Fill me in, please!!! SPOILERS for tonight's and upcoming eps

[flywoman]

So of course I have to wait for the episode to come up next week, but my understanding from reading comments is that Cuddy and House had various weird dreams about their relationship and/or life after it, House couldn't stand to face his fears about Cuddy without getting back on Vicodin, Cuddy broke up with him for it, and next week's promo suggests that Depressed!House is going to jump off a building???

And what are the titles of the next two episodes? "Fall From Grace" and "The Dig"? Sounds really ominous. Unless Cuddy is just going to die really quickly from her totally unexpected and ridiculous metastatic cancer.

Comments

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Wilson was Cassandra in this ep, foretelling of doom and not believed.

I disagree that he was self-righteous in this ep (we've seen him be that before, for sure). He wasn't holding himself up as a better example; he was simply telling House what he had to do. And he knew House could do it, because House did it for Wilson. Wilson escorting House into Cuddy's patient room would have been just as much a crutch as vicodin. House needed to be able to take that step by himself, and he couldn't. It's horribly sad.

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

So he could do it for Wilson but not for Cuddy? What are we supposed to make of that?

[stenveny.livejournal.com]

Good question. He was convinced that if Wilson died, he'd be alone -- at the time, Cuddy wasn't in his life -- and he was able to handle it sober. I don't think the threat of losing Cuddy is supposed to be that much more crushing; more likely, her condition was more dire than Wilson's. She was much more likely to die of metastatic disease (they thought she had mets to her lung) than Wilson was to die of complications from a living organ donation.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. (Except, Cuddy was in House's life, and if something had happened to Wilson, I'm convinced she would've been there for House... but House probably didn't consider that, so it's moot. Anyway.) I agree with you that Cuddy had a much higher likelihood of dying and therefore it was more difficult for House. It's also easier for House -- and most people -- to handle a reasonably predictable outcome, as there was when Wilson was donating his liver, than an uncertain outcome, which was what Cuddy faced.

There's also the problem I've had with the House/Cuddy romance the whole season: that it's not based on a firm foundation of friendship and mutual interests. The show could've built it that way, and didn't. A twenty-year friendship that had already withstood trials was able to withstand Tritter, Amber's death and Wilson's surgery. A romance that wasn't built on mutual respect couldn't withstand a health scare. It's very sad. I feel awful for House and awful for Cuddy.

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

It is sad, but inevitable as written. They've been emphasizing from the beginning that they didn't have much in common, that Cuddy expected House to be other than he was, and that House basically has been clinging to her as an alternative to the drugs he would have swallowed if she hadn't shown up just in time. It was just a question of when and how, not if, it would end. Although I'm also feeling a bit jerked around by the way in which the writers chose to handle it.

[stenveny.livejournal.com]

Yes, ideally, he would have become (or realized that he was) strong enough, by season's end, to break up with her --whether he chose to, or not -- which would have brought the relationship out of the "rescue" mode from "Help Me" to a more equal footing, with both parties equally invested and equally capable (and equally stubborn.) But addiction is a process of relapse and recovery rinse and repeat, and relationships between saviors/save-ees rarely end well, so I guess this resolution was more realistic.

And this way, of course, House gets to be right. He predicted all along that it wouldn't last.

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to see them decide, as equal adults, that they were incompatible as long-term partners because of who they were and what they needed. But given the way the relationship started, I guess it makes sense that the writers went the love-as-addiction route. Still, it seems ridiculous that Cuddy would suddenly decide to give up on him because her drug addict boyfriend slipped up just once when he was afraid for her life.

Maybe her nightmare about him and Wilson bringing up Rachel was just too terrifying.

[stenveny.livejournal.com]

I'll go one step further, the show writers have gone to great lengths this season to demonstrate an *absence* of respect between these two very strong, independent characters, who at times haven't been very respectable -- Cuddy's been whiny and manipulative and House has been childish. It could be argued that these are characteristics they have both always had, but not to the same degree or disastrous effect. About the time "Pox" aired, I started to wonder what they saw in each other in the first place, and by "Two Stories" I barely recognized either of them.

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, I have been struck by these aspects of their dynamic for a long time - even wrote a fic about it, A Valiant Woman. They had great chemistry, but they also seemed to bring out the worst in each other. It might have been different if Cuddy weren't his boss, but I think her need for power and his for freedom are fundamentally incompatible.

[stenveny.livejournal.com]

And *that* would have been a much more interesting reason to explore, and ultimately end, the onscreen relationship. Instead we have a man fearful for 14 episodes that his girlfriend will leave him, and in episode 15, she does. Missed opportunity.

[pgrabia.livejournal.com]

I think that Wilson knew House could do it ordinarily, but i don't think Wilson understands just how much Cuddy has beaten him down with her manipulations and impossible-to-meet expectations. I think House was on the edge already so he didn't have the same strength and stability that he had when Wilson went under the knife.

I think Wilson was genuinely concerned about House and what would happen if he and Cuddy broke up. He knew there would be pieces and didn't want to have to pick them up--because he didn't want House to fall to pieces in the first place.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Agree with your second paragraph wholeheartedly.

I have a different perspective on Cuddy, though. I think House has spent this season running in circles based on what he thought Cuddy's wants were. He put that pressure on himself. There have been one or two things that she's insisted on that someone else might not -- the masseuse comes to mind -- but as Wilson said, on some things you have to compromise. House isn't very good at compromise, at all. Which is why it was funny/sad to see him try in an overexaggerated manner to do so early in the season.

No, I don't think House was actually happy with Cuddy, in a long-term, sustainable sense. But I also don't think Cuddy was a puppet-master pulling his strings. I think she was trying her best to have a good relationship.