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A review of the “House” series finale coming up just as soon as I say that Pascal’s Wager is facile…
The “House” creative team never tried to hide the influence that Sherlock Holmes had on the medical drama: the names, the one-sided friendship with Watson/Wilson, the drug problems and, of course, the misanthropic sleuth who can act as your biographer after a 10-second glance. So it feels appropriate that Shore would end the series with a gambit borrowed from Arthur Conan Doyle, who ultimately grew tired of Holmes and had Holmes and Moriarty plummet down the Reichenbach Falls in his story “The Final Problem.” When it became clear that the public wasn’t done with Holmes yet, Conan Doyle resurrected him with a story in which the great detective revealed to Watson that he had faked his death so he could deal with a variety of other enemies in secret.
House never had a Moriarty, and showrunner David Shore’s occasional attempts to supply him with an outside nemesis usually fell flat. House was always his own worst enemy, so the “House” equivalent of “The Final Problem” put our man in the Princeton equivalent of the Reichenbach Falls (a burning building where House had been scoring heroin with a former patient) and put him into conflict with himself – albeit dramatized in the form of “House” characters both deceased (Kal Penn’s Kutner, Anne Dudek’s Amber) or long-absent (Sela Ward’s Stacy, Jennifer Morrison’s Cameron), who each represented a part of House’s mind that either wanted him to save himself or lay down and let the fire take him.
“House” had dabbled in both self-reflection and hallucination in the past, but the finality of “Everybody Dies” (a riff on the title of the series’ debut episode – and House’s first lesson to his assistants – “Everybody Lies”) made it feel like a more important referendum on Greg House than the previous ones.
Sooner or later, Shore found a way to undo whatever earlier progress had made, whether physical or mental, so that the series could continue being what it had always been(*), but also out of his own frequently-expressed belief that people are incapable of change.
(*) Shore may be right about that, and even if he’s not, that thesis doesn’t inherently prevent a drama from greatness – David Chase felt much the same about Tony Soprano and friends, after all. But when you combine the refusal to have any of House’s changes stick with the show’s formulaic procedural mystery structure, you get a show that became very tiresome to me after a while. “Everybody Dies” was the first episode I had watched since last season’s House/Thirteen road trip episode, and that was the first episode I had watched since midway through the season before that. Conveniently for me – and any other viewers who might have come back for the finale after an absence – the two new members of House’s team had very little to do, and new plot developments like Wilson’s cancer were explained quickly.
A series finale, though, offered Shore a chance to introduce permanent change if he wanted it to, without worrying about how difficult it might make applying the formula to future episodes.
He could have had House give up and die in the fire. He could have had House run out the door, stop, drop and roll and declare himself a new man who would stop and smell every flower. He could have done a lot of things.
Ultimately, Shore went with an emotionally tricky conclusion. After debating with his imagination for most of the hour about his fear of his own mortality, about his obsession with solving puzzles above all else, about whether he’s capable of finding someone else to love him (in either a Wilson or Stacy sense), House is accused by the Cameron figment of once again taking the cowardly way out of things.
“You’re right,” House tells her. “But I can change.”
Of course, moments after he makes this declaration, he appears to die when a collapsing beam blocks his exit right before the building blows up. But Wilson discovers that House faked his death just as Holmes did, sacrificing his entire life – including the ability to practice medicine and continue to solve those puzzles he loves – in exchange for the ability to avoid jail in the present so he can take the dying Wilson on one final adventure.
It’s not quite as ambiguous an ending as the final scene of “The Sopranos” – we know that House survived, and we know that Wilson will be dead within five months of when they take off on those motorcycles together – but it’s one you can definitely view multiple ways. House’s decision could be an enormous change: a selfless act where he gives up the thing that gives his life happiness and meaning in order to be there for his only friend in his final days. Or it could be more of the same: House gaming the system one last time to get what he wants, and worrying about the consequences later. (I can imagine, for instance, a sequel series set five years in the future where House has figured out a way to keep practicing medicine under an assumed name, traveling town to town to diagnose strange cases and always staying one step ahead of Foreman or some other dogged investigator.)
I spent most of the night and morning after the finale wrestling with how I felt about it. I appreciated that Shore recognized that the only thing that ultimately mattered was House himself, and his relationship with Wilson. There was no attempt to advance storylines for the other characters – though the final montage(**) gave us glimpses of what their lives became (Chase gets House’s old job, Cameron has a new husband and a baby, etc.) – and only a token attempt to care about the malady afflicting the final patient. (As House tells the Kutner figment in a meta moment: “Nobody cares about the medicine!”) House’s struggles with his own worst impulses was always the heart and soul of the show, and it’s what should have mattered at the end.
(**) Even though we knew at that point that House wasn’t dead, using Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart” – a haunting, beautiful song written by a man who knew cancer would be taking him away very soon – hit me like a ton of bricks. Ultimately, I think that’s more about the song and my history with it, but points to Shore and company for knowing the exact right tune to lead into the more joyous “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)” accompanying House and Wilson’s final road trip.
I was also glad to see the return of faces (particularly Amber, a character the show discarded far too soon in favor of less interesting figures like Thirteen) from an earlier era where I greatly enjoyed the show, even if they were really just there representing different parts of House’s psyche. (And the funeral sequence gave all the living characters a brief moment to speak as themselves, even if it was to talk about House.) And House’s devotion to Wilson, even in the roundabout, self-destructive way he did it (as opposed to just following Foreman’s instructions so he could delay his jail sentence), was moving, and provided a few more great final scenes between Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard.
But I think the repetition and muck of those middle seasons ultimately severed whatever emotional connection I had to House’s personal struggles. No matter which way I choose to interpret House’s solution to his own final problem, it didn’t matter to me in the way it might have at an earlier, stronger point of the series.
Watching “Everybody Dies” felt like a class reunion. I was reminded why we were so close once upon a time, but I never felt regret about losing touch in the interim. Nostalgia, but not a new connection.
What did everybody else think? How did you view House’s last Holmes moment? If you had, like me, stopped watching earlier, how did it feel to drop back into the world of Princeton-Plainsboro after an absence? And for those of you who stuck it through all the way to the end, did you feel rewarded for your patience?
Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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I thought “Broken” was the perfect open-ended series finale for House. Too bad the show kept going for three more years.
I definitely think that episode, or that TYPE of episode, would have been the best way to end it. I was pretty bitter that they had House go through that, only to just wash it away. It showed House could change (and had), and could be fixed (he was). They just seemed unable to work with that new character so they returned him to the status quo in short order. But yes, I think getting House off of Vicodin and forcing him to face his demons, then letting us imagine how he would live his life after overcoming his issues would have been a beautiful way to end the series.
-Cheers
I agree they washed away lots of House’s battles. Seems like wasted energy..and viewers’ emotions
(from a long time viewer)
I would have preferred the finale went in an emotional direction than such an esoteric one, but that’s just a preference.
The episode was very much in the spirit of the show and worked on most levels. It was profound, provocative and insightful, and offered the right amount of finality.
Overall, it was quite satisfying even though it wasn’t what I hoped for or envisioned.
I watched last night and I was one of those “left in Season 4” viewers. Laurie and Leonard were the two best possible things about what became a predictable death march of a series. The concluding story wasn’t particularly good, though they wisely brought back Amber as the best drug-induced conscience House ever had. They couldn’t even pay Cuddy enough to return.
But in the end, I would have preferred they dispensed with the idiotic funeral scene (where we got to hear from everyone who had stopped caring about House years ago, including, somewhat humorously, his mother) and just gotten a bit more time with Laurie and Leonard at the end.
They had the big House-Wilson centric episode about 2-3 shows earlier, right after Wilson finds out he has cancer and temporarily becomes a rebel.
Yeah, what THATSSOMEHATHARRY said. The past few episodes prior are worth checking out because they have some good character moments, specifically between House & Wilson, and Olivia Wylde’s return, that are worth checking out. Plus, if you can skip through the patients-of-the-week and the commercials, there is a minimal time commitment!
-Cheers
Watched the last few years out of more of a sense of obligation, but they would pile up on the DVR and I’d blow through them when there was nothing else to watch. Their steadfast refusal to allow the character to evolve (and the way the characters constantly talked about his psyche and how it impacted them) made it little more than laundry level television…. that and the first half of last season felt like it was written by somebody who spends their weekends writing Huddy fanfiction.
I’ve still been watching, but I’m no longer invested. The last few weeks with the cancer have at least interested me for the first time in maybe 3 seasons, maybe more.
The song: Everybody Cries. Most did. I think Baylink did. Not sure why I didn’t but I was glad they used it. I first heard it on Joan of Arcadia when Judith died and it was a waste, as I didn’t like Judith. I knew it was elsewhere and a friend finally tracked it to MJF’s “death” on Boston Legal.
Sure, House could have rolled and became a stop and smell the roses guy, but he’s “changed” so many times before, we wouldn’t believe it. Shonda Rhimes get more goodwill and trust from me than the writers of House.
And yes it was fun watching Conversations With Dead Fellows. The funeral was good. Before and after Wilson told the truth — and yet somehow, even without a lot of Holmsian knowledge, I had a feeling he wasn’t dead (dental red herrings threw me, but still).
The problem I’m having lately with TV is when someone dies – I don’t believe it anymore. When X did on Grey’s, I had to read a tweet the next afternoon before I knew they were really dead. House didn’t help.
Still, it was a good ep (though I lost track of the patient’s story). It had the emotional impact I needed it to. And it had Cameron.
Stacy said something that was continuity wrong, but I forget what it was.
I also really liked the documentary. I’m a BTS girl. Baylink will like it too. I still have the ER prefinale, which was different, but also good.
So, in the end, I felt House (the person) was unfixable, but, considering that, they did a good job with the ep.
My problem was that they showed House in fact WAS fixable. They just pretended they could have him go through things and come out the other side conveniently the same character they had been writing. I agree the cancer stuff has been interesting, and if anything is going to change him at this point it would be Wilson. Of course, so should have his time in rehab which they were fine throwing away the character growth from that. Or the woman whose leg he had to amputate and his relationship with Cuddy. Or losing Cuddy. Or going to jail and being forced to face his demons. He should have grown from those events. And he did. They just had him quickly UN-grow and become broken again.
Ultimately, I think House was unfixable only because of an editorial decision, not a natural or believable progression based on what actually happened to him or how he reacted to those events at the time they happened.
-Cheers
I also think David Shore’s bugs limited the show’s evolution, specially in the last two seasons!
A fan sticks with the show all the way through. You can’t really comment on the entirety of the show when you’ve skipped seasons. Ultimately, it was rewarding. I don’t think there will ever be another character quite as interesting as House. No matter what you think of the other characters that have come and gone, House is the reason you watch the show and that’s all the matters.
If a show doesn’t change (and has no interest in changing), why must you have watched every show to be able to comment on it? You could have just watched the first few and last few episodes of every season and gotten roughly the same exact type of emotional investment in the characters, because House wss never a plot show.
The reason I kept watching the show despite the up fall in the last two seasons and maybe more, was because it made me laugh, it made me think and maybe even feel.
“Nostalgia, but not a new connection.”
Wonderfully put. I quit watching the show several seasons ago, would sporadically tune back in, then ultimately watched every week again once I knew the end was near. The show is a shell of it’s former self, but I’ll miss the possibility of what Hugh Laurie can do as House.
As for my analysis of the finale: it could have been much worse. House faking his death seemed fitting (and I fully expect him to find a way to undo it after Wilson passes away) and I was amazed and pleased as to how many faces from the past returned. But the story itself was nothing extraordinary and, ultimately, House is very much the same person. I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing, it’s just what became the status quo for the show.
First, thanks for writing this.
As for House, I’m torn. I actually gave up on it a while ago, then a friend got me back into it so I’ve seen the whole series save an episode or two here or there I might have missed. I have one huge problem with the show: Nothing Changes.
I get that part of it is how House cannot change at heart who he is. However, that seems false, like an excuse to keep the same formula. Of COURSE you can change! Particularly in light of huge life-changing events. They would show him change, with his rehab in particular and with Cuddy. You saw little moments in how he would act toward Chase or patients once he had a connection, or his therapist. They showed House changing on some fundamental level however slightly. He was growing, maturing, into, well SOMETHING.
