Last night’s episode of House, M.D. made little sense. Why would Dr. House, near the end of the show, give the patient back his gun? Why not just diagnose him but say he has the gun? Then something interesting happened. The guy almost killed Thirteen, and for a moment, House looked stunned. And I thought, “Oh God, please let this be it.”
What is it? It is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The moment when House realizes his inane behavior is getting unrealistic and unbearable. The House character is getting boring to me because he shows no growth whatsoever, never learns any lessons. He’s just a miserable old sack. And the show was losing steam, until last night, because it’s become so formulaic that Cracked magazine took a well-deserved swing at it.
So, I’m hoping that last night, as the SWAT team blew away the walls of the CAT scan room and House, for a moment, was unsure whether or not his plan had backfired; as House began to understand that his silly actions may have led to Thirteen’s unnecessary death; as House suddenly understood (I think) that he had behaved like an idiot, that maybe we have the catalyst for the first real growth of the character. I wish – I wish so much – that perhaps the character would show some emotional reaction to the fact that he endangered not just others’ lives, but others’ lives quite recklessly.
House shouldn’t suddenly become a softie, and he shouldn’t suddenly be a new character, but the same way you drive a little slower for awhile after you think you might be getting a ticket when you pass a cop, he ought to have a little bit of extra thought about his actions, a pause before acting like the cold moron he normally is. Because any human would, after an event like that.
Unfortunately, I don’t expect it. I think next Tuesday will open credits on the same old House. Too bad.
He did it because he thought SWAT would stop his play as soon as the situation was under control. Not exactly realistic but you could have expected it from House. They tried to change his character but the only believable way without some miracle (like when he could run) was to make him more miserable. They should just finish this series with something that sets House straight.