that he finds people interesting. He likes the human aspect of the puzzle as much as the medical. |
| 7 | ** Besides, as much as he complains about dealing with people House also loves screwing with them just as much. |
| 8 | ** Aside from the "Having a team helps his process." answer, we also saw the answer to this question during the very first episode of season 4 and it was, to put it mildly, a hard period of time for House. |
| 9 | * Why does the hospital keep House on staff? I'm not talking about his behavior; I mean, from a financial perspective. It's been mentioned a few times the hospital had to set aside legal fees for him. He's tying up three other doctors to deal with one patient at a time. Most of his patients seem like average types, or even poor people who would have no hope of paying for the rather extravagant level of care they're receiving. I'm sure the hospital is getting a lot of fame (notoriety?) for having such a skilled person on staff; but ultimately, a hospital is a business. The way House works his cases must eat up huge amounts of funding. |
| 10 | ** The same reason Hamlet didn't kill the king when he had a chance: there wouldn't have been a SHOW! |
| 11 | ** Cuddy claims it's because, since he could never get hired anywhere else, she got the greatest doctor in the world dirt cheap. |
| 12 | *** Well, even if House is working for free, all the other stuff he does still costs money; and there's still the question as to how he ''generates'' the income to offset that. |
| 13 | *** Usual explanation for off-screen dark matter; they have a lot of cheap and easier-to-diagnose patients that we seldom see during the shows for reasons of interest. House and team's training with these hard cases give them the necessary skill to diagnose normal patients almost instantly and with preternatural skill. If the hospital needs EMTALA compliance, even with legal fees he'd also still be cheaper than trying to deal with a lot of diagnostic issues. |
| 14 | *** Princeton-Plainsboro is a ''teaching'' hospital, and the cottages are technically House's "students." Having one of the best if not the best diagnostician available on staff looks good, even if House is losing the hospital money. If I recall correctly, the hospital is also implied on occasion to be a non-profit. |
| 15 | ** Maybe it was for PR. On the one hand, they have to set X amount of money aside for House's legal bills. On the other hand, they get to put "Oh and did we mention we have 'the best diagnostician in the whole Goddamn world' on our staff?" in their press releases. |
| 16 | *** There's the fact that Princeton-Plainsboro is a teaching hospital. Even though ''House'' rarely teaches, his fellows (Foreman, Chase, Cameron, ''et al'') would. Plus, the fact that there's just this ''wealth'' of knowledge in the form of Dr. House pays off more than a few times: in the first season specifically, there's a number of cases for what House assumes to be wealthy donors, who in theory would be more generous with their wealthy donations after House saves their lives. |
| 17 | *** And some people have made big donations to PPTH specifically so that they can call on Cuddy to try to get House to take their cases ("Cursed," "Top Secret," "Instant Karma"). |
| 18 | *** In the season 6 episode that focussed on Cuddy ("5 to 9"), she says something like "we have the most innovative diagnostics department in the world" to the insurance guys. |
| 19 | ** Cuddy might view House as a long-term investment for the hospital. Sure, the setting aside legal fees and otherwise dealing with patient complaints are a hassle, but measured against the prestige of attaching the hospital's name to the team's constant treatment breakthroughs and the resulting publicity/grants/donations, etc. reduce it to simply a business expense. Hell, given that House never publishes anything, Cuddy probably slaps her name on their cases and makes a fortune. |
| 20 | ** It's pretty evident after the Vogler arc that Cuddy just plain likes House, and what he does. She is not concerned that he is unprofitable. She doesn't view him as an investment of any sort, she doesn't even try to argue with Vogler that Diagnostic Medicine is a financial "black hole". She instead points out at least once that he is, statistically, a force of good in the universe. Regardless of his inefficiency, sarcasm, rudeness, etc, he consistently saves lives, which is ultimately what Cuddy seems to think a hospital is for. |
| 21 | *** This. And to link it with a previous argument: yes, as Cuddy says herself, he could never get hired anywhere else - meaning she ''has'' to keep him on staff if she doesn't want him to, I dunno, sink further into depression and let himself die rather than find another job to pay rent and food. It's part caring, part pity - and a third, tiny part business. Because as stated earlier, you can bet your weird malfunctioning organ system of the week that the case files of all those wealthy benefactors, their friends, their families and their pets all land on House's desk. |
| 22 | ** I have a problem with the fandom here -- Why is House never being fired such a problem for everyone? In my eyes, he hasn't done anything to deserve it, when compared to his diagnostic ability. All those bad things he does are far outshadowed by his saving of lives and his genius mind. |
| 23 | *** So several people say he's the best diagnostician in the world up there. The best diagnostician in the world treats one patient a week and is wrong about their condition three or four times ''every'' time, sometimes leading directly to their death? |
| 24 | *** The best diagnostician in the Eastern United States treats one ''interesting'' patient a week that has (usually) completely stumped even the specialists, and is wrong about their condition ''one'' to four times (almost) every time, sometimes leading directly to their death, most of that "sometimes" proving that it was untreatable with current medical knowledge anyway. His clinic hours still get done (sometimes by him!), and for all of the cases that weren't brought straight to him, the people who ''should'' know what it is don't and he eventually does, hence the appending of the term "best". |
| 25 | *** You expect a condition that has probably stumped several other world-class diagnosticians to get it right on the first try and save every single patient? They make wrong guesses because they have to test for or treat -something- in order to gather more information. If they didn't do anything until absolutely sure, they'd never actually save anyone at all. |
| 26 | *** Oh, come ''on''. When they literally say on the show "House, you treat one patient a week", it probably means House treats an average of one patient a week. And he's still wrong far more often than he's right. |
| 27 | *** Pretty sure that line WASN'T meant to be taken literally but was more a case of LeaningOnTheFourthWall. |
| 28 | *** Good work ignoring the above comment. Let's ignore the fact that at least 66-70% of the time, the patient/patient's relatives are hiding something that makes it almost IMPOSSIBLE for them to solve the case immediately, I'm not sure why you believe that even as a genius, House can suddenly turn medicine into some kind of SuperScience. Various symptoms can be caused by several illnesses, and even if you can almost completely remove some of them from the table (as they typically do), they always need to be sure. When you have medical mysteries that have your typical doctor stumped, yeah- you're going to run into some problems. Also, keep in mind that House often doesn't get TOO involved in the case until things get extremely interesting. He mostly runs on autopilot at first. |
| 29 | *** Some of the best surgeons in the world have the worst statistics. It’s because they take the most difficult cases. Of course his record isn’t going to be as spotless as somebody treating nothing but the flu. |
| 30 | ** It's mentioned in Season 6 irrc, that House is actually ''significantly'' under budget for his legal fees. |
| 31 | *** I believe you’re thinking of ''DNR'', which is a first season episode. She mentions there that she set aside $50,000 in legal fees for him and that he’s significantly under budget. Of course, the reason she mentions it is that he’s in need of it in that episode, so… |
| 32 | ** House has saved the life of at least one patient,who would otherwise have died with a different doctor, every episode for the last six seasons. Since when did money come into it? Oh right yeah, its set in America. |
| 33 | *** Right. Because only in America does medicine cost any amount of our limited money to perform. |
| 34 | * In most (developed) countries outside of the USA, it's legally required to have a health insurance so almost everything is covered by insurance companies. Of course it has nothing to do with House constantly braking the law, but he's not caught all that often |
| 35 | * Someone might be able to answer this because I have no idea on the matter. In "Mob Rules", the gangster's brother reacts very badly to the team suggesting the gangster has hepatitis C because his reputation would get shot if anyone ever found out. Question - WHY? People might think that it was the result of the gangster having unprotected gay sex...but they're a hell of a lot more likely to assume he wasn't gay and it was the result of unprotected STRAIGHT sex. What's the big deal? |
| 36 | ** The gangster's brother is a moron? |
| 37 | ** Either way, it implies gangsters are too stupid to use safe sex. |
| 38 | *** Er, no, it implies ''that one character'' is, and yes, some are that stupid. There's no I.Q. test to become a gangster. |
| 39 | ** The brother knows the gangster ''is'' gay, so he's projecting. |
| 40 | ** I remember that it was because he didn't have Hep C ''before'' he went to prison. |
| 41 | ** House also once assumed a patient was gay and in denial because he might have had AIDS. Apparently, they still think AIDS is only a homosexual disease on this show. |
| 42 | ** Er, House lampshades this in the episode with the presidential candidate. There's actually a lot of politics on both sides of this issue, but yes, outside of Africa your chances of getting HIV are many, many, many times higher through anal sex than vaginal sex. (They're not sure why heterosexual intercourse passes HIV so much more easily in Africa; one ongoing theory is that many more women in Africa are infected with a common parasite that, among other things, makes the vaginal membranes more delicate and prone to tearing.) House, being the un-PC jerk that he is, scoffs at the useful cover story that the presidential candidate could've possibly gotten HIV from heterosexual intercourse, especially protected heterosexual intercourse -- and had the guy had HIV, he'd've probably been right. |
| 43 | *** House is definitely right. The odds of female-to-male HIV transmission with a condom are extremely low. The candidate would have to have sex approximately 15000 times to be infected. |
| 44 | *** On the subject of the high rates of HIV infection in Sub-Saharan Africa: There are several cultural reasons for the spread of the virus in this part of the world. First, women's rights are limited or non-existent compared [[ValuesDissonance to much of the Western world.]] Women who want to protect themselves through abstinece, monogamy, condom use, and so forth are going to be limited in their abilities to do so. Second, there is a common practice in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa to have [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_sex dry sex;]] i.e., women are asked (or forced) to [[{{Squick}} dry themselves]] before intercourse. Third, there's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misconceptions_about_HIV_and_AIDS#Sexual_intercourse_with_a_virgin_will_cure_AIDS common misconception]] that having sex with a virgin will [[ArtisticLicenseBiology cure HIV and AIDS.]] Add to these factors [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_South_Africa widespread problems]] with [[MoralEventHorizon rape.]] It is highly unfortunate, but the problems that many African countries are having with the spread of AIDS and HIV are not going to end any time soon. |
| 45 | ** Actually all of this is kinda irrelevant as Hepatitis C is mostly transmitted via infected blood (and NOT sexually transmitted) (this is true in 95% cases, the other 5% via vertical transmission) (the pathogenesis mechanism is restricted because the virion particle is specific to the CD81 surface receptors on lymphocytes and hepatocytes with NON-cytotoxic development). And although HEP B is primarily spread by STD, there is only a limited higher risk for transmission due to guy-on-guy sex. And in any case, I thought the reason why the conclusion was "he's gay" is because the gum he was chewing could only be ordered from a site that mostly catered to gay men. I could be wrong though... |
| 46 | ** Sorry to get off the subject of HIV for a moment, but what ever happened to the Corvette that the gangster's brother gave to House? I've never heard it referenced again after that episode. |
| 47 | * ''Thirteen''? This is a medical dramedy, not ''Franchise/StarTrek''! What doctor would go for a number-for-a-nickname in the real world? |
| 48 | ** At the start of that season, he gives all the potential hires pin-on numbers like marathon runners. She got the "lucky number 13" and since House used that nickname the entire season, it stuck. |
| 49 | ** The actress herself said she liked the idea of keeping her name a mystery, and said that she "likes the inside joke of how House could look at the folder and find out her real name, but doesn't – it keeps it informal." Her real name was revealed outside the show as Remy Hadley before her name was spoken on-screen, though eagle-eyed ''House'' fans [[http://i.imgur.com/zh7E6Lh.jpg had already known her name before that.]] |
| 50 | *** This has been confirmed many times in-universe. They've even given her a middle name: ''Beauregard''. |
| 51 | * This is what's bugging people about House? Not the fact that House still has a friggin' license!? |
| 52 | ** He makes his diagnoses, he saves lives. It's every loner's and freak's fantasy -- a world where your skill is what matters, not your propensity to socialize or conform to societal norms. |
| 53 | ** I'm not talking about Societal Norms, I'm talking about Gross Misconduct, negligence, and generally being a rubbish doctor. |
| 54 | ** He bends the rules but never for benefits for himself like money or reputation. Violations like lying to the transplant committee are always done for his patients. You don't neglect patients if you cure them. |
| 55 | ** Never lies to benefit himself? WTF are you talking about? Bribing a rehab supervisor to sneak him drugs? Forging a prescription to illegally obtain narcotics? Ring any bells? And that's without even counting the unethical and illegal things he does that don't even benefit him at all. Telling his employees to steal his boss' ''underwear''? Breaking into people's houses? Forcing ''other'' people to break into people's houses? Forcing his employer to falsify evidence and perjure herself on the stand? He's a great character and a great diagnostician, but there is no way his supposed skill warrants Cuddy protecting him the way she does. |
| 56 | *** Alternatively, it actually ''does'' warrant Cuddy's protection, especially when one considers that in addition to the above, one might call them friends. A bizarre variation on friendship to put it mildly, but it's clear at the end of the day they both have some concern for the well being of the other. The unrealistic aspect of House not losing his licence isn't Cuddy's protection, but rather, the fact that ''Cuddy'' can ''get away'' with protecting him without consequences of her own, especially for so long. |
| 57 | ** The perjury was part of an absurd plot and made no sense; how did telling them one prescription he stole was a placebo cancel out all the other possession charges? The judge said she dismissed the case because he wasn't peddling dope on the street. His illegal acquisitions of pain meds aren't hurting anybody, except himself. But, yes, that probably would lose him his license in the real world. Like Wilson would have lost it for sleeping with a patient. |
| 58 | *** As House even points out, the rest of the possession charges were bogus because he had legal prescriptions. Well, one wasn't legal, but Wilson lied and said it was anyway. It was a really obvious lie, but it was still his official statement. |