Then they conveniently had him go back to the same person. Which would have been fine IF they had shown some cumulative effects of these changes. Make it all mean something. While David Shore got a lot right with that show, I found it ultimately a massive failure and a disappointment that he never let these “life-changing” events ever actually change House. And it seemed more for convenience of the formula than out of a philosophical belief that nobody really changes. It struck me as false that after all these years he would still be as disrespectful to these people who are his friends. Namely Foreman, Chase, Cuddy, or anybody else who had been with him and through these changes over the years. It was really fake that he would still try to use Wilson after last week’s acceptance. But no more unrealistic than expecting hockey tickets to clog a hospital’s entire plumbing system, get rooted out as the cause, and still have House’s fingerprints. I guess I’m splitting hairs with that.
Not for the first time, but the wheels of logic really seemed to come off this show over the past few weeks. In David Shore’s world, House throwing hockey tickets no only clogs a toilet but leads to a water main breaking and the roof collapsing on an MRI machine. And nobody gets hurt even though they were right under it, but it somehow proved House was guilty of felonious vandalism or something. It is such an obvious MacGuffin and a non-sensical one at that. The same thing happened last night with the heroin hallucinations. Let’s forget they did not bother showing us or telling us how they got there or anything about the patient. House has some totally logical debate with his hallucinations, which seems a bit much for what little I know about heroin. He just seemed too lucid and capable. Plus, the fire was awful convenient in its speed and its selective area of burning. He had an awful lot of time to talk to his subconscious only for the floor to break away and land him in a place with no fire around it. The fire did nothing except make it that much more unbelievable.
I really wanted to like the series finale. I was ready to dump the show (again), however I wanted to see where they ended up with the character. I am fine with House changing on some fundamental level. However, I am NOT fine with them having it happen all at once. They should have let the character grow. Instead, we got “Patient Of the Week” and they got so boring that the last few weeks (maybe more) even the writers REALLY seemed to not care or bother to explain things. Like when or how the patient last night died. Not to mention when House got the chance to swap out the guy’s dental records if he planned on dying there next to said dead patient. It all felt contrived. The finale itself was also forced. There was almost no time for House to talk to anybody other than his hallucinations. His change was seemingly radical and almost instantaneous. He’s also fireproof, I guess. And he somehow knew JUST when to text Wilson at the funeral (on the phone he somehow slipped into Wilson’s pocket) and how to put his name badge under Foreman’s table and when/where to meet Wilson all without anybody seeing him, even though he’s supposed to be dead and would have had to go to places where he’d be easily recognized. It all made no sense.
Overall, I love the character, think Hugh Laurie is a great actor, and think the show was great at times. There were some great characters & actors in the show along the way and some great moments. At the end, the show left me empty and actively disliking it most of the time. There was a lot of potential, and it seemed like that potential was squandered by them making sure House never grew without quickly pulling him back to exactly the same person he was in the pilot so they could rely on the incredibly convenient formula. It became the anti-Breaking Bad in a lot of ways. I hate to say it, however I lay most of that on David Shore. For all the great acting and ideas, it was even more disappointing and an even greater failure that he did so little with it by the end. While it had moments of greatness, ultimately I would have liked to see it handled by a showrunner who had a character arc in mind rather than a static formula. What a waste.
-Cheers
This comment is so right on. You have nailed the same character and plot things that bugged me.
My impression is that the junkie died by overdosing on heroin, and that House didn’t know in advance that this would happen (he regained consciousness only to find the junkie dead on the floor). Then, after wrestling with his demons, he made the decision to fake his own death; afterward, he sneaked into the hospital to switch the dental records and put his badge in Foreman’s office. (Then, in the montage at the end, Foreman finds the badge and starts laughing as he realizes that House faked his death. Or at least that was my interpretation.)
This isn’t any more plausible than the way you interpreted it, Dave, but I’m pretty certain that the writers didn’t intend to portray House as having premeditated the junkie’s death.
@C; Could be. That would make sense that the patient would OD. Maybe House switched the records after his death, but it seems like SOMEBODY would have noticed the guy who was supposed to be dead walking around digging in medical records or the hospital CEO’s office. Then the fire. How did that start (the way it did, on the ground floor, or at all for that matter)? Funny how there were no effects of smoke inhalation.
I can buy your explanation. I just think it was sloppy writing. I’m not trying to hate on the show, I just have issues with parts of it. I also think they should have shown us enough to where we are not left purely to conjecture to piece together how this might have happened. It’s like they were not even trying and did not care enough about those details.
-Cheers
Dave I, have you ever considered starting your own TV blog? Seriously, the insight you provide on this site is invaluable (not to mention we seem to like many of the same shows).
Wanted to comment on your ‘nothing changes’ remark regarding why you had abandoned House at one point during its run, as you’ve touched on one of the most fundamental aspects of a TV show’s success and/or failure.
On the one hand, one could argue that once viewers are attracted to a show, the best thing for the creator to do is forego making any signficant changes or else raise the possibility of a ‘jump the shark’ moment that alienates your fans.
But on the other hand, we as devotees of a show do get bored after awhile with the same old/same old. (I wonder if that’s why Shore decided after three seasons to break up the Foreman/Cameron/Chase team, risking the possibility of never regaining the same magical chemistry with those characters, or that we as fans would care as much about the lives of the new doctors?) I too was torn about House the last couple of seasons, as even though he became the character I either hated to love to loved to hate, I wanted to see him grow just a little. It’s like he never learned anything from his time spent at both the mental hospital (and later jail).
@THATSSOMEHATHARRY, I hadn’t put much thought into a TV blog. Maybe. It might be fun.
As for “Nothing Changes.” That’s a fine line. You do not want to alienate fans. However, I would argue it’s worse to just strive to remain static. Moreover on a show like House, or LOST, or Breaking Bad, or Mad Men. In a serious drama, or even some comedies, I think it is important to change, or at least show progress (or regression). You do not have to blow things up entirely or make change all the time. What I believe you SHOULD do is look at the characters in a fairly believable light and see how what you put them through would change about them. To me, that is a big part of why Breaking Bad and Mad Men are so great. The characters are rich and fully developed. Sure, who they are at heart is more or less the same, yet they grow and adapt, move forward, regress. Those shows are about the people, not about following a formula.
