Anybody who knows me even a little bit will know that I'm a sympathetic cryer. If they are blubbing onscreen, I'll be bawling on the sofa. This week, in the two-pat seasonfinale of "House MD" there was a lot of tears. The episode was a chance to see a lot of the characters in a different-light - House at his most vulnerable and arguably at his most stupid; Wilson at his most desperate and "Thirteen" forced to face a side of medicine that she is, or was, not even remotely comfortable dealing with.
Sadly I can't review this two-parter without giving away a spoiler for what happens at the end of the series, so I may as well spill it now and get it over with: Amber aka Cut-throat bitch dies. Sorry to spoil, but it's difficult to get to the crux of the episode while skipping around that fact.
The first episode kicks off with House, badly wounded, at a strip joint. Having realised he was in a terrible bus crash, he does Remember that someone is going to die due to a symptom he saw - though he doesn't actually remember who. A series of flashbacks, both accidentally occurring and deliberately induced, lead to a bus driver with bubbles in his blood. But the presence of a mysterious woman leads to the discovery there is someone else badly ill - of course it's Amber.
House's desperation to discover this fact leads him to do a variety of stupid things, culminating -in the second episode- of having an electric shock delivered straight to his hypothalamus. It is this that shows us House at his most stupid- almost dying as a result - but also shows us Wilson at his most desperate - he effectively manipulates House into doing it. What's most interesting about this is why House would do this for Amber. After both Amber, and almost House have died, leaving the pair in a heavenly bus, we see House at his most vulnerable when he confesses to Amber he wants to stay because there is no pain. But Amber replies "We don't all get what we want." Her response is highlighted by a curious look, leaving us to wonder precisely what she is alluding to: her not getting a job on House's team. her not getting a personal relationship with House, or perhaps House not getting a personal relationship with her. Certainly House dreams a quite erotic dream about Amber suggesting the latter.
Of course the end of the episode is where I started to blub like a baby as House tears up at the randomness of Amber's death, and Wilson and Amber share their final moments together at Cuddy's insistence. It is Anne Dudek's tour de force in the series and I can't help but be disappointed by her departure.
And wasn't the only one. Both Kutner and Taub share a bond with Amber that Foreman can't understand, but 13 feels it particularly strongly-even to the point of being unable to do her job. It's a nice opportunity for House and 13 to come in to conflict. 13 finally not only faces it, bit also faces her few of not knowing her true medical condition.
In the same vein, it's nice to see how House's two teams don't mix. Foreman meets with Chase and Cameron, still not bonding with the new team. Indeed, it's curious that it is Taub rather than Foreman who broaches the awkward question of the possibility that House slept with Amber - something he, as a philanderer, can understand better than Foreman, or even Kutner or 13 (or is it Hadley? Will we ever learn her name?)
So Season 4 ends, and we have a chance to reflect on the whole season. It's been an interesting journey, getting to know and love the various interns who were up to replace the original team (still remember the old man who thought the same as House) and watching them being whittled down to the final three who I have to say I am tremendously enamoured of. The return of Foreman was well handled, and it's good that they didn't just back down and reinstate the original team, although both Chase and Cameron have become somewhat reduntant to proceedings, and it wouldn't be a huge shame to lose them. It's also been nice, mainly in the season finale, to get the chance to see House in a way that we have never seen him before. It's these changes to the show that have made the new season quite different to the previous three, the last of which was showing signs of staleness. I'm looking forward to season five to see how the changes this season will affect the programme.
"A+"
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