House/Stacy and House/Wilson: Compare and Contrast
I always thought House's interactions with Stacy were most similar to his with Wilson. This is a good thing. Let's make this clear: House loved Stacy, Stacy loved House, and House's relationship with Stacy is the only standard available to see what he's attracted to and what does and doesn't work in relationships. The fact that his relationship with Wilson most closely resembles this one speaks volumes.
This section is just a few of many, many points that could become an essay on their own, and focuses on points relevant to "97 Seconds."
In "Need to Know," House says he can't make Stacy happy. In "Babies and Bathwater," Wilson expresses that House is one of the two things going for him in life.
Expanding on that, House expresses in "Need to Know" that he can't/isn't willing to change for Stacy, which is why he ends up sending her away. On the flipside, House is repeatedly shown following Wilson's suggestions (long list, but the episode "Human Error" makes this most obvious) and seems to do everything he can to keep Wilson around. However, in both scenarios, House is doing something difficult for someone he loves - he'd rather have Stacy be happy than be with him, and he makes changes in his life because of Wilson despite not being comfortable with change.
Stacy and Wilson have both faced the dilemma of whether to watch House (maybe) die, or try to do something; granted, the matter Stacy faced was more pressing, while Wilson has to deal with House's health in the long term.
Stacy risked her relationship with House to save him. Wilson risked his relationship with House by turning him into Tritter to get him a deal that would save him in more than one way (you know, if Tritter had kept his word...and House hadn't stolen oxycodone).
Three Stories and 97 Seconds: Parallels
In a broader scope, there a many parallels between "Three Stories" and "97 Seconds." Obviously, in both episodes, the topic of House not believing in the afterlife comes up.
House is technically dead for a short time in both episodes.
Both Stacy and Wilson touch on House's lack of self-worth. (This is further underscored in "97 Seconds" when House says he wanted Amber to find him, because she would have an incentive to revive him.)
Stacy: Would you give up your leg to save my life?
House: Of course I would.
Stacy: Then why do you think your life is worth less than mine?
Stacy: You don’t think you deserve to live? You don’t think you deserve to be happy?
Wilson: Maybe you didn't want to die, but you didn't care if you lived.
Both episodes leave House marked - the amputation with the scar on his right thigh and the electrocution with a burn on his left hand.
Both episodes feature "fake ducklings" - "Three Stories" had the medical students, "97 Seconds" had Foreman's fellows. (Yes, this has also been done in "Airborne" and "Human Error," but it's interesting to note.)
Both episodes have doctors making costly errors, and House indirectly making an error. House's doctors fail to diagnose the infarction in time to avoid complications, but House himself failed to diagnose himself for three days. In "97 Seconds," Thirteen's lack of attentiveness keeps her from knowing the patient hadn't taken the medication, but House himself was also inattentive.
Opposites
Just as there are interesting parallels, there are interesting differences between the two episodes that are direct opposites. In "Three Stories," House can't get more morphine despite practically begging for it; in "97 Seconds," Wilson offers up extra painkillers without being asked.
The scenes being compared in the two episodes happen at opposite times: the scenes with Stacy occur before House goes under. The scene with Wilson happens after House wakes up. There's a sense of some kind of continuity there.
"That Scene"
Right away, something about this scene seemed familiar. The visuals are similar to those in "Three Stories," as well as the music cues, and even lines of dialog. It's a little difficult to believe this was all done by mistake.
The first shot of House in the hospital bed in both episodes is very similar; it's interesting to note that the shots in "No Reason" don't resemble these two (I would put it here, but that's a bit too much work for one screencap for me, so take my word on it).
I separately noted that Stacy is to House's right, while Wilson is to House's left, and that House is scarred on his right leg in "Three Stories," while he burns his left hand in "97 Seconds." Then I noticed that the two might be connected.
Two pieces of dialog are the same in both episodes. Stacy says, "[God,] you're an idiot." Wilson also says, "You're an idiot." House says, "I love you" in both episodes.
"I love you." This is the real clincher. Hugh Laurie's line delivery would have been completely identical in the two scenes, except House was weaker and about to go under in "Three Stories." The music cue is also the same - the scene starts with no background music, just the beeps of machines, and then is subtly introduced and finally hits climax right after the delivery of "I love you." Finally, House's eyebrow-raise is also the same in both scenes, thus it wasn't a sarcastic eyebrow-raise.
It's eerie, isn't it?
Page Summary
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Designed by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chasethestars
chasethestars
Comments
Scratch "they" before "their deep friendship."
Replace "does happen" with "happens."
"Wilson's feeling" should be "Wilson's feelings."
Scratch "Wilson" in "consideration Wilson."
"Short lived" is one word.
I can read and write. Honest.
Upon looking at House's various relationships (be they romantic or friendly) throughout the series, it's downright indisputable that his relationship with Wilson is the most textured, the most nuanced, and most complex in the entire show. It has been through so much shit and back that I fail to see how TPTB are going to make any romantic interest as captivating as these two (even if they will never become anything more than friends).
