House: “Baggage” (Season 6, Episode 21)
I’ve said it before, House improves vastly when it ditches its formula. This penultimate episode of season 6 kicks off with House sitting down for a therapy session with Dr. Nolan* –remember him? He’s the shrink that treated House in the feature length season premiere in which our diagnostic diva was an in-patient at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.
*Good to see Andre Braugher again after his brilliant turn in the first season of Men of a Certain Age. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it. Now.
Since then House has been making small efforts towards happiness. However, this episode sees House’s angry, self-destructive behaviour return only he doesn’t know why. Hugh Laurie does fine work here, pulling off the difficult task of allowing the ultra-proud House to admit he needs help without turning him into a desperate fool. And so he and Dr. Nolan talk through House’s week and trying to figure out what’s going wrong with the genius doc. It all goes a bit Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as House and Dr. Nolan, a.k.a. The Ghost of Psyche Past inhabit the locations of these memories and discuss them retrospectively as they happen around them.
“Baggage” is also reminiscent of The West Wing episode, “Noël”, in which Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman talks to a councillor about his erratic behaviour. Much like House, Josh is invited to talk about his week and, with help, comes to recognise the heightened meaning certain people and events have for him. Once these triggers are understood for what they are, control is restored.
Done right, it’s a compelling way to tell a story. The best stories are character driven. This narrative technique puts one person front and centre and invites the audience to join them in a journey towards enlightenment. Also, viewers will naturally be reading the show: interpreting actions, assigning motives, deciphering relationships etc. Aside from all the clever metatextual shenanigans, by having the characters investigate themselves in the same way as the audience might, our automatic response to the drama is promoted and we become much more active viewers, who are asked to question how and why they/we apply meaning -much like therapy itself.
So this is a good episode. I know I keep saying this but House needs to mix it up more often. Why does the end of every act have to be the guest star having “unexpected” medical emergency? Focus on character, and by that I mean House, Wilson and Cuddy. Not Chase or Thirteen or Foreman. Foreman’s as well-rounded as Picasso’s cutlery drawer. Let the character of House be the puzzle to be solved, not the guest star’s freaky ailment.
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