Synopsis: In the series finale, a desperate House wakes in a decrepit building from getting high with a junkie patient to find the patient dead and the building on fire. Left with the probability of going back to prison and being locked away while Wilson dies of cancer, House debates carrying on or giving up on life with visions of important people from his life.
If you have not seen this episode yet and do not wish to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Recap: On the precipice of being sent back to prison for violating his parole, House looks for any out to buy him some time so that he can help Wilson live out his final five months. Handling a walk-in in the clinic claiming to need painkillers because of an orbital fracture, House easily recognizes the guy as an addict and dismisses him. As the man goes to leave, House notices some bruising near his belly button that could mean there’s something more to his condition. The irascible doctor takes the case on, to the surprise of his team.
Meanwhile, House convinces Foreman to tell his parole officer and the board that he has eight cases that demand his attention and will keep him active for months to solve. He agrees to then surrender himself to fulfill his prison term after the cases are finished, thereby extending his freedom to cover Wilson’s life expectancy. Finding out within days that he passed off each of the cases, Foreman confronts House, who tries to rationalize that since Foreman was willing to perjure himself he should go with a full lie and tell the authorities that House wasn’t the one to flood the toilets. Foreman declines.
House next asks Wilson to take the fall for him, arguing that since he’s dying of cancer the police will show him leniency and no one will have to go to jail for the vandalism. Wilson, at first, agrees, accepting that it will give the two of them the time they were looking for. He quickly changes course and tells House that he’s through enabling his bad behavior, that House is going to have to learn to make better choices because he won’t be around any longer.
After the team has struggled to find out what is going on with the walk-in patient, House determines that he’s showing symptoms of ALS. He diagnoses that the man’s condition is deteriorating quickly and, while they talk, the man offers to take the blame for the vandalism for House. House initially agrees but, once more proving that the puzzle is more important than anything, he notices that the man’s symptoms are asymmetrical, meaning that his diagnosis is incorrect. Offering the correct diagnosis, the man is shuttled into surgery and his life is saved.
A desperate and despondent House, knowing that not only does he have no out for the parole violation but that he will not be able to spend the time with his best friend, checks the recovering patient out. The man is an unrepentant heroin addict and House asks him to help get high to check out. The two go to an abandoned building the junkie has been squatting and shoot up. The junkie OD’s and somehow the building catches fire.
House, considering giving up and dying in the fire, is visited by hallucinations of deceased colleagues Lawrence Kutner, who inexplicably committed suicide three years ago, and Amber Volakis, who was killed in a bus accident while escorting an inebriated House home; Stacy Warner, the former love of his life who made the fateful decision regarding a clot in his leg; and former subordinate Allison Cameron, who left New Jersey to become the head of emergency medicine at a hospital in Chicago. The first three try to help him determine why he is willing to kill himself and convince him to reconsider. The Cameron vision lets him know that it’s okay for him to give up, that he’s suffered enough in his life and deserves the rest.
The visions bring the realization that House can change his life, that he can allow himself to be happy and healthy, that he can pursue love and everything else life has to offer. With his newfound drive, House gets to his feet to find his way out of the burning building. Wilson and Foreman, concerned that House has been missing for two days, discover the address that the junkie used on his admittance forms. Checking it out, they find no residence but smell smoke from the burning building. Approaching the building, they can see House amidst the flames coming toward an exit. Just then, the ceiling collapses.
In the morning, the firefighters pull a body from the rubble of the now-squelched building. Wilson and Foreman accompany the body to the coroner, who confirms that it is Greg House. A short time later, a small memorial for House is held, his body cremated and ashes held in a decorative urn. His friends and colleagues get up and offer pleasant recollections of what House meant to them. Last to go is Wilson, who gives the same platitudes before stopping himself. He begins to launch into a tirade about the realistic House they all knew, becoming frustrated as the chirping of a cellphone continues to interrupt him. He finally realizes that the phone is in his own pocket but isn’t his. He opens it to look at a text message that states simply, “Shut Up You Idiot”.
Wilson drives to House’s old apartment and discovers him sitting on his stoop. Wilson is befuddled and House explains that he switched his dental records with the junkie’s. He tells Wilson he managed to find a way out of the back of the building and decided to fake his death. Incredulous, Wilson tells House that he won’t be able to go back to practicing medicine and he’ll be thrown in jail. House points out that, as far as anyone is concerned, Gregory House, M.D., is dead and that now they can spend Wilson’s remaining time together.
