I’ve gotten confirmation from two different reliable sources that the House spoiler I alluded to earlier this week is, in fact, going to happen.
Unlike some people, I haven’t had a problem with the show at all until this point. In fact, I’m willing to go on the record and say that this season has been remarkable, and as far as the character House? We’ve gotten to see more of what drives and subsequently tortures him than we have in the first two seasons. Additionally, Hugh Laurie has given arguably some of his best performances to date.
A common complaint about this show is the fact that the medical mysteries and the resolutions are unrealistic. Well, duh. You really think hospitals are that interesting? Take it from my brother, who’s a surgical chief resident: most of the time he’s extremely bored. In fact, if you watch Scrubs, they just parodied exactly that last week. (It was hilarious.) A show like House is going to take dramatic license to keep the audience hooked. All shows do it. Trust me: it takes weeks and sometimes months to get DNA and other test results back, and yet on CSI, they can get them in the same day.
Another complaint — this season, at least — has been the Tritter arc. Again, while I haven’t liked it (because I don’t like Tritter himself), it’s been realistic in terms of the show, and it’s brought forth a most interesting conflict in that for the first time, House is being forcibly held accountable for his self-destructive and often obnoxiously rude (and therefore highly unprofessional) behavior.
Tritter is type-A, confrontational, stubborn, and proud. So is House. Naturally, when the two collided, there was an instantaneous problem. House was an ass. No doubt about it. He humiliated Tritter. Of course Tritter was going to retaliate. Detectives have many different methods for retaliation at their disposal — more so than the average guy.
He starts nosing around and finds indications of House’s addiction. That leads to evidence that the powers-that-be at Princeton Plainsboro (in other words, Cuddy) know about the addiction and have done nothing to stop it. It’s an ethics violation at best; it’s criminal negligence at worst.
Did Tritter abuse his power by freezing assets and essentially black-mailing Wilson into playing Judas? Absolutely.
Was it unrealistic? No. Sure, Cuddy, Wilson, et.al. could’ve reported Tritter’s power trip. But in doing so, their own complicity in the fact that House has been allowed to do whatever he wants at PPTH (including writing illegal prescriptions) would be called into question.
So again — while I have not been overly fond of the Tritter arc, it isn’t unrealistic in the least. And part of me is glad that House is being held responsible for his actions. It’s also shown everyone’s true colors, and I’ve said it before, but Cameron is the only one who truly seems to care for House for himself, and not for his reputation as a diagnostician and the fame it brings PPTH, or the job security he provides.
Which brings me to the spoiler that is really bothering me.
The only problem I’ve ever had with House was the Cameron/Chase hook-up. She was distraught over possibly being exposed to HIV, so she stole some meth from a patient and got high. She called Chase. He came over and she threw herself at him. He was perfectly sober and took advantage of her, even though he knew she was out of her mind with grief (and meth) and not acting rationally. Call it what you want, but in Texas? That’s sexual assault, because drugs/alcohol negates the affected party’s ability to consent.
Anyway, Cameron doesn’t respect Chase; hell, she doesn’t even act like she likes him all that much. He’s lazy; he’s spoiled; he’s condescending to patients; he doesn’t care about anyone but himself, as his willingness to betray House to Vogler in Season 1 indicates.
So this apparent storyline coming up in March where Cameron –who’s still in love with House — decides she wants no-strings-attached sex with Chase after over a year of contempt? I’m not buying it at all. At all.
Here’s the thing, though. This is House. This is David Shore. They’ve given me no reason to doubt them up till now. I’m not one to bail on a show just because something happens that I don’t like — as long as it’s reasonably set up and defended.
For example, I loathe Kate and Sawyer. But Kate hooking up with him, and her attraction to him, makes sense. She doesn’t think she’s good enough for Jack; she feels that she and Sawyer are alike. I get it. It makes sense.
Same thing when Veronica dumped Logan for Duncan in Season 2. I understood her affinity for Duncan and why she tried to make their relationship work, why she tried to make herself believe she was in love with him.
Maybe the Cameron/Chase thing will end up making sense. I have my doubts, but I’m not going to bail on a show that has proven itself consistently stellar for almost three years just because a piece of a storyline pisses me off.
But I just hope this is to further a storyline or fill in a character arc or something pertinent like that and not just because Jesse Spencer (Chase) and Jennifer Morrison (Cameron) just got engaged.
This isn’t One Tree Hill.