Specific to House, if it was just a show about a doctor who was an atheist curmudgeon, solved strange cases, and always found the answer out of the blue while doing something else, then so be it. You have a compelling character in House, and try to keep the PotW relatively entertaining, and run with it. However the best moments, to me at least, were when you saw him break out of the formula. When he had to go to rehab because he was losing it, or when you saw how much it meant to him when the woman whose leg he amputated died and all it brought out of him. We saw him evolve into a person whose cynical shell was just that, a shell. We saw him connect with his team members, with Cuddy, even briefly with his greencard wife. We saw him face and defeat the demons of addiction, grow close with Cuddy’s adoptive daughter, and make breakthroughs in therapy. He even went to jail and lost his job.
What became of it? He got his old job back. He acted rather entirely unchanged by the whole thing. His pranks stayed petty even though they were to people they had previously indicated he had real feelings toward.
I do not think you can successfully do that. Sure, the show went on successfully for eight years. Yet if I look at the posts most of us have the same complaints. Yes, we like House the character. Sure, we want his basic character to stay in tact. However, we also want what he went through to mean something. That means character growth. You can do that without “jumping the shark.” He can learn to let his guard down and get off Vicodin while staying true to himself and even if he relapses have it effect him, have it put cracks in the person he was to more toward the person he is becoming. In short, you have to make it matter. Up until he saw a hallucination-Cameron inspire him to finally change, none of it mattered. Or if it did (and to me it did), the writers seemed to forget it in favor of making a bigger punch in the finale. That seems akin to a bait and switch since they showed him grow, then pretended he didn’t. That ultimately cheapened the show in my opinion.
-Cheers
I thought it was a weak finale. The whole episode was spent on characters (both real and imagined) saying things that we’ve literally heard a million times before (“you only like the puzzles!” “he was a selfish ass!”), and then the final act was a cheap plot trick that has been done to death (excuse the pun), instead of an actual conclusion.
I mean, giving Wilson cancer so late in the series run was odd, and since I knew that they would never pay it off dramatically, I really didn’t care if Wilson’s diagnosis was terminal or not, and it seems so strange that the series would focus it’s finale entirely on a plot arc that up to that point had only really been 2-3 episodes long.
That said, it seems like there’s a lot of drama potential in Wilson’s last 5 months that they didn’t have the creativity to show us.
What would House’s life on the run be like. He’d need a fake ID, a job that wouldn’t do a background check, etc, just to be able to hang out with Wilson for those 5 months. That would be interesting, with Wilson sacrificing even more of himself to keep House’s secret.
I’d like to see a scene near the end where Wilson yells at House for complicating his final months even more (especially since there was an easier way for him to avoid jail time).
And what happens when Wilson has to go to the hospital, does House go with him?
And what about his final moments? Even if Wilson stays out of the hospital, he has other family and friends, too, and many of them know House.
Does House wear a disguise so he can be there at the end? Or does he reveal his gambit at that point?
*That’s* the finale I wanted to see, not some funeral fakeout with a silly ride into the sunset. I mean, doesn’t it seem like they could have started the cancer plotline about 10 episodes earlier? Doesn’t it make it seem like the series ended too early?
Oh, and how is going to get his prescriptions filled during those five months?
My guess is that House will plan on just going on the road with Wilson until he gets too sick, then kill him with an overdose of morphine or some other painless-to-die-with medication. That’s what I think Wilson was alluding to. Maybe Wilson visits his family, maybe not. I also think House would either start a new identity, maybe grow a beard and long hair or something, or just turn himself in once Wilson dies and restart his life following prison.
Of course, based on previous seasons of House, I’m not sure they thought it through all that well to be frank.
As for his pills? Either he stocked up, stole some from the hospital, plans to quit using as part of his renewed/updated view on life, or emptied his life savings and plans to solicit drug dealers wherever he can. Or, um, they did not bother to think that through.
I think there could be a lot of drama with Wilson’s remaining five months, and eventual death. However, no, I do not think they ended the series too early. I think they mismanaged the ending. For all I know, maybe they’ll have a movie. With how little the show has done for me the past couple of years, I can’t say I’m excited by the prospect.
-Cheers
Technically, Fox decided to pull the plug (no pun intended). I’m sure David Shore would have preferred at least another season to work out the cancer plotline…
I thought the show runners (Shore & Laurie in particular) decided to call it quits. Not Fox. Am I wrong in that? I thought I read that in an article earlier this year.
-Cheers
@Dave I: you can never really tell with Hollywood… though you can often guess right. I haven’t read those stories, but they could easily be standard CYA burn-no-bridges Hollywood bullshit… or 100$ true.
@Minister, Doucett3 might be right here. I could be thinking of something Hugh Laurie said that might have been saving face. I cannot remember for sure. I agree, with Hollywood it’s hard to say for sure what goes on.
-Cheers
I should clarify…
Shore probably wanted to end the show soon, but Fox’s decision made his decision more permanent a bit too soon…still strange the finale hinged most importantly on a random brief storyline from the final 3-4 episodes
@Doucett3; that would make sense.
As for the finale hinging on a strange and abbreviated Wilson-gets-cancer-and-House-breaks-probation-by-clogging-a-toilet storyline? No arguments here. I’d love video footage of however that got pitched to see the reaction and who thought that was a good idea. Wilson getting sick is fine, they should have made that a season-long thing. The toilet thing was just painfully stupid.
-Cheers
house the character really is a great one, one of the better tv characters of the last ten years (i mean, a top tenner at least…). it’s a shame that house the show’s plot lines weren’t on the character’s level.
“Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)” was the song that Amber sang to House back in Season 5, when she kept appearing as a hallucination, leading him to decide that he was going crazy.
Like AS I dropped off the House grid but returned for the finale. For all the reasons mentioned, I lost interest and got bored. But I loved the finale and think his ‘I can change’ solution brilliant in it’s execution and absence of sentimentality. House really changed. I was impressed.
