#(note: so far almost all the dead patients in-show are women. ouch. the other is a disabled man. double ouch)

[dorianbrightmusic]

Hilson and the Season 4 Finale

(Spoilers for House 4x15 and 4x16)

The season 4 finale is just so massive from a Hilson perspective. You have House stewing in frustration in the lead-up, as Wilson starts dating Girl House. You have House getting jealous, and then him trying to reluctantly live with the fact that maybe Cutthroat Bitch is actually good for Wilson. And he also has to deal with the fact that CB is good for Wilson in ways that House hasn’t been able to achieve. And yet Wilson’s list of reasons to like CB are, at least initially, her similarities to House. (House certainly isn’t likely to be able to see past that – he’s not going to be aware of any other reason Wilson might like her, breasts aside.) So House has been watching his beloved fall for someone who’s just like him.

House is the king of deflecting and running away from pain. Wilson is probably the only person who’s ever been semi-capable of getting through to House in this regard, and in getting him to recognise his own cowardice. Yet Wilson – House’s confidant – is now preoccupied with Amber. And it’s not like House could possibly articulate the romantic frustration. He’s losing the one man he even slightly trusts, and the one man he could have discussed that loss with.

All this is going on while Wilson is having an unexpectedly successful relationship. This successful relationship, of course, is new, may face the same death sentence as all of Wilson’s past relationships – he’ll find someone needier. (Much as he’s found someone whom he’d like to save more than he’d like to save House. So House is watching himself become one of Wilson’s ex-wives, in a sense.) Amber isn’t needier than House, and she encourages Wilson to pursue his own needs. Maybe these would be factors that could have prevented her relationship with Wilson going the way of all his marriages. But as far as House is concerned, people don’t change. He sees patterns, so he’s waiting for this romance to shrivel up and die. However, as far as House is concerned, Amber and Wilson are a proxy for House and Wilson. So if he holds out for their disintegration, he’s also holding out to watch his own relationship with Wilson disintegrate. Even though he and Wilson aren’t a couple, Wilson is effectively cheating on him with Amber. Yet if/when Wilson inevitably cheats on Amber, he’ll also be cheating on House-by-proxy.

Wilson is also in a bad position. I’ve always interpreted him as a gay man who’s so deep in the closet that he genuinely believes, at least on some level, that he’s still at least a little straight. He goes out of his way to be a hero to women because that’s what love is meant to look/feel like. He can make them fall for him, and pray that being loved will let him experience straight love vicariously. But it’s never fulfilling, and he moves on and woos someone else because maybe, just maybe, this will be the affair that lets him really feel something.

Yet through years of failed romance, he stays loyal to his best friend. He’ll spend Christmas with House rather than spend it with his then-wife. He’ll be friends with House even when it ruins his first marriage. House is a monster; but so is Wilson. And Wilson has a pathological need to admit to own up to his mistakes. Someone as blunt as House is perfect for him.

With Amber, Wilson seems to be finally falling for someone – but that someone is Girl House. The woman he seems to love is the female reflection of the man he’s always loved.

House and Wilson both know this – they joke about being a couple. But House looks devastated as he says ‘Oh my God. You’re dating me.’ And Wilson doesn’t even know what to say. It’s a hideous glimmer of all that could have been between them.

Cut to House slowly realising – and telling Wilson as he pieces things together – that he is responsible for Amber’s death.

If House hadn’t been turning to alcohol in lieu of better coping skills – or social support – Amber wouldn’t have needed to collect him. Part of the reason House was probably drinking so early was his frustration with all that was going on with Wilson. And naturally, this is after Wilson has already tried and tried to intervene with House’s substance abuse. This is after House has remained sick and negligent despite Wilson’s compassion and effort.

So House, despite Wilson’s demonstrations of love, has indirectly killed Wilson’s beloved. This was preventable and arbitrary. This was after House’s third near-death experience. This was after Wilson found House once, and sat at his bedside later. This was after House said ‘I love you’. After Amber resuscitated House from his electric suicide.

And House is voluntarily risking his life to save the woman who’s the curse of his existence. He’s voluntarily going in that chair and having a hole put in his skull to save her. Yet he’s the one who reveals, after everything, that there’s nothing they can do to save Amber.

He’s killed a woman. He’s killed the one girl who seemed to stand between him and Wilson. He’s also killed the indirect embodiment of him and Wilson – even after she saved his life.

The whole time, Wilson believes mistakenly that House has fallen for Amber. He’s dealing with the anger and grief of having his girlfriend potentially cheat on him with his best friend (whom he, deep down, really loves. Whom he can’t touch, because he’s not meant to love House). And he’s dealing with his fury at House. And he can’t see that House’s jealousy is not because House loves Amber, but because House loves Wilson. It’s easier for Wilson to rationalise House’s actions as House trying to steal his girlfriend than it is to accept that House loves him. (Or, worse, than it is to accept that he loves House.)

And the one time that Wilson seems to be able to love a girl, she’s gone. And now there’s this emptiness where he can’t touch anyone, and where the man he isn’t supposed to love is the very man to blame.

And House knows that when Amber dies, he might lose Wilson. And he is so, so scared. He admits it – House admits to being scared of losing Wilson. They can’t ever be the same after this, and he knows it and admits it. And he finally wants to change and get better – but he’s losing the one man who he might trust to help him. He’s losing the one man he could even tell.

Augh. My heart is in pieces. It’s such an incredibly painful situation on all fronts.