At the hospital, Adams and Park finish a differential and begin to work a case for the new Dean of Diagnostic Medicine, Dr. Robert Chase. Taub has lunch with his ex-wife, his former lover, and his two daughters. Cameron is back in Chicago and meets up with her husband and young child. Foreman is in his office and places his folder on an end table that he had tried fixing from being wobbly earlier. Still wobbly, he looks to one of the legs and finds that a badge is stuffed under it. He pulls the badge and discovers it’s House’s. The realization that House is still alive hits him and Foreman laughs.
House is out on the side of a road, urinating off of a bridge. He finishes and climbs back on to a motorcycle, Wilson by his side on his own bike. Wilson starts to caution House about how bad the cancer is going to get but House interrupts him with an old refrain: “Cancer is boring.” Wilson smiles. The two drive off.
Review: We don’t usually cover House here at KSiteTV, but as we are TV lovers, it felt right to cover the finale of such a touchstone series and a milestone event. First, brief context of my relationship with the series. I had an ex who was hooked on the show and introduced me to it in its third season. I got hooked, went back to catch up on the original seasons, and stuck with the show through the end of last season. I wasn’t particularly enthralled with Season 7 and the controversial season finale — House, in a tantrum over the dissolution of his relationship with Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), drives his car into her house — left me fed up with the series. House had become so distasteful and so irredeemable that it wasn’t worth watching any further. It wasn’t that House needed to be redeemed but there was a line he crossed that made it beyond unpleasant to spend any time with the character.
I hadn’t tuned in for any episodes this season, but upon realizing that the series finale was coming up, I devoted time this past weekend to catching up on the season. While I still think House’s punishment for his crime didn’t fit, I do have to say that the season felt much more believable and on-point than the previous season did. Perhaps, even more so than Season 6, as well. That’s not to say it was ground-breaking or compelling. If anything, the season felt very safe and secure, like the blanket that older procedurals offer people on a regular basis. Watching all of the episodes back to back even pointed out how similar all the cases had become and really spotlighted the formula of the series.
Still, the revelation of Wilson’s cancer, though cliché and more than a bit pandering, offered a touching cohesiveness to the end of the season and the series as a whole. It was a true joy to see the most meaningful relationship of the show at work and the beautiful chemistry of Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard relied upon so strongly to close everything out. In fact, the strongest parts of the finale were whenever these two were on-screen together.
With the great set-up from a compelling hour-long retrospective on the series that opened the evening, I was a bit surprised how mostly unengaging the series finale was. Yes, it was a treat to see former castmembers Kal Penn, Anne Dudek, Sela Ward, and Jennifer Morrison featured so prominently and each did wonderful work. And House honestly re-evaluating his life and making the sacrifice he does was a strong finish to the character’s arc. However, the structure of the episode left one cold to the entire experience until that final act. The time jumps in the narrative served to take the audience out of the story and it felt surprising incohesive.
The final case of House’s career was also unimportant to the main narrative of the story, other than offering a way to get House high and stuck in a derelict building that catches on fire. In the end, if felt like time spent with the patient was interrupting the real story and they either should have employed a different case or cut that aspect out altogether.
The twist of killing off House and then revealing that he didn’t actually die was nice in a sly cake-having-and-eating way. The symbolism, particularly by using fire as the means of “death”, was pretty apparent but nonetheless effective. It would’ve been nice to have seen more of the memorial service and the assembled guests — not to mention an appearance by Cuddy, though it’s not hard to imagine that she would’ve written off any and everything in the world of Greg House — but it was fitting that Wilson would be the one to snap and acknowledge the person they all knew House was. I also enjoyed the twist as a final homage to the Sherlock Holmes-John Watson relationship that inspired these two characters and Holmes’ believed death and subsequent resurrection in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. (It was fitting that they touched on this aspect during the retrospective, which was a surprising clue as to the end of the story, looking back on it.)
Greg House, one of TV history’s most memorable characters, got the ending that he deserved. The episode as a whole wasn’t as strong as one would’ve hoped but the story didn’t leave one wanting for anything more.
1 Comment
If you think that medical dramas are slow-paced, monotonous and far-stretched with regards to storylines, then watch House MD online and think again. It has re-ignited viewer interest in the imagination-driven hospital scenes. The physician’s optimism to drag a patient away from the tunnel of death, a patient’s strong will to free himself from the strong clutches of death and out of the queue medical procedures are once again gripping the audience.