| 59 | *** The other possession charges relied on Wilson's testimony. Wilson's testimony was given as part of a deal, and Tritter reneged on the deal. |
| 60 | ** The MST3kMantra certainly applies here. The show has a very blatant level of fantasy despite its presentation as something that takes place in [[LikeRealityUnlessNoted recognizable reality.]] The production is clearly more concerned with being an effective ''television show'' than being completely realistic, and I would wager the writers simply don't consider people who can't handle the unreality of things like House's ability to maintain employment to be part of their demographic. As the first counterpoint notes, House lives in a world where his competence, not his willingness to act like all the other sheeple, is the only thing that matters. Those of us who have had or can at least ''sympathize'' with this fantasy usually don't care about the opinions of people who can't. |
| 61 | *** OP, if you've never met anyone that is a massive Jerkass to everybody and does things against the rules if not outright illegal all the time and yet never gets any real punishment for it, you're living a VERY sheltered life. |
| 62 | * So ''what was'' Tritter's motivation in that arc? I can kind of understand the writers' reasons for doing it (make every character even more miserable, showing that House is probably the lesser of two evils here and so on and so forth) and I can forgive it for making no sense because ''House'' usually doesn't but was it really just to bitchslap him? The drugs and House's awful-even-for-him moments (the whole of Finding Judas and his way of getting the pills in Merry Little Christmas) hadn't come up yet but why bother? Why bother to go all that trouble to ruin House's life/Wilson's life/all the Cottage's lives just because he had a personal vendetta? |
| 63 | ** Tritter is one vindictive, obsessive sonuvabitch. He went through the trouble because House made a fool of him, and just does not care about the collateral damage as long as he achieves his goal (not unlike House himself!). Tritter would probably be kicked off the police force in real life for this sort of aggressive and ultimately pointless behaviour, but hey, he lives in a world where a guy like House still gets to keep his medical license... so, yeah. |
| 64 | *** This and then some. Tritter and House are very similar, it's just that Tritter's goal is justice as opposed to House's goal of health. It's just that Tritter loses in a rather out of character way. |
| 65 | ** Two Words. Anal Thermometer. |
| 66 | *** Nobody ever seems to remember that Tritter assaulted House ''before'' House assaulted Tritter. The man kicked House's cane right out from under him. And really, how dumb do you have to be to allow someone you just pissed off access to your rectum--especially in the age of tympanic thermometry? |
| 67 | *** Tritter wouldn't get kicked off the police force for trying to railroad someone into prison. At worst he gets a slap on the wrist and 2 weeks paid vacation/suspension. That's the laughable punishment the cops who murder civilians get in real life. |
| 68 | ** [[FanonDiscontinuity Who now?]] |
| 69 | ** I just thought he was a JerkAss who enjoyed bullying people because it gave him a sense of power and superiority. I mean, that was the point, right? To show how House would react when another bully showed up in his playground? In any case, I just felt he fit into the LawfulStupid category and swept him under the rug. |
| 70 | *** This. Tritter liked having power over people and being able to push them around. Then he met House, someone who he COULDN'T intimidate. He didn't take it well. He was motivated purely by spite, by trying to bully House. |
| 71 | * There is a nearly criminal lack of props given to the other three members of the diagnostic team. Technically House is always the one to come up with the final, miraculously correct diagnosis, but in EVERY episode, it's shown that Foreman is at least as good as House and he's a pretty nice guy. Chase and Cameron have also proven to be excellent doctors. Cuddy never acknowledges any of them except House. All of House's successes are only possible because of the work of the other three, and he makes just as many mistakes as they do right until the end. In light of this, it would seem that cutting him off the team and giving his job to Foreman (or his later season replacement) would have a negligible effect on their success rate and the hospital's financial guys would have a party with all the money they save on legal stuff. Plus, everybody would get a break from dealing with him, which has got to be worth something. |
| 72 | ** This is why Cuddy forces House to hire a new team in Season 4 after Cameron and Foreman quit and he fires Chase -- he needs a team. And his old team got their break from dealing with him. |
| 73 | ** Later seasons show that while everyone acknowledges the necessity and abilities of House's team(s), in the end House gets the credit because it's House who usually gets it right. House is the insane genius who can come up with solutions using ridiculous methods; he used a janitor as a sounding board in one episode (don't remember which season right now) and ''still'' solved the case. The team is there to balance him out, but they couldn't do his job as well as he could. Foreman's very good but tends to play it safe, Chase is braver but not quite as good, etc. |
| 74 | ** All the ducklings are generally shown to be excellent doctors, yes, but at the end of the day they work directly for House. As their direct boss and leader, House holds a certain amount of responsibility for everything the ducklings do, so their successes are also ''his'' successes by proxy. On the bright side, this also applies to their failures, and when they screw up royally House has to take responsibility for those as well, which usually takes the form of House reprimanding them for their mistakes very harshly. This also applies to House and Cuddy, who is House's boss, which is why she has to go to great lengths to keep tabs on House, because as his boss she's also responsible for everything he does. |
| 75 | * In the episode ''Safe'', after Wilson saws halfway through House's cane, House used it repeatedly to stop people, block the elevator, shove Foreman, and, not surprisingly, ''walk around all day'', but it only breaks when he's talking with Wilson in the hallway. Also, it bugs me that he sawed it at an angle, as House could easily have fallen on the sharpened tip of where it broke. |
| 76 | ** RuleOfFunny. It wouldn't be as funny if it was the wrong place and the wrong time (like outside, for example) and House had really hurt himself. |
| 77 | |
| 78 | * So, the humility lesson in the beginning of Season Three. I get that it was a very "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of thing for Cuddy and Wilson to do but what bugs me is the timing. Never mind the fact that House was depressed and in massive amounts of leg pain again but, honestly, couldn't they have found a better time to teach him a lesson than when the guy had just got shot two months ago? |
| 79 | ** Wilson's not the nice, heroic guy Hugh Laurie seems to think he is. House may be a jerk, but he's never slept with a patient. Wilson lies to House all the time when he doesn't need to just to teach him a supposed lesson, like making him believe he hallucinated Chase after he fired him. |
| 80 | *** This. Wilson has repeatedly demonstrated that he and House are not so different, able to scheme, deceive and manipulate with the best of them and is just as unconcerned with the consequences when working towards a goal. Cuddy was constantly questioning what they were doing, but Wilson could easily convince her what they were doing was correct, just as House does on a regular basis. |
| 81 | *** But Wilson's intentions are pretty much always good. When Wilson pretends he doesn't know Chase is back at the hospital in Season 4, this is before House has developed hallucinations - this isn't Wilson making House think he's losing his mind again, this is Wilson trying to get House to come up with getting a team together again (just ''telling'' House what to do doesn't work, he's so stubborn it's better if he rationalizes a way to comply). The lie at the beginning of Season 3 is...not good writing, it's done for the sake of tossing a ConflictBall into the fray rather than making any sense, a lot like "Sports Medicine" when Wilson lies about why he can't go to the monster truck rally when actually he's having dinner with Stacy - she's in town for the weekend, why can't he reschedule with her for Saturday or Sunday instead of Friday? Conflict! Anyway, House doesn't respond well to being manipulated, but he also doesn't respond well to being directly confronted, however nicely, about anything. Wilson's ability to deceive House speaks to his intelligence and cunning, but it's clearly a skill he's developed when trying to get House to do something that's good for House. Wilson has a great bedside manner but he doesn't manipulate or lie to patients because they're usually not pathologically obstinant like his best friend is. |
| 82 | * How did Robert Sean Leonard grow up to become an oncologist after killing himself 20 years ago when Red Forman wouldn't let him play Puck in ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream''? |
| 83 | ** Because Creator/RobinWilliams has magic powers. Duh. |
| 84 | ** At least Red learned his lesson, and let his younger autistic son Dave Matthews pursue a career in performing classical piano. |
| 85 | ** Maybe he's in Hell. It would explain a lot. |
| 86 | ** Because the previous year, [[Film/MyBestFriendIsAVampire he was turned into a vampire]]. |
| 87 | * In "Last Resort," why did Thirteen mention the distended jugular? Like the pregnant woman's husband said, why not just let the guy have a heart attack... without warning him so he could threaten to start shooting unless they did something about it? |
| 88 | ** Add no harm? |
| 89 | ** Heart attacks aren't always immediate and there's a chance the shooter might have recognized the symptoms before they incapacitated him (some people memorize the symptoms of a heart attack because of the history of heart problems in their family). If he suddenly figured what was happening to him and realized the doctors were deliberately not helping him he might have opened fire. |
| 90 | * In almost every episode, House sends the young guns to break into the PatientOfTheWeek's house to look for clues. How is it that they haven't been arrested or sued for this? Also, how do they keep getting in without setting off any alarms? |
| 91 | ** Well, you're assuming a couple of things. The first is that the doctors always obey House without question, which they don't. The second is that the doctors lack the foresight to leave House's office, walk into the patient's room and say "We need to look for possible environmental causes of your condition. May we look around your house?" Sure, there's a few episodes where they specifically state they're breaking in, but that can't possibly always be the case. |
| 92 | ** The first two episodes of season 4 make it very clear that they always break in and never ask for keys. House says that they break in to find what the person is hiding, and it wouldn't be hidden if they could find it just by asking (which doesn't take into account the numerous times they've found dangerous things in the patients' homes that they weren't hiding, but didn't know were dangerous, but that's House for you.) |
| 93 | *** Doesn't explain the lack of reaction on part of everybody else (neighbors, relatives, passers-by etc) though. Seriously, it would have been more plausible if they'd got caught at least once. |
| 94 | *** They do get caught a few times. For example: At the writer's mansion, when they go to the wrong address, and (arguably) when there is a woman hidden under some rubble. The writer's case deserves a special mention because it doesn't happen to the young guns, but to House and Cuddy, which goes to show experience counts on avoiding getting caught. |
| 95 | * Do the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories exist in House's universe? Wilson's use of the name Irene Adler could have been a ShoutOut, or he could have used a name he recalled from a certain detective story. |
| 96 | ** In episode "It's a Wonderful Lie", one of the ducklings gives House a second edition of a book by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock's creator. It's not explicitly stated that it's a Sherlock book, but the implication is there. |
| 97 | ** (Rebecca) Adler actually was the name of the patient in the first ever episode (Holmes was part of the inspiration for House) the entire story happened as Wilson told it, only without House falling for her (obviously). |
| 98 | ** The stories exist. In one of the Season 5 episodes we get a nice close-up of "The Collective Works of Sherlock Holmes" when House pick up his keys. |
| 99 | *** That would make him deciding to live at 221 B another example of his massive ego. And that is awesome. |
| 100 | * So, apart from the default reason of StatusQuoIsGod, why doesn't House just amputate his bad leg? Amputation would increase mobility and decrease his misery and pain levels so why not? And can someone explain why he would have rather died than be a cripple when his infarction happened? |
| 101 | ** There are plenty of people in the real world who feel the same way about chopping off their limbs. Someone just doesn't want their leg amputated if at all possible. |
| 102 | ** We're talking about House, who's notorious for his OCD tendencies. Remember when he threw a fit because Cuddy had the temerity to replace his blood-stained rug with a brand new one. |
| 103 | ** It was because, since the problem is not life-threatening, no hospital would consent to such a procedure. That doesn't explain why House couldn't find an "off-the-books" doctor though. |
| 104 | ** A bad leg, aside from being ineffective, might not actually cause much pain, and is definitely not life threatening, and has still had to tell more than one doctor to fuck off when they suggested amputation. Needing a cane to walk decently is preferable to needing a prosthesis to walk at all. |
| 105 | ** The question's actually raised in one episode, in a flashback. House's given reason is that he likes his leg. |
| 106 | ** [[{{Pun}} Guess he's rather attached to it.]] |
| 107 | ** Besides, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb amputation does not always stop the pain]]. |
| 108 | *** House himself cured this in some war-vet who lived near him. |
| 109 | *** Mirror box therapy is still very shaky, especially since it is somewhat of a placebo treatment and requires that the patient believe it was real. Given that House knows exactly how this works, it likely wouldn't work on him. Like a magician not enjoying magic shows because he can tell exactly how it's happening. |
| 110 | ** House regularly finds cures even when it's deemed impossible - but no-one can cure a pain-wracked leg after it's been amputated - he'd keep it and experiment with increasingly risky cures. |
| 111 | *** And this is exactly part of the story for Season 7's "The Fix" and "After Hours". House uses experimental muscle regrowth medicine being tested on rats. [[spoiler:Too bad the medicine causes lethal tumors.]] |
| 112 | ** There's been some genuinely promising research (and some people actually have been cured this way) done in cloning tissue. So, given a couple (or several) years or a medical breakthrough, it's actually fairly likely that we'll live to see muscle regrowth to be possible. Regrowing an entire leg, on the other hand? Not bloody likely without TheSingularity. |
| 113 | ** The reason why he can't amputate the leg? Because 1) he wants to keep the leg, and 2) Neuropathic pain doesn't work that way. It's the same reason why people who have amputated limbs can still have "painful limbs." It's because specific nerve fibres are continuously being triggered with a specific coding modality for the brain to register in the limbic system and somatosensory cortex as a specific sensation event. There are operations which can be undergone to try to improve this by operating on the nerve, but it is difficult and a lot of trial and error. Muscle infarction causes the localised dissemination of necrotic tissue that can cause enough alteration in the ECM to trigger the receptor end of the polymodal nociceptors or any point along the axon fibre (yeah, unmyelinated C fibres suck.) |
