(S06E01/S06E02) "Oh, I'm sorry, is suicide taboo? Gosh, if I've broken a rule on my first day, I will kill myself." - House
This is not the House we know and love - both the show and character. While the lack of any resemblance to the typical medical procedural we're used to might have been a turn off to some, I feel pretty confident in saying that tonight's premiere will likely go down as one of the best episodes of House ever - regardless for how long it runs.
After seeing House check himself into a psychiatric hospital after last year's hallucinations and subsequent break-down, there's been one big question bugging us all and I pointed it out earlier today in my preview - is he or isn't he crazy? While we got our answer, it really doesn't matter because there was a whole lot more at stake than House's mental prowess in "Broken."
So let's get the obvious out of the way - House isn't crazy and the hallucinations of Amber, Kutner, and Cuddy were all a direct result of House's addiction to Vicodin. After seeing him go through what appeared to be a pretty painful bout of withdrawal, the voices in his head went bye-bye too. However, that has nothing to do with the fact that House does have problems aplenty, of which his drug habit was just one.
Fortunately for him, Mayfield's head, Dr. Darryl Nolan (incredible turn by Andre Braugher), knew better and even though House could check himself out anytime he wanted, Nolan made a pretty good point - if House only intended to get clean, then why did he go to psych ward and not a rehab facility? That and he promised to not write a a letter of recommendation should House you know, ever want to be a practicing doctor again. Guess who stayed committed?
Throughout the two hours, we saw House scheme his way through just about every trick in the book. Unfortunately, Nolan knew all the tricks. It was incredibly fun to see House continually outsmarted since it's always been the other way around. He stopped taking his pills? Nolan knew and tested him by subbing in a placebo. House tries to start a riot? Nolan defused it and gave in to House's demands immediately.
The thing that amazed me was that House didn't necessarily give up, but he started conceding more and more to the point where he had no next step other than to actually try to get better. He never gave in like this when David Morse's Det. Tritter was in his way. It seems as though House has more of a connection with Nolan and that aided in his submissiveness.
Once we realized that Nolan was smart enough to anticipate House (like with with sugar pills) it started making you wonder, as a viewer, what was real and what wasn't. I found myself constantly trying to figure how Franka Potente's Lydia could be a plant for Nolan, simply there to try and elicit certain emotions out of the normally emotionless House. She had to be a phony, right, because who would want him?
Once it was clear that there really was an attraction, it was amazing because we saw all these layers peel off House. The man cried! I mean, c'mon - after all he's seen and done, it finally took nothing more than another human taking an interest in him to bring on the water works. Saying "that's deep" would be the understatement of year when it comes to House.
The turning point - taking Freedom Master to the amusement park only to watch him jump off a parking garage when they left - was truly incredible to watch because for the majority of that arc, it felt case-of-the-week-ish. You thought House had him figured out and Nolan didn't. Of course, it turned out that House did know something was up and it all came together when Freedom Master gave Annie her music box back. However, how much of that was really House's doing? It was much more revealing to see him adhere to Nolan's mandate of "move on" instead of "fix." The solution came when House finally accepted that he was wrong and apologizing was enough.
A few more thoughts on "Broken" --
- Kudos to the supporting cast. Seeing Robert Sean Leonard's Wilson finally get to tell House "no," and mean it, was priceless. Plus Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alvy) and Curtis Armstrong (Richter) were both spectacular as House's fellow patients. Alvy was especially rewarding as we saw him go from looking up to House to resenting him to finally wanting to emulate him and get better.
- One thing that struck me? House is an incredibly intelligent individual, yet so much of Nolan's advice was obvious and all of it was news to House. I can't think of another moment in this series, even when we flashed back to his injury and Stacy (Sela Ward) in season two, when House seemed that vulnerable.
- Token irony? House ended the one true connection that he made, with Lydia, by helping her sister in law and thus allowing Lydia and her family to move. Sad, really. But again, and I'm not sure why I can't shake it, but doesn't it still feel a little set up? Like it was supposed to play out this way?
Now the hard part comes. How does this new and improved House fit in with his old team at his old hospital with his old boss and when he's surrounded by everything that shaped him into his old self? Has House truly kicked the pills? Sure, I say yes. However, even though his hallucinations seem to be gone too, how do we know there isn't still something wrong with him?
Nolan let House into his world when he asked Greg for a consult with his brain-dead father. He let House see him at his weakest. Part of his therapy? Or perhaps a veiled admission that while House may be able to diagnose all the patients he sees, Nolan can't. House isn't the same person anymore thanks to his vacation at Mayfield, but does that mean he's better?
[Watch full episodes and clips of House, as well as other shows, over at SlashControl.]
TV Squad Ten: Top Ten ESPN shows from worst to first
Andy Richter: The TV Squad Interview
Have any questions for Vik Sahay of Chuck? Ask them here!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
9-21-2009 @ 10:19PM
Shadowracer said...
The pacing was so uneven, the first half was one flew over the cuckoos nest(almost ver batim) and the second half was unintersting and slow, so damn slow. Every little plot point was so obvious that it seemed as if the writers were trying to fill 2 episodes, only because they have to.
