(S04E11) "Never before has a profession been so decried by someone who needed it so badly," Wilson [about psychiatry] to House.One of my favorite parts of this episode was the quote I have chosen to put at the beginning of the entry. Wilson accuses House of not liking Cate, the patient, because she is a psychiatrist. House counters that there are many reasons he does not like the patient, and Wilson comes back with that retort. The reason I like it so much isn't because I think it's meant to be about House. I like it so much because I think it's a sneaky little slam on Tom Cruise. Or at least, if that is too much of a stretch, then I like it because it certainly can be applied to Tom Cruise and his very public outcries against psychiatry.
Of course, we know that House actually does like Cate. Very much. He might even be in love with her-- or as in love with someone you have never actually met as a person can be. I think he likes the fact that she is so isolated and dependent on him. She also stands up to him, which he respects. As much as he wants his co-workers never to know quite what to do: be subservient, stand up to him, obey him without question, defy him and come up with answers-- he doesn't have to have any expectations of Cate. She is a patient, so he doesn't owe her anything.
House takes patients because of what they give to him: They are interesting. He really does not care whether they live or die, because everyone is mortal. What he cares about, as has been demonstrated for four seasons now, is the puzzle, the mystery. Even after a patient has died, he will pursue the case until the mystery is solved.
Cate is a psychiatrist stationed in the South Pole, with limited medical supplies. She starts vomiting and has pain in her side, which House thinks is caused by kidney disorder. As a psychiatrist, she has had enough training in anatomy and medicine to operate as her own physician, which is hardly the optimal situation. This all makes the case incredibly compelling. House can disdain her for not quite being a doctor, but he esteems her for standing up to him and for knowing enough about medicine to disagree with him. She refuses to use precious supplies for her own health care unless House can definitively prove to her she needs them. And House can't do that.
Cate reprimands House for solving cases "like a firesale." House has unlimited resources at Princeton Hospital: He can call for unlimited tests and try dozens of treatments in order to eliminate erroneous diagnoses. He has always done this. It might seem like he is not really good at what he does: However, who else is going to know where even to begin eliminating diagnoses? Who else knows what paths to try, what part of the marble on a sculpture to carve away to create the David? House is an artist: He is the best at what he does, and regardless of his methods, he gets results.
However, this episode tests and proves one of his theories: It's better not to care about the patient. If you care, you make mistakes. Cate has to complete a physical exam to test her lymph nodes, because Foreman points out that cancer would explain her symptoms also. Cate and House are communicating with the chat function on their Macs (which is amazing: New Jersey to the South Pole, and I can barely get it to work within the state of Missouri...), and she has to perform the physical exam with him watching. She removes all of her clothes except her socks, which House lets her keep on because it is so cold there. This turns out to be a mistake.
In the meantime, in order to keep Cate to himself and also to teach his flunkies a lesson in standing up to him (aka subplot), House sends his crew to torment Cameron. He ostensibly wants Cameron to exert her influence on the Budget Committee to restore cable to patient rooms, without making the patients pay for it. In this way, House can continue to watch cable in coma patients' rooms: Who in their right mind would pay for cable for a coma patient, though? I loved the inside joke here: Cameron tells house he will just have to make do with broadcast television, and he remarks that he will be fine on Tuesdays. The fact that he said this on a Sunday made it even funnier for some reason, but we all knew what he meant.
Did you catch the other inside joke? Wilson and House and Foreman are all talking to Cate and Wilson remarks that House has called the patient by her first name and House has never done that before. House then retorts back to Wilson by calling saying, "Just trying to move things along, Bob."Wilson's first name is James, but the actor is Robert Sean Leonard: He actually is Bob.
As always, we find out more about House and Wilson both through the patient. The patient investigates Wilson because she thinks he might not be as nice Wilson seems because he hangs out with House. Wilson also points out that House seems more concerned about Cate than he ever has about anybody else, and Cate calls House on it: "You have spent more time with me than any other patient."
And there is the usual conversation about whether or not House thinks everybody is miserable so he won't have to take any responsibility for his own misery. That schtick is getting a little old: House doesn't seem that miserable. Sure, he's putting away bourbon every night to sleep. That isn't necessarily misery. Sometimes that is just getting older.