| 114 | ** The only way to prevent the chronic, severe pain, ( which he was warned of and would have known about, being a doctor), was to amputate at the time of the infarction. That would have minimized phantom pain. It is now too late. The reason he didn't amputate his leg was that he's stubborn, just like the incident with the rug. It's supposed to show an aspect of House's character, how his stubbornness and unwillingness to chance harms him. |
| 115 | *** There is no guarantee that amputating at that time would minimize phantom pain. |
| 116 | * Why do Foreman and Thirteen just hook up all of a sudden? It all started during the hostage crisis, but it seemed as though there was no UnresolvedSexualTension in the recent episode arc at all? In contrast, Cameron and Chase had a ton of it and it made perfect sense when they got together, but now with these two it's practically non-existent. |
| 117 | ** Well, besides the fact that in RealLife, people get together that you never saw coming; it was touched on that Foreman was demonstrating extra concern for Thirteen since she had Huntingon's. And after all the ruckus in "Last Resort", she decided she actually wanted to try to live. His concern for her, and her newfound want to live combined to form a newfound romance. |
| 118 | *** YMMV. It was also received as yet another case of Thirteen storyline hogging. She and Foreman have zero chemistry. Foreteen? More like boreteen... |
| 119 | *** Definitely YMMV, because some suspected this was coming a few episodes before it actually did. Some fans also that actually ''like'' both Foreman and Thirteen. |
| 120 | ** It's set up all throughout Season 5, as Foreman helps Thirteen with her Huntington's treatment. |
| 121 | * The episode with Dave Matthews ended on one of the biggest {{Broken Aesop}}s ever. Through the whole episode, they show how music affects people. House himself is completely dumbfounded when the patient finishes the song that House had started writing in high school. Then, at the end, they decide to surgically alter him from a gifted savant to an ordinary schmuck so that he can button his own shirt. Do you think that Beethoven would have ''EVER'' agreed to give up his ability to write, play and appreciate music in exchange for getting his hearing back? Ray Charles for his eyesight? |
| 122 | ** This is why informed consent exists. House explained the benefits and drawbacks to the father. The benefits: his son would finally be able to live a normal life. The drawback: he would never play the piano again. The father weighed the pros and cons and said that losing the ability to play the piano was not a big enough detriment to outweigh the gain in functionality he would get. And to be fair to House, he ''didn't like the decision'', because the kid was so good at playing the piano. |
| 123 | ** Worst. Analogy. Ever. Beethoven and Ray Charles were only deaf and blind, respectively. Dave Matthews' character was '''severely brain damaged''' to the point where he was completely unable to function on his own. He would have been forced to live like an infant for the rest of his life, being cared for by his father as if he were a small child. And after his father eventually died or became unable to take care of him anymore he would have had to go live in some kind of institution, again, ''for the rest of his life''. So in exchange for losing his ability to play the piano he gets to live like a normal human being and become a productive member of society. Was this an equitable trade? ABSOLUTELY. |
| 124 | ** Terry Pratchett once said, "Making composers go deaf is a classic practical joke of the gods that falls flat. Being deaf doesn't prevent them from hearing the MUSIC. It just prevents them from hearing the DISTRACTIONS." |
| 125 | * It is pretty much acknowledged in universe that Tritter's first search of House was conducted as payback, and that the investigations of House that lasted the entire arc resulted from it. How does that stand up in court? |
| 126 | ** Word of a [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem police officer]] against... [[JerkAss House]]. |
| 127 | ** And the fact that nobody mentioned that Tritter started it off first probably helped him out a lot. House wouldn't tell anyone about being tripped (as payback) because that would be humiliating and Tritter obviously wouldn't tell because that would fuck up his vendetta so it all works out. |
| 128 | ** He does have a warrant for the first search, when House comes in as they're finishing, Tritter tells him that since House got bailed before Tritter got a warrant, he almost didn't bother getting one thinking House would immediately clean out his stash, but on the off chance he didn't, Tritter went and got one anyway. As to how he got one approved, just the night before he busted House for DUI and possession. |
| 129 | ** It'd stand up in court. Think of it this way: you invite a cop into your house socially, and he sees your basement meth lab while looking for the bathroom. The cop doesn't go "NA NA NA I DON'T SEE ANYTHING BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A WARRANT." If Tritter truly had no basis, that's one thing, but it's about as easy to find a basis to pull someone over as it is to spit. There's an important counterpoint to this. A prosecutor who found that out could make any deal he could. A lawyer representing House in the trial would ''adore'' the fact that Tritter had a grudge. A fact like that? You can do a lot of damage with it. |
| 130 | ** ''It didn't!'' House wasn't found not guilty by a jury trial, a judge threw the case out before it proceeded to trial ''specifically'' because of a lack of actual evidence; the judge personally admonished Tritter, on-record, for having a grudge against House. To be honest, everyone around House - Wilson, Cuddy, PPTH, House's staff, and House himself - could have very easily turned around and buried Tritter in civil lawsuits (while it's true police have qualified immunity, that's only for actions taken in the normal course of their jobs, which his actions clearly exceeded). Presumably, this only didn't happen because the show is House, not Law & Order. |
| 131 | * This is going to sound horribly nitpicky but the [[{{Pun}} patients' patience]] gets on my nerves. Even in fictionland, most patients wouldn't want their doctor staring through the window at them when they're trying to celebrate, they probably don't want to hear about their doctor's issues while they're being tested and they certainly wouldn't have the energy to (and I'm sure this isn't just done to House) pinpoint how exactly fucked up and woobie-ish they all are. |
| 132 | ** When you're sick and desperate for a diagnosis, [[BunnyEarsLawyer you will put up with anything]]. When House doesn't search for a case he finds interesting, it's always made clear either that: the patient was only sent to House after exhausting all other options, the patient or a loved one or a doctor requested House specifically. |
| 133 | ** The series is set in the USA. As a teaching hospital run on a non-profit charitable basis, Princeton-Plainsboro is probably significantly cheaper than other hospitals and probably has programs to reduce or eliminate costs even further for patients without insurance or unable to pay. If you live in a country with government funded health care such as the UK, you might not realise just how crippling high medical bills tend to be in the USA - six and seven figure bills are not uncommon. If you had a choice between having to put up with a doctor who's a jerk or getting a $500,000 bill, what would you choose? |
| 134 | * The presentation of House's [[HollywoodAtheist atheism]]. The particular episode is the episode where the priest hallucinates seeing Jesus. Not only do they try and play it off that House actually wants to believe, but doesn't because he's such a cynic and cannot find the happiness that is Jesus, but in the end when House finally works out that [[spoiler:the hallucination he suffered was just a big ol' coincidence]]. He treats it with incredible reverence and as though it was really just an incredibly hard to believe coincidence. Never mind the fact that the priest wanted to believe again and is constantly surrounded by his own failings to keep his belief in god. Also, the fact that Cameron being an atheist was only brought up once or twice offhandedly. |
| 135 | ** House is a clear cut HollywoodAtheist, through and through. In a TV Guide, they described House as "TV's most recognisable atheist!" Which is probably true, and a shame. There's the episode where the guy tried to kill himself through electric shock and saw "something" (despite the fact the guy had messed up his cranium with prolific drug use - not remembering it 100% so feel free to correct) and House decided to do the same to prove him wrong. That's just ''stupid''. No atheist (or Christian, Muslim etc) would willingly try for a near-death experience to prove some idiot wrong. It wouldn't convince them ''and'' you'd almost kill yourself for your troubles. |
| 136 | *** "No atheist (or Christian, Muslim etc) would willingly try for a near-death experience to prove some idiot wrong." Dude, House once ''sentenced an infant to death'' simply to solve a medical puzzle. He's THAT obsessive about finding the truth. Plus he's not exactly averse to self-destructive behavior. I'd have been more surprised if he ''didn't'' try it out. |
| 137 | *** That bit of the show really annoyed me, because it was House acting completely irrationally. If he doesn't see anything, his beliefs are confirmed. If he sees something, he can write it off as "Oh well there was electricity in my visual cortex blah blah". It's a win-win situation, so the only rational reason House would do it is because he wants to kill himself. |
| 138 | *** House loves to find the truth, but he also really enjoys twisting things around so that he'll have a win-win situation. Even one that leaves him in agony. |
| 139 | ** That's only if you treat House's Atheism as his only aspect. The series has made it obvious time and time again that House can NOT let go of a puzzle until he's solved it, and anything that piques his interest will dominate his interest until resolution. The fact that he's an Atheist doesn't make him cynical; the fact that he's cynical makes him an Atheist. |
| 140 | *** That's... actually a really good way of putting it, and a great summary of the character. Ta! |
| 141 | ** Another reason House is a dedicated atheist: Every religion can be looked upon as a giant mystery. The problem is that they're also all UNSOLVABLE mysteries. House is incapable of letting a mystery go without solving it. Being an agnostic would just make that worse. Therefor, the only psychologically stable beliefs he could have is absolute atheism. If he allowed himself the smallest amount of faith, he'd have to figure out the rest or go insane trying. |
| 142 | * Why doesn't House just go and talk to Wilson directly after getting a new case? Lately he seems to solve ALL his cases during a witty repartie with him. |
| 143 | ** House is an arrogant son-of-a-bitch. Sure, a large proportion of his {{Eureka Moment}}s are had with Wilson, but not all of them, and he could easily dismiss it as a coincidence than admit he needs other people to help him solve his puzzles. Also, almost all of them are only achieved after a large amount of information is collected about the patient, so it would be less effective if he talked to Wilson before that. |
| 144 | *** In fact, I can't remember the episode, but I recall during their LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt break of House and Wilson's friendship, House goes to Wilson SPECIFICALLY because he knows that talking to him will bring about his EurekaMoment. |
| 145 | * Does anybody on the show realise that there is more than one type of rape? Two people get drunk/high and decide to have sex, both consenting = not rape. Sober person + drunk/high person, even in cases where the intoxicated person comes onto but doesn't force sex on the sober person = rape on the sober person's fault. Chase raped Cameron. She was high on a mind-altering drug, calling her ability to consent into very serious question. Question of consent = non-consent. And yet, no one ever called him on it. She didn't; he gave indication that he regretted it, but in a oh-great-I-slept-with-a-coworker way rather than I'm-a-rapist-now way; the coworkers who found out about what happened, who happen to also be doctors, never did. I sincerely hope that should any of my female family members get raped in such a way and go to a hospital/clinic they get a doctor(s) who understand the severity of what happened to them. Hell, I hope that they, unlike Cameron, realise the grave wrong inflicted upon them. |
| 146 | ** Except that any reasonable person realizes that it is [[PrecisionFStrike complete and utter bullshit]] to call that "rape". |
| 147 | ** Materials from Sexual Assault Prevention on a college campus state that technically, if either person is drunk or high, they cannot give consent... so 'both people drunk/high and consenting = not rape' isn't true... |
| 148 | *** The above troper's logic leads to two charges: both partners raping each other ''at the same time.'' |
| 149 | ** Cameron hasn't complained because she doesn't feel it's an issue; the other doctors don't realise the implications of what happened; and Chase gets off scott free because it's not what the law says that counts, it's what you get caught doing/called out on that counts. |
| 150 | ** Chase had no way of knowing that she was drugged, she just came to his house and threw herself at him. In fact, does he ''ever'' find out that she was on drugs? And then, of course, there's the old DoubleStandard -- if Chase was on drugs and a sober Cameron had sex with him, [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale no-one would call her a rapist]]. |
| 151 | *** So you believe that everyone the party and play boy slept with was raping him? That in fact everyone in that group of druggies were rape-seekers? |
| 152 | *** If charges are not pressed, if state of mind and ability to give consent were not compromised (and believe it or not, meth doesn't cause intoxication in the same manner as alcohol, and has been ruled in several courts as allowing one to give consent), and especially not if both partners agree to consent afterwards, it's not rape. Ruining a man's life because of failing to identify someone is under the influence of drugs and not simply distressed or really horny is NOT an acceptable outcome. |
| 153 | ** I would say that it is because they don't have several sticks up their asses? Cameron was not forced, she was not coerced, most importantly, she did not feel violated in any way, because she did something she wanted to do, she was not raped period, the whole point of being under influence negating consent is for cases where a person is taken advantage of, which does equate to rape, simply willingly having sex while you are drunk or high does not equate to being raped, and it's ridiculous that if you do not feel raped you should just because someone else says you were. The spirit of the laws is more important than the letter of the laws, if there was no coercion, no force, no violence, no abuse of trust, no advantage taken. Equating something like this is to rape is an insult for all the people who have really been raped, because being stupid and drunk cannot compare to the pain and anguish of being raped, whether it is by physically being forced to have sex or finding out that while you were vulnerable and unable to take decision someone took advantage of you, those instances are rape, this isn't. So it's not that people on the show don't realize that there is more than one type of rape, it's just they realize the difference rape and an adult putting herself under the influence of drugs to go crazy and shag her co-worker, who as far as I recall did protest to the fact that she was high and was called on the fact that he slept with her anyways. |
| 154 | ** Um, hello? She didn't call him on it ''because obviously she wasn't that bothered by it.'' Clearly, your personal definition of rape aside, Cameron does not consider what Chase did to be rape. And I object to your argument that sex between a sober person and a drunk person is automatically rape. It can sometimes be very difficult to tell whether someone is too drunk to consent to sex. A mildly drunk person who says yes to sex can be indistinguishable from a stone cold sober person doing the same. Furthermore, wouldn't your argument imply that if a drunk man sexually assaulted a sober woman, that man could not be charged with rape because he wasn't in control of his faculties? |