I started reading brief recaps of episodes halfway through season 8 up until I heard about Wilson having cancer. I got online and watched from that episode on. The episodes leading up to the finale, especially the episode where Wilson goes through an extreme chemo session at House’s place, were much stronger than the finale itself. I too stopped following religiously during season 6, but the final few episodes were so good it made me question why I jumped ship in the first place. The later seasons were more down than up in terms of quality, but the last stretch of episodes in the final season really got back into the groove of the early House days and set provided a satisfying conclusion to one of TVs greatest characters.
I feel the same.
“House never had a Moriarty.” What about lupus?
House did have a Moriarty who was actually called Moriarty.
Elias Koteas played Jack Moriarty in the episode No Reason. The patient who was responsible for shooting House.
I don’t think I’ve missed a single episode since the show began. I have an ability to live with my frustrations…for me, the benefits of committed viewing always outweighed the annoyances.
I’ve reflected on the House finale more than any series finale I can recall (a list which includes Rescue Me, St. Elsewhere, Seinfeld, Law & Order…and so on.)
I’ve concluded that I was equally satisfied with either option. House being consumed by flame after acknowledging an ability to change worked for me. That was easier to accept than learning how his advance manipulation enabled his riding off on a motorcycle with Wilson at his side. In the main I prefer characters I’ve followed so intently to live instead of die. In a sense, I had it both ways.
I hope they ride carefully and don’t break any laws of the road, or other laws–trouble will ensue if House has to produce a driver’s license. Unless he has all of his dead patient’s effects.
I imagine he can continue to play around with dental and other records. When Wilson inevitably goes to his reward in 5 months or whenever, House can actually become Wilson and return to medicine a better, wiser doctor. A mad fantasy, I know. Whether that scenario is true to the character of House as he was in the last moments of the show, I can’t possibly know. I don’t get to witness the ability to change that he proclaimed.
Alan, I reacted to “Keep Me in Your Heart” as you did…it’s so connected to my continued mourning for the Zevon’s loss, and the legacy of his final album.
I enjoyed Houses’s “Carpe Diem” remark, and hat tip to Dead Poet’s Society and RSL’s debut. Nice to be reminded that Wilson’s portrayer has long been a fine actor and will doubtless have other excellent roles.
I was so impatient for Lisa Cuddy to turn up and have a chat with Greg in the burning building, as Stacy and Cameron did. The very brief glimpse of her canoodling on a sofa with her new man didn’t do justice to her relationship with House. But that’s just a quibble.
It wasn’t a surprising finale. In a way, I suppose it was what I expected, because it fit what the show had become in its last seasons. So it’s ok. Could’ve been better. Could’ve been lots worse. Nobody stepped out of a shower or gazed at a snow globe in the final seconds…..
I thought that scene was House canoodling with his Russian “wife”?
It’s his Ukrainian wife. Cuddy only gets to be mentioned ONCE. After 7 years, I can’t say that it was fer towards the viewers :(
I thought it was okay. I quit House in the middle of last season (it got to be too much) and only watch the penultimate and finale of this season. I liked the penultimate ep a bit more…it was more emotional. I thought they were setting us up for some real tear jerking moments for the finale…i was wrong.
I liked it, but it could have been more. I was convinced that they were in heaven when Wilson found House sitting on the steps….I kind of think I would have preferred that ending.
And what the heck is House going to do once Wilson dies?
I’m not sure why Cuddy didn’t come back (show’s fault, or actress’s), but I thought that really stunk. She should have been there…no matter how bad things ended with her and House.
Also, I know the show is called House…not “Thirteen”….but I always hoped they would have finished her Huntington’s story line. It could have made for some great emotional episodes in the end.
I thought the Thirteen storyline would have been amazing to see through as well. I’d chalk that up to a failed opportunity. I guess we can imagine him secretly reconnecting with her (after Wilson, she’s probably the closest thing he has to a real friend, aside from Foreman or Chase) and let her know he is still up for the offer when her time comes. But yes, that bothered me as well, just not as much as a lot of the other stuff.
Cuddy? Not sure whose fault it was. They did not want to pay her, she left the show, they never called her according to reports, but who knows? It was an obvious hole in the episode. Of course, no bigger than the hole in the plot that had House actually drive through her kitchen. They really screwed that up.
House after Wilson? He’s going to change into a happier person who takes responsibility for his life. I guess. I think that’s what it was all about. I’m not sure if that means getting a fake identity, moving out of the U.S., or just going to jail for years and then getting out to restart his life as House. I’m not sure they thought it through or not.
-Cheers
I watched all the way through to the last episode, but more out of obligation and lack of other shows in the timeslot. Mostly I found the finale to be rather boring. And while it was nice to see some old faces back, their return only highlighted the absence of Cuddy throughout the episode. (And I say that as someone who HATED the Huddy arc.) It was sort of like the finale of Desperate Housewives where the presence of all the ghosts at the end was undermined by the glaring absence of Nicollete Sheridan.
I stopped watching when the road was going towards House and Cuddy being a couple. I didn’t want to watch a relationship soap opera; I wanted to watch a medical mystery.
I came back for this last episode, and thought it was pretty good. It was nice seeing the ghosts of his past pushing him in one direction or the other. Overall, a satisfactory ending.
I actually thought this was going to be a “House” mindf*ck following the funeral…you know, Wilson was actually dead from the cancer and him seeing House at the end meant they were both in Heaven. Or Wilson was the one being eulogized, and Wilson at the funeral was actually House. You know, some out-of-left-field “Fight Club” stuff.
Oh man, if *House* had ended up in Heaven, I would have lit-tra-lee thrown up.
It was bad enough on Lost, but it would have been beyond the pale on House.
Like ASTA77, “I quit watching the show several seasons ago, would sporadically tune back in, then ultimately watched every week again once I knew the end was near.” I did like the episode where Wilson was undergoing chemo at House’s place, and I actually liked the season finale. I’m glad that it ended with Wilson and House together because that was the only relationship that really did matter to either one of them at that point.