I don't know that house changed in a single episode, but if he did he might much less intersting, unless the writers know what they're doing. After last season I wouldn't count on it.
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 6:34AM
aheath8930 said...
A really great great House. One of the best.
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 10:35PM
tacoburrito said...
Possibly the worst episode of the entire series. I knew there is no way any of the patients/doctors in the asylum will be recurring and hence I couldn't care less about any of them. They are just supporting players for House to toy around. The 'new' Greg House should be interesting to watch. WHat a waste of 2 hours, really.
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 10:38PM
Samantha said...
Loved it! And the scene where House raps is priceless!
It had everything--the expected, the unexpected. And I like the idea that House won't stay a predictable cut -out character, but can show growth, and still be House; it's all good.
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 10:49PM
Parl said...
It was alright. Not really sure where they go from here. I suspect within 1-2 episodes everything will be back to normal.
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 11:07PM
Malren said...
Yeah that first hour was not just wasted TV, it was just wholesale stolen from Cuckoo's Nest, among other mental ward stories.
The second half was brilliantly acted and directed and not badly written, but the first half was hacky as all get out.
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 11:43PM
Daniel M said...
I really liked this episode. Yeah it reminded me of the Cuckoo's Nest but that was just due to the setting and House's mantra. The first part I enjoyed and seeing house being beaten down repeatedly was funny but was not new material. The second half though was great. I thought every flowed well and the plots from this episode was great. It felt like a tv movie since this is not House MD. This was just house trying to get better
Reply
9-21-2009 @ 11:50PM
David said...
In a word? Perfect.
For two hours we were treated to a modern-day psychological hospital drama. It was one part "Awakenings", one part "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", and ten parts Awesome. We were treated to the sterling acting chops of Andre Brougher, who portrayed the head doc and a man who knows he's as tough and as stubborn as House. We were entranced by Franka Potente (from the Jason Bourne movies) and her unfaithful crush-cum-fling with House. We smiled at the beautiful eyes and face of Megan Dodds (who I first noticed in the enchanting reimagination of Cinderella by Drew Barrymore, "Ever After") playing a ward doctor who cares. And we shed a tear as House's brilliance selflessly (truly selflessly) healed two lost souls on the ward.
David Shore and Katie Jacobs have carefully nurtured their critical, artistic, and popular success these 6 years, but they haven't held back from pushing the envelope from time-to-time. (Witness their season 4 finale, an intricate tapestry of storytelling and symbolism that I think just might be one of the most brilliant scripts ever written for the medium.) Tonight's premiere was a touching, moving story, brilliantly written and beautifully executed.
For two hours, it was perfect television.
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 4:08PM
Marsha said...
I totally agree with EVERYTHING you said, David. Best two hours of television, ever.
9-22-2009 @ 12:15AM
GemmaDine said...
Loved it.....this was a great season premiere!!
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 12:25AM
Eludium-Q36 said...
Great character study, prolly will earn H Laurie another Emmy nomination. Doomed romance was "so House" but that he felt "lost" afterwards was cool. Wonder how long we'll see the "kinder, gentler" House this season ?
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 12:31AM
backbackheyhey said...
When Nolan and House were alone together in Nolan's office, was I the only one who half-expected House to blurt out a murder confession?
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 12:31AM
Barbara said...
I think it would have been better if it wasn't two hours. It just dragged on and on although there were some not bad parts I just found it pretty boring.
http://melancholymusings.com
http://soapgirl.today.com
http://moonlightdwelling.com
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 12:32AM
wackjob said...
The first hour was engaging, but the second hour--or rather, the last 45 minutes--was corny and totally television. Catatonic patients cured through music box? Please. House never actually talks to Nolan about having a psychotic break, hallucinating having sex with his boss, or his tyrannical father? Nolan lets House see him break down when his own father dies? Alvie suddenly decides to "get better" when House leaves?
I felt more and more disappointed as the episode went on, especially when House hugged people. I did like him smashing his face into the cake. The new, sweet, fun-loving House! And the smiley-face t-shirt...BARF.
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 12:36AM
Steven Noble said...
I thought it was a great 2 hours of tv and a great performance by Hugh Laurie but I'm not sure it connects to the series 'House' at all.
That said I do think they chickened out a bit. They had the jerk of a therapist and then they had the head psychologist who was helpful. I feel at some point they may have been the same character.
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 1:09AM
bruce said...
Horrible. I had a bad feeling they were going to blame his "seeing dead people" on the vicodin, which is SUCH utter bullshit. There's more than enough irrational fear about drugs like vicodin - which as a result are underprescribed leaving lots of chronic pain untreated - the last thing we need is for a show like House, which has the patina of medical legitimacy, to be suggesting that people who take vicodin can start hallucinating. It's an opiate, not a hallucinogen, and even if someone had some rare allergy to it, they wouldn't hallucinate and they wouldn't start to hallucinate after taking the medicine daily for years.
