It still boggles my mind that after six seasons, House remains innovative and fresh. Tonight, they took us right out of the formula that I adore yet that made me love this episode all the more. Normally, when House veers from the formula and takes us on a mini story arc each season (cop that wants to get House into rehab, Chi McBride trying to fire House, etc.), I want to pull my hair out and hope it grows back by the time they return to my comfortable formula, but lately, I really like the experimentation House has been doing.
The season six premiere was a shining example of this, and whether you liked it as an episode of House or not, you’ve got to admit it was one of the best TV movies you’ve seen in a while. In tonight’s “Lockdown,” there wasn’t even a medical mystery … it was all about the characters. Ivey, you would have loved it.
When the hospital goes into lockdown to find a missing baby, we get some interesting pairings that we usually don’t experience: Wilson and Thirteen, Taub and Foreman and House and (gasp!) an actual patient.
Wilson and Thirteen play an entertaining game of “Truth or Dare,” and Thirteen lies through all of it. Wilson ends up asking out his ex-wife, so Thirteen’s job was well done, and since she showed Taub her boobs and made Wilson steal a dollar, it was all good. The best part about this pairing was the facial expressions on Wilson.
Foreman (quite the snappy dresser on his off hours) and Taub getting high on Vicodin was the funniest pairing, from the Fight Club moments (“Hit me in the face … you know you’ve always wanted to.”) but also the most artistic (cool scene shot through the boxes) with a nice little bonding moment: Taub shredding the faked test results page from Foreman’s confidential file. I loved the moment when they vowed to not talk about this with anyone … very subtle yet so well-acted.
House stuck in a room with dying man whose case he turned down was probably not his ideal lockdown scenario, but it worked for me. David Straithairn‘s performance moved me to tears and I mourned that he didn’t live long enough to mend his relationship with his daughter. House confused me a bit though. He’s been hung up on Cuddy for years, and when he spills his guts to the dying guy about the lost love that brought his leg pain back, it’s Lydia from the psychiatric hospital from the season premiere. Really? She definitely changed him at the time, I’ll give him that. So does he pine for her because that’s the person he truly wants to be? When he’s pursuing Cuddy, he’s an ass and he probably knows that.
Here’s where I stop viewing Chase as a whiner and start thinking of him as Christ-like in his capacity to forgive. When Cameron gets stuck in the hospital during the lockdown, trying to serve Chase with divorce papers, she breaks down and admits not only that she’s not sure she really ever loved Chase, but that she’s completely broken from her first marriage to the dying guy and that she’s the one who’s unfixable, not Chase. I guess it was everything hat Chase needed to hear, because he forgives her, dances with her, has goodbye sex. He committed murder because he couldn’t forgive the dictator all the killing, so he’s obviously come very far if he could forgive Cameron. Not that I thought he’d kill her … you know what I mean.
What did you think about the break from the formula tonight? Love it? Hate it? Wish there were more commercials so you could get a snack to eat while watching the dying man vomit?
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Apr 12, 2010 @ 22:34 EST5EDT
I have loved the moments when House has broken from the formula this season. The creators are definitely stretching their character development muscles rather than their medical mystery muscles and I think that it is making for a much better show.
The premiere, Cuddy, and Wilson episodes have been some of my favorites from the entire series and this one definitely makes the top 20.
If only they could put this much effort into the episodes in-between the great ones.
I enjoyed the episode and liked that Cuddy got the a-ha moment.
I actually think the episode was weak. I couldn’t stand the funky lighting, that was driving me crazy.
But I just really hate it when two characters are just thrown together, it’s always in two on every show and it’s old. The whole time I could just keep seeing a West Wing episode that did the same thing. Ehh…
The best part was the Chase and Cameron when Chase was yelling and her and she finally broke down and said “I don’t know!”. That was perfect.
