Last night’s House had some outstanding dialogue, a fun running gag between House and Wilson, and a patient who was actually kind of interesting. So “Moving the Chain” could have been a pantheon episode; instead, it fell flat, especially when it overrelied on the show’s weaknesses. Are we almost done with Lucas? Isn’t Foreman more interesting when he actually slides towards his fear of being like House, rather than nobly doing the “right” thing at the end? Why can’t we have more of Taub’s jokes?
Our patient of the week: Gigantic Football Guy –6’7, 310 lbs — who forced me to break my rule of only caring about football insofar as it relates to Friday Night Lights or betting squares. GFG had an on-field rage episode, completely melting down and warranting his admission to the hospital. Hulk smash! It wasn’t steroids, or lymphoma, or viral hepatitis, or paraneoplastic syndrome — wait, yes, it was that last one. House’s Brilliant Diagnosis TM was skin cancer, but it came too late for GFG to make the football game he apparently had to play in to be eligible for the NFL draft. The good news for GFG, though, was that he’d survive, and also that he’d get to have one of the night’s best lines:
House: You know why you’re black?
GFG: Because God loves me more than he loves you.
Wilson walked into his bathroom, only to discover House soaking in the bathtub — he says because his leg hurts, though that hardly explains why he wouldn’t lock or at least close the door. Wilson acted grumpy about it, so when he found an angry possum in the tub later, he assumed House had initiated some kind of prank war. Oh, it was on! (Except not really.)
It was a special day not just because House and Wilson had an interaction where one of them was nude, but also because Foreman’s brother was being released from jail. You know, Foreman’s older brother, who we all care so, so much about. Remember him from Foreman’s conversation with Tritter? (Blast! From! The paaaaaast!) Yeah, neither did I. Anyway, House knew all about him and wanted Foreman to go pick him up from jail. Foreman resisted, Fore-cefully, but eventually House brought Marcus (Orlando Jones) to Princeton Plainsboro, just to get under the underling’s skin. Or… something? House hired Marcus to be his assistant, because hospitals so frequently employ the recent prisoners, and used the stories Marcus told him to humiliate and dominate Foreman.
I just could not get with this subplot at all: Yes, Foreman has had a rough go of things, and man, aren’t families complicated? If I wanted emotional “I am going to find the strength within!” stories, though, I could watch Grey’s Anatomy. House wanted Marcus around so he could get information about Foreman, but did he even need it? Doesn’t Foreman do his bidding anyway, even if it’s reluctantly? Wilson claimed House was secretly doing a mitzvah, being the shared enemy both Foreman brothers could hate and thus bond over, but if that’s the message we’re supposed to take away from this episode, it didn’t come through very clearly.
Splish splash, House was taking another bath, but when he tried to get out, he ripped the gripbar right out of the wall — and fell, hard, back into the tub. The score was even! (Except not really.) House eventually realized that Wilson wasn’t pranking him, and Wilson’s suspicions about House were dismissed when the next “prank” involved their apartment’s sprinklers going off and destroying their flat screen.Who could the prank culprit be? Neighbor Nora? Cuddy? Foreman? No, it was everyone’s least favorite PI Lucas, who soaked all of House and Wilson’s possessions to punish them for buying the apartment Cuddy wanted. Ugh, Lucas.
On the clinic front, House treated a soldier trying to avoid redeployment — which House was remarkably unsympathetic to. Soldier Dude had already done three tours and was about to be a father; couldn’t House help him out? “I waited an extra hour just to make sure I got you,” the soldier pleaded, before launching the best back-and-forth of the episode:
Soldier Dude: I saw you limping out there. Vietnam?
House: Viet–?! How old do you think I am?
Soldier Dude: I don’t know, Vietnam age?
House then more or less told the kid to shoot himself in the foot, which he then did. The gunshot wound wasn’t serious, but it led to an infection, and the soldier wound up having part of his leg amputated. That’s certainly one way to get out of going back to the Middle East….
Other awesome lines and moments:
House’s French accent? Amazing.
