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Warren Shea

House S04E15 and House S04E16….(and Life & Death).

Monday, May 9th, 2011 at 11:30 pm

I haven’t watched House in about a week. Despite watching episodes constantly lately, starting from the beginning and powering through the seasons, I stopped at S04E14. Why? I knew S04E15 and S04E16 would be great…and I wanted to give them more than usual attention. I didn’t want to watch it while I was tired, or grumpy…I remember those 2 episodes being good…so while I couldn’t wait to watch them, I wouldn’t watch them under ideal circumstances.

Now, House is the kinda show that…is ridiculously episodic. As someone who hates episodic shows, I care less about the disease per episode and more about the characters. The episodes that interest me are character driven, not plot driven. And generally, except in rare cases, only the season finales are that strong. With the exception of a Foreman double parter in Season 2…and maybe one of the House/Cuddy episodes from this season, they’re all mostly plot driven.

To be honest, I don’t know which category House S04E15 falls under. But I can stay, after re-watching this episode, that this is by far my favorite episode of the entire series thus far. I put it on expecting to watch it, but not expecting to give it my full attention (I was supposed to blog while watching it)…but I couldn’t turn away. I was just captivated by it all. Even knowing the mystery behind the episode, I still couldn’t look away.

So while I’ll put the S04E15 episode as my favorite episode of House, I’ll also say that, in my opinion, S04E16 was definitely the saddest. I remember tearing up, possibly even crying when I saw it the first time. This time, I also couldn’t stop tearing up…but I didn’t have tears. I would have to say, it’s probably because Z was with me, watching it as well. I can see that if I were watching this alone, or late at night when I sometimes hit an emotional euphoria and/or emotional dysphoria, I can see myself balling. As I’m watching this show, I’m thinking that Wilson’s the nicest guy ever. And I’m thinking…he’s watching someone he loves, die right before his eyes…because of some random act of chance. He’s too nice to put real and inaccurate blame on someone (ie. House). Sometimes, life is just…unfair.

And I’m sitting here….watching him deal with this, wondering how I would react in his place. What if someone I loved were dying…what if I had to say “goodbye”. It’s something we don’t face everyday but it’s something we’re likely to face eventually. When I was younger, I used to contemplate my own death. Who would come to my funeral? What would be said about me? But at my current age (god I’m old :/), I contemplate the death of my loved ones. What am I going to say at my mother, or father’s funeral? Will I do them justice? How can I express the feeling of pride, how thankful I am, all the things I just can’t seem to say on a daily basis. Do I even know them well enough to speak for them? As I get older, and my acquaintances (co-workers) get older, I’m forced to see their family members pass away. I write my condolences on a card for them and while I know it means nothing, it also means everything…if that makes any sense. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a morbid kinda guy….the concept of death…intrigues me probably more than anything. While I’ve had my grandmother pass away, I wasn’t very close to her. I’ve had repeated hamsters pass away and while I’m sad, I find myself “over it” relatively quickly. Such is life, after all. But…eventually, my parents are going to go (before me). Or, by some freak accident, someone I’m close to. Or, by some simple careless mistake, I could die randomly. I don’t know what it feels like to experience a great loss. Maybe that’s why I’m trying to put myself in Wilson’s shoes…to try to feel what I might feel, never having had experience it. Or maybe I’m trying to prepare myself for the inevitable feeling of grief and loss and the bottomless void created that will never fully heal. Or maybe a bit of both. Hmm, as I wrote that, it’s quite possible that I’m putting far too much emphasis on death and not enough emphasis on life. Really, it doesn’t matter what happens when someone dies….but it matters how they lived.

Anyways, I didn’t intend to get all….deep, dark, and intense….that was an interesting side rant, despite the fact that I’ve quite possibly repeated it earlier, in previous blog posts. It’s so hard to tell nowadays. My posts feel so episodic, nothing memorable at all. Oh well, I always have new readers to read old content….

Anyways, on to what I was supposed to be blogging about….

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