One thing that’s bugged me for most of the show is how House blows off people who need his expertise. It’s one of the things that has made House increasingly unattractive. I’m glad that this was addressed in this episode, that he could have saved the patient if he had taken up the case, but will it ever be addressed again and House change his ways? I doubt it.
As for the Cameron/Chase plot, once again logic gets thrown out the window. Cameron wanted to end things with Chase in season 3 when the FWB broke down. Chase was the one who pushed her to have a serious relationship with him, who pushed her to give him a drawer, who pushed her into marrying him and threatening to break things off with her entirely if she didn’t do what he wanted. Cameron gave off signal after signal that she wasn’t ready for more, she even said so in so many words, but Chase pushed and pushed until she gave it. He wouldn’t give her a chance to figure out if she was in love with him or not.
Then he killed Dibala and started pushing Cameron away and being secretive, drinking and staying out late until she thought he was having an affair. Even after he told her what he had done, she still wanted to make the marriage work. She forgave him his lies and his actions and proposed they start new somewhere else. But when he refused and said he’s staying with House instead of his marriage to her, she accepted his choice and left.
That the break-up was Cameron’s fault because she’s messed up and Chase needs to forgive her for who she is is one of the most ridiculous assertions in an increasingly ridiculous show. But the show needed to say that it was Cameron’s fault because she is gone and he is staying so they re-wrote canon yet again.
Chase has nothing to forgive because she’s not the one who ended their relationship. She’s the one who tried to make it work, not him. He pushed her into a relationship she didn’t want, he killed a man in cold blood, he pushed her away and then he bailed on their marriage. Cameron forgave him everything except the last. And she might have forgiven him that too if he had shown the slightest inclination that he still wanted to be with her.
Exactly.
And the plot device of lost baby as reason for a “lockdown” was the most idiotic ever. I see a room-by-room search happening but people being locked in the rooms they are currently in without any other justification other than a possible kidnapping is a mass-kidnapping of the people who aren’t allowed to leave.
Check them when they leave, get their IDs, search every room, fine. But keeping them in their current location is taking them hostage.
Luckily I was able to let that go until that BS with Cameron and Chase started. I was going WTF for over half an hour and THEN they are adding “bonus night”? I mean seriously W T F? After being a whiny little bitch about their relationship for two years this guy who has killed a man and chosen House over his marriage gets to accuse his former spouse like that?
What an ass.
*POST AUTHOR*
Kate and Sebastian, I definitely see your points, but don’t you think that most of Chase’s whining and odd behavior came from the fact that he never really knew if Cameron loved him or not? It really does all go back to her being damaged and unable to fully commit to him. I’m not saying she didn’t try, but I do think her reasons for leaving him were ultimately just an excuse for her inability to love him. She was always drawn to the damaged man (her husband, House) and Chase was never going to fit her pattern, even when he murdered.
Debbie, the question for me is what is Chase’s damage that he kept pushing Cameron into a relationship she clearly didn’t want? In season 1, she told him twice (in Occam’s Razor and Love Hurts) that she thought him immature and wasn’t interested in a relationship with him; in season 3 she told him that she only wanted him for a FWB and not as a real relationship; and in season 4 (The Itch) she told him that she was so hurt by her husband’s death that she didn’t want to open up to anyone else. If that wasn’t enough, she was willing to make keeping her dead husband’s sperm a deal breaker for a marriage to Chase. How many more ways could she say that he wasn’t the love of her life?
The two men that we saw Cameron drawn to in the first seasons, House and Sebastian Charles, are nothing like Chase. They’re both men who are very assertive, like to stand out and do what they believe is right, no matter what other people think. In contrast, Chase spent the first three seasons trying to please House and keep his job even if he had to compromise his principles.
It’s no surprise that Chase doubted that she really loved him because he’s nothing like the men she was attracted to and because she told him time and time again she wasn’t interested in a relationship with him. (I have no idea why she agreed to marry him other than maybe she had abandonment issues since every time he told her that if she didn’t advance their relationship to what he wanted he’s leaving, she gave in and did what he wanted.)
