Warning: If you've read my post on Tumblr about this, skip it, because it's basically the same thing


As you probably don't know - unless you've been spending too much attention to my tumblr blog - I loved this show for years, still love it really, but stopped watching after season 7. After that finale I just felt I'd seen too much gimmicks and it had become riddiculous. But of course I had to watch the series finale... and this will be me ranting about it, so consider yourself warned and feel free to scroll past in case you feel exhausted already




Let me first say, I hated it. Just to get that out of the way. And maybe as a warning, in case I was too subtle in my introduction - which seems unlikely as I am hardly ever accused of being 'subtle.' Still, if you loved it, scroll along, and be happy you got to enjoy a wonderful finale for a show you (presumably) loved.

Wilson?

I knew Wilson had cancer, thanks to a gif set that drifted across my dashboard a few weeks ago... I figured it was another gimmick, which it was of course, but I never thought they would actually kill him. I mean, really? I think when it became clear Wilson was really going to die I went, "Wilson? Wilson!? Wilson!" And if you have just read that in Tom Hank's voice, you've watched "Cast Away," and I won't have to explain the heartache that went with that exclaimation.



Honestly, I don't hate sad endings (hell, my favourite movie is "Moulin Rouge"), but I hate gimmicks. And "House, MD" has used sooooo many over the years. And repeated them endlessly. And of course it suffers from an all too familiar ailment many shows (movies, songs, any story telling medium) suffer from; if you want something to be profound, kill a beloved character.

Hell, some stories write in characters for this purpose. Generally in any show you follow when a long lost relative or friend shows up out of the blue and is immediatly bestowed with deep meaning, it's a sure bet this character will be dead within three episodes and often that very same episode.



Wilson of course wasn't just invented for this purpose, he was just crudely used for it, presumably out of desperation to give the show real meaning and insight into life (you can't see it, but I am rolling my eyes right now). Writting this I am actually reminded of something David Mitchell said in "That Mitchell and Webb Look."

David: You think we should do that, kill off someone, roll the credits over silence?

Robert: I think we really have to do it David, show maturity with something tacked on and moorish

Ironically this sketch show manages to show much more depth with their finale sketch. In House it feels like the writers are grasping at straws, trying to move their audience when they've effed up quite a lot of their story already.



What made it even worse was the reason given by Stacey (who I can only assume returned due to Cuddy's absence as a sensitive ex who 'really knows House'). Basically they said House needed to do for himself what Wilson had always done for him. They call him House's conscience, I would say his humanity is closer to it. Or maybe not simply his humanity, but what you would hope that word means. Even though I feel there are more Houses in the world than Wilsons.

True, House has failed to grow over the course of 8 seasons. Well, that's not true, he has grown, but the writers have always pushed the reset button - another common ailment with shows. And then used gimmicks to pretend the show has any real development. It's a shame, with all the potential this story had.



So Wilson, you have been sacrified on the alter of shock effects in an attempt to make stir our hearts. And in a way it has, though I'm sure a deep hatred for the headwriter was not the desired outcome.

Goodbye Wilson, you were a much needed heart throughout the series, even in the seasons I struggled to keep watching.



Avengers, assemble!



Amber? Last time we saw you, you were House's hallucination. Oh, right, you're still that...



I understand wanting a goodbye to every character in the show. At the wrap party. Not in the episode. If you have 44 minutes to give fans a worthy ending to a show that has been a part of their lives for close to a decade, do not waste time on cameos. Camerons, however, yes. Despite having slowly disappeared after being      kicked out of a main character seat in season 4, Cameron has been very important in the show and of course she should show up.

I personally wouldn't have done the hallucination thing... It's tacky, boring and unnecesary. Plus a gimmick they have used countless times before... I think it would always have been difficult getting all those characters together again... The funeral was much more logical and if they wanted to do it before then, why not have House contemplate his life while deciding if he wanted to die, and have him think of how all those people are doing now.

Stacey... well, I could justify her presence. After all she's the first woman House really loved, and she was there at a crucial time of his life (when his leg got 'not cut off'). It has been close to 6 years since we last saw her, but still, I can understand her presence.

But Amber? I never understood why she seemed to be pulled back again and again, and especially not now... Shouldn't she be running around in Wilson's hallucinations?

Kutner, well I don't know. To be honest if he is going to represent anything to House's subconscience, I wouldn't have gone with suicide. Maybe more something like you can never know someone, never truly connect. Or perhaps the insanity of pretending to be what you are not. (Kutner was always considered the happiest of the bunch and in the end it turned out he was the most depressed.) Something like that? I could even understand if they had gone the route of House being angry with Kutner because he took the 'easy' way out, while House kept fighting depsite his own suicidal tendancies.



I also felt baffled that they would elect to spend so much time on cameos of characters that we might have missed these past years, but that certainly weren't vital in any way to the closure of the series, over having more of the important characters in here. (Where, for example was Chase?)

Also, Dom could've been left out completely. Fake wife, as part of House's revenge/ punishment on Cuddy after leaving him, and sudden love interest (I would like to say thank you for at least not having it end with House and Dom riding into the sunset).

House's psychiatrist seemed an odd choice, but at least his cameo was helping the plot along.



One Woman Down



Cuddy... Even if you hated her as a love interest, you have to admit that she was vital to the story these past 8 years. Yes, even if she wasn't present in the finale season.

I never understand why people call the whole 'Huddy' arc sudden, it wasn't, they have been flirting for years, combine that with Cuddy being a match for House and the two of them getting to know each other better and better every year, it isn't surprising one or in this case both of them would develop feelings for each other.



