"Massage Therapy" Recap and Review

I think possibly "Massage Therapy" has been the best episode of House so far this season.  The premiere was probably the favorite of Huddy fans, but as far as a quality episode of House goes, "Massage Therapy" gets my vote for best episode so far.

So, in this episode there's three plot lines going on.  One, the patient, a young woman named "Margaret" who supposedly stole a woman's identity to hide from an abusive ex-husband.  We, however, eventually find that she's hiding an even bigger secret that causing her symptoms.  House's job would be so much easier if he wasn't always right when he says "Everybody lies."

I probably should have seen the diagnosis coming from the beginning.  While maybe her imagining someone was in the house may not have actually been caused by her condition since she was still on her meds at that point, I think it was still mean to be foreshadowing.  I, however, didn't see it coming until a few seconds before she said it.  Also, the scene where we first see her hallucinations was great, and a bit scary.  Those are the sort of things I have nightmares about. 

Plot line two: Chase's new hire for the team.  Chase has hired Dr. Kelly Benedict, or Dr. Kelly as House calls her.  Unfortunately, Dr. Kelly is underqualified, which House, Taub, and Foreman all notice and aren't really happy with.  Chase pretty much just hired her because he likes her and wants to sleep with her.  House put her through a test, and she basically fails, despite her effort.  In the end, House says that he'll give her another chance, but she decides to quit knowing that she will eventually be fired, and Chase asks her out.

Onto the third plotline: House and Cuddy.  Cuddy has an issue (as she probably should) with the fact that House's massage therapist is also a hooker, and he has had sex with her in the past.  Cuddy wants him to find a new massage therapist, and House is resistant.  He asks Wilson for advice, Wilson says that he needs to learn to make sacrifices, and House, of course, ignores this and comes up with a different plan.  Instead, House sends a massage therapist to give Cuddy a massage in her office, a man who turns out to be a prostitute...a gay prostitute.  So, not exactly the same situation as Cuddy obviously wouldn't be having sex with a gay man...but I guess House figured it's close enough.

Cuddy accuses House of trying to keep her at a distance, and House says that she's actually the one who's doing that.  She won't let him sleep over at her house, and she won't let him be around Rachel.  She says that she doesn't want to let him into Rachel's life if there's a chance he's going to disappear.  In the end, House decides to give up his hooker massages, and Cuddy finally invites House to stay over.  The ending scene with them having dinner with Rachel and House's awkwardness with the kid sets up what we can expect from House's adventures in babysitting in next week's episode "Unplanned Parenthood".

I enjoyed the episode.  It felt like an episode of House.  It feels a bit like the season didn't really get into the swing of things until now.  So, that was nice, something has felt a little off with this season so far.

Let me know your thoughts on the episode!  Leave me comments, please.

"Unwritten" Review

"Unwritten" was a fairly good episode of House.  It wasn't anything monumental or amazing, but rather felt like a normal episode of House.  Possibly slightly weak for the beginning of the season, but maybe my expectations have just gotten too high since House is such an amazing show. 

BTW, if you don't want the episode totally spoiled, don't keep reading this review.  Of course, why would you even be on this blog if you didn't want spoilers? 

I quite enjoyed how it was a mystery about a mystery writer.  I liked the opening scene.  The moment where we find out she was hallucinating the boy quite surprised me, it make me think, "ah, yeah, this is going to be good!"  I kept trying to figure out if she was meant to be based on (or have any sort of reference to) a real life author, but I came to the conclusion that rather it was merely a reference to the concept of teen book fads like Twilight or Harry Potter (mostly Twilight), and she was not really meant to be based on either Stephenie Meyer or JK Rowling.  I don't think that they would want to be insinuating that either of them would be likely to kill themselves. 

I saw it coming that House was lying to her when he was offering her the chance to kill herself.  As if House would actually let her do that.  I was pleased to see she was still alive after the commercial break. 

On another note, Chase's chick was nasty looking.  I would not call her a "smoking hot babe" as House did.  She looked like a whore.  Chase, you can do so much better than that. 

On to House and Cuddy.  House says that it's a problem that he and Cuddy don't have anything in common besides work....uh, isn't being doctors who work together a major major thing to have in common?  (My boyfriend and I work together in the summers, and it makes me feel like we have everything in common.  Although, really we like very different things outside of that, but it totally doesn't matter.  Although, now that I think about it, he does tend to act like it's an issue if I mention that I don't like some movie or music that he likes.  As if that really matters.  So, maybe that's a guy concern?)