The real question is why Chase kept pursuing a woman who wasn’t interested in him and why he pushed her buttons to get her to marry him when all the signs said that it was doomed.
We saw during the Vogler arc that Chase was willing to do anything, even compromise his integrity and betray House as well as his colleagues, to keep the home he had found at PPTH possibly because he had no other home. In season 3, when Cameron ended the FWB because Chase was getting serious and she didn’t want him to be, she said that he only wanted her because he wanted to be in a relationship and she was the one standing there in front of him. In other words, she doubted the real strength of his feelings for her and thought he only wanted a relationship with her because he wanted to belong to a family. Since in the end he chose to stay with House rather than go with her to commit to their marriage and start over, it looks like she was right.
All in all, it was a very badly written arc for the characters. It didn’t make sense for them to stay together beyond the first year, it made less sense for them to get married the way they did, and the least sense was how they broke up. It’s like the writers had no idea what to do with them once Thirteen, Taub and Kutner arrived and they went the bad soap opera route. Chase got to come back on the team because Kal Penn left (Kutner was Chase V2) but they didn’t know what to do with Cameron when Thirteen replaced her on the team and Cuddy replaced her as House’s love interest. It’s not that they couldn’t have used her as a sounding board or head of another department, someone to challenge House when Cuddy gave in, but Cameron worked best as a medical/ethical figure who fit the medical procedural story rather than the soap opera and that’s not the direction the show is going in these days.
Debbie, it sounds to me as if you are giving Chase a free pass on just about everything, including deliberately taking the life of another human being. (Not that I blamed him, but it’s a big deal, or at least it SHOULD be.) As “Kate” pointed out, Chase ignored all signs that Cameron was not ready to be in a relationship with him, and he was always insecure about her feelings for House. If he questioned whether she loved him or not, why did he marry her? Why did he push her so hard? Cameron is not blameless either, but I think the blame should be shared equally. Chase’s insecurities go a lot further back than Cameron; they go all the way back to his absent father and alcoholic mother. He had a very sad upbringing which has given him a sweet vulnerability, BUT he’s not the only vulnerable one. It’s just a convenience by the writers – who fail miserably at writing the female characters – to put the blame on Cameron so they can blithely write her off and forget her character ever existed. After all, why would a medical show need an ethical figure like Cameron to stand up to House for the sake of the patients when we can have a naked Cuddy or a sexy Thirteen who is willing to flash her colleagues? By all means, let’s make a mockery out of an original character and boot her out the door ASAP!
*POST AUTHOR*
I wouldn’t say I’m giving Chase a free pass, b/c no one is perfect and he’s just as damaged as the next House character. But if I were in Chase’s shoes, as much as I would try to forgive and not be resentful, I sure as heck couldn’t bring myself to dance with, let alone make love to, Cameron, especially after she so much as admitted she never loved him. Perhaps it was his damage that allowed him to do so — I’ll buy that.
I’m sorry, Debbie. I’m not trying to be dense or argumentative, but I don’t quite understand what Cameron did that was so unforgivable. I adore Chase, but I have to turn your question around and ask why Cameron would want to dance with, and make love to, HIM. (Pretend that he’s not gorgeous.) She gave in over and over again when Chase gave her his all-or-nothing ultimatums. The drawer, the engagement, the frozen sperm silliness; these all should have raised red flags as each time Chase doubted her commitment to him, and each time, she gave in rather than lose him. They married, and seemed to be happy UNTIL Chase did the unthinkable. He single-handedly carried out a plot to kill a man, albeit a terrible man, but murder all the same. (I never blamed him for that.) He didn’t confess this to Cameron, and continued to hide it from her even when she was aware that House knew what is going on and taunted her with it. She couldn’t possibly have been more worried about him or supportive. He came home drunk; she understandably thought he was having an affair. It dragged on and on until he FINALLY confessed. The next morning, we saw a forgiving Cameron, a Cameron who wanted to take Chase away from PPTH so that could get away from the scene of the crime and the bad memories. She thought he needed to get away from House. She wasn’t doing it for herself; she was doing it for Chase. In the end, though, Chase let her know that he did not regret his act, and that he apparently believed House when he said that Cameron will never forgive him. She ended up leaving without him. Was she wrong to leave? Yes, I think she was wrong to leave without further discussion. Did she do anything more wrong that what Chase did? NO! He MURDERED someone, for gawd’s sake. Nothing Cameron did can possibly trump that.