Taub: Requesting permission to share my idea without being belittled in front of your new assistant?
House: Permission denied.
Wilson, talking about House’s late-night visit to Neighbor Nora’s: Braless? Under like… a sweater?
I don’t know, PopWatchers, “Moving the Chain” just didn’t come together for me, not because it was horrible or anything — it definitely had its strength — but because the stories didn’t overlap with each other enough. Any one subplot could have been cut out of this episode and seamlessly dropped into another, and usually House is better than that. Does Wilson really think House is being nice? Is House really being nice? Is he the “benevolent puppetmaster” Wilson says, or is he the insensitive, if hilarious and commanding, jerk we already know?
What’d you think? We’re at about the half-way point of the season: How is House doing so far?
I’ve become a tad disinterested in House this year. Part of it is the return of Chuck(and the fact that I don’t have a DVR/Tivo/recording device), but the show has become a broken record of House undermining everyone else’s life, Foreman just being plain uninteresting, blah, blah, blah; it’s just not appointment viewing for me anymore. If it wasn’t renewed, it wouldn’t phase me one bit.
Same here!
Thought the ep was good.
Btw, that patient was no 310 lbs. More like 380.
I’ve also lost interest in House and become annoyed with House’s 12 year-old mentality. Cuddy is neither believable or acceptable as House’s boss; she is more of a doormat. The same applies to Wilson, who has enjoy masochist to put up with House. As for the rest of the cast, other than Taub, I lost interest last season. I use to love this show. Now I cringe.
I have never been interested in Foreman’s character (or Foreman with Thirteen for that matter), and his story line was a snooze. More Taub and Chase please.
OK, the plotline wasn’t great, but Orlando Jones had some really good moments in there. He had good reaction shots.
Foreman is boring…his brother, however, was interesting. I say more Orlando!
I agree. For some reason, I just like characters that Orlando Jones plays. I actually watched that “Drumline” movie for him.
Im not even one of the House and Cuddy fans, but someone needs to get Lucas out of the show stat! He’s character is dragging down the show for me! The first episode of this season was epic, after that the episodes were strike and miss but when Lucas was added to the mix every episode with him on it was very cringe worthy for me, to think that I really liked his character back in season 5! Hugh Laurie is brilliant so I guess until he’s on the show I still feel compelled to watch.
Yeah, Lucas as diabolical manipulator just isn’t working for me.
I liked him when he was working with House-now I can’t stand him. The relationship with Cuddy is not believable, no chemistry.
I hate Lucas, please kill him off the show already
Yes…VERY VERY YES!!!!
No more LUCAS!!
I absolutely HATE Lucas, and its not even because I’m a very committed Huddy fangirl. It’s that he bugs me. A lot.
Here’s to hoping he’s gone ASAP.
Lucas = Cousin Oliver
Good one!
I absolutely agree about Taub. He has some of the best lines – too bad we don’t get to see much of him. I still love this show though!!
I liked when Wilson told Taub and Chase that their boss was really a nice guy and Taub said, somewhat unconvincingly, “I know.”
That was my favorite part! i think Taub is way underused in this show.
About halfway through, I quietly noted we were getting more Taub this week – quietly, as if I was afraid I’d jinx it or something.
I love House, I really love the House Cuddy relationship (which obviously means, i’m not capable of being objective.)
and even this episode fell flat for me. And I liked Lucas but lately, with him, he’s just been blah. And did not like the dude after his “pranks”, he could have killed House, doesn’t he know most household injuries are in bathrooms??
also, more Taub please. He’s my favorite and the funniest. MORE.
Also…how the hell did Lucas get into the doctors’ house? Did I miss the explanation on how he got in? If he broke in – he could be arrested after doing all that damage.
The grab-bar loosening was NOt funny for me at all. I can just imagine someone smashing his hea on the side of the tub and slowly bleeding to death because no one was around to help. That was way too dangerous ot be a prank. Otherwise I’m still partially a fan of Lucas, I’ll still give him the benefit of the doubt, he still seems like a cool guy.