| 155 | *** This a thousand times. If Chase had to persuade Cameron while she was high, then there would be a case for rape. As it stands, he had no way of knowing that she didn't want to do it. |
| 156 | ** Also, take into account that Cameron took the drugs in large part so that she'd lose her inhibitions and actually come on to Chase, she wanted to have sex with him, at least somewhat, but was to scared/inhibited/whatever to make a move, so she intentionally did something to remove those inhibitions so she could. |
| 157 | *** The fact that Cameron actively seeks Chase out when she's sober shows me she wanted to sleep with him in the first place. |
| 158 | ** NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: while there are UnfortunateImplications to this, legally speaking, if the victim can speak for herself, no one else can speak for her, so if Cameron doesn't consider it to be rape, then legally, it isn't rape. |
| 159 | ** I personally was under the impression that Cameron made the decision to sleep with Chase before she took the drugs, given that she must have called him to invite him over and he obviously didn't notice that her speech was slurred because he was surprised when she pounced on him. And he did try to stop her. Twice. He gave her enough opportunity to change her mind. Remember, she goaded him into it too. "C'mon Chase, don't turn into a good guy on me now." Clearly she still possessed enough of her faculties to choose the correct taunt to make him change his mind. And, as the person above said, if Cameron did not consider it rape then it was not rape. There is no indication that she regretted it. |
| 160 | ** My personal (albeit tentative) opinion on intoxication and rape would be this: If a person is clearly drunk but not too much, and they don't clearly consent to sex then that is rape even if they didn't clearly object either (though I guess sleeping with somebody who doesn't clearly give consent is rape even if that person is sober); but only if a person is so drunk that they can't stand on their feet properly and they don't make sense, then that's clearly rape even if they verbally consented. As far as I remember, Cameron in that episode didn't look in such a bad condition and she made it clear that she wanted the intercourse. The fact that she didn't seem at all bothered about it in later episodes when she was sober also implies that was a conscious decision. It's actually quite common for men and women to want to get intoxicated to relax (or whatever) before sex, and as a female I have done it too. Of course this is a very slippery slope and it's not very easy to discern where knowing consent ends with drunk people. Still, I believe there is no need to create victims out of strong characters who seem perfectly happy with their choices. |
| 161 | ** This is why we have jury trials to determine these things - if one party complains. You investigate the salient points and come to a determination of whether a crime was committed or not. Cameron was treating a patient who convinced her to try crystal meth. The patient claimed that the drugs made his life better through random hook-ups with complete strangers. This piqued Cameron's interest so she took some of his stash instead of disposing of it all (theft btw, & possession) and invited Chase around to her apartment, ostensibly for a drink but as soon as he entered, she pounced. He relented, the sex was consensual and Cameron was lucid enough to be making a rational or semi-rational decision - it wasn't particularly chivalrous, perhaps, but a jury wouldn't find Chase guilty of rape. Guilty of bad decision making, but that's not a crime. |
| 162 | * This drove me crazy when they did it in previous episodes, and they did it again last week. A major research blunder for a freaking ''medical'' show - treating "chemotherapy" as though it is the name of a particular drug that you give to all cancer patients. In reality, it's just a generic term for a whole class of drugs, and you have to give the right ones for the type of cancer you're dealing with or else nothing will happen except the patient getting even sicker. The chemo cocktail for breast cancer is not the same as for lung cancer is not the same as for lymphoma, etc. You cannot just "start a patient on chemo" if you ''don't even know what kind of cancer they have''. And you certainly can't mistake a chemo bag for saline as they did in one episode - most chemo "drugs" aren't medications at all, they're actually toxic chemicals (mustard gas, for example) and are labelled as such out the wazoo because, for example, if a nurse were to spill one on herself she might wind up with a hole burnt through her arm. |
| 163 | ** I know what you're saying. I've seen several factually wrong moments in the show. But I think that since it is a show, they're going to ignore certain laws of complete medical logic and facts and insert their own amount of TV magic in order to make it fit the story/more dramatic/whatever. |
| 164 | ** I assume when House says "start Chemo" one of his lackeys runs off and sorts out what actual drugs are needed. All they do is diagnosis, when it gets to doing something that isn't one of their specialties, they call in the pros.[[note]]In many hospitals, it goes like this: a diagnostician says what the disease is, then a pharmacologist gives a list of medications, then a clinical pharmacologist sets up a proper regimen - pills/injections/IV, what dose, how many times daily etc. etc.)[[/note]] |
| 165 | *** These would both be valid points if it weren't for the fact that they have repeatedly "started chemo" before they're even sure of what kind of cancer it is. You can't just choose a chemo regimen at random because you think it's 'some kind of cancer or other'. It won't work, and it will just make the patient incredibly sick(er) and probably fuck with the rest of your diagnosis. |
| 166 | *** Nitpicky, but: chemo? what chemo? While for people with no medical background chemotherapy=cancer, anyone who had a course in pharmacology knows there are actually several types of chemo - antineoplastic, antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasitic etc. When you are taking antibiotics for, say, a kidney infection, you are technically going through a chemotherapy. The series stick tightly to chemo=cancer, even though doctors that good really should know better. |
| 167 | * Agh. The thing currently bugging me is House's detox. Why was it so short? It was just one night, then poof, no more pain. Sure he still seemed to be feeling like crap, but it seemed like the process was way too short. Hasn't he tried detoxing before anyway? It always seemed like when he did, he was in major pain for longer periods of time. (Granted, it's been awhile since I've seen those episodes so I could be missing something.) Also, Amber just disappearing like she did. Maybe it was just me, but her vanishing like that after ''one night'' without Vicodin just seemed too quick. |
| 168 | ** Coincidently the season finale is next week. Almost as if the whole detox thing was the setup for a plot twist in the finale... |
| 169 | *** Ah yes, I guess that is true. |
| 170 | *** [[spoiler:You were right. It was.]] |
| 171 | *** [[spoiler:I'm almost always eventually right.]] |
| 172 | * Methadone DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. |
| 173 | ** House has demonstrated that his pain, while real, is largely psychological. If he convinced himself that methadone would help him it probably would for a while then horribly fall to pieces after his mind is overwhelmed, but he wasn't using it for long enough for that to happen. Still, it could simply be another instance of the writers failing Chemistry, but that is less fun to speculate about. |
| 174 | * In "97 Seconds", the helper dog eats the tablets the doctor gives the patient. Why the ''hell'' didn't he mention it to one of the doctors? Even if he didn't know the dog ate them, wouldn't he have mentioned that he hadn't taken them? |
| 175 | ** I think I remember them saying the patient intentionally fed the pills to his dog because he wanted to die. That's why he wouldn't have said anything to them. The doctors should have watched him take the pills in the first place. |
| 176 | ** I thought it was because he threw the pills on the floor and the dog ate them by accident (the cup was chewed up, which probably wouldn't have happened if he was feeding the pills to the dog directly). |
| 177 | ** Thirteen put the pills on his tray, turned to get him some water, the other interviewee team took him away for a stool sample before he could get the water and take the pills. In all the activity, the pills were forgotten, and the dog ate them accidentally. The problem? ''No doctor is that stupid!'' (I hope.) |
| 178 | ** Personally, this bugs the hell out of me. It really isn't Thirteen's fault at all. The guy was either suicidal or retarded to the point that he deserved to die. It bugs me that they're so critical of her for the remainder of the season for something that, by no stretch of the imagination is her fault. |
| 179 | * Three things: first, in the episode with the mortician that has ergotism, why didn't they start off by checking/mentioning a vitamin B12 deficiency? It explains all the symptoms she came in with and some of the ones that surface later on. Since she sticks to a strict vegan diet, vitamin B12 would be just about nonexistent in her diet as well. Second, in the same episode, why didn't the patient experience any kind of synaesthesia? One of the main aspects of an LSD trip is seeing sounds, hearing tastes, etc. why didn't she have any of those symptoms? Finally, in the episode where it's actually Lupus (the magician), when House is giving blood and starts to experience sweating, increased temperature, etc. Why didn't he at least mention the possibility that it was a reaction to giving blood? I could check off his entire list of symptoms every time I give blood and yet Huntington's still skips straight to something else without so much as a mention of the fact that House lost a full pint of blood. |
| 180 | ** House wasn't ''giving'' blood, he was receiving it. He was testing for tainted blood by getting blood from the same donors as the magician had. And he called it as a benign reaction, his team was just so focused on the blood as the problem that they wouldn't let it go without a few biopsies. |
| 181 | * Often doctors are around patients without masks on. The one where they thought the kid had anthrax had none of them wearing masks around the kid. I know there are cutaneous and aerosol versions but still (plus I think the kid did have respiratory symptoms on that one). |
| 182 | ** It's so the actor's faces aren't obscured (a silly rule but a common one I'm afraid). ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' does the same thing. |
| 183 | * Vicodin with alcohol? Does he have that big of a death wish? |
| 184 | ** Uh, yes, haven't you been watching the show? |
| 185 | ** Interestingly, he tells a patient's mother that he doesn't drink (Season 2, episode 17). I know "everybody lies", but when I first saw this episode I assumed that he was being truthful because of the Vicodin. I wasn't really paying attention to this before that episode. |
| 186 | ** To clarify, Vicodin is a cocktail of hydrocodene and acetaminophen- both of which have catostorophic interactions with alcohol, and House is already shown to be a heavy user of Vicodin. While it's reasonable that he's built up a certain tolerance to the hydrocodene so he doesn't wind up in respratory arrest by mixing it with alcohol, it should at least knock him out. Acetaminophen with alcohol, on the other hand, [[NoOneShouldSurviveThat should utterly destroy his liver]]. [[JustForFun/TelevisionIsTryingToKillUs Do not try this at home.]] |
| 187 | * In one episode House says only blacks get sickle-cell, but in another one, he thinks a black girl has hemochromatosis, a white disease that women don't have to worry about until menopause. |
| 188 | ** While blacks make up the bulks of sickle cell cases, other races can contract the disease in rare instances. Likewise, hemochromatosis can affect anyone, even though it's more common amongst whites of European heritage. |
| 189 | ** Add in that while sickle cell trait doesn't ''exist'' in people with non-tropical (Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and South Asia) heritage (it's surmised that it was an evolutionary defense against malaria), there is a specific type of hemochromatosis called "African hemochromatosis" and it's only "hereditary hemochromatosis" that is rare among dark-skinned peoples. |
| 190 | * If Taub is Jewish, why did his parents name him Christopher? It's a perfectly nice name, but it does sort of... have ''Christ'' in it. |
| 191 | ** It's not just that it has "Christ" in it. The name "Christopher" is derived from the Greek "Khristphoros", meaning ''Christ-bearer'', and originates from the legend of St. Christopher. Which only makes it all the more odd that a Jewish boy would have such a name. |
| 192 | ** Maybe his father or one of his grandfathers was born Christian, and Taub is named after him. People do convert or intermarry, y'know. |
| 193 | *** True, but they never give any indication that Taub is anything but a non-practicing Jew born to Jewish parents. I mean, you'd think House of all people would crack a joke or two about Taub having a decidedly un-Jewish name, forcing him to explain the issue. |
| 194 | ** Christopher ''Michael'' Taub. They have ''got'' to be messing with us. |
| 195 | *** Huh? Michael is a Jewish name. It's Hebrew. |
| 196 | *** And Michael, David, and Joseph have always been popular names for a Jewish male baby. |
| 197 | ** I have seen this mentioned elsewhere and has made me curious for a while. Do people in the US or other English speaking countries really put that much emphasis on first names as a sort of ethnic tag? If so, then it must be a cultural thing that I don't get; for instance I have a French first name and a Russian middle name, and I am a Latin-American with absolutely no French or Russian ancestry, my mother simply liked the French name, and my grandmother liked the Russian one. Heck, my best friend has a ussian first name and a Carthaginian middle name for similar reasons. Couldn't it be that Taub parents simply liked the name Christopher? Or, in reality, that the writers liked it? |
| 198 | *** No, not really. But then again, people on this page have pointed out plot holes with House's Vicodin. It's a Headscratchers page. People are going to bitch and moan about minor things. |
| 199 | *** Although, it is fair to note that Jews are/were (especially historically) very much unlikely to give names like Christopher and Jesus. It's not unheard of (and a lot of Jews in the past were named after non-Jewish benefactors, hence the popularity of Alexander and Cyrus in the past) but extremely rare as to be almost completely unknown. It's worth noting that Paul and Peter have always been quite popular names for Jewish males, and Mary is considered unusual. |
| 200 | *** At the naming ceremony, the rabbi explained that "Mary" comes from "Miriam". |
| 201 | *** I'm with the original poster here -- I was raised Jewish and you sure can't tell from my name. Same for a lot of the people I knew in Hebrew school. Most people don't immediately jump to their ethnicity or religion to think of names. A more cogent point would be to say that a ''fictional character'' is much more likely to have an "appropriate" name for their background than a person in real life. |
| 202 | * In the season 6 opener, how the hell does House know where Lydia lives? I'm assuming that she wasn't stupid enough to give her mentally unstable lover her home address, and Mayfield surely isn't supposed to give that information out. |
| 203 | ** Would YOU let a psych ward patient borrow your car and bring a guy who thinks he's Franchise/{{Superman}} to an amusement park? |
| 204 | ** Would YOU sleep with a psych ward patient you've only known for a while? |
| 205 | ** Why is there an non-supervised room where one is given enough time to have sex in or maybe, hang yourself? |
| 206 | *** Extraordinary circumstances--Dr. Nolan had gotten House out of the hospital in hopes that he could do something to save Nolan's father, which led to House returning to Mayfield after curfew. I'm more surprised that Lydia was there so late. |
| 207 | ** Actually, I've worked in a mental institution (a much more secure one, where patients had been legally sectioned) and different patients have different levels of observation. House was a model patient at that point, and would have been largely unsupervised. Especially as he was voluntary, you can't place severe penalties on someone who can walk away at any time (even without his medical license). |