The only way, the TPTB are going to be able to sell a het ship is if RSL leaves the show. But of course that means loss of almost half their viewers. I don't care if House and Wilson each screw six different Sallies each. The most important, interesting, hot, sexy, complicated, mysterious, engrossing relationship will always be the one between House and Wilson.
I really think there's something brewing on the H/W front. Wilson's response to the I love you shows that he is still hurting from the Tritter arc and really doesn't trust House. I think House's ILU was sincere. It reminds of the episode S2-SAFE. House told Wilson that he wanted him to stay but Wilson didn't believe him so House showed Wilson that he wanted him to stay by deleting the landlord messages from his phone. When Wilson confronted about it, recall what House said "wou wouldn't want to live WITH a liar".
So I'm thinking House is going to do something to prove to Wilson that he loves him with or without the drugs.
I read Wilson's reaction to House's declaration similarly. His reaction struck me as: "You love what I can do for you, not me as I am." and/or "Whatever, dude. Everybody lies."
Any normal human being would probably feel the same way. You don't survive a damaged friendship without feeling wary. Most people in Wilson's situation throughout season 3 would have given-up on House a long time ago. It speaks to Wilson's patience and endurance that he hasn't let the friendship completely disintegrate. What worries me, however, is that he may be holding onto the friendship because he has nothing else. It certainly seems to be playing that way.
I had to re-watch the scene from 97 Seconds a few times to fully appreciate what was going on. It was definitely a serious declaration that was portrayed (intentionally, per the writers and director, most likely) as a poorly masked joke. Wonderful acting on Hugh's part. Moreover, the scene cuts to the POTW, who dies. You don't slap a inconsequential scene next to the ultimate climax of the episode. You just don't. You do, however, place a scene that is relevant to the climax before it.
What I mean to say is: whereas the POTW believed he didn't have anything worth living for, not even his deeply invested dog, House survived death and woke-up reaffirmed in his belief that there's nothing better than the living present (as the "Told you so" line seems to suggest). Waking-up to his deeply invested best friend, Wilson, had to have spurred him to say "I love you."
A few viewers criticized the dog's accidental death since trained helping dogs are usually disciplined to not eat random pills off the floor. That's all well and good, but these viewers are forgetting we're watching a story. The dog died for symbolic reasons. When his master died, the dog would have no one. The dog had lost its purpose and its only real companion whom it was good to, loyal to, and loved unconditionally. That is a pressing point: what would Wilson have if House had died? There's a reason- a DAMNED good reason- why these two scenes are next to one another!
Which makes me believe that you are correct, Idon. In the future, I have some faith that House will prove that their love for one another is mutual. To that House must do what the POTW could not: value his own life.
Beyond all this, my only beef with the 'afterlife' storyline is that House has already died for about a minute in Three Stories. He's technically "already been there." Twice if you count No Reason. I'm not sure about MLC, though that was also clearly a near-death experience. But how do you hallucinate if you're dead? How do you remember "nothing" if you've been dead? What if you just don't remember what you saw when you wake-up? And clearly, House will outlive everyone. Wilson doesn't need to worry. The man's indestructable.
And now, I apologise for intruding in the discussion (am adding this because the comment turned out to be quite lenghty)
I think that in this season something important is going to happen to House and Wilson's friendship. They've already been "harrassed" by circumstances (the 3rd divorce, Tritter) into pushing their relationship, testing it in many different ways, and even though there were obviously consequences, we've seen that they're both willing to make a tremendous effort to keep things the way they're used to - because it's known, and comfortable, and safe, and it's probably taken them a while to figure out dynamics, and really, they're both a bit old for new tricks, right? But, as announced by House's disposition to change at the end of S3, it seems that now that the stakes are higher and lower - the first because, with the original ducklings gone, and the divorce, there isn't much going for them except for their jobs and each other, so they could be inclined to be more careful about both; the second, because there are no circumstances breathing down their necks, just... them. It's a bit like what it was when everything began (S1), but so much has happened that there's no way they've remained unchanged.
House, for one, is too tired (at least for now) to emotionally invest in new fellows. The isolation can provide him and Wilson the time to acknowledge and process all that has been happening to them, what state their friendship is in, atm, and I believe that they just might take action. To what direction, I wouldn't know, but.
We don't know much about how they met, became and stayed friends. But my guess is that, just as Wilson's patience, wit and humour enabled him to endure the wait for acknowledgement, they'll eventually see him into more than disguised scraps of affection on House's part. Don't get me wrong, my slashy goggles catch House's madluv often enough, but I do believe that at some point Wilson will cash it all in: "okay, so you're emotionally crippled and I should be grateful and take my invitations to Monster Truck when I can get them, but it really isn't enough". And House might call his bluff, but he'd pay. Probably in some outrageous, perhaps distressing and totally disarming manner, but ;]