I watch a lot of House. I used to review it for another site, I own seasons one and two, but mostly I just plain like it. I am a huge sucker for the marathons they frequently show on the USA Network. One of the things I have noticed lately about the show is that most of the medical cases are strange anomalies that require the revelation of strange, seemingly unrelated secrets. Duh. But has anybody else noticed the Dead Baby Syndrome?
Sick children push our emotional buttons, so we probably become more emotionally invested in watching the show if there is a sick child involved. Does that intensify when dead babies are involved? I think perhaps it does, and it also makes us assess whether or not the patients have the character required to deserve happiness or deserve to live. Just in time for the holidays, here is my list of the top five dead babies on House, otherwise known as Dead Baby Syndrome.
5. Season 1, Episode 19: “Kids” 
— The other night on USA, the medical case involved a 12-year old girl who was having seizures and a brain bleed. The doctors figured out that none of the boys from her swim team ever came to visit her, even though she was a popular girl and a great swimmer. House figures out that the girl is pregnant and tells her that the pregnancy must be terminated. The girl is stoic and refuses, at first, to allow her parents to be informed about what is going on. At the end of the episode, she cries with her parents and tells them the truth.
4. Season 5, Episode 8 – “Emancipation” — Earlier this season, there was the story of the emancipated teen who needs a bone marrow transplant; she refuses to identify herself or her parents. They sense that she may want to die — she certainly doesn’t think she deserves to live. She has lied about being raped by her father as a reason for her not to have contact with him, but the team discovers the lie.
House wonders what would be worse than rape. He confronts the teen about what she is hiding and discovers that she didn’t watch her younger brother carefully and the boy died in the tub. She thinks her parents hate her, but at the end has a tearful reunion with them in her hospital room.
3. Season 2, Episode 22 – “Forever” — Early in the House repertoire, there is a young, beautiful mother married to a young, handsome man. They have an adorable baby. Unfortunately, the mother has a wheat allergy that causes her to try to kill the baby. Ultimately, she succeeds: The baby dies due to complications from her attempts to suffocate him in her hospital bed.
The case is tragic and terrible and ultimately the husband tells his wife that maybe she should try to be treated so they can try to have another baby. Hey, I never said the show was realistic. But this is consistent with the redemption that most of these patients find as a result of their illnesses — and treatments.
2. Season 5, Episode 4 – “Birthmarks” — There was also the case of the Chinese woman who learned that her birth parents had tried to kill her when she was an infant. She still has metal rods in her head that caused bleeds when she was exposed to a highly magnetized Buddha statue in China. Her reunion and redemption come from her birth family. She has had trouble with drug and alcohol abuse and generally being a fuck up. Now that she realizes that her birth family tried to kill her, suddenly her adoptive family looks a whole lot better. Well, except for the fact that her father wants her to think her illness is caused by her drinking…
Even though the baby didn’t actually die, this still fits into the ancient family secret category — and she was a baby when the cause of her medical trauma occurred.
1. Season 5, Episode 11 – “Joy to the World” — The most recent episode of House features the teenage girl who is dying of Eclampsia. She represents the small number of cases that are diagnosed to no avail: she is going to die in a couple of days. She thinks she has killed her baby (by neglect, at the very least, by giving birth in a crack house), so I have included her in the dead baby category. There is another tearful reunion in the hospital room, but this time the girl doesn’t get redemption or treatment– and Cuddy gets her baby.
As I was thinking more about it, I realized that all of these cases result in tearful family reunions that probably wouldn’t have occurred without the medical mystery. Their brushes with death somehow provided the redemption they needed to continue with their lives. The corollary to this is that perhaps their sinfulness or evils have contributed to or caused their illnesses. This is not directly true, of course, but considering how many patients have terrible, tragic secrets that end in redemption and healing (with the noted exceptions), it’s not a stretch to think that House writers equate misery and suffering with character flaws. This is consistent with the themes that the show repeatedly explores: misery, happiness, and what people deserve.
Perhaps when House becomes a nicer person, his leg pain will go away and he will have some kind of redemption.
Nah…
Clacked by Jen Creer
on Dec 20, 2008 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
I sure as hell hope life doesn’t mirror House, or my character flaws will lead to a horrific death. LOL
The most recent episode really did have me rooting against the girl. The family flaws were just too much. And they stacked the deck even higher by making her fat. Sheesh. I’m fat and I still rooted against her. Giving her a beautiful mother didn’t help.
All in all, every sick character on the show has some secret. If they didn’t, House wouldn’t get to prove that humans suck, which he basically tries to do every episode. He’s usually let down at the end, when they come through and tell the truth, but honesty and integrity is probably the one prevailing symptom of every case.