It’s inaccurate to say that Cameron said she never loved him. She said “I don’t know” at first, then amended it quickly (in their next scene) by saying she didn’t know WHY she said that, and it wasn’t true. She DID love him, she said, but admitted that it wasn’t the right kind of love. Duh. It was apparent before they became engaged that it wasn’t the right kind of love. She never should have married him; he never should have pushed her when she was so clearly reluctant to make a commitment. The relationship should have ended last season, rather than to be dragged out and used in such a ridiculous manner – as the only consequence to Chase’s act.
Again, I love Chase and Cameron equally, but I believe it’s terribly unfair to imply that Cameron is worthy of forgiveness ONLY because Chase is damaged, not because Chase did anything wrong himself. They are both to blame.
I have a few other comments and questions that I forgot to add to my post above.
1. Why did Cuddy get the “a-ha” moment? A busy administrator knows how many towels are in each room and exactly where each laundry cart is supposed to be in her off-duty hours of a huge hospital? Really? Cuddy finding the baby was as contrived as the scene in which she went into a dark CRACK HOUSE, armed with nothing but a flashlight, to search for a baby last season! (Yep, that really happened on the show.) Why wasn’t the laundry bin searched by the police? And where, exactly, WERE the police? They seemed to be just as incompetent – and invisible – as security at PPTH. Would they really not think to search in a laundry bin, knowing that the baby could not possibly have been taken out of the hospital?
2. How could Taub and Foreman get high from the Vicodin? There weren’t many pills in the container. As someone who has taken Vicodin for pain, I can honestly say that it certainly did not do anything like that for me! It made me groggy and nauseous, not euphoric. And from what I’ve gathered from the numerous complaints about this episode, it doesn’t do that for other people either.
3. Thirteen. This woman suggests a game of “Truth or Dare” with poor Wilson and then LIES throughout the whole game with a damned smirk on her face. What fun! Even harder to believe, she manages to fool Wilson, the man with a built-in bull**** o’ meter from years of dealing with House. It’s bad enough that this character all but ruined Foreman, but to make Wilson look like a fool… Inexcusable. But – hey! – she’s hot, so who cares? I mean, it’s not as if two doctors with House in common would have anything else to talk about, right?
With the exception of the excellent scenes between House and the patient, this episode represented the show’s willingness these last three years to stretch credibility to the breaking point.
*POST AUTHOR*
Anna, I’m not defending Chase or Cameron, but after she arrives there to give him divorce papers and admits she didn’t love him the right way, she’s the one who decides to lock the door and Chase just goes along with it (she started it! ;-)). Now, Cameron had just admitted to her damage, I hardly would have jumped right into bed with that. I therefore conclude that Chase was able to forgive her damage better than I could have. Although knowing how Chase just chased her and chased her, it makes sense that he’d take whatever bone she threw at him, and goodbye sex fits.
I would agree with this except for the scenes in-between where Cameron took the whole blame for the break-up, they reminisced companionably and sentimentally about things they missed, shared a dance, and then a heated kiss before she made her move. I really didn’t get the impression that it was a bone she threw at him; I saw it as a bittersweet ending to their marriage. Believe me, nobody hated the sex-at-work between the two of them in Season 3 more than I did, so I surprised myself by not minding the sex in this one.
And yes, she started it, but I’ll bet that Chase went back to House and proudly told her that he shagged Cameron during the lock-down. And then House would ask for pictures… :)