| 208 | * Robotripper, you're not the only smart person in the world. If a smart person needs a smart partner, waiting to find one seems smarter (oh, the irony) than risking your health to dumb yourself down so you'll be satisfied with an un-smart partner. Also, doesn't a ton of DXM just get you high, so his method of dumbing-down was being high all the time? |
| 209 | ** Speaking as someone who's had similar problems, and who knows that people aren't as interchangeable as you seem to think, the idiocy was in his strategy rather than his choice. If you find someone you like (personally, physically, and all the other axes of the graph of love), who likes you, and the only problem is that you can't really connect as well with him or her as you can a select few people that you care nothing for, especially if you love them enough to poison your liver and brain to finally connect on an intellectual level as well as you do the others... Think of a bag with one and a half billion marbles. Four hundred of them are marked "smart enough for the two of you to be happy" (and sixty percent of those are marked "married to their job" or "involved in the long term with another person"). Ninety million are marked "you will like this person" and a hundred and fifteen million are marked "this person will, at least seemingly, like you". These labels are not exclusive. Take out half of the "smart enough to be happy" at random and 85 to ninety percent of the rest (because you will never have a chance to meet them, let alone become acquainted with them, friends, or significant others to each other). You currently have a marble marked "you like this person" and "this person, at least seemingly, likes you". If you want, you have two days to go through the marbles and try to find one with all three markings (but it takes between two and ten minutes, five minutes on average, to tell which if any markings it has), or you can just write "dumb enough for the two of you to be happy" on your own forehead. Either way, you win "the rest of your lifetime in happiness" but don't if you settle for keeping the marble without affecting yourself or try the search but never find a marble with all three markings.\ |
| 210 | Anyway, it's [[TheSpock logical]] to go with the "see if you can find someone else" option over drugging yourself, but happiness, love, all the things he used for his reasons? They're not logical. That was the whole point, since House was TheSpock and DXM Guy was TheMcCoy for this episode. Just because he's smart doesn't mean he can't make an idiot of himself because he is (or at least thinks he is) in love. ...And no, I did not mean [[{{Pun}} that]] in the least bit literally.\ |
| 211 | And yes, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking he was high all the time]]. Re-watch the episode with that in mind and you'll confirm at least that part of the answer. |
| 212 | ** Add in that the character was based on an actual person, William James Sidis, who was possibly the smartest person in history. He was pushed very hard from a very young age, taught graduate-level math courses in college at age 17, and ended up taking menial jobs as an adult because he found academic life unsatisfying. |
| 213 | ** The choice of DXM as a "dumbing down" agent is really, well... dumb. It doesn't really get you "high" in the sense people normally mean. DXM is a dissociative drug, a type of hallucinogen. First, he wouldn't really be dumber. He'd have trouble concentrating, and his brain would do less subconscious processing of his perceptions. That would just be frustrating long term. Second, and more importantly, its effects would make it MORE difficult for him to connect with another human being. Dissociatives increase your sense of objectivity and distance from the world around you. You dissociate from reality to a degree. An extreme example: a person on a high dose of a dissociative might fail to recognize a pattern of shapes and colors as a person without actual conscious consideration of the picture. |
| 214 | *** That's exactly the point. He's not able to concentrate, making him unable to pull off the genius math skills he otherwise would be able to. And the DXM has made him disassociate - from the world, life, and reality he had before. He wouldn't be able to connect with any of his previous colleagues or friends. |
| 215 | * House's '''office''' bugs me. Yes, this is big-budget television, but do four doctors need an outer office, kitchen with a stocked pantry and shiny whitegoods, a dining table, a big televison, an inner office with another television, two telephones, and glass walling? |
| 216 | ** I always just assumed that House just took over a staff room and knocked down a wall, also, House is technically a department head, probably the big office is a perk. Then again, the office set can't really be smaller, otherwise you won't be able to fit in the cameraman. |
| 217 | ** Remember as well these four doctors aren't just four random people working in the hospital, but they are an entire department, so that office is also the entire work area for the Diagnostics Department, while the smaller one is House's personal office as a department head. |
| 218 | ** Don't forget we the office spaces of several other departments as well throughout the series. The maternity department in particular seemed to have a very plush employee break room with food and comfy chairs. |
| 219 | ** It doesn't seem unusual for the hospital. Wilson's office is much larger than House's personal office is (for that matter, it's about as big as the dean of medicine's!), although it doesn't have an adjoining staff room - probably because the cancer ward is large, presumably has many other doctors we don't see, and has rooms like playrooms for the children. Compared to the oncology department or the maternity ward, the diagnostics department having one staff room and one office seems pretty in-line. Maybe it's a little plush for a hospital, but the show ''is'' set in a wealthy area of New Jersey. |
| 220 | *** Wilson is also a department head. He has a big office because of that. |
| 221 | * In the episode "Locked In" where throughout the episode it's told from the POV of a man locked inside his own brain. His vision in that episode was all blurry and otherworldly, why it's like that? I don't know, but I'll accept [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief artistic license]] for the sake of brevity. My question is the very ending of the show, when Wilson and House are walking to an elevator and House gets in. One of the final shots is a POV from House. He has the same type of Blurry vision as the patient. WHY? I didn't quite get it. [[RuleOfCool Cool though]]. |
| 222 | ** In another episode "Lines in the Sand" the Autistic child has blurry vision as well, even when he's healthy. I have Aspergers's Syndrome and I don't look at the world in blurry vision. It may be one of my favourite episodes, but I found that to be a little offensive. |
| 223 | *** Sure you do. It just isn't physically blurry. |
| 224 | ** For the first reply: he had [[spoiler:worms in his eyes]]. I think a bit of blurry vision would be perfectly acceptable even after he'd been cured. For the original JBM, I figured it was just because his eyes were either dry or just had eyedrops put in through the entire sequence, but if it happened with House's point of view, it has to be PaintingTheMedium, showing viewers that it's first-person view. |
| 225 | ** Think about it: A man trapped inside his own brain. Like the patient from "Locked In", House is trapped inside himself unable to communicate properly with those around him. Having House have the same blurry vision as the patient was a way to drive the point home. |
| 226 | * In the episode with the opossum in the bath, [[spoiler:did House ''really'' wait to switch the soldier's antibiotics until the infection spread too much?]] I thought he was just being sarcastic, but I had taped the episode and could check back between that scene and the end and there was (as far as I could tell) nothing, so was there something I missed earlier? Or a detail in the final scene? Since I would think House would have been notified if [[spoiler:one of his patients was losing a foot]], even if [[spoiler:the patient was hiding the antibiotics or something, instead of House leaving him on the old ones to which the patient was unresponsive]]. |
| 227 | ** Doctors can't do anything to you without your O.K. first, House was giving the soldier his options, if the soldier refused to be swapped to the new meds, there's nothing anyone could do to force him to take them. |
| 228 | * Season 2, the entire ''point'' of House being in... Baltimore, or wherever it was, "Lost in Communication": How is treating a heart-and-circulatory problem off-label for ''Viagra''!? |
| 229 | ** Because that's what Viagra DOES. It just so happens that it is usually used to improve circulation to allow a certain thing to happen. I worked in a pharmacy for some time, and had more than one patient who used Viagra to treat circulatory problems not related to intimacy. |
| 230 | *** I ''know'' that's what Viagra does. I'm asking how the medical tribunal ''didn't'', since that's the purpose for which it was made in the first place. |
| 231 | ** I would imagine that it's the result of the FDA being incredibly slow to approve it for treatment of heart problems, and possibly a patent issue. |
| 232 | ** The issue with the case is that Medicare/Medicaid will not '''pay''' for ''off-label'' use of medication. Sildenafil, while showing some help for other types of circulatory problems, has not been approved by the FDA for treatment of those problems. |
| 233 | * The opening. Not the cold open, the opening credits. It should have been changed at the beginning of season four, although with the original ducklings hanging around I can see why it wasn't (and it would have ruined the surprise of the game to have Olivia Wilde or Kal Penn's names in there). It should certainly have been changed at the beginning of season five, with the new team now entrenched and clearly not going anywhere - this being before they knew Kal Penn was going to be offered a job at the White House. The fact it hasn't been changed by now, with Kutner and Cameron both gone and Taub and Thirteen sticking around, bugs me every time I see it. |
| 234 | ** This. It's probably just laziness and adversity to change, or probably attempting not to include names that might not be there soon (the cast changed rather drastically for a procedural series between seasons 4 and 6). These fall apart quickly though considering how often ''Series/LawAndOrder'' has changed its openings. |
| 235 | ** It's also a bit of meta FridgeLogic though, since House is so adverse to change, they didn't change the opening creds of the show, either. |
| 236 | * House switching to Ibuprofen bugs me. ExecutiveMeddling aside, the ingredient in Vicodin that is harmful to the liver is also in Ibuprofen, and since its weaker, House would need to take more of it, and thus do more damage to his body than Vicodin ever did. |
| 237 | ** I'm looking forward to the "Your liver's dying. Take a year off painkillers to detox and give your liver some time to recover, then I want to see you back on the opioids before you come back to work. And ''no combination painkillers'', I'll have Lucas watching you to make sure of it" episode. And a timeskip between that season and the next, of course, since a few episodes without House would be refreshing and give a less lenticular look at the ducklings, but a whole season without him would kill the show. |
| 238 | *** Alas, acetaminophen is not alcohol. Liver failure from acetaminophen poisoning is acute liver failure: it sets on within hours and without warning. If House's liver was dying from an overdose or just plain over use (which by all rights it should have already), they wouldn't be telling him to give his liver a chance to recover; they'd be giving him a large dose of the antidote and waiting to see if he responds before giving him a transplant if he gets worse. |
| 239 | ** There is a theory that House's Season 5 hallucinations were actually due to something related to liver dysfunction, which could have been caused not by the opiates but the acetominophen in Vicodin. |
| 240 | *** He's also been binge drinking. Perhaps the way we'll see House as we've never been seen before is completely missing a vital organ ([[DontExplainTheJoke mid-transplant]])? |
| 241 | ** Actually, Vicodin contains acetaminophen, not Ibuprofen. The latter is worse on the kidneys, although large doses aren't exactly great for your liver either; still, Ibuprofen is significantly less harmful for your liver than acetaminophen. |
| 242 | * [[spoiler:Taub and Foreman]] taking unidentified pills (in "Lockdown") just because they ''look'' like Vicodin, and were in a bottle that probably said "Vicodin" on the side? That won't help at all to give a look inside House's head, because House explicitly has the pain to focus him, and the Vicodin only makes it mild enough that he can focus on other things. All it would do for someone who isn't in pain is get them [[InVinoVeritas stoned]]. |
| 243 | ** Arguably, that kind of was the point. They were off-hours, locked down and bored. I doubt the whole 'getting into House's head' was anything rather than a thinly veiled excuse to get stoned and have some fun. If you want to be more cynical about it, [[spoiler:Foreman was drugging Taub and then going along for the ride so that Taub wouldn't be clear enough to question what Foreman was doing in there or check Foreman's file.]] |
| 244 | ** All prescription medications get imprinted individually a series of numbers and letters that are unique to the drug mixture found in the pill. For example, if a pill has the letter v on one side and 35|92 on the other, that means that the pill contains 5mg Hydrocodone (that's the stuff that gets you high) and 500mg acetaminophen (Tylenol). This is the same mixture Vicodin is made out of. If the pills were regular Vicodin, though, the doctors wouldn't have to know that off of the top of their heads - brand name Vicodin just has VICODIN imprinted on one side, caps and all. Anyway, the point is that they weren't taking some kind of mystery pill. Plus, you learned something for the next time you want to buy some off-market opiates. Just punch the pill's number into Google, and presto. Don't get ripped off again! |
| 245 | * Season 6, "Knight Fall": Thirteen, is it so hard to comprehend that a man has enough morals as to not steal his best friend's fiance? I found her pressuring and telling him he's an idiot to be kind of sociopathic really. Yes, he was portrayed as a naive wanna-be knight, but that's something you shouldn't do as a decent human being in general. |
| 246 | ** I'm a guy, but can totally understand her reasoning. What they really need to do is have one long conversation. Basically he's doing a IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, when he hasn't figured out IF she really is going to be happy after all with the guy. He's being a stubborn jerk by not admitting to himself and the world that he's in love with her, and she's letting herself get married to someone she might not love, or at the very least, not exploring for herself the feelings she has the other guy. |
| 247 | *** Except we're never given any clear indication that she's ''not'' in love with the guy she's marrying. |
| 248 | ** He was just WAITING for one of the guys at the fair to have some Satanic alter or whatever, and what do they do? They make an alter to Satan in the guy's apartment. |
| 249 | * In "Let Them Eat Cake" Taub forces a woman with a broken ankle to walk? Even if she was being self pitying about the whole, paralysis nearing, she wasn't just being whiney not wanting to walk, you do NOT walk on a freshly broken ankle, even if you can't feel the pain, it would still do all sorts of damage. |
| 250 | * So exactly ''how'' did we see House as he's never been seen before in the Season 6 finale? [[spoiler:Sincerely approving of Lucas and Cuddy's relationship? Praying in a way that wasn't ''completely'' sarcastic or mocking? Advocating amputation?]] Is there WordOfGod on what the teaser line meant? |
| 251 | ** I think they were referring to him connecting to the patient on a human level, and behaving selflessly. He saw her as a human being and was desperate to save her because he genuinely cared about her well-being, rather than treating her like a puzzle that needed to be solved. House has shown these traits before, but he's never been this blatant about it. |
