House: 8x01 "Twenty Vicodin" - Discussion/Spoilers

[Christopher]

I think the episode highlighted just how unrepentant and unchanged he is by any of these events, which would be a potentially life changing event to any normal person. He would rather risk getting shanked by the prison gang than just give the leader the pills he had in his pocket and didn't need.

What?? He clearly did need the pills he took. He was in great pain without them, and you could see when he took the case out from under his pillow and started gulping down the pills, it wasn't a casual thing; it was something he struggled and failed to resist.

If you're referring to later, when he tossed the pills into the air to start the fight rather than just handing them over to the gang leader, that was something he did in order to get beaten up so that he could be sent to the clinic he'd been barred from and help his patient.

He'd rather risk losing his parole by proving he was right, than just shutting up and minding his own business. If it was because he truly cared about the patient, it might be understandable, but it was really more about him being right than anything.

I don't agree with that. I think the good of his patients matters more to him than he lets on. If he really didn't care about people, he would've gone into physics in the first place. Instead he chose to apply his brilliance to saving lives. And he often goes to desperate lengths to keep his patients from dying, and I think that was definitely the case here. If it had only been about proving himself right, then the patient dying from not getting proper treatment would've achieved that. He made sure the patient got the right diagnosis so he could be saved.

 

[Marten]

I think Christopher has a point. House may claim that he only cares about the puzzle, but he has shown over the years that it's more than that.

 

[Trekker4747]

In earlier seasons Wilson's "care" for the patient was a bit more obvious. We're also shown how much, and easily, he can respect a patient.

In the pilot episode a talk with the POTW convinces House to respect her decision to refuse treatment.

In the aforementioned episode House risks his career to get a woman a heart transplant.

In another episode he "advocates for his patient" in signing for requests for a transplant, even though he agrees with the committee's decision to not give a heart to someone of advanced age.

He has an incredible outburst of emotion when a diagnosis proves correct for a little boy suffering from a terminal illness that had taken the life a previous similar case.

But then there's all of times where he ignores a patient, seems distracted by some other thing, or just seems to not care at all and even seems more worried about the "puzzle" than the patient.

But, all and all, I think he does care more than he normally lets on.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I think the episode highlighted just how unrepentant and unchanged he is by any of these events, which would be a potentially life changing event to any normal person. He would rather risk getting shanked by the prison gang than just give the leader the pills he had in his pocket and didn't need.

What?? He clearly did need the pills he took.

He was getting out that day. Didn't need 20 pills right at that moment.

But your point is taken about he started the fight to get in the infirmary. I'm just not as convinced about his motives being altruistic as some of you are. That's based on 7 seasons of his actions.

 

[Agent Richard07]

House has a deep compassion that even he is unaware of.

 

[Christopher]

He was getting out that day. Didn't need 20 pills right at that moment.

He didn't take 20 pills, he took four. And that was after struggling for a long time to deal with both the great pain in his leg and the great craving from his addiction. He fought it for as long as he could but ultimately wasn't able to resist it any longer. Addiction is not a rational thing. It's an overpowering compulsion. It can force people to do things that they know are against their best interests.

 

[gh4chiefs]

He was getting out that day. Didn't need 20 pills right at that moment.

He didn't take 20 pills, he took four. And that was after struggling for a long time to deal with both the great pain in his leg and the great craving from his addiction. He fought it for as long as he could but ultimately wasn't able to resist it any longer. Addiction is not a rational thing. It's an overpowering compulsion. It can force people to do things that they know are against their best interests.

We're clearly having a failure to communicate. I never said he took 20 pills. No where did I say that. What I said was, He didn't need the 20 pills that he threw in the air that day at that moment because he was getting out that day. He did it ON PURPOSE to start a fight. That's all I'm saying.

But yes, I concede the point that he started the fight to get back in the infirmary. The only thing I disagree on is his ultimate motivations. I still think he's a self absorbed asshole who cares more about being right than curing the patient.

We can agree to disagree about that point. But let's at least debate what I'm saying, not what I didn't say.

 

[Christopher]

Well, you didn't make it clear until now whether you were talking about the pills he took in his cell or the pills he tossed in the air in the yard. The way you phrased it was ambiguous.

 

[Random_Spock]

Random Spock: Thank God, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed. Not only is House becoming a bearer of constant misery, craziness, and emotional damages, the other characters are becoming either unlikeable or the shells of the characters we used to like. And they see all the lines House cross and the rules he break and instead of effectively standing up to him or quitting their jobs out of protest, they just let him get away with it with little protest. It has gone beyond unrealistic.

Yep. That's pretty much how I feel as well. It's become one show that I can't even watch for a minute.

 

[Joe Washington]

I didn't even watch the first episode of this season. I didn't see the point. A part of me is sadly curious about the scenes between House and Wilson next episode because of their rift in the wake of last season finale's events.