When Cate slips into a coma right before she is heading outside to test Foreman's theory that if she has an autoimmune disorder, the cold will make her feel better, House's world changes. Suddenly, he can't deal with Cate directly. He has to deal with Sean, the mechanic who had his femoral artery sliced by a windmill blade at the opening of the episode. They tell Sean that he will have to drink Cate's urine in order to help diagnose her, and Sean doesn't hesitate. This leads House to conclude that Sean is in love with her. House covers up blurting this out by saying only that this tells him Sean will do anything to save her-- when actually, House is covering up jealousy, and probably disappointment. If Sean is in love with Cate, and Sean is there with her in the South Pole, what chance does House have of continuing his little online chats once her problem is diagnosed and solved?
Foreman and House get Sean to drill into Cate's brain to relieve the pressure. Then Kutner decides to take House at his word and stand up to him, suggesting that Cate's problems might be caused by fat being thrown off like clots. House realizes that he hasn't seen Cate's feet because of the aforementioned socks. They get Sean to remove her socks and find out she has a broken toe: Bone marrow has been throwing clot-like pieces, causing all of Cate's problems. She never knew her toe was broken because she never removes her socks, and the cold masked the pain. [She didn't remove her socks for weeks and weeks and weeks? or even Days and days and days?]
Sean straightens out the break and that is that: She will splint the toe and she will be cured. She and House have no more reason to speak to each other again. They say goodbye with a look, but they are, ultimately, patient and physician. And caring caused him to let her keep her socks on, which almost killed her. Erego: It's better not to care.
But it isn't enough for House not to care, or for House to be alone. He has suspected for the entire episode that Wilson is dating someone, but he cannot figure out who, so he shows up at a restaurant where Wilson is meeting a date and discovers that it's Amber. Cutthroat Bitch is back.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-04-2008 @ 9:18AM
fred said...
Well, it was a really good episode, if you forget about that stupid cable subplot !
I really didn't liked it, it wasn't good, and except for the "Tuesday joke" there was nothing good there. I thought House wasting supplies like a child was really below him, the whole thing felt to me like a filler to get Cameron something to do, and say.
And in the end we got the whole team to be mising this time, because House's team here was made of Foreman & Wilson basically.
Also, is it me or was that a little in contradiction with last week ? Here, he wants his team to stop being afraid and stand up to him ? Last week, he complained to Cuddy that his team were not afraid anymore and something had to be done, like hiring new candidates, because those three didn't fear for their jobs no more ?
But apart from that I really liked the whole medical case, and to see House care for someone, one of his patient at that, was really nice, despite proving himself right.
http://tvoholic.com/episode-reviews/house-frozen/
PS: I'd love for Mira Sorvino to come back, although I don't really see that hapenning. And I kinda wish we'd see Marie (or whatever her name was) from last week back ? You know, Marie the prostitute...
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2-04-2008 @ 9:26AM
vacelts said...
I thought it was interesting the House played his getting personal with the patient for getting in the way of his diagnosis.
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2-04-2008 @ 10:47AM
khamel said...
she works at the hospital, she'll be back (maybe, if mira sorvino wants to).
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2-04-2008 @ 10:58AM
kevin said...
I would like to see Mira Sorvino return perhaps in the season finale. I think is was telling when she looked into the camera at the end when Sean hugged her.
Just because Sean has a crush on a woman he is isolated with in Antarctica does not mean the feelings are requited.
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2-04-2008 @ 11:14AM
ORKMommy said...
You forgot one of the best lines of the night. When House & Wilson were in the elevator and House was trying to guess who Wilson was dating... He said something like "your ex-wife" and Wilson said "your mama!". I almost spit Coke across my living room!!
I'm really impressed with Wilson's character. He was pretty weak in the early seasons, but he's really come into his own since last season. He's probably one of my favorite characters now.
And what was with Cuddy missing again?
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2-04-2008 @ 11:50AM
Oreo said...
Chuddy wasn't missing, she was on the show for 10 seconds.
And Cut-throat bitch! i thought Wilson had better taste than that. She is obviously using him to get something out of House.
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2-04-2008 @ 12:17PM
Joey Geraci said...
