THAT’S A WRAP!
We did it! Last night, the final episode of Dr. House flickered across the screen, and I must say, this rewatch was extremely enjoyable for me, partly because of writing about it. But from start to finish, there wasn’t a single part that felt like a struggle, because the series is consistently good.
Cuddy is gone, Foreman is the new head of the hospital, and House is in jail. If that’s not a spectacular start to a season, then I don’t know what is.
But before that happens—since we still had a few episodes left from the seventh season—we see House completely out of control. First, injecting himself with experimental substances and then surgically removing the resulting tumors from his leg. After that, he tries, in his own way, to make things right with Cuddy, but it’s increasingly failing. Even though I can understand some of his accusations toward her to a certain extent, what happens toward the end of the season is anything but justified.
In the eighth season, we see a very bizarre side of House, but one action hints at why he keeps resorting to such strange means. When he makes the immigration office document disappear, forcing Dominika to stay with him, he reveals something that has been subtly apparent all along—that he’s incredibly lonely. Not everything can be attributed to this theme, but it does explain a lot! Especially what will happen with Wilson becomes increasingly clear.
Otherwise, Season 8 is another wild rollercoaster ride, not just in terms of the cases but also in terms of character development. During his time in prison, House meets the young doctor, Dr. Jessica Adams, whom he immediately adds to the team when he returns to Princeton-Plainsboro. There’s also the suspended doctor, Dr. Chi Park, and after some initial difficulties, Taub and Chase make it back onto the team. From then on, everyone on the team faces some really tough challenges, and the worst one, towards the end of the season, comes to House himself. His best friend, what irony, is diagnosed with cancer. House has to confront many inner demons from then on and realizes that soon there will be no one left who truly understands his character and is also somewhat friendly towards him.
House tries everything to prevent Wilson’s death because he doesn’t want to lose this important person and also knows that his future would be uncertain without this support. But he’s fighting windmills because Wilson has seen and experienced too much already to want to undergo treatment. He wants to enjoy the remaining time he has left.
I particularly liked Wilson’s development because at the beginning, he’s quite a thin, rather boring oncologist, and in the end, he’s the tough, three-day-beard biker with a leather jacket. Especially when he’s on the bike and puts on the glasses, he looks incredibly good, even though tragically plagued by cancer, just good!
What I find unfortunate, but can understand from an actress’s perspective, is that we didn’t see Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) again. In the end, when House gets another beating in the burning house, he hallucinates quite a few people, and even Kutner and Stacy are there. On the other hand, Cuddy might have simply taken up too much space, especially after what happened in the last episode of the seventh season. Maybe it’s for the best that she didn’t show up again because otherwise, it might have felt like the focus was only on their relationship. Instead, it felt more like it was about each person and House, as well as the processing of different periods in his life or his drug addiction.
Whether there’s such a thing as a perfect ending for a series, I don’t know, but the ending of House comes pretty close. Of course, you’re initially a bit disappointed because even though eight seasons are long and an ending can be a good thing, you don’t want to let go just like that, and the inner series junkie demands more. But objectively speaking, this ending is really good because we’ve seen so many facets of House that it might feel forced now if there were more. We see how Adams and Park are firmly established in a team, Chase has finally found his place (I think his development is very good and how much more stable he is compared to the early seasons), and Taub embraces his role as a father. Cameron is also happy, which makes us all happy. And we also get another wonderful look at a still relatively healthy Thirteen, wonderful. Plus, there’s that little nod with Foreman finding House’s ID under a side table. Judging by his expression, you might think he knows House is still alive but is content that he has found his peace.
As often, I only picked out the really prominent parts from the season! The eighth season is full of interesting cases, exciting interactions with patients and the team, and a lot of new things, compared to the old seasons.
- The thing between Park and Chase.
- Chase being attacked and seriously injured by a patient (which is used to give him the necessary distance and make his team takeover make more sense)
- Taub, who has a pretty established presence but still hasn’t quite found his place in life
- Foreman, who doesn’t know whether he should be like House, like Cuddy, or just like Foreman as the head
