Even in its earliest seasons, I was convinced that David Shore had never actually seen an episode of the show he created. There’s no other explanation for the most egregious continuity errors on television — other than plain lazy writing, of course — and “Help Me”, last season’s finale, ended with two of the worst in the show’s history, two that stung on a very personal level. You’ll recall last season’s penultimate episode, classic House, an increasingly rare return to everything the show does so well. It’s a non-linear dialogue between House and his therapist, finally someone as smart as House himself, where House gradually comes to terms with the results of his year-long Vicodin-free experiment. House‘s long-term philosophy has always been that the universe is governed by rules — arbitrary, indifferent, innate rules — and those rules render meaningful change impossible. It’s maybe too strong to say that House is destined to misery, since Shore and Company leave plenty of room for free will, but whether House is a saint or an ass or both, the outcome is always the same. Wilson trades House in for his new ex-wife girlfriend, Cuddy moves in with the insufferable Lucas, and House is alone and miserable.
And then last season’s finale came along and, just to make the Huddy fanfic writers drool, it subverted everything that House stands for in the clumsiest way possible. Let’s get it out of the way: Cuddy tells House that she loves him. Squee! Forget that in six years, Cuddy has never shown any feelings for House — and forget House’s eternal resentment towards the doctor who failed to diagnose his embolism and chopped out a hunk of his leg. And then, I guess, Cuddy’s situational awareness goes south for the winter when she suggests that House might change. Lady, you’ve known him personally for at least eleven years, you’ve known of him and his reputation since undergrad, and you’re not Elizabeth Bennett. House is not going to change.
At least not until the serial storyline requires it. All of a sudden, House decided that it’s the leg pain and Vicodin that makes him a jerk, not the fact that he never ventures outside rationality while everyone around him tweaks their perceptions and interpretations to whatever’s most comfortable. I love that character. He’s a kindred soul.
So I’m more than a little surprised to say that House and Cuddy’s first day as a couple didn’t suck at all, that it turns out House can be misanthropic and fun, in addition to misanthropic and frustrating. The episode ended with House pulling out the same logical break-up thesis on Cuddy as he did with Stacy back in season two — “I’m a jerk, I’ll always be a jerk, and sooner or later, I’ll piss you off.” — but after an hour of House and Cuddy with a common purpose for once, it played like a pure gesture of concern for Cuddy, a moment of (attempted) self-sacrifice from a character who always just takes whatever he wants and could care less about hurt feelings.
At the end of season five, I wrote that House on a self-improvement kick could actually be a really interesting character, and maybe whatever fears I had about losing the sarcastic House who’s already given up on people might be overblown. Well, maybe it’s just time marching on, or the fact that I don’t really care about the House Team 2.0, but I do feel like the character’s been de-clawed a bit. The show wasn’t nearly as brilliant as it was in its infancy, but I do feel like House got a few years younger over the summer break and it’s worth sticking with it to see where we go from here.