House plays house with Cuddy

by Jen Creer

House and Cuddy have sex, skip work, and tell each other why their relationship won't work... because they want it to work.

A commenter (Hi, Oreo! Nice to see you again!) on a post I did recently about House and Cuddly, er, Cuddy remarked:

I don’t follow this BS that house [sic] has loved her for 20 years like the newer seasons try to get at. I have been watching season 1 and 2 and they have a caring-ness for each other even when they can’t stand each other, but that’s not love.

I don’t know if I agree with you, though. I think the show toyed with a chemistry between House and Cuddy in the first and second season (a particularly memorable scene is when Cameron asked Cuddy why she doesn’t fire House, and assumes that Cuddy hates him; Cuddy corrects her. I have searched all over the net for which episode this is, and apologize because I cannot find it), but then decided to pursue other angles with Stacey (Sela Ward) and Cameron (Jennifer Morrison). Cuddy took a back seat for a long time, true, but I think it’s plausible that there has been a sustained thread of love between them for 20 years.

Cuddy is probably the only woman House could ever date successfully. She already knows every fault he has, and as, Deb pointed out in her review, House points out to Cuddy that he has done terrible things go her. And he will do terrible things again. That might be the best, most honest relationship opener I’ve ever heard. My husband and I have a theory that people tell each other the most honest, foreshadowing, terrible things about themselves during the beginning of a relationship. Yet, we end up surprised when these things turn out to be true. Cuddy told House she doesn’t want him to change, but I suspect she is lying. I think she may indeed want him to change, but realizes he simply isn’t capable of it. So, she finally just decided to go for it anyway.

One comment on the Thirteen storyline (which aggravates me — it’s such a contrivance in some ways, because I know Olivia Wilde is shooting movies, but they have to shroud her absence in mystery): Foreman says at the end of the episode that she has been lying to them all day. However, did she really? She planted some false information because she knows they’ll read her stuff. She knows she has no chance at privacy. And she did not actually say she was going to Rome to participate in a dangerous clinical trial. She simply did not correct the misconception. Well done. Now, we just have to endure Amber Tamblyn’s guest appearance arc….