House "Merry Little Christmas"
Topic: Art and Poetry
I've got only a few television shows that I bother with these days, any days for that matter. Heroes and House are the two shows I don't miss. The other night the episode of House was called,  "Merry Little Christmas" but it was nothing like a Merry Christmas show. The story line with the angry angry cop named Tritter was moving along. They had put the squeeze on House and his friend Wilson had caved under the pressure and made a deal with the police. No jail time for House if he accepted the deal of rehab and probation. Of course House wouldn't even consider taking the deal. He didn't feel as if he had done anything wrong at all. I think Wilson asked House if his pride was worth going to jail for. Of course it was, Cuddy and everyone else knew the answer to that, was yes. Pride would overcome any sort of rational decision making. Rational for someone not under attack, Wilson thought in his rational train of thought that anyone would rationally choose the lesser of the two difficult choices. That's how he rationalized his conduct and his betrayal. The police of course, the experienced folks involved knew otherwise, they knew they had him, they knew House, like anyone else in that position would not yield and was therefore caught.  Prickly, principled, House wasn't going to change his position even if it meant personal and professional disaster. They aren't principles if you don't stand up for them, they don't mean anything then and anything that you stood for or believed would mean nothing if you chose comfort over principles. The smirking lawyers and police come to you and say 'plead guilty and you won't go to jail' - but if you don't feel you're guilty then it's not an option, if fact, House at that point was refusing to even acknowledge the police and the charges against him. If he had  maintained that  opinion, that frame of mind, he would have walked into the courtroom and not participated.  Doing anything at all would have denied everything he had thought and felt before that moment, it would have been the same as taking the easy way out - regardless of the consequences. In fact, the consequences would have been an affirmation of everything he had thought and felt and the pain would be confirmation and purification and ritual punishment all at the same time. But, House was an addict in flux, in panic and going through that whole mind altering brain storm. Unlike someone on an antidepressant whose mind would be mostly gone, unable to maintain a vast array of thoughts and to be able to think through various choices and who would lock into the one way of thinking, House's mind raced through the needs of the addict and the need to get a fix, then the knowledge that he was racing to the wall. He OD's, wakes up and in a moment where he is stripped of his self respect and the careful shield he had created to protect himself, he then goes to see the cop Tritter and gives up. Of course, Tritter doesn't let him give up and accept his humiliation. Tritter tells House that he has new evidence and that evidence lets him take the deal off the table. And we end the episode. When the next episode comes, House will have steeled himself, he will have built his walls back up and Tritter will ultimately have lost his chance to actually win. Not giving up is winning. It's a wait until the next episode, sometime in January. I love House, he isn't a Superman, he's in pain, he crashes and falls down but he continues and exists and sometimes that's the only victory you get.