Cuddy was being pretty bitchy on their go-cart double date.  They're just go-carts, take a chill pill.  She was all super dramatic about a stupid seat belt hurting her. Really, though, I don't like go-carts that much either.  They always look like fun, but they all go the same speed, and it's really quite boring once you get out there.  There's not much actual racing going on.  Although, I guess that's the idea of stock car racing, but it's a lot more interesting when the cars go over 7 mph.  (Not that I like NASCAR or anything, but interesting for others.)  My point is that even though go-carts are kind of lame, she needed to just chill out and have some fun. 

The ending of the episode felt slightly anti-climactic to me.  It was just like...and she's better now, the end.  I felt like I couldn't trust that she was really magically better and wouldn't want to kill herself anymore.  I don't know, what are your thoughts on this?   I did like House's comment to her at the end, though.  That was very nice of him to not be a total jackass and tell her the truth about her son, like he wanted to. 

So, onto next week.  Please leave comments and tell me your thoughts about the episode, or your thoughts on my thoughts.  I would love to know if you agree or disagree. 

House 7.02 "Selfish" Review

I went to write this review right after watching last night's episode, but then decided maybe it was better to let it sink in a little more.  Although, I'm not sure that I feel any differently than I did last night. 

I liked "Selfish" for the most part.  It was amusing how House told everyone about Cuddy and him in the first 30 seconds of the episode (after telling Cuddy he wouldn't), but I usually find secrets in TV shows to be more entertaining...but they seem to have gone a different direction.  I did notice that House's act of blurting it out to the team had to have been premeditated, since he invited Wilson into the room (I'm assuming telling Wilson that he need his help on the case, which is why he was holding the folder, but really House just wanted to tell everyone together). 

I liked the scene in Wilson's office where House is trying to convince Wilson that's he's not lying.  It was a twist on that scene that always seems to happen in romantic comedies (that never happens in real life), where everyone's like "Prove you're in love!  Let's see a kiss!" and then they're not happy with a peck, so they have to make out in front of them.  Like that ever happens in real life.  That would be so awkward.  Well, that's basically what Wilson is asking...but Cuddy takes it in a different direction.  Quite entertaining. 

Throughout the episode, I was getting mad at House everytime he was being super submissive and obedient to Cuddy, I kept wanting him to just yell, which we find out is what the whole episode is leading up to.  I was pretty surprised that House was doing that at all, I mean really the benefit of being in a relationship with your boss is that you don't have to do that.  Let me explain with a anecdote about myself... I have two jobs.  With one job, I'm uncomfortable with my boss, and I usually act pretty fake at work, I suck up and always do what I'm told.  I, like everyone, get frustrated at work, and would very much like to yell at my boss sometimes, but I don't do that, because that could result in me getting fired.  So, I bottle it up, and then vent to other people. 

On the other end of the spectrum, at my other job my boyfriend is my boss.  The great thing about this is that I'm not afraid to let him know how I feel about things.  We fight a lot about work things, but it works.  We don't keep anything bottled up.  I think we get a lot more done this way.  If everyone was always honest at work, we all would always have big fights with our bosses, but we really can't do that, unless we're comfortable enough with them. 

So, my point is, that I was hoping this was the resolution the episode would come to, and was very glad when it did.  I was just surprised that that House and Cuddy were tiptoeing around each other in the first place, because I myself have never done that. 

I liked how the episode went  full circle ending with House and Cuddy at the elevator, like the first scene, but I thought it felt slightly inconclusive with the family. I mean, I guess I can assume that since that's where the episode ended, that the girl gets her brother's lung, and she's good, but it seemed to be lacking in resolution a little to me.  It was also pretty sad, most House episodes have a happy ending with the patient, and this really wasn't one of those.  But that's fine, they shouldn't all be the same.  Most House episodes follow the exact same formula, so it's nice to see one that breaks that formula, even if it's only slightly.

I'm pretty anxious for next week.  It's the House/Cuddy  Wilson/Sam double date I've been anxiously awaiting ever since I saw promo photos forever ago, so I'm pretty excited.

Please leave comments with your thoughts on the episode, I would love to hear them.