Love taub, don’t mind lucas one bit.
House’s hardline attitude with the soldier was completely in character and rang most true. I thought the most interesting part of the night is House’s face as he watches soldier boy being wheeled out. The play of emotions on his face were amazing! House is clearly trying to process someone feeling so strongly about something that he is willing to self-mutilate to get it. I think what we’re learning here is that House is desperate to feel anything and is willing to try anything to do so – being cruel to people, playing pranks, being withholding. House doesn’t feel and he knows it… yeah, not the greatest episode ever but certainly not a bad one (in my mind, probably because there was very little cuddy!)
I think House had less compassion for the soldier because of his dad being one and his daddy issues. I think I found all of the clinic patients interactions with House the most rewarding part of this episode.
I was a bit shocked because having his foot amputated must mean that House kept him on the antibiotics that weren’t working. More benevolent puppetmastery.
I think they wasted the soldier story–it would have been more interesting if he was the patient of the week and had a diagnosis that left us wondering if it would keep him from being redeployed. Shooting himself in the foot (and doing a lousy job of it) and then having part of his leg amputated left me feeling that the writers and producers wanted to make a statement about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but then chickened out and whispered it instead.
However, I liked that it was Lucas doing the pranks; that he could hold his own against House.
Yeah, I didn’t get why House was unsympathetic with the soldier, although afterwards I could see that he essentially presented the soldier with a choice, and if the soldier felt strongly enough he had an option (and clearly he did). I don’t care about Lucas. The rest of the episode had some good zingers and was entertaining, which is all I ask of a TV show. (House’s French accent was right up there with John Cleese’s…)
He was being Hercule Poirot, right?
Yes. Although Hercule Poirot was Belgian, and was ticked off when anyone assumed he was French.
Still, funny!
40% of the Belgium population speak French… Poirot too.
I love Taub this season, which is incredibly odd, since I rarely enjoyed him in seasons 4 and 5. That being said, Lucas needs to go now. I’m not even a Huddy, but I find him so incrediby annoying. Also, when House and Wilson were waiting up for their pranker in the kitchen, did anyone else get a bit of a sleep-over feeling?
Bingo to all of your points!!
So at the end of the episode, when Cuddy asks Lucas if he knows anything about the pranking, and he says no, is he lying to Cuddy or is he just joking? Because then later he asks her why she wouldn’t let him retaliate, so that led me to believe that he was telling her he had nothing to do with the pranking, therefore lying to her. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I just couldn’t quite figure out what was going on in that scene.
Allyson, in my opinion Lucas was lying to her. He is sleazy! He just annoys me. It was funny when he was just a PI investigating everyone, but as Cuddy’s boyfriend, he doesn’t work for me! Besides, Cuddy got that serious with him so soon after adopting the baby? Serious enough to move in with him? Seems way out of character to me!
I don’t think she wants to move in with him. She said not to worry, “we’ll find another place” to move in together..but it has been months. This relationship is coming to an end.
Yeah, I totally agree. If she wanted to move in with him, she would have done it by now. I guess if he was lying to her and she finds out, could that be something that would make her angry enough to rethink the relationship, or will it take something more than that? Really hoping for some insight into her true feelings for both Lucas and House next week in the Cuddy-centric episode. Might be too much to hope for though.
I’ve been a huge House fan for years now, so it pains me to say this, but … for me the show is now officially past its expiration date. In the past the uber-formulaic and predictable pattern of the show didn’t bother me because the dialogue was so clever, but now I’m just bored. I think they either need to shake the show up in some way or be done for good while we can still remember how entertaining it once was.
Loved seeing Orlando Jones. Immediately knew that Lucas was the prankster and his reason for doing so–yawn. If that’s how the writers are going to play him, the sooner he’s gone, the better. Wanted House to beat Lucas with his cane and then tell Cuddy that her boy toy is a lying boob.
You forgot one of the best (for me!) sight gags – immediately upon the patient examination, tiny Taub facing the giant patient. It made me giggle. Perhaps I’m easily amused…