“In the great game of chess that is our relationship, Wilson sees only one move ahead. I see dozens. That is why he will never mate me.” — House
“…” — House’s team
“That’s a chess term.” — House
After watching the end of tonight’s House, I turned to Keith and said, “How can I write about something so epic?” I could literally write a thesis paper on “Remorse,” another installment in the House-perfection files, like the last episode, “The Down Low.”
I’ll spare you the thesis, but I do want to explore the question I asked in the title — is House a psychopath? I’m going with a very solid no on this, because he does have what psychopaths lack: remorse (hence the title of this episode).
If House were a psychopath, we’d have noticed it in the season premiere, during all of his therapy. It was really hard for him, but he did experience some true growth and wouldn’t have been able to do any of that if he had no remorse. House’s apparent lack of conscience is a defense mechanism for him, because it hurts too much to feel guilty.
Wilson, who knows House better than he knows himself, said so much to House. Because Cuddy means too much to House, it’s much easier for House to try to ease his guilt by giving money to the guy from medical school. Making amends with Cuddy would be painful. House proved this at the end of the episode, when even though he knew that the medical school guy tried to cheat him out of the money, House gave it to him anyway because he couldn’t apologize to Cuddy for cutting up the picture that her father took.
I found the conversation between Valerie and House so fascinating. When she said to him, “If you know your conscience is just an animal instinct, you don’t need to follow it.” Well, that made the distinction for me. House knows this logically, and he really is a logical guy, but he still follows his anyway. Because he has feelings. Because he is not a psychopath. Again, the defense mechanisms kick in, since he is House, but it has a whole different vibe than being a psychopath.
House? He’s just an ass.
Other things worth mentioning:
What do you think? Did I make a convincing argument, or do you think House has some psychopathic tendencies?
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jan 25, 2010 @ 21:38 EST5EDT
Great episode! Her empty-eyed stare was chilling, wasn’t it? I liked the end of the patient’s story – her first act as a non-psychopath is to finally be honest with her husband and free him of any illusions about her/them.
I agree with you, Deb – we’ve seen that House has emotions buried under those layers of sarcasm. He’s twisted, but he does care deeply about the people close to him.
Re the med school guy – I figured that he was tricking House, but for the longest time, I thought Wilson put him up to it.
*POST AUTHOR*
Ah, that never even crossed my mind about Wilson being behind it, but that would have been a very Wilson thing to do! Looks like we’ll be getting a lot of that sort of thing in the next episode, based on the previews.
great episode except for 13 becoming cameron. seemed out of character and ridiculous.
House has psychopathic tendencies but isn’t entirely a psychopath.
Wilson, on the other hand, almost certainly is.
Look at how he explained to Foreman about how to act when comforting a patient (when and where to hold them, how to act, etc); his constant games of manipulation with his best (only?) friend; his string of broken relationships; and the fact that one of his ex wives described him as “tailoring his caring to suit your needs”.