I did have some problems with the logistics, though: like DAVE I, “He’s also fireproof, I guess. And he somehow knew JUST when to text Wilson at the funeral (on the phone he somehow slipped into Wilson’s pocket) and how to put his name badge under Foreman’s table and when/where to meet Wilson all without anybody seeing him, even though he’s supposed to be dead and would have had to go to places where he’d be easily recognized. It all made no sense.” And when he said, “I changed the dental records,” that didn’t make sense either; when could he have done that? Also the way it was filmed was a little off: I could see him leaving by the back door, but not when they JUST showed him standing in front of the window before a burning beam crashed on him and the whole place exploded. So as far as I was concerned, there were problems with the execution of the finale.
That said, however, I found it very satisfying to have House and Wilson riding off into the sunset together, and the music–“Keep Me In Your Heart” and “Enjoy Yourself”–was perfect. When I think of some series finales–“In Plain Sight,” “Lost,” “The Sopranos,” “Seinfeld,” for example–I liked this one the best and found it the most satisfying despite the logistical problems. (I’m still not interested in going back and watching all those episodes I missed, though.)
Write a comment…I thought it was horrible. The ridiculous unending fire, the character who (for some reason that makes no sense even though they try and convince us it does) volunteers to take the fall for House, Foreman saying he would not lie for House (why not now when so much is as stake at least just for Wilson?), Wilson saying he would not take the fall for him etc. etc. Why now? Just so the plot can unfold as they wanted? The show has been guilty of manipulating characters to get some plot point going so this was par for the course but just absurd. There was a scene in all the previews that showed House looking up to somewhere as light came down from above while he smiled as though he was being saved but that scene was not in the episode. We don’t understand why and how House and his patient get there—did they buy drugs and then what? House watches his patient overdose? Changes his mind? The to-ing and fro-ing of the episode was a mess and things like I just mentioned and how long the fire lasted and how long it took Foreman and Wilson to find House were just nuts. I found it hard to believe in the end that we are supposed to believe that House would give up the thing they repeat over and over again was his love of puzzles and his life of medicine. I think the comparison to the Holmes story of Reichenbach Falls doesn’t work either because that story was supposed to be final; the return of Holmes that was tacked on was just that tacked on so Doyle could bring him back. In other words, Holmes does not fake his suicide Holmes actually dies. The fake suicide is the fake story for Holmes. So basing this final episode on the flawed Holmes story construction I think was a mess. And all the characters returning seemed like the worst tv drama stunt…the final episode of happy days or some such with all the characters making a return for the reunion or funeral or some silly maudlin occasion. I knew from comments Hugh Laurie had made that House would not die because he said he thought viewers would be happy with the decision House made otherwise I would have been upset at the fake funeral scene. And when did he swap out records and identities? They make it look as though House is deciding to live or die right then but obviously that would have taken a while. So he did or didn’t go there to overdose? If he did the swap wouldn’t have happened. I did like the slight little nod when House says to a character “have you seen dead poets society?” which is the movie with Robert Sean Leonard as the boy who commits suicide. Hugh Laurie is a great writer and I’m surprised that he would consent to such a bad script. I was very disappointed in it. I did like the show beforehand of Hugh Laurie’s film about the show where he gave much credit and attention to everyone who worked on the show. But the rest was very disappointing.
“Hugh Laurie is a great writer and I’m surprised that he would consent to such a bad script.”
I’m pretty sure he had no consent to give. He was contractually obligated to read what they gave him, and he did a good job with a not-so-great script.
It took them until the finale, after eight seasons, for them to make a Dead Poets Society reference! I still chuckled though.
Is it possible that House wasn’t actually trying to kill himself with the heroin, but attempting to find a more radical form of treatment for Wilson (or something to deal with Wilson’s pain at the end) and that’s what brought him to the junkie?
That’s all fine, but I’ve been waiting 8 years for a “My Best Friend Is A Vampire” reference!
Alan.. when i saw that almost everybody returned (including expected returns like Thirteen and Camron, to surprises like Sela Ward’s character and Andre Braugher’s shrink) it felt more baffling that Lisa Edelstein decided not to retun, and I do think (as much as really liked her) that it was her decision, because the writers not only included clips for past interviews with her, they even had a stand-in for her in one of the final scenes of House’s allucinations.
Which leads me to ask, did we ever know what happened on that contract negotiations that resulted in her not returning to the show ? why that bridge ended up truly burned down?
I stuck with House from the beginning (it takes a lot for me to give up on a show and walk away, Nip/Tuck being one of the few examples) and enjoyed it throughout, though yes in the last few seasons things did feel repetitive.
I did like the finale and enjoyed seeing so many familiar faces come back (I had known about Jennifer Morrison, Olivia Wilde, Kal Penn and Amber Tamblyn, assumed Anne Dudek would show up somehow but had no idea about Sela Ward). I had been thinking heading down the stretch that “House as patient, the former fellows pull an Avengers Assemble! to reunite and save their old boss” would be the final ep, so I was pleasantly surprised they went this route compared to what I had expected several weeks ago before the Wilson cancer announcement.
My only disappointment was the Cuddy-sized hole during the hallucination sequences (I was happy Cameron was the payoff, but if they’re bringing people back that way, was bringing Lisa Edelstein back that problematic?). I wasn’t big on “Huddy,” (it felt forced to have them hook up, even though I was pleased to see an older male character start a relationship with someone his own age instead of a woman 20 years or so his junior as happens elsewhere at times) but she was a huge part of the show for so long that her absence in that final ep is the only weak point for a “goodbye” episode.
The only other thing that irritated me had nothing to do with the finale itself, but seeing Jennifer Morrison brought back irritated me all over again about how she left the show (her not knowing whether she had been written off or not) and the fact that a House/Cameron relationship was never explored. Though it did feel like way-too-obvious ground to tackle early on (especially since it falls into the “dashing but flawed older male character hooks up with much younger woman” bit that I complained about earlier, in my lone appreciation of House/Cuddy), I always enjoyed House’s and Cameron’s interactions and she seemed like a much better foil and compliment to House than Cuddy, for me anyways. Perhaps it would’ve turned Cameron into She-Wilson, or perhaps it would’ve given the show and Cameron’s character a little more life during the latter portions of her run on the show. All I know is it’s something I wanted to see ever since midway through Season 1 and aside from very brief moments between the two, I am left unfulfilled. Seeing her look fondly on that image of her and House (and Foreman and Chase) along with her words at the funeral and Cameron as the final person House hallucinated brought the frustration back all over again. Oh well.