| 252 | ** The same way pretty much every single teaser says it's "House's most difficult case yet" or some variation thereof. Also, he prayed, or at least indulged a patients belief, that alone qualifies. |
| 253 | *** Oh, I'm not complaining about getting set up or anything, I just wanted to know if the writers had said what they meant, or if the commercial had been written by Fox, taken out of context, was a retrospectively {{Blatant Lie|s}}, that sort of thing. |
| 254 | ** The speech he makes when he convinces the woman to allow amputation is a pretty big one. Several things he's never admitted before. |
| 255 | * Why is Thirteen dying from Huntington's in her late 20s? If the mutation comes from the mother's side, symptoms are usually delayed until early middle age. (Although if she had it from her father's side, she probably would never have made it through medical school...) |
| 256 | ** They handwaved this as her having an extremely rapid and aggressive form of the disease. |
| 257 | * This is from about a million episodes ago, but remember that one where the kids were going through puberty prematurely because of something stupid their dad did? In that episode when they were examining the little girl, they 'discovered' tiny, ambiguously described cuts/tears/injuries on her lady parts. To the audience, it seems believable at the time that they could be caused by sexual abuse. However, later in the episode it's revealed that it was caused by her shaving herself. My problem is, what kind of idiot, let alone a doctor, can't tell the difference between shaving nicks and tears from abuse? They wouldn't even be in the same area. |
| 258 | ** Sexual abuse doesn't necessarily mean sticking it in. |
| 259 | ** Abuse victims have also been known to mutilate themselves sexually, often to punish themselves or to make themselves undesirable. |
| 260 | *** They literally call this out by name. |
| 261 | ** The doctors did know. Cameron specifically said there were no tears, just cuts. She even recognized that the cuts weren't deep enough to account for all the blood found on the shirt. |
| 262 | * Lucas circa Season five: bumbling PI guy whose mild social awkwardness occasionally has him accidentally doing things that some might find creepy or off-putting. Lucas circa season six: sleazy romantic foil who does things like cause thousands of dollars worth of property damage because he couldn't buy the condo he wanted, and deliberately keep a mother from contacting the babysitter of her sick child for no discernible reason. The fact that he was clearly only brought back on so the House/Cuddy fans would have someone to hate and rally against ruined the show for me more than I'd like to admit. |
| 263 | ** First: He did all that stuff to House and Wilson as revenge for knowingly cheating ''Cuddy'' out of the condo ''she'' wanted. It's not like they fairly outbid her for the condo, they basically stole it out from under her nose. Second: The baby just had a mild diaper rash, not the plague. |
| 264 | *** First: being a jerkass is House's M.O. (and sometimes Wilson's, and sometimes Cuddy's). Lucas was perfectly sweet (if a bit awkward) for the entire first season of his appearance and it seemed to me to be completely out of character for him to sink to their level. Second: It doesn't matter what the baby has. Keeping a mother from contacting her child, especially if she's worried about it, is a JerkAss thing to do. |
| 265 | *** Secondly, "basically stole it out from under her nose" isn't nearly as bad as they make it out to be. He outbid her for it. He had inside information, but they got the apartment by offering more money. Doesn't really justify nearly killing House (his bathtub prank? Yes, making sure a crippled man WILL fall. In the bathroom. When alone. With a tub full of water. Given the number of perfectly healthy people who slip and fall and hurt themselves in the bathroom, it's a miracle House isn't hurt worse). |
| 266 | *** Related note: Rachel had, that day, woken up unusally earlier than she normally would and seemed fussy all morning while Cuddy was getting ready, both of which can be signs of illness in a child. She also did indeed have a fever in the morning. It disappearing by the time Lucas showed up doesn't mean she didn't have a fever during the day - fevers can spike very quickly in babies, and become dangerous faster than you'd expect (febrile seizures, for instance). Having a diaper rash alongside those symptoms does not mean that Rachel wasn't sick, it just meant that her fever went down. Cuddy likely did have a sick child with a diaper rash that she couldn't check in on because of Lucas' actions. |
| 267 | * In " Birthmarks" we see House give a eulogy at his Dad's funeral. He starts off rattling about how much he hates the man, and then reels it in and says some somewhat genuine things, his voice cracks and he looks close to crying....before he turns around and takes a DNA sample from his dad. Was the voice crack real emotion, or was he just faking it? He obviously has some conflicted emotions about his dad so maybe it was real, on the other hand he immediately turned around and took a DNA sample, so it's kind of ambiguous. |
| 268 | ** What exactly is the question here? The way I read it, the things he said were genuine but as usual he used sarcasm/jokes to act as if they weren't genuine and also wanted to know if he really was his father. |
| 269 | * Why can someone (who is a drug abuser, unstable and in general a mess) be so incredibly brilliant? It bugs me so much that this show makes it a virtue to be a dick. In anything resembling the real world nobody would be able to constantly pull diagnoses out of their ass like that. Much less someone who obviously has a substance abuse problem, a behaviour problem and some sort of mental illness. The people around him are no less annoying with Cuddy getting the ultimate prize for irresponsible behaviour. All these people are basically 15 year-olds. |
| 270 | ** Because an unstable drug abuser who's a general mess yet remains so brilliant that people put up with all his jerkassery is the entire premise of the show. And if I recall correctly, House has always been a brilliant doctor and while not a saint, it's the loss of his leg and the ensuing pain (the painkillers aren't too effective hence the drug abuse) that made him so bitter and essentially turn up his jerkass level all the way up to eleven. Besides, it's OBVIOUSLY not realistic. |
| 271 | *** Well no it isn't. But trying to create drama with such loopy characters seems to negate the dramatic effect. |
| 272 | *** Uhm, it's not impossible. A step-father has been an alcoholic for at least 10 years now, hospitalized several times because of it, disappears from his job for about two weeks in two months to lie around at home and drink... Well, apparantly, everyone at his company have already figured out what's going on, and they're keeping him around because when he does come to work, he's awesome at it. We literally became rich by now, but considering that he's so much of a jerk that House could use him as a role model, I would much rather see him finally poison himself to death than bring those 'worker of the month' tablets from work. |
| 273 | ** Because none of those things actually have any bearing on how brilliant someone is? It might impact whether you are able to do the job at all, but if you are, there's no reason that being an asshole/a painkiller addict/a lunatic has to make any difference to your quality. And House isn't just medically gifted; he has been shown to be devastatingly competent at everything he attempts. In-universe he's probably one of the most intelligent people on Earth, and when you are that far above everyone else, it's hard to NOT be an asshole because the rest of the world seem like a pack of drooling incompetents. I'd wager that a fair chunk of House's misanthropy actually stems from his brilliance. |
| 274 | *** This. Personality is irrelevant when what your job requires is sheer mindpower. The show doesn't make being a dick virtuous; if anything, it points out the flaw in House trying to get by on his ludicrous intelligence. He's always lonely, always miserable, and has to constantly flail out for some kind of support. Nonetheless, an insane intellect can and often does overrule being an asshole. If you don't know anyone like that, you don't know enough people. |
| 275 | ** House actually states this himself as the reason he wanted to become a doctor (though this is House, so whether this is anything resembling the truth is unknown): when in Japan he saw a member of an "Untouchable" caste working as a Janitor, but he was so good that when the other doctors were confounded they turned to him; it didn't matter that they hated him, he was ''right'', and during that time they were pretty much forced to listen to him. |
| 276 | ** The early episode where House goes off Vicodin to win a bet ends with him admitting to Wilson that he's an addict, and that he has absolutely no intention of making any changes because his proven track record means he's a ''functioning'' addict. Additionally, a large part of House's character is disdain for societal norms and platitudes, things he equates with dishonesty and a waste of time. He takes great pleasure in being a BunnyEarsLawyer because it means he doesn't have to lie about that disdain to function in society, and the fact that he doesn't have to lie about it also reinforces it, as it suggests those things are ''worthy'' of disdain. |
| 277 | * Now, I found the scene to be really sweet, but I can't help but wonder... how does House pick Cuddy up and carry her several steps to the bed without being in hell-bound pain or falling? I guess you could argue that he was on a bit of a "love high", but really... |
| 278 | ** Again, while real, a lot of House's pain is psychological, and he has also demonstrated a high pain tolerance when required. It would be far from easy, but far from impossible. |
| 279 | ** He was probably on an adrenaline high, and the pain from his neck wound might have been enough to distract him from the pain in his leg (in past episodes, he's self-injured to release endorphins for that very reason). |
| 280 | * What is with his name, exactly? I keep thinking he belongs in a sci-fi movie/show with that name. |
| 281 | ** It's a pun on Holmes, the character he was based on. They even have the same apartment number. |
| 282 | * Hey, remember when this show was a medical drama and not a soap opera? Yeah, me neither... That was eons ago. |
| 283 | ** Any reason it can't be both? Currently it seems that the medical aspects and the personal lives of the doctors get about 50/50 attention each episode. |
| 284 | * It Just Bugs Me that Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital seems to exist in an alternate reality in which every aspect of the medical profession of this reality doesn't exist. Yes, it is fiction and is allowed to take some liberties for the purpose of the story, but after a certain point it becomes plain stupid. House and his team getting to do pretty much anything they want is the biggest one, but it is occasionally addressed in the series (and on this page) as well as being fairly central to the premise, so it can be overlooked. What is more difficult to ignore is the little things. Like how PPTH, despite Cuddy's repeated concerns about money, apparently has enough funds for its constantly spotless wood highlights and huge glass doors and water decorations. Or how even in the ICU (where the ''entire point'' is the ability to get to patients immediately) or in private rooms (which are supposed to be private) patients' rooms always have automatic sliding glass doors. Or how three/four doctors are qualified and experienced enough to run every test and administer every narcotic in existence, and are able to rattle off the names and symptoms of even the most obscure conditions from memory (House especially has apparently memorised facts about ''everything'' despite almost never reading). That a comedy (''Series/{{Scrubs}}'') is able to depict a hospital more believably is incredibly telling. |
| 285 | ** Well, I've been to a teaching hospital in a pretty wealthy area that has pretty much everything you listed (a glass entrance that has huge windows all over the wall, wooden floors, elaborate decorations, etc.) except a few (and I'd like to point out that the glass doors aren't automatic, at least in the patient's rooms). Don't quote me on this, but I think teaching hospitals get more money than others because they are sponsored by a college. Plus, dude, House's incredible genius is ''one the main points of his entire character.'' |
| 286 | *** Still, it doesn't quite mesh with the fact that the hospital bankrolls all of its clinic patients and is in occasional financial peril. |
| 287 | ** I'm confused, how is any of that indicative of the Hospital's financial success? All that stuff would have been installed when the hospital was built, not something they are constantly paying for. How is it a stretch to think a university teaching hospital, in a high wealth area, wouldn't have a rather large construction budget to make it look as good as possible? It's not like we see them constantly renovating and putting in all new stuff. And as to house being seemingly all knowing, 1) That's the whole point of the show, how good House is at what he does, 2) "Never reads"? Where'd you get that idea, first off we've seen he has walls of his house covered in bookcases full of medical texts and even seen him double checking stuff on occasion. Just because we don't see him sit down and read them doesn't mean he doesn't, it just means watching someone sitting there reading tends to be boring. |
| 288 | ** Wilson at one point describes House as a voracious reader. At another point he says House reads religious texts - the Bible, the Koran, et cetera - just to educate himself about religions even if he doesn't follow them - while that isn't medicine, one can assume if he'd devote all that time to self-educate about things he thinks are idiotic or irrelevant, he's probably cracked a lot of books on the profession he dedicated his life to.. Wilson also gifts House an antique medical text at one point, saying it made him think of House. Why would you think he "never reads"? |
| 289 | ** And on top of all that, House is an avid autodidact. I think it goes without saying he must read a lot. |
| 290 | * During two cold opens, people start screaming for an ambulance for no good reason. There's one where a porn star doesn't like getting hit by bright camera lights, and immediately it's "WE NEED AN AMBULANCE." And then there's one where a senator's aide has a rash, says he'll get a doctor to check it out, but that's not enough for the senator, no, and he calls an ambulance. For a rash. And there's been at least a few more where a patient is in no desperate trouble, other than the fact that they've started acting extremely strangely, but there's no question of them getting to a hospital except BY AN AMBULANCE. This is not what ambulances do, and they have better places to be than driving some guy with a rash to a hospital. |
| 291 | ** Truth in television. Some people look at ambulances as glorified taxi cabs. |
| 292 | * Tritter bugs me for a few reasons. First of all, he's impatient when House arrives in the room. House responds with sarcasm. House takes a look at Tritter's rash and gives a valid reason for dismissing him. Tritter then tells House to take a swab, because he thinks he knows far more about medicine than a doctor. He then tries (and fails) to intimidate House verbally, and when that doesn't work, he actually assaults him and informs him [[InsaneTrollLogic "Treat people like jerks, you get treated like a jerk."]] He later threatens to sue, calling House a bully (remember that assault when verbal intimidation didn't work?), saying he wants House to learn a lesson about treating people nicer... That whole thing Tritter just went through with the anal thermometer after assaulting the cripple. Now, I get that he's supposed to be House for Policework (whereas House is House for Medicine), but the fundamental problem with the way Tritter works is that at the end of the day, Tritter's methods would get most of his cases thrown out in court, whereas House's methods leave him with live, grateful patients (or dead ones) and Tritter's methods leave him with disgruntled suspects facing jailtime. One of these methods leaves people (and their lawyers) willing to overlook the letter of the law and the other does not. Any lawyer worth their law degree would use the fact that Tritter was hounding House for an apology (and the fact he arrested him and then was willing to release him for it later) as some pretty serious abuse of authority, which means Tritter even arresting House would qualify as misconduct. |
