“You need me, you may even love me but you don’t care about me and I deserve someone who does.” – Cuddy to House
One of my very favorite House episodes of all time is season one’s “Three Stories,” so when I saw the title of this week’s episode, I knew we were in for a fun ride. The non-linear storytelling, the sorting out the lies from the truth and the getting to the heart of the matter: big fun. I’ll throw a bit of that in at the end, but the heart of the matter is this: Does House care about Cuddy?
It’s interesting the way they left it open for interpretation. On the one hand, Cuddy acknowledges that he needs her, and those are the exact words that House uses when he’s talking to the principal. Needs; he doesn’t say “love” nor does he say “care about.” So is Cuddy right?
House is an ass; there’s no doubt about that. But really, just because a guy leaves the toilet seat up, doesn’t take out the trash and uses your toothbrush, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you. Listen lady, there’d be a whole lot more lesbians in this world if that were so. We don’t have to like that behavior, but here’s another piece of evidence toward my running theory this season that House is normal and that he and Cuddy are in a normal relationship experiencing normal things.
Plus, he does go to the trouble of stealing her laptop, reading her journal and making a public ass out of himself to try to get her kid into the preschool of her choice — if that doesn’t say “care about” in House-speak, I don’t know what does. Then, in my mind, the toothbrush he’s got stashed in his jacket seals it.
But, oh, how that normal relationship story was told — instead of a bunch of smart-ass medical students like we got in “Three Stories,” we got a bunch of smart-ass fifth-graders. House is delightfully inappropriate with children, so more big fun:
Now you weigh in: Does House care about Cuddy?
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Feb 21, 2011 @ 22:37 EST5EDT
I liked this episode a lot, and I appreciated not only how it varied the structure of the storyline, but also how the kids played a big part.
I do think that House cares about Cuddy, and I’m sure he knows he does. It’s just a matter of maturity. House is immature, and, no matter how much he cares about her, he is stunted in his ability to “play the part.” I guess we’d find him boring if he was able to do it easily! :)
Greg Y tweeted that ep 15 will be polarizing. I don’t know about that one yet but I definitely think this was was. If you Huddy, you’ve probably really like this because it’s almost all Huddy. If you are a House/Wilson, House/Stacy, House/Cameron shipper or watch the show for House being a misanthropic anti-hero, you’re probably disappointed at the contrast with Three Stories, which was half medicine and half House’s own backstory.
I think House does care about Cuddy but he doesn’t care about anyone but himself enough to make a relationship work. The show still hasn’t shown me that she is his True Love rather than an itch he needs to scratch even though they have told me she is often enough.