House is still a good show, if you can face the fact that it is basically a sit-com. In that the situation that the show is based upon doesn't really change from episode to episode, (certainly not from season to season). When they try to make permanent changes, like changing the team, it crashes and burns miserably. (The new team is just pathetic in every way. Cameron-light-and-stupid, Kutner-idiot-and-sycophantic, and Taub-barely-there)
Neverthelesss, the writing on the show is still well-above average, (even if the story arcs, few and far between as they are, are well below subpar). The acting is very good on the part of House and the guest patient of the week, but the rest of the cast gets little to do (Wilson occasionally gets some juicy scenes, but that's pretty much it).
I would be fine with House the way it is if I hadn't seen glimmers of what it could be (or glimmers of what House's character could grow to become). Like in the whole Tritter arc, although it was stretched too long and got a bit ridiculous towards the end, showed some real dramatic tension on House's part, and the hope that he might grow as a man. And then of course, the wonderful couple episodes a while back when House's physical pain (and his emotional pain, somewhat) went away. It was really a sign of what this series would turn into when his pain came back, along with his misery.
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2-04-2008 @ 12:22PM
Joey Geraci said...
It is kind of funny to compare Jericho with House. Jericho's writing is nothing to write home about, neither is the acting. But the overall story arc is fantastic, and that is what got people so fired up when it was cancelled. House has excellent writing, and above-decent acting on the part of House and the guest patient, but the story arc, over the course of the series, is practically nonexistent. If House was cancelled, I don't think there would be such an uproar. Although missing my dose of misanthropic humor for the week would be unfortunate, its not like the show left me hanging. There are no loose plot strings for the show to tie up because the show doesn't bother to sew any kind of storyline from week to week anymore.
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2-04-2008 @ 1:24PM
reverenddebby said...
maybe I misunderstood, but I got the impression that House had seen Cate 1 time as a patient. In the beginning Sean asked who they should call about Cate being sick, and then there's House, who Cate knew was brilliant at his job. Cate also talked to House like she knew a little about him and wanted to explore more, seeing his place, comments about the bourbon, no photos, etc...
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2-04-2008 @ 1:34PM
Cindy said...
Is Thirteen House's daughter?
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2-04-2008 @ 5:44PM
Argus said...
I feel really weird about House now... I loved this episode though, however the characters are confusing.
I felt that Cameron's character had completely been exhausted, and I see no reason for her to be there. The reason that people compare 13 with her is that they are both very shallow characters with no real depth. At least 13 is a new character so they can change that. Chase and Forman remain interesting, as does Cuddy and Obviously Wilson. Taub has no value (also a very shallow character) however Kutner has basically been the driver of the newbs for the past while. I started off not liking Amber, and liking 13, but I sort of hope that Taub, Cameron, and 13 get fired and Amber gets put back on the time, with Chase moved back onto diagnostics.
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2-04-2008 @ 7:27PM
Doug Nelson said...
I cheered out loud when Cut-throat Bitch reappeared ("actually, I call her Amber"). I was hoping she'd win the contest.
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2-06-2008 @ 12:37PM
Anthony said...
I tried to memorize the other lines I liked but the only one I could come up with was by Wilson, something like "She's a doctor, and she cares about her patients? What a poser!" and it also seems he has a number of yo' mama (scene in Meet the Spartans was kinda fun) jokes up his sleeves
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2-18-2008 @ 11:26AM
ladyangst said...
"As a psychiatrist, she has had enough training in anatomy and medicine to operate as her own physician, which is hardly the optimal situation."
I know I'm late with this one, but I would like to point out that as a psychiatrist, she wouldn't have simply had "enough training...to act as her own physician." As a psychiatrist, she IS a fully trained and licensed physician who happens to have SPECIALIZED in psychiatry.
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2-18-2008 @ 8:12PM
Ivor said...
anyone can tell me what that song was playing when they finally wake up mira sorvino????
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4-08-2008 @ 11:24PM
Stroppy Stitcher said...
Did anybody notice that the basic premise of this episode was wrong? The Northern Hemisphere was in the middle of winter (unless it snows all year round in North America...) which means Antartica was enjoying summer (or as close as it gets there...) yet there was no way they could evac her ... strange, as summer is prime time for travel to and from Antarctica - you'd have thought one of the many tourist ships, Japanese whaling ships or even Greenpeace could have stopped by and leant a hand.....
Also, if by some geographical freak it was indeed winter in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, why was it light in Antarctica? If it was winter, it would have been dark, as the night goes on for months down there in the winter time.
Small things, I know, but some of us like to get that sort of stuff right...
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