So the moral of House is no matter how legitimate your chronic pain is, you should not resort to taking vicodin, it will fuck you up and ruin your life and make you crazy.
Clearly the DEA got to the producers of House. Same thing happened to "Weeds" and the show is now ruined. The DEA complained and threatened Fox over House, saying the show glorifies the use and "abuse" of painkillers and that they'll go after the writers, producers, and creators if the show doesn't stop and begin to play along with the official drug war propaganda. Joe Goebbels would be proud.
So now the notion that someone could take Vicodin and perform (extremely) well at his or her job has officially been rebuked.
I know it's the DEA's fault, but I don't think I'll be watching House anymore. We get enough false drug war propaganda without having to sit down and watch an hour-long production sanctioned and approved by the DEA. Will any TV show ever tell the DEA to fuck off when they make these demands? Or is the "drug exception" to the First Amendment now official?
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 1:14AM
snowy2004 said...
I really think this was more of a House TV movie. They even made a special intro for it. While it's certainly part of the series, it feels as if it can stand alone since it feels like anything but a House episode. (except for the moment when he actually does end up curing two people.)
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 1:41AM
bruce said...
And aside from the fact that the underlying "evil hallucinogenic vicodin" plot was written by the DEA (your tax dollars at work), the whole thing was so cliche. The mental patient who hasn't talked in years who the main character gets to talk just by noticing him/her. The only way it could have been more of a cliche would have been to have made the mute patient a 7' tall native american with a feather head-dress.
That's what happens when you let the government write your scripts.
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 2:27AM
Saerain said...
First of all, House's more positive response to Nolan than to Tritter can easily be chalked up to the fact that Tritter was blatantly evil, like Vogler, only with more license to abuse people. Tritter was a twat. For all that many people (mistakenly, I believe) consider House evil, he stands up to people like that better than anyone else on the show.
Nolan blackmailed House, yes—quite wrongly, in my opinion—but aside from that, he's not at all similar to Vogler or Tritter.
Anyway, aside from that, I might mention to the people who are upset that the hallucinations were attributed to Vicodin that yes, it can cause hallucinations, though it is an extremely rare side-effect. I imagine that is why House checked himself into Mayfield: finding it more likely, as a doctor, that Vicodin was not the cause.
Now, with that out of the way:
I was pretty upset by the season finale last year. I didn't want the show to chalk the hallucinations up to Vicodin, since it is such a rare occurrence and adds to an already overblown fear of drugs, but I also didn't want them to simply peg House as crazy, because he has been possibly the most rational character on television.
This premiere took both routes in various respects, which was frustrating. The hallucinations were blamed on Vicodin and House's demeanor was treated as a psychological disorder. House even came to agree, because he failed to prevent a man who thought he was a superhero from jumping off a parking garage. What? Underestimating how crazy the guy was makes him crazy? Not to mention that House described himself to Nolan as 'miserable,' the single most overused and inappropriate descriptor applied to House since the series began. I was raging.
I have no problem with House being wrong, even about himself, but I find it really hard to swallow the suggestion that a calculatingly brilliant, extraordinarily introspective character would so easily break against Nolan's weak non-arguments. This premiere failed to convince me that anything but his Vicodin addiction and side-effects were problems. It didn't help that many of the events that we're apparently meant to take as genuine instead came off as manufactured: see Lydia and Nolan's father.
Overall, I can't help but feel like they just truly crippled the most engaging character on television, but I know better than to conclude anything like that from a premiere, so I'm eager for the coming episodes, of course.
Oh, and what happened to the SSRIs?
Reply
9-22-2009 @ 4:38AM
bruce said...
Unless you are mixing it with LSD, you're not going to get hallucinations from taking vicodin. I suppose there's always the case of some freak allergic reaction and the symptoms of an allergic reaction can theoretically be anything. But even if an allergic reaction to vicodin could cause hallucinations, 1) it would not be having conversations with dead people, it would be seeing bright lights and that sort of thing, and 2) nobody taking vicodin for as long as House has would suddenly become allergic to it. Impossible. It's never happened in all of medical history and it never will.
This is a clear case of the DEA demanding concessions from a TV show, and the TV show readily complying. Surely you've noticed House's vicodin popping has greatly diminished in recent seasons (compare it to season 1 and 2 when House flaunted his vicodin, taking it in front of patients, etc.). I think the writers/producers of House first tried to placate the DEA with the Tritter story - to show that bad things can happen when you pop vicodin like House does - but they weren't happy with it since he was still taking vicodin and still the beloved protagonist of the show. The DEA will not allow a TV show to show a drug user (prescription or street drug, doesn't matter) in a good light. As long as House is a medical genius who saves people and takes vicodin, the DEA simply would not allow it and kept complaining.
Do a Freedom of Information Act request for all the letters written by the DEA to Fox about their problems with the TV show "House." I have no doubt such letters exist. This season's premiere episode and the end of Vicodin for Dr. House are nothing more than the DEA getting its way. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave the DEA final script approval for all episodes of House.
Incidentally, the same thing has happened to Showtime's Weeds. That's why that show has been destroyed.
Reply