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House is full of black holes

Tonight's episode of 'House' really sucked the viewers down the black hole of characterization ... can people ever change or evolve?

- Season 6, Episode 16 - "Black Hole"

“Her subconscious is trying to tell her something. We have to eavesdrop.” – House, regarding the patient’s hallucination
“She was screaming she was being sucked into a black hole, so we should look for a tumor in her anus.” – Taub

This was an interesting episode of House for me. I’m not sure what to think, and I’m not sure why I feel that way. I definitely enjoyed it, even though the case of the week makes me want to take a shower … ewww. We got some interesting House / Wilson dynamics, though with few hi-jinks. And Taub … what do you make of Taub? I think I’ve fallen down the black hole that is House this week….

Does furniture really make the man, or was this just another way of House yanking Wilson’s chain? I tend to agree with House — Wilson really doesn’t know who he is, but is choosing his own furniture really going to make that big of a statement? We got a great montage of Wilson furniture shopping and the professionally decorated room looks great. You know and I know that the very best part was the “Phantom of the Opera” organ that Wilson bought for House: “You’re going to have to buy your own cape.”

However, how does that purchase help Wilson define who he is? Are we to conclude that Wilson is simply a selfless soul who can’t indulge himself? If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Another question that we will perhaps never know the answer to.

Speaking of figuring out what makes people tick, why is Taub trying so hard on his marriage when I assume he is, in fact, screwing around with the cute blonde nurse, or thinking about it? When Chase (or was it Foreman?) told Taub that he wanted his wife happy but only if he was, it seemed to foreshadow that Taub was always going to be the self-serving guy. Asking his wife to marry him was romantic, but seeing as he only did it for the pat on the back he could give to himself, does it count?

I’m going to lump all of my questions into one theory now — the Black Hole theory. House often centers the theme of an episode around its title, and here we have the black hole that is Wilson finding himself, the black hole that is Taub’s marriage and the black hole of House trying to figure everyone else out.

I’ve got to touch upon the cognitive pattern recognition and say that it’s real and it’s cool. And the boyfriend’s dad is such a complete scumbag that I’m definitely going to scrub down now.

Photo Credit: Richard Foreman/FOX

Categories: | Episode Reviews | General | House | TV Shows |

5 Responses to “House is full of black holes”

March 16, 2010 at 12:37 AM

I knew it was the boyfriend’s dad all the time and I was just hopnig it wasn’t… ewww…..

March 16, 2010 at 12:09 PM

It’s a jazz organ – my grandma had the same one, I think. We used to play it when we were little. I’ve wondered why House has just completely forgotten his apartment – what happened to all of his furniture? Did I miss something some episode ago? I know he moved in with Wilson at the place Wilson used to share when he couldn’t be left alone, but he had a whole apartment full of stuff including his piano, tv, couch, books, etc. And I remember him moving over some of his guitars when he was settling in at Wilson’s old place but still – that’s a lot of things to leave behind.

March 17, 2010 at 5:36 AM

I found this episode a bit flat for some reason, didnt pull me in so much and I didnt really care about the patient or her family / boyfriend. Was funny watching Wilson in the shop though. Oh and Cognitive Pattern Recognition is something our brains do naturally, but there is no “CPR machine” that can read your thoughts. Cognitive Psychology is just a branch of psychology that deals with thoughts and the intellectual part of the mind. If they had mind reading tech, you can be sure it would be in Area 51 or Guantanamo sucking info out of spies or something, not in a hospital … House MD often invents tech that doesnt exist, or exaggerates real tech wildly such as the Virtual Reality computer game in Epic Fail, and the “outdoor ‘indoor skydiving’ ” (you need to be in a vertical wind tunnel for it to work which is visually less appealing) in Broken. Its dramatic licence for sure. Pardon my geekery :D

March 17, 2010 at 1:45 PM

The organ Wilson gave House in not just any organ. It is THE Legendary Hammond B3, owned and played by the many Who’s Who of Jazz and Rock organists to lengthy to list here. Hammond quit making them in the mid-seventies but so unique and loved was their sound that “clones” and copies are made to this day.

Also…The tree in the forest conundrum exists and persists only because of the confusion between two of the many definitions of the word “SOUND”.1.
a. Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing.
b. Transmitted vibrations of any frequency.
c. The sensation stimulated in the organs of hearing by such vibrations in the air or other medium.
d. Such sensations considered as a group.

So the tree in the forest conundrum is really not one at all. If a tree falls in the forest there vibrations transmitted as in def 1.b. so Yes, there is a sound. And No for Defs c. and d. So now you know.

P.S. I left out def 1.a and don’t want to confuse any one since it mentions “capable of being detected by human organs of hearing” which suggests human perception but does not require it only that it be capable of it. I don’t need this to make my point as it seems only to confuse it more.

It’s really quite simple if you know which kind of sound you are referring to.

June 15, 2010 at 8:01 AM

@MiffieTinkle the outdoor bodyflying is actually real: https://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=KNYR9TS7HkY&feature=related

They did exagerate it in the sense that there should always be either some sort of tethering or cages/nets to prevent accidents.

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