| 293 | * Cuddy's daughter looks as though she is played by a 3-year-old, but the dialogue and characterization have her coming across as maybe 12 or 18 months. Cuddy uses a baby night-time monitor in her room! |
| 294 | ** Kinda bugs me as well. DawsonCasting doesn't really work for babies. |
| 295 | ** No explanation for the weird casting choice, but Cuddy does seem like the kind of mom who'd be neurotic enough to keep using a baby monitor even for a 3-year old. |
| 296 | * In "Broken", after the staged fight between House and his annoying roommate, the orderlies drop the apparently-unconscious House on a gurney in an unlocked room. They don't even close the door, and the roommate slips in easily to confer with House on their next move. So whose bright idea was it to leave a patient ''who's completely defenseless'' where another patient, whom he just (apparently) beat the crap out of, can walk up to him and exact any payback he likes? If those two '''hadn't''' been in cahoots, House could've been strangled to death before anyone noticed. |
| 297 | ** That's a good point. |
| 298 | ** Presumably it's because Alvie is known to not be a violent patient, simply manic. He has, by his own admittance, be confined to that hospital several times already. |
| 299 | * Is House ChaoticNeutral or ChaoticGood? |
| 300 | ** ChaoticEvil |
| 301 | ** I say Chaotic Good. He does good things for people, sometimes even without a reason. But he straddles the line. He is not Chaotic Evil... |
| 302 | ** Chaotic Neutral. Usually his main priority is solving the puzzle; doing good or evil is secondary to that. |
| 303 | * It may be a bit late, but this has been bugging me for a while now. When Cuddy spends the night with House during the beginning of "Now What", who the heck is taking care of Rachel!? Did Cuddy call up her nanny and say, "Hey thanks, can you come over for the night? I have to go proclaim my love for my employee." or did Lucas have to stay over and watch his ex-fiance-after-a-day's kid? Either way, seems pretty awkward... |
| 304 | ** I would assume she got a babysitter without having to give her whole life story. She probably just called someone to watch the kid and said "Hey, I have to deal with some boyfriend troubles" or just "I have something I have to do, can you watch my kid?" |
| 305 | *** Given that Cuddy is still wearing her scrubs and it appears to already be morning, she probably told the nanny she wasn't going to be home and made arrangements. |
| 306 | * What happened to the antidepressants House was taking at Mayfield? Whilst he continues to see Nolan for therapy throughout S6, the meds are never mentioned again, despite House explicitly stating that he was taking them because he'd "decided to get sane". I can't buy the idea that Nolan et al let him stop taking the antidepressants when he was discharged, given that he'd only been on them for a few weeks (and [=SSRIs=] can take up to six weeks just to start working). Of course, House himself might have decided not to take them any more, but if he did it must have happened off-camera. |
| 307 | ** He still took them up until the penultimate episode in which House decides therapy doesn't work, you just don't see him taking them. Anti-depressants are very different from opiates, he wouldn't have to pop them every couple of hours. Depending on the dosage, it might just be a couple in the morning. But combine this with the fact he was self-medicating with alcohol, he might have stopped taking them. You don't know the dosages or the times. And from a non-diagetic perspective, if you were to portray house popping pills then viewers might get confused about whether he was taking Vicodin or not. |
| 308 | *** It makes sense that he would have kept taking them for a while, but I'm surprised it was never a plot point; House deciding to stop taking antidepressants could have partly explained his decline and near-relapse at the end of S6. (Or illustrated it - I can imagine House angrily giving up on his medication the way he gave up on therapy, which IMO was a choice made out of frustration and despair, not a rational understanding that therapy wasn't working for him.) |
| 309 | *** It could have been written in a way that it worked, yes, but with a show as complex as House you want to keep things as simple as possible. From a writer's perspective, the major point is that House has stopped "popping his pills" and is "clean". Having House not downing pills every few seconds was the change that the writers needed to keep the show fresh and accessible. But I guess that's why this is the "headscratchers" page, not everyone can suspend their disbelief for every single aspect of the shows they watch. |
| 310 | * In "Larger Than Life" a musician jumps onto the subway tracks to save the life of a woman having a seizure. Later, his wife shows up in the hospital and bitches him out for doing it because now their daughter is scared after seeing her dad almost die. I'm sorry, what? How exactly does her daughter feeling ''scared'' overrule the fact that '''he saved a woman's life?''' Would his wife prefer he stood there and let a fellow human being be splattered by a subway car? |
| 311 | ** Because she's a bitch who only cares about herself? |
| 312 | *** That's what I thought at first, but the rest of the episode portrays her as nothing but nice. And the end makes her husband out to be the selfish one for wanting to go back on tour again. |
| 313 | ** This bugged me too, until I realized how traumatic it was for her. Her husband could have died! She was scared, if she was in the right mindset she might have agreed with what her husband did, but she was too "HOLY CRAP YOU ALMOST DIED HOW DARE YOU!" |
| 314 | * In "Changes" Foreman straps a blood pressure monitor ''over'' the sleeve of his shirt. Can you actually get a blood pressure reading that way? |
| 315 | ** Yes. |
| 316 | * So can someone explain the context of [[http://silentwulf.com/flash/Pedo%20House.swf this]] please? |
| 317 | ** House was there to question the teacher about an illness one of her students contracted. In his twisted, drug-addled mind, that seemed like the fastest way to get her full attention. In his defense, it worked. |
| 318 | *** The illness was associated with really precoce puberty. They wanted to know if it could come from the school environment. He is geniously interested by the answer, because multiple children developing the same growth abnormalities wouldn't be a coincidence. |
| 319 | * In a recent episode named (I think) "A Pox on our Houses" a teen aged girl and her father come down with what is beleived to be smallpox. The man eventually dies from it. This disease is eventually revealed to be Rickettsialpox. The thing is, through a cursory glance at Wikipedia it would seem it's more similar to chicken pox than smallpox, and there have never been any confirmed deaths. The hell? Rickettsialpox doesn't work that way! |
| 320 | ** You're taking the word of Wikipedia - known for producing inaccurate sources of knowledge - over expert Doctors'? |
| 321 | *** ''House'' is fiction and they can make up whatever they want. Also, Wikipedia is usually pretty accurate. |
| 322 | *** Also, these people are actors, not expert doctors. Their "expert" medical opinions are written for them by the show's writers, who are probably not expert doctors either. |
| 323 | ** He died from smallpox. They give him a vaccine without knowing this illness and his cancer were ruining his immunitary defense. As a vaccine is nothing else than the actual virus in small quantity, it was enough for him to catch the illness and die from it. |
| 324 | *** Except that, looking for the "small patches of dark, dead tissue" was what confirmed the Rickettsialpox diagnostic. Of course, he could have contracted both, but then, House was taking a leap of faith to taking off his gloves and search the body. |
| 325 | * How is there only one instance of a team member catching the disease that the patient has? They routinely barge into their homes without knowing what they are looking for, and they frequently treat patients with highly infectious diseases. Taking into consideration the fact that they rarely wear surgical masks, it's a wonder they all haven't caught something yet. |
| 326 | ** As mentioned above, the lack of surgical masks is a casualty of the TV format. [[ExecutiveMeddling The networks don't want the actors' faces obscured too much]]. ''ER'' and ''Scrubs'' do the same thing all the time. If the show were a little more realistic the doctors would have masks and gloves on every time they break into a patient's house. And to be fair, they don't ''always'' treat highly infectious diseases. Most times the patient is afflicted with something that can't be easily passed from person to person like mold or some weird cancer. And when they are dealing with something highly infectious like smallpox (or something that looks like smallpox) they keep the patient quarantined and don't go in there without the proper safety equipment.\ |
| 327 | \ |
| 328 | Alternatively, maybe constant exposure to so many weird diseases has given them all superhuman immune systems. Also, it's frequently handwaved in the series that the patients have compromised immunity, which makes the patients susceptible to infections where a person with a normal immune system wouldn't be. |
| 329 | * Aren't House and the ducklings the only dedicated members of the diagnostics department? If not, why is the only member of the diagnostic department (until House returns from prison) a Neurology intern [[spoiler: who was suspended and hiding in his office to pretend to be working]]? A decent-sized hospital (especially one like Princeton Plainsborough, which is famous for its diagnostic department from the last few years) can't get along with its entire diagnostic system consisting of specialists and doctors on free-clinic duty. |
| 330 | ** Presumably every other case is easy enough to diagnose without requiring a department's worth of people. PPTH only became famous for its diagnostic department when House ''became'' the diagnostic department. I assume when they lost him to prison and rehab, they sent difficult cases to other hospitals. It's been repeatedly shown that people have themselves brought to PPTH because of House. |
| 331 | ** Cuddy even says in one episode that hospitals nowadays simply don't have a "Department of Diagnostic Medicine". The only reason PPTH has one is because of House being there. |
| 332 | * From the very first episode, "Gorgeous women don't go to medical school....unless they are as damaged as they are beautiful." Are we supposed to agree with this? This show proves over and over again that everybody is damaged, pretty much without exception, so how much someone has should be irrelevant. The show also casts exclusively beautiful women as doctors. Cuddy, Thirteen, Amber, etc. Yet House never wonders why they all decided to become doctors since, according to him, they could have just walked into a room and been given stuff. I am very surprised Cameron was not more offended by his statement. |
| 333 | ** Does House even believe this, or did he just say it to gauge Cameron's reaction? |
| 334 | ** Why would Cameron be offended? His explicit reason was that she worked extremely hard even though she didn't have to. I would think that was a compliment. |
| 335 | ** I think the latter. House rarely says anything [[ManipulativeBastard without an agenda]]. |
| 336 | ** Not to mention that one could hardly call Cuddy (extreme ambition), Thirteen (dead mother who likely gave it to her), and Amber (personality disorder) to be undamaged. |
| 337 | * Season 3: (in the finale of the Tritter arc) How does Cuddy claiming that she swapped out the Oxycodone that House stole for a placebo change anything? Even if she did do it, and had proof that she did it, that doesn't change the fact that House didn't know about it. He STILL stole pills that were in the name of a patient who had already died with the intent of using them himself. Shouldn't the case still stand? |
| 338 | ** House's charges were for acquiring '''narcotics''' that he had no right to acquire. Since they were sugar pills, even though they weren't his, they were not narcotics or any other controlled substance. Case dismissed. |
| 339 | ** I think those courtroom scenes were the judge trying to determine whether the case would go to trial or not. (Remember part of Tritter's case against House was that he might be using some of those prescriptions to sell drugs.) Cuddy's testimony that the pills were placebos did prove that House wasn't stealing the pills to sell them. He did steal the drugs, but that was pretty much the only thing they could get him on, since it's not illegal to be an addict if you actually have a valid prescription. He probably wouldn't have done any jail time since it was his first offense (that we know of) so the judge essentially told both of them to get over it. |
| 340 | *** What about the forged prescriptions? Wilson turned on Tritter and said that he wouldn't testify, but the signatures were quite clearly different. Couldn't they use handwriting analysis to determine if Wilson wrote the prescriptions or if House did? |
| 341 | *** They could, but if Wilson sticks to his story that he just changes his signature sometimes and that he wrote all the prescriptions, there's not much the police can do. It's the same as if they had a woman who was clearly raped, but won't admit she was. If there's no complaining witness, there's no case. |
| 342 | * Since amputation has been passed over multiple times, why doesn't House just... transplant the muscle itself? Just get a new one? |
| 343 | ** House seems to have an emotional connection to the injury, plus transplants are often unreliable. Plus I think that muscle transplants are pretty rare, most people opt to have the leg amputated and get prosthetic legs. |
| 344 | ** The muscles House had removed are some of the largest in the body. Since muscles can only be an autograft (transferred from somewhere else in your own body) instead of an allograft (from an organ/tissue donor), there isn't really a place for him to get muscle tissue from that wouldn't cripple another body part. |
| 345 | * A doctor prescribing ''cigarettes''? REALLY?! |
| 346 | ** If you're talking about the episode I think you're talking about, the man had recently quit smoking and switched to a nicotine gum, which was causing him severe diarrhea. Diarrhea can cause some pretty destructive health problems over short periods time (in the realm of two or three weeks, though depending on diet and environment may not even take that long). So, yeah, the guy going back to cigarettes for a while until he finds a better way to quit WOULD be the ideal solution (if the man couldn't stop both. Given the intake of nicotine gum, the man was really addicted. Going back to cigarettes was simply a solution to an immediate problem.) I may be wrong, but I think House said something along the lines of "Try the patch" as he walked out, too. That all being said, this is House, who really doesn't care unless the patient is interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if House told a kid to go play in traffic as a cure for chronic boredom. |
| 347 | ** He's talking about the Santa with inflammatory bowel, not the flight attendant. The Santa had already tried two or three different meds and none of them had worked. He was desperate because his employer threatened to fire him (probably because of the smell of his non-stop gas). House told him to smoke cigarettes because it ''is'' linked to a reduction of inflammatory bowel symptoms. Also, one cigarette every twelve hours isn't going to be extremely harmful, at least compared to the side-effects of the meds House would have had to prescribe otherwise. |
| 348 | *** It's the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke that reduces the symptoms of IBD. Cigarettes are probably the safest way to inhale it. And two cigarettes a day in a man his age aren't going to be a cause of lung cancer, expecially if he only does it during the month or so that he portrays Santa every year. |