In the end, perhaps not a great season to sign off on (I do wish Charlyne Yi would’ve gotten more interactions with Hugh Laurie, I liked her ability to banter with him) but overall I enjoyed the ride and the finale. It’s been a nice ride that I’ll look back on fondly.
“If you had, like me, stopped watching earlier, how did it feel to drop back into the world of Princeton-Plainsboro after an absence?”
Revisiting it reinforced why I left 3-4 (?) seasons ago. Other than Hugh Laurie’s performance, I really found the rest of the show quite frustrating. The same held true for the finale.
To the people who watched persistently, was it ever lupus?
Yeah, it was lupus in one of the earlier episodes meaning Cameron, Chase and Foreman era. I stopped watching after the period where he hired the new crew.
I think once? I can’t recall when it happened but I thought once it was finally lupus.
Could there be more Sopranos to it? Wilson could be hallucinating House, or if he died at the funeral, that would certainly be their shared experience of heaven. Having House escape out the back and then fake dental records just seemed too … neat.
For me, I watched the procedural episodes to make sure I knew what was going on when the big moments came along. Those season premieres and finales, including the last one, were so well done that it made everything else worthwhile. Plus, even when things were formulaic, the characters, the acting, and the writing were always good. Great show, very appropriate ending.
That was a great Buffy episode!: My take on the House finale
minus everything after the “shut up you idiot” text I loved the episode.
I don’t know about “loved”, but yeah, if they’da just ended it with Wilson bitching at him, I’da been surprised and pleased.
As far as series finales go, it was all right, but I thought last week’s episode was much stronger and more emotional, and it should be great Emmy submission material for both Laurie and Leonard.
It also felt wrong not having Cuddy show up, either as an illusion or attending the funeral. If the producers couldn’t work it out with Lisa Edelstein, they should have at least come up with a in-story reason for her absence.
What satisfied me the most about the ending was seeing Chase take over House’s job. Of all of his employees, I always thought he was the one with the right amount of talent, drive and selfishness to keep his legacy alive.
Hm…I liked Chase’s ending, I guess. He was the one I always thought was most – out of all his minions – like House and I felt had the biggest evolution over the series even though the series obviously never really invested too much in anyone else but House and Wilson.
Otherwise, yeah. I left sometime around S5, and I found the finale to be more or less meh. It wasn’t terrible, but it was pretty bad, but I suppose a fitting ending to a show that was good but then fell into mediocrity.
Addicts are boring. All the tedious repetition within the seasons was true to the nature of the character.
I liked purgatory-like flames as a call back to the many episodes that spoke to spiritual questions, particularly in the early seasons.
And I liked the idea of a parallel to Holmes. But the episode defied ALL logic and the lack of Cuddy was unthinkable. I agree that House could not have gotten from the window to a back door in the literal seconds between being seen and the building exploding.
I too wondered if Wilson was hallucinating. House sitting on the steps had an odd light about it, as did the motorcycle scene. I think it would have been more fitting for House to die, Amen.
I’m pretty sure Dr. House just wanted to go out just like his sports star alter ego, the one and only Kenny Powers!
When Foreman found House’s ID badge under the leg of his table, was that House’s way of letting him know that he was still alive, or just a reminder (Keep me in your heart) of House for Foreman? Was that a last mini-prank for House? After all, Foreman was with Wilson in trying to save/rescue House from the burning building.
Good question. Full-disclosure, I think I’m a bit of a glass half full kind of guy for this sort of stuff. That said…
It was his way of letting Foreman know he was alive, or at least hinting toward it. After all, after Wilson and perhaps “Thirteen”, Foreman was probably his best friend even if House did not realize or acknowledge it. I like to think in light of his decision to change, part of that was realizing Foreman was just trying to be a friend with the hockey tickets, getting him out on parole, getting him out to karaoke to sing “Midnight Train to Georgia,” and probably dozens of other good-will gestures over the course of the show. Foreman would have even perjured himself if not for the fact he got tired of being used and enabling House. Foreman and Chase are the most consistent staples in his life over the past eight years aside from Wilson. I’d like to think, FINALLY, he can understand that and show a little tenderness to Foreman. He did with Chase this season (after a fashion) following Foreman getting stabbed. This was a subtle way to show a modicum of affection to Foreman and either hint to him know he was alive, or at least end on a positive note with the man who, in reality, did so much for him for so long.
-Cheers
I took Foreman’s reaction to mean that he realized House was still alive. He seemed to be laughing in amazement more than acting wistful.
Anyone who had seen even one past episode of “House” knew that he didn’t die in the fire, and the funeral scene was just a final way for him to mess with everyone he knows. I didn’t mind the way it ended, but the fact that we were expected to be surprised by it shows that the producers never understood how incredibly repetitious and predictable the show had become.
I think they could have let House die. I did not think they would, not because of how repetitious and predictable it has become (which it has), but because it would have been a much different kind of show had they been the sort of writers to let House die and Wilson face the final five months of life cancer-stricken and alone. Still, if they were going to break form and do something different, that was their last chance. Plus, they have had some pretty unexpected moments at times on the show, so it would not have been totally unprecedented.
Plus, a burning building landed on him! I mean, under normal rules that actually hurts you. So they did have that going for them.
-Cheers
Burning buildings landing on you don’t hurt as much as helicopters!
Spot on review. Exactly in line with how I experienced the episode and series, except I stuck around for the entire thing. The middle seasons suffered, IMO, b/c House being “mean” was what was making it popular. It cheapened his character, b/c earlier season’s “meanness” was actually a strict moral code. He was teaching life lessons. Characters grew b/c of them. Then, around the time of picking a new team, he just became a cruel prankster.
Obviously hated all the PotW stuff. But every episode had a few decent moments. Name another show where the main character is an Athesist. That alone is worth experiencing.
