May 8, 2007: Resignation
As you can imagine, given last week's resignation, this week's show spent a lot of time on the Foreman question. Will he or won't he stay, or does he just want House to ask him to stay? Then of course there's the "will House ask him to stay?" question. Enough already! I'm approaching House's level of annoyance with Foreman's existential crisis. "I want to be a really great doctor like you, but only if I can be nice, too!" I'm not knocking friendly patient care, but House is who he is and Foreman believing he has to lose his humanity in order to replicate House's level of expertise is just plain silly.
Besides, it's clear that Foreman wants to stay and a simple request from House would get Foreman to rescind his own walking papers, but since when has House ever done anything the easy way? Here's a man who could have asked Wilson if he was on antidepressants but chose instead to spike Wilson's coffee with uppers and wait for a possible heart attack to answer that question. Hmm. Maybe Foreman does have valid reason to get out.
Part of the problem is that Foreman thinks he knows everything. Just as he butts head with House at the whiteboard, Foreman is stuck on his conclusion that House is heartless. But like the Grinch, whose heart is two sizes too small, House isn't a completely cold person. Patient Addie (
Lyndsy Fonseca) proves it.
Addie presented with symptoms that defied explanation, but when the doctors settled on protein deficiency as the cause for her condition, Foreman scolded House for not caring enough to even know their dying patient's name. To Foreman this proved again that House was not the kind of doctor Foreman wanted to be. Yet it was House and not Foreman who pressed further to discover that Addie was depressed and had attempted suicide. It was House who broke confidentiality to inform the parents of Addie's unhappy state. Sure, House didn't shed a tear, but what Foreman failed to realize was that when it counts, House's gruff ways often provide the grit necessary to connect with patients whose issues have left them emotionally and physically raw.
That's just it: House isn't a squishy toy that gives a child comfort when the world gets scary. He's that creepy clown doll with the glassy eyes and maniacal grin that turns a child's dreams to nightmares. When Foreman looks to House for comfort, he often forgets that his mentor is dealing with his own issues and therefore has no time to reassure an employee who has lost his way. That doesn't mean that House wants any of his team to remain lost in the woods. He just trusts that they will eventually find their own way home.
So while Foreman wanders in the wilderness, House will continue to hit on his patients' girlfriends, especially the ones named Honey (
Piper Perabo) who flirt back.
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