| 349 | ** House is an occasional smoker himself; a lot of doctors are, in fact. High stress job + keen awareness of mortality. And House wasn't really prescribing cigarettes, he was telling the guy to go back to cigarettes in the most snarky, condescending way he could; with a prescription pad. |
| 350 | * In Season 7 episode "Unplanned Parenthood", a woman is found to have two cancers, the antibodies for one managing to hold back the other. Her blood, containing the antibodies, was being used to treat her newborn, who had the second cancer from the womb. They wanted to treat the cancers in the mother immediately, even though this would put the baby's life at risk. One argument for treating the cancers was the risk of a blood clot in the mother, but one argument for not treating the cancers was that it was keeping the baby alive. The headscratcher here is... if there's a risk of a blood clot in the mother, and the blood is being transfused to the baby, isn't there equal (if not higher, due to smaller vessels) risk that a blood clot will affect the baby? How was this not a factor in the decision, given that they accepted the mother remaining untreated, which resulted in a blood clot and death for her? |
| 351 | * In Season 8 episode "Everybody Dies", House snaps at Taub about being in pain, because he is upset at Wilson ''giving up''. In the case of pain, House had 8 years with the option of amputating his leg, to relieve him of his chronic pain as well as weaning himself off pain killers. So while the snap is emotional and understandable, I don't find it balanced. |
| 352 | ** Amputating his leg wouldn't fix his pain (the brain still receives the signals, phantom pain and all that), it would only reduce his mobility. |
| 353 | ** House sees amputation as giving up. |
| 354 | * Also in the finale episode "Everybody Dies" which part of the episode was real? I mean, he spent the first part considering committing suicide and not doing anything rational that could eventually lead to his escape of the building. But then in the last part, we learn he planned to fake his death by switching his dental records with his previous patient. So if all of this was premeditated, why did he act like that? Those two facts don't add up at all. |
| 355 | ** We learned that he ''faked'' his death. We didn't learn that faking his death was what he was planning to do all along. In fact, the flashback that he has while the building is burning (of letting the heroin addict take the rap) seems to have been the inspiration for it. |
| 356 | *** But then why was the building on fire, if it wasn't set intentionally by House? |
| 357 | ** Also, exactly what is House going to do once Wilson dies? He has effectively ceased to exist and any attempts to get a job or support himself will cause him to be exposed and thrown in the slammer, presumably for years. And even if he gets out, he'll never be able to work as a doctor again, meaning he basically will have no reason to live. |
| 358 | *** He can get a new life with a fake identity someplace far away. It's not really that hard, and people often manage to keep those for years. Presumably, many of them are ''never'' found out. If he named Wilson as his beneficiary in his will, he even has access to his own money. Maybe he can write mystery novels, medical or not, under the pseudonym ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' or something... |
| 359 | * Re: "Everybody Dies", so House manages to fake his own death just by switching his dental records with that of the actually dead man. Since, given the circumstances, an autopsy would've been performed, wouldn't House have had to switch all of his records, not just the dental ones? After all, the coroner, after checking House's medical history, would probably see that the corpse didn't have evidence of liver damage due to drug & alcohol abuse, the leg injury, the skull fracture from the bus crash, etc. And that's not to mention that the DNA results wouldn't match. Or did House just follow his usual routine and blackmail and/or bribe the coroner? |
| 360 | ** It depends on how badly the corpse was burned. If it was really bad, the liver damage wouldn't show, and the damage was in the leg ''muscle'', so the actual bones of his leg might not be affected. The skull fracture is a good point, though. The reason that dental records are even used is as a last-resort means of identification. |
| 361 | ** This presumes the hospital would keep checking after the dental records had confirmed identity. The police/[=EMTs=] knew House was in the building but didn't know about the other guy. They checked the identity of the corpse, saw it matched House's records, and said it was House. They aren't going to be testing over and over again to make sure. |
| 362 | * One other question re: "Everybody Dies". House hated his (supposed) father, but he loved his mother. Would he really let her think her only son died a horrible death in a warehouse fire after spending years in misery? Could he really be that cruel to her, or did he let her in on the secret? |
| 363 | * In episode "One Day, One Room" House has to decide how to deal with a rape victim. He gets the opinions of his co-workers. Now, why doesn't House go ask an actual ''therapist'' for advice, preferably one who has experience working with rape victims? |
| 364 | ** Because House has zero respect for other doctors, and only slightly more than that for his ducklings, Wilson, and Cuddy. |
| 365 | ** "Never has a profession been so decried by someone who needed it so much" - Wilson, on House's attitude to therapy. |
| 366 | * Just a general question: why aren't there more nurses? It may sound strange, but nurses generally administer medication, do general morning checks (blood pressure and temperature), and aides handle the patient care like bedpans and IV. IRL, doctors show up for five minutes on their rounds. They're WAY too hands on with the patients in this show, so where are the nurses? And, for that matter, lab technicians. |
| 367 | ** Because TheMainCharactersDoEverything |
| 368 | ** Explained in 'verse as House simply not trusting the nurses and lab techs to not screw something up, and preferring to have his team handle as much as possible to minimize that risk. |
| 369 | ** As well as House having pissed off a huge portion of the hospital staff to the point that no one wants to work with him unless they have to. |
| 370 | * Why do the female doctors wear spike heels? They're on their feet all day and frequently hit with bodily fluids. That's a turned ankle waiting to happen. Come on, wardrobe! |
| 371 | ** It happens. I have a friend who works in a restaurant (same deal) and I've never seen her wear anything except spike heels. |
| 372 | * Is Cuddy racist, or does she just hate Foreman personally? She is consistently extremely dismissive of and rude toward Foreman, with perhaps the most notable example being her unwillingness to even write the poor guy a recommendation after House temporarily fires him for trivial reasons. Even when she briefly puts him in charge of Diagnostics on a few occasions when House is unavailable or in trouble, she goes out of her way to make it clear to him that it's only temporary and that he is not as good as House at all. |
| 373 | ** First off, he's not as good as House. It's made clear that he fails when House succeeds. Foreman even admits that when Cuddy offers him a separate team. And there's the second - she went to the board to get clearance to offer him a chance to have his own team. She certainly didn't do that for anyone else. Third - Foreman pisses off nearly as many people as House and doesn't have House's unique brilliance to BunnyEarsLawyer his way through it. Fourth - Cuddy has also shown that she will lowball her employees on salary. House and Foreman (the second time) were both hired cheap because they couldn't get in anywhere else. |
| 374 | ** Cuddy's not actually any better with any other members of the team(s), but it's much less noticeable since she interacts with them even less than with Foreman. |
| 375 | * Is there a rational reason for Wilson blaming House for Amber's death? He called Wilson to pick him up from the bar; Amber just happened to be the one who showed up. He did not cause the bus crash or prescribe Amber's flu pills. The whole episode, he did everything Wilson asked him to do, risking his life several times to try to save Amber's. So why is it supposed to be House's fault that Amber dies? |
| 376 | ** Because she would not have left the apartment that night at all if House hadn't called her up drunk. Grief is never rational. |
| 377 | *** House bears maybe 25% of the blame for Amber's death. He was drinking at a bar on a work night to the point where his keys were taken. Despite stalking Wilson for their entire relationship, he forgets or doesn't know Wilson was on call that night, so he calls expecting Wilson to drop everything and pick him up - one of those tests of Wilson's devotion and patience House regularly conducts, trying to see if House is still Number 1 in Wilson's life now that Wilson has found someone who isn't incredibly needy and makes him incredibly happy (see for evidence every episode where House asks something excessive of Wilson that he could easily do for himself). House could've called a cab or gotten on an earlier bus by himself like a grown ass man. Amber, trying to keep this three-way relationship harmonious and do a favor for her boyfriend, tries to pick up House, he storms out like a child and refuses her offer of a ride. It's not his fault Amber followed him, but she was trying to look out for him in his drunken state and maybe have a conversation. It's not House's fault Amber was taking an aggressive flu medication or that the truck hit the bus or that she was being nice, but the inciting incident is his fault. That's why Wilson is angry, that it took so long to figure out WTF had been going on with House and Amber, that House's most banally shitty behaviour lead to this, that Wilson had finally found someone who wasn't a version of one of his wives and whom he was on an equal footing with that he might've beaten his track record, and then she was just fucking ''gone'' and everything that happened leading up to that was unbelievably traumatizing. Here's the thing: Wilson doesn't express any anger toward House. He gives him a look that expresses how wounded he is when House has just woken up, but leaves without saying anything...for months. Wilson being Wilson, he represses whatever unpleasant emotion is boiling inside. He comes back after four months, is perfectly polite as he packs up his things, and tells House that yes, he did try to blame him, but he went over it so many times he realized he couldn't. What Wilson couldn't do anymore was enable House, the circumstances that created the situation where House could call and expect Wilson to be there, no matter what was going on in Wilson's life. The "we're not friends, maybe we never were" parting shot was harsh and untrue, but it's how he felt at the time. I don't get why people think Wilson was being unreasonable, either in walking away from House for while or asking him to endure the risky Deep Brain Stimulation considering how much Wilson has done for House and put up with from him for so many years. "I should've been on that bus-no, you should've been on the bus alone" is true, it's not wishing House was dead instead of Amber, it's wishing House would've taken responsibility and changed, and let Wilson change too. |
| 378 | * Why did so many of the later episodes revolve around Masters, Taub or Thirteen when those three characters were probably the least popular with the fans? |
| 379 | * In the episode of season 3 the Jerk, How is it that the patient of the week isn't being charged with assault? |
| 380 | ** We never hear that he isn't, but its also possible no one's ever going to get around to telling the family of that boy he attacked that his rage wasn't a symptom. Plus, that kid is a chess prodigy at what looked to be a wealthy private school (he might have got in on a scholarship, but still) that will probably try to cover it up. |
| 381 | ** Given that after attacking him, he collapsed in pain and had to be taken to the hospital, it seemed clear that something was happening to him to make him do that. |
| 382 | *** That's what one would assume (including the vicitm and his family), but the twist at the end was that it wasn't; the kid is just a jerk. But again, whether or not that other kid's family and the authorities would ever know that depends on doctor patient confidentiality rules (which I'm unfamiliar with), and probably how House' Team felt. |
| 383 | * So I just watched the whole series over the course of a few months and one thing's bugging me, just what is everyone's relationship to each other in terms of friendships? Early on Foreman didn't seem to regard the others as friends (having an apparent dislike of Chase) but Cameron obviously thought of all of them as friends. But then as the seasons go on all of the ducklings can be seen hanging out together outside of work which even seems to include the new members of the team that replaced them in season 4. And what do they regard House as because he has been shown to hang out with them from time to time and they seem to have a decent enough time Chase, Foreman and House's karaoke is a particularly memorable example of this as is Chase's bachelor party and yet whenever the topic comes up House and everyone else refers to Wilson as House's only friend. I know the show has a pretty complex interpersonal relationships and not everything is black and white in terms of relationships all the time but I just can't get it straight. |
| 384 | ** Foreman is the newest hire, and doesn't particularly like anyone at the beginning. Probably a victim of his own egotism, thinking he's better than everyone else. Chase has been there the longest of the original ducklings and seems more than willing to be friendly, though he considers his job to be more important. Cameron is constantly trying to make peace and be friendly, though at the start she fell in love with House. Friendships always take time to develop. As for why they hang out with each other, House's strange department keeps them from haveing any kind of regular life schedule. They don't have many others to hang out with. |
| 385 | * How was House not fired and facing criminal charges after handing the gun back to the hostage-taker in "Last Resort?" That's several levels of reckless and illegal above his normal shenanigans, but in the closing scenes, Cuddy just acts somewhat annoyed, and none of the other characters who for sure know what he did seem to care that they now know they're working for someone who will endanger not just their own and the patient lives, but InnocentBystanders ones as well to get his answer. |
| 386 | * Dr Samira, oh hardly we knew thee. In one episode, she is a clever, good doctor when working for the CIA, and her addition to House's team opened a variety of possibilities... then, just in the next episode, she is suddenly ignorant and her answers would be embarrassing for a medical ''student''. WTF happened here? Not only TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot, they did it in a very dumb way... |
| 387 | ** Double LoveMakesYouDumb. It's made clear that Dr. Terzi was attracted to House (willing to throw away a job with the CIA to become one of House's ducklings? If that's not attraction, I don't what can be) and likely that same attraction made her nervous and dumbed her down while trying to diagnose. And House explicitly says her beauty makes him not realize she is giving bad ideas. |
| 388 | * I don't want to RonTheDeathEater a character with several admirable aspects, but would how House treats Wilson and his staff count as emotional abuse? Are his constant lectures and beratements on their failings gaslighting, or just harsh truths? Is his constant invasion of their privacy relatively benign, or a deliberate (if perhaps subconscious) attempt to have all the power over them? Do his various threats to fire them for reasons of varying pettiness count as financial abuse? If the show started airing in 2020, would it [[UnfortunateImplications catch flack for these reasons?]] |
| 389 | * Why do the orderlies leave food for coma patients? It's a RunningGag in the series where House hides from Cuddy in a coma patient's room where he watches TV and eats their food. Something similar happens in ''Film/TheFugitive'', does this have a basis in real life? |
| 390 | ** He isn't eating their food. He's bringing his own food into Coma Guy's room because it's quiet and nobody ever goes in there. |
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