Last night’s episode of House brought us three relationships (four if you count House and Wilson, the ultimate bromance) to compare and ponder, especially where the subject of honesty is concerned. I was left with the question knocking around in my head: What is honesty, really?
The patient and her husband had an open relationship because they wanted to always be able to tell each other the truth. Ironically, it turns out that the husband was lying and actually wasn’t sleeping with anyone but his wife … he lied for the sake of his wife’s happiness.
I cannot see Dr. Taub as anything but a selfish bastard. As soon as the line about the patient’s husband not being honest so that his wife could be happy was tossed out there, I knew Taub was going to twist that noble act into his own form of selflessness: Taub decides not to be honest about cheating, because when he tried the open marriage idea out on Rachel, it hurt her. So Taub decides to do what he wants and cheat, and not tell her about it so she can be happy. To that line of logic, I say, “huh?” You are a selfish liar, Taub, and any way you want to twist it that doesn’t come out differently. You put your own happiness above anyone else’s, even if it hurts them. How can someone twist the idea of honesty so completely?
You’ve got to hand it to House … he’s a manipulative bastard with his heart in the right place. He wanted to make sure that Wilson was being honest with Sam this time around so that they’d have a chance at happiness, so he interfered a bit to get things rolling. When Wilson and Sam were finally honest with each other about what went wrong the first time, and how they could do things differently, it seemed like they just might stand a fighting chance. Dr. House, if anything you are honestly Wilson’s true friend.
The difference in the two relationships that worked out is that the participants were honest with themselves, and genuinely wanted the person they loved to be happy. Taub? He’s just fooling himself if he thinks he’s really lying for the love of his wife. He’s lying to protect himself and allow his bad choices to happen, nothing more. He’s lucky to be loved by Rachel, for all he’s given her. Even the wining, dining, romance stuff is all for him, so that he’ll look like he’s a great husband.
Other things — two former TV doctors guest-starring on a medical show as not-doctors … interesting.
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Apr 27, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Great! I just watched the episode and of course CC delivers something for me to comment on. Who can I hug around here for that? Any takers? No? Oh well… :-)
First of all let me say that it irritated the hell out of me that we currently have “Libby” from Lost on that show as well as on this one here. It’s kind of ironic that Lost not making the Olympic Games pause results in this. So the actress is currently both Hurley’s as well as Wilson’s GF. Weird.
Did you notice House putting the milk back into the door in the fridge at the end? I think that kinda screws with your theory that House acted selfless here. I mean if you believe that Wilson and his former Ex are now so tight that he won’t mind and see it as a hapless puppy or small child to rebel (-> House) then it’s kinda cute – but only if you forget the enormous amount of screwing with people House did in the past. Let’s cross our fingers that this was his little rebellion and that was it and that he doesn’t need more PI work to actually screw this up. Because, you know, House still IS a manipulative ass.
Oh and I can add another relationship – 13’s parents. And one that wasn’t mentioned: 13 and Forman. Because Forman chose his job over her which. Like Chase did. You now what? The whole team consists of a bunch of selfish bastards when you look at what happened this season alone (only 13 didn’t do something bad – yet. Or did I forget something?). Kind of an underlying theme on this show.
I agree with you about “Libby” – that bugs me too.
I also agree about House – he forced Wilson to be honest with Sara (which could be considered a good deed), but he did it probably thinking that Sara was too selfish to come back to Wilson. He was wrong – and it seems he was a bit annoyed about that, hence the milk stunt at the end.
*POST AUTHOR*
I’m not sure House had an expected outcome to the Wilson / Sam thing. I think he’s always trying to get Wilson to be “better” and I honestly think that was his goal. The milk stunt at the end was just House annoying Wilson, something the two of them have done back and forth throughout the whole series. Do I just want to believe in House’s goodness too much? ;-)
No I think you are right Deb.
Problem is in the past House also only tried to annoy and look where he’s ended up with Cuddy (at the moment) *sigh*
Let’s see where this will go. Usually it ends in disaster but with House and Wilson still “bros”… and that’s all I need to be honest, I don’t care about all the other relationships. Oh wait, I DO care. Gives me something to bitch about ^^;