I admit the show has been mediocre (or even a touch below) for years, for the reasons you point out, but I will still miss it.
I agree. When he became mean just for the sake of it, I lost interest.
Is that a double Zevon reference (“hit me like a ton of bricks” being a line from “Backs Turned Looking Down the Path” in addition to a common phrase)? If so, I commend you, sir. If not, that’s a neat coincidence.
I liked it better when Kenny Powers did it.
It felt like one-half of a two-parter. We see House leave his own life, and all the people that were in it, for one last short spurt of fun with the truest friend he ever had. Great. Now give me more.
HUGE missed opportunity for a whole lot more of House & Wilson shenanigans in quick flash forwards, and by the midway point, a grinding halt with the escalation of Wilson’s disease, leading up to House scrambling to provide amusement and distraction from an occasion can never be done over.
And then, in the last twenty or so minutes, Greg (no longer “House,” just Greg) wanders into a new place, far from where he started, and finds a new way to live. He might continue to duck pain, but he’ll still solve puzzles, and he’ll maybe start by getting flirty with someone he shouldn’t, make a race for the exit post-coitus, then think about how his friend would encourage him to stick with something until he figured it out.
There are endings that leave off at just the right midway point, and endings that cut off waaaay before you’re finished telling enough of the story.
Unfortunately, the way scheduling worked out, PBS showed the superior Sherlock “Reichenbach Falls” episode only 24 hours before the House finale. In handling similar material, there was no comparison.
I was a House viewer from day one because I loved Hugh Laurie so much from his work in Blackadder. I really started to become disappointed in the show when the original team broke up in Season 3. It’s not that I was resistant to any change, it’s that the directions they took after that seemed increasingly more ridiculous. Plus, with few exceptions (Anne Dudek and Kal Penn most notably), the new characters didn’t move me, and some I outright hated. A constant frustration was how poorly used the Foreman character was. What a waste.
So I’ve been gone from the show just about exactly as long as you have, Alan. I watched the finale out of curiosity, but like you, I just wasn’t very plugged in emotionally. Too much repetition over the years, making House’s act tiresome. This show probably would have done better on a 3 years and out run, but sadly, we don’t do things like that here on U.S. television.
I chuckled at House doing the carpe diem Dead Poets Society reference knowing that Wilson would be dead soon. Dan Harmon would’ve liked that one. I miss Dan Harmon. :(
I stopped watching this show years ago, when it became clear that House was changed from some sort of quasi-autistic cynic into an outright criminal sociopath who would have been arrested and stripped of his medical license a long time ago. David Shore’s character is caught in the chains of his own unconquerable depravity, and, given Shore’s hopeless, God-less beliefs, the show was ultimately a show about despair.
I thought the Warren Zevon song was a perfect choice too. I have watched House consistently if not religiously for the duration. My other half started watching four years or less ago when I moved in. We will have to find the early years somewhere and watch them down the road.
I know many people walked away from the show. It continued to deliver for me. No longer new and experimental usually, but wry and entertaining never the less.
I don’t know if this has been said but Hugh Laurie picked all of the great music and songs according to David Shore for the finale.
Perfect ending, and thought this as a an open ended end was perfect. Some one please give Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard their Emmys.
I was disappointed by the finale. For a series that was, if nothing else, bold in its willingness to present us each week with such an unlikable SOB, I thought the ending was vague and anticlimactic.
I’m not sure how I would have ended the show. But this definitely wasn’t it.
Of course, I always hated House, as a person. The guy wasn’t just a likable curmudgeon, he was a sociopathic, manipulative, lying asshole, and I’d have liked nothing better than seeing someone he had fucked with kick the living shit out of him (preferably, some guy with a bad leg, just to make it a fair fight).
But I didn’t really expect that, and would have gladly settled for an episode that gave us some kind of meaningful closure.
Hell, a “Selma & Louise” moment would even have been preferable… and a fitting end to someone convinced that life ultimately had no meaning. Or, they could have been really bold, and given House a reason to actually doubt his entire Nietzschen philosophy. Instead, we got a wishy-washy ending that seemed like a mash-up of “Easy Rider” and “Brian’s Song”.
I find it quite strange that you would review the Finale of a show without have seen the rest of the season. Sure, you might be able to “get a hold of the plot line,” but you need to be abe to understand the atmosphere of the season to give a well-rounded conclusion. Otherwise you’re not a very credible source, eh?
Just watched the finale and I can say that for a series that I picked up late and had to catch up on dvd, I’ve watched the last 4 seasons during the broadcast year and haven’t been disappointed with any of the stories. I will miss the show and hope to see the actors in new programs with as much success.
Actually, I stopped liking House, the character with the Tritter arc but always, loved Wilson and his relationship with House. It was through this relationship I could forgive House over and over again. I only watched two episodes because I was a HUDDY hate fan. I have loved S8 because House managed to be grownup brillant, eccentric and risk taking. I thought the last four S8 episodes were magical. I loved the return of Anne Dudek’s Amber and Wilson’s eulogy. The rveal at the end was awesome. I hope we get a movie where we find out House and Wilson did on their road trip.
Though the last episode wasn’t what I expected, it was actually a perfect ending. House never cared about anyone even though he had times of growth. However, he finally gave up everything, his job, his wife, his whole life. He showed Wilson the ultimate sacrifice just so he could spend those last five months together doing whatever Wilson wanted. Yeah House!
I am still upset that Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy) was no where to be found in this final episode. I realize the producers treated her shabbily and dismissed her, but she should have been in the final because she was once a major character in this great series whose passing I will long lament.
Alan, pretty good review. You set the tone for most of the commenters below. Didjanotice(?) the fans who were the most bored with the show, and/or quit watching, wrote the longest comments and appeared to be the most knowledgeable of the characters or plots of the show? Anyway, I never missed an episode, and I was content with the finale. I know I am a little slow at times, but I did not connect Holmes with House until House opened his ‘wife’s’ citizenship letter with Holmes’ address(210-B Baker St). No one ever said “HOUSE” was a stimulating, educational brain enhancer. Lighten up already!!! Get out of your rut, let the show entertain you. You analyze the show like it was a PHD dissertation. Relax, enjoy, then go to the library.