Putting that aside, I was stunned she wasn't a presence in this episode. Yes, Lisa didn't want to return and whatever her reason for that was, that meant we wouldn't see Cuddy in this ep. But that doesn't mean she couldn't have been a presence in this finale of a show she was such a big part of. Some people's absence means more than other people's absence. And Cuddy's character deserved a hell of a lot more than "Cuddy's gone," uttered by House when faced with what he considers an impossible future for himself; happily with a woman who loves him and a child of his own.

They could hardly have made 'Huddy' endgame, after the stunt they pulled in the seventh season's finale... but to not have any real mention of her? I don't get it...



The Doctor is dead, Long live the Doctor



In real "Doctor Who" style the doctor has regenerated into a Hell's Angel. Apparently. While I'm all for reinventing yourself when you feel your life is making you miserable, it seems a shame House would give up something that really seemed to be his calling, just to spend five months with Wilson. Don't get me wrong, I wanted them to have those last five months, but why not just run away, be a fugitive until Wilson dies and then face the music.

Why give up the few good things   you have in your life? Like your friends at the hospital, your reputation, your talent at saving people and in a strange way help them fix their lives by facing the truth? Don't you think House will need that support when Wilson dies?



Has House, MD gone the Time Lord route of traveling along alone and sometimes visiting old friends? Maybe he'll become a jazz musician... Honeslty I think they were just trying to give the story a real ending, so it felt like their had been a real journey to the series. That this is a closed book. The problem is, you can't just 'fake' that in the last 10 minutes of a series...

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of House finally doing what he wants his patience to do; face the harsh reality. I hope he really does change, finally. Jeez, it only took him 55 years... But you can do that without going underground.

Maybe he'll pull a 'Dick to Dom' routina a la "Mad Men" and steal someone's identity. Hopefully Wilson will leave House enough cash money (because obviously he wouldn't be able to collect anything Wilson has put in his will for him, or his own money) to start a new live. Because in this economy it's not going to be easy finding a new job.



And if House manages to find a woman who loves him and manages to not screw it up as royally as he has in the past, he'll get the rest of his live to lie to her about everything. Or tell her the truth after a few years and hope she's more forgiving than he perhaps deserves.

I am however very happy House at least had the decency to let Foreman know he's still alive. And I have enough faith in Foreman to believe he will let the people who care about House know they've wasted a perfectly good eulegy.



Goodbye House



So here we are, the end of the DDX.



In the end it isn't Foreman who follows into House's stepfoots, but Chase. It seemed a bit out of the blue, I have to say, but it's not an unsatisfying result. (I wonder how pissed Taub will be with having Chase as his boss; a neverending reminder of how many steps back he has taken in his carreer.)



Cameron got her happy ending, and I'm glad. She was a sweet girl and even though I'm sure she would annoy me if I had to be friends with her, I liked her character a lot and missed her when she was put on the back bench and eventually sold to another team.



Foreman is obviously happy, being in charge, even though I can imagine him missing being a 'real doctor' sooner or later. Hopefully he'll manage to find some semblance of a life outside of being boss of the hospital, I would hate for him to end up as lonely as we've seen House be.



Cuddy, wherever she is, will probably get her happy ending as well. I mean she was a great worker and she's a great woman so I can't see her not getting a great job and a great man to have the 'complete package' she wanted so much. If only the writers hadn't made House drive into her home... I love the idea of them ending up together after all. I mean they are so well suited and I don't think there are a lot of people like them out there.



Wilson. What can I say? We'll avenge your pointless death by... what? Harassing the callous headwriter who thought one final gimmick would help his show's deteriating reputation? Such a lovely, loveable character and they took him out into the woods and shot him. Bastards. A tragic death can be a wonderful story telling tool, it can move you to tears and make you remember a story for years. But what they have done is horrible and has just made me angry, and unfortunately reminded me of why I'd stopped watching the show.



House, you're such an unloveable character and yet here we all are, our hearts aching because you left us. Even with what they did to the character the past two seasons, I never really stopped liking him. I'm sure everyone on the show realised that if Hugh Laurie hadn't showed up on that audition tape, almost a decade ago, no one would've heard of this show and certainly no one would be practically crying because it has come to an end. Somehow he managed to make this bastard (almost) the most loveable character on the show, and he was the only constant wonderfulness in a show that was - and I hate to say this - slowely going down the crapper.



The first time I saw "House, MD" was on vacation in London. It was during the 2nd season and it was episode 16: Safe.

It was May 2006 and I was in a hotel room with my two best friends. We'd just arrived and one of us was too tired to go anywhere, and wanted to sleep, but also wanted us to stay with her. Reluctantly (and I do mean reluctantly) I agreed and my other friend switched on the TV. We saw the commercial for the ep and it was coming up in an hour or so. I had to fight to watch it (instead of some chat show that was on). The synopsis sounded so interesting, I wanted to watch it. And I was immediately hooked.

Back in Holland, no one had heard of the show. Not surprising as it would still take over a year before it would show up on our screens... By which time I had already seen all the aired episodes thanks to a friend being kind enough to lend me her import DVDs. This was a time before I had internet, so DVDs were the only way I could watch the show...



And now, almost 6 years later to the day, I watched the final episode on the internet. Behind me is a wall of books and DVDs, among them 6 shiny boxsets of "House, MD." To me the final episode of the sixth season is the series finale. That season wraps up more story lines than the this series finale did, and in a much more satisfying way. (It also doesn't end on a cliffhanger unlike all previous seasons. Yes, the kiss between Cuddy and House could be considered a cliffhanger, but only in the way the end kiss in a romantic comedy would be a cliffhanger, i.e. not really a cliffhanger.)



I like to leave a story with the idea that the characters will be okay without us, that it will go on. It still sucks to say goodbye, but at least you know they will all be okay.



Goodbye, and thanks for the memories.