Monday, September 27, 2010

House Season 7 Episode 2 Review

House's Season 7 Episode 2 titled "Selfish" is a vast improvement over the premier episode of season seven and feels truer to the older episodes of previous seasons, with the exception of newly developing stories of course. This episode was fast paced and less wacky than the first episode of season seven, but still managed to be comical and extremely serious when the time was right.

This episode begins with a boy in a wheelchair being pushed around a skateboarding rink by his sister for some good cause. However, unexpectedly the sister collapses and is rushed to the hospital where House and his crew work. The sister is played by Alyson Stoner, which was a shock to see because the last time I saw her on television was when she acted for the Disney Channel.

House tells the other doctors about his new-found relationship with Cuddy as he flirts with her throughout the episode. In fact, the amount of sexual jokes and references run numerous throughout the show and are all actually very funny and cleverly inserted. The other doctors, in trying to figure out how to come to terms with House and Cuddy, advise House to not cave with his doctoral decisions, which he does throughout the episode, nor let Cuddy take advantage of him. House and Cuddy even visit the human resources department of the hospital in which Cuddy signs a form that says she will show no favoritism towards House. After all, Cuddy is House's supervisor, which can cause dilemmas between personal life and work life.

The sister in the hospital is diagnosed with a failing kidney and collapsed lung after throwing up blood and much speculation by the doctors. After receiving a lung from a donor, her body rejects the lung and services will not provide her with another lung. She needs bone marrow and half a lung from her brother, who is unaware of her situation at this point. While facing this conflict, House is also dealing with a father and son, both of extremely old age, who want the father to be put in a home for special treatment, but neither of them will admit this to each other. Meanwhile, the other doctors feel House and Cuddy's relationship is effecting their work and advise House to set some ground rules, but House would rather avoid the situation.

After talking with her brother, House realizes the sister has sickle cell and tells Cuddy the sister needs half a lung from her brother, which Cuddy is totally against. This dilemma calls into question the philosophical issue of sacrificing one life for another. Meanwhile, House also figures out that the old father has zinc poisoning and sends the two away, suggesting they get therapy and returns the money they gave him to lie to each other.

The final series of scenes are very touching, dramatic, and philosophical. After the sister's father begs House to save his daughter and House tells him the only way to save his daughter is too use his son's lung, the sister detaches all her intervenes medicines and oxygen and collapses in the hospital hallway. In a dramatic speech, the brother tells his sister that she can have his lung, which she finally agrees to. House apologizes to Cuddy for their previous argument and they realize they need to be more brutally honest with each other in order for their relationship to work. This episode showed a remarkable ability that few shows do correctly. That is, the ability to switch from a comical to a serious tone and vice versa in a method that displays playful humor and convincing actor. I also applaud the large amounts of philosophical discources and dilemmas that took place during this episode. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm unsure exactly how the structure of this show is supposed to be, but I hope the episodes continue in the style of this one.

Thursday, September 23, 2010