House “The Greater Good” Cuddy’s Lobotomy is Complete

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This episode of House(Fox), “The Greater Good” wasn’t as horrible as some have been as of late, although I didn’t completely love it, either. This was the 100th episode of the series, and despite that they had a 100th episode party to celebrate it, you’d never know there was anything special about it. In fact, Drs. Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Chase (Jesse Spencer) were missing, which is OK with me because I am not that interested in them any more.

The patient of the week was Dana Miller (Judith Scott), a cancer researcher who left a very important project in order to find happiness. While she is being treated, she seems to be helping others to looking at their own lives and determine what makes them happy. To make a long story short, when House (Hugh Laurie) is having a discussion with Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) about her hormonal behavior, he has his weekly epiphany. He realizes that a surgery that Miller had months earlier resulted in a cut in her uterine wall, allowing endometrial cells to get into bloodstream. They proceeded to multiply and so what they are supposed to do at that time of the month – swell and bleed. How nice.

We also find Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) is struggling to find out how to move on after Amber’s death. He gets wisdom from Miller and at the end of the show, we see him washing one of Amber’s mugs, marked with lipstick, that he has apparently left on the kitchen counter since her death. This made me very happy, because frankly Wilson is probably the one character on the show that I seem to care about what happens to him. In fact, his character seems the most genuine than anyone else on the show. I'm glad he is trying to move on.

The relationship between Drs. Foreman (Omar Epps) and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) becomes strained when Foreman admits to her that he altered the drug trial for her and she is now getting the experimental meds. The problem is compounded when Thirteen develops serious side effects, like a sudden brain tumor. But, magically, Foreman and House do surgery somewhat “off the books” to fix her up. Foreman decides to report what he did to the drug company, and Thirteen's information gets pulled from the trial. Foreman is also forbidden to participate in any more trials. He is lucky he didn’t get fired. Still, as all of this was going on, I felt no chemistry between Foreman and Thirteen. Foreman seems a little too cold, and Thirteen too distant. There seems to be no passion there.

Drs. Kutner (Kal Penn) and Taub (Peter Jacobson) seem to be the only ones on House’s team that are actually focused on the patient, although Taub does begin to speculate on having children. His wife doesn’t feel the same way, and Taub seems to be accepting of that fact.



Image from Fox
The big miss with this episode is what is continuing to be a problem for the show – and that is Dr. Cuddy. This week, she has resorted to playing pranks on House in order to retaliate for him "making" her come back to work and keeping her away from her baby. She goes so far as to put a trip wire on the entry to his office door, and he trips, falls, and skins his knee. I have several problems with this whole scenario. First and foremost, it is not anyone else’s fault that Cuddy is back to work than Cuddy herself. She apparently hasn't properly groomed anyone to be her backup in her job, and Cameron, who was ill suited to cover for Cuddy, had too many House issues of her own to be able to handle the task. Cuddy also never got control over House, which continues to come back to haunt her. She also seems to think that her choice to adopt a baby should become everyone else’s priority, and anyone who gets in the way of her an her baby – in this case, House – should be punished. The fact that she strung a trip wire on his door, which ANYONE could caused ANYONE to trip and fall, was reckless, irresponsible, and downright mean. I found myself wishing that someone else, like a nurse or other doctor, would have walked in, tripped, broken and arm or leg, and then sued the hospital. I am coming to really despise Cuddy, and I do not understand why the writers for this show continue to paint her in such a horrible light. If I had an employee like Cuddy in a job like Cuddy's, I can tell you that they wouldn’t be an employee of mine for very long. It is almost like someone lobotomized her, because she is not behaving in a manner that I would expect from a Dean of Medicine . I find they way they are portraying her to be an insult to women and I am becoming increasingly offended by it.

My diagnosis for this show is that they need to move Cuddy out of her job, and get someone in there that will actually be a challenge for House. It doesn’t have to be anyone as extreme as when Vogler (Chi McBride) was calling the shots at the hospital, but it should be someone like that that can push House’s buttons in the right way. They need to bring the drama back, and fast. Otherwise, this show may find itself needing more serious treatment to heal itself.

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