#House MD episode 'Chase' 8x12

[ljblueteak]

Chase explaining that House will "eventually" fire you whether you stand up to him or not in Guardian Angels (4x04) (he's talking to Cole specifically but also highlighting that the fellowship is time-limited)

vs. Chase practically daring House to fire him in Chase (8x12) after having worked with him again for a few years—and this is after he’d been the fellow who’d been around the longest at the end of the third season.

[ljblueteak]

Chase (8x12), in which House spies on Chase with a patient (he knows they’ve been playing handsies!), calls him a slut, and diagnosis him with intimacy issues.

[ljblueteak]

This sequence in Chase, where Chase wants to get away from House but House catches up to him because Chase is still recovering and getting used to his crutches made me think of Chase running after House in Ignorance is Bliss when Chase says "I can outrun you" in response to House trying to avoid talking to him about the punch situation.

Ignorance is Bliss (side note: I love how Chase is barely visible in the second image—he’s some hair and an arm on the left).

[ljblueteak]

Watching Chase (8x12), I'm thinking House and Chase can be quite similar when religious faith gets in their way. Generally, House isn't a fan of religion but will tolerate it unless it's throwing up a roadblock while Chase is much more respectful of religion and is, at times, actually religious. Except when religion is throwing up an obstacle he wishes it wouldn't.

He suspects Moira's becoming a nun for the wrong reasons in Chase and he feels a connection with her and wants to be with her. He winds up sounding a lot like House here:

Chase: What day did Jesus die? Moira: I know, one gospel says Passover; another says the day before. Chase: How many times did the cock crow before Peter's third denial? Once or twice? Moira: You can't argue away my faith. Chase: Why? Because it's so strong even plain contradictions…

Gave me flashbacks to House's "Would you pull an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath?" to Cole in 4x02, The Right Stuff and Wilson saying this about House in Private Lives (6x15) "He reads the Bible, he reads the Quran. He says he likes to know what mistakes people are making."

In Chase, House intervenes when Chase wants to try to convince Moira she didn't have a near-death experience of God:

Chase: She's throwing away her life because of blind faith. House: So are you! She's found something she wants to build her life around. It's a total illusion, but apparently she'll take a little ignorance with her bliss. And you want to take that away? Chase: How many times have you thrown the truth in people's faces? House: Because it's the truth, not because we're gonna live happily ever after. Either your relationship just blows up like every other non-magical romance, or she stays with you but blames you for stripping all the meaning out of her life.

But! It's also in Chase that House wonders whether Chase's own near-death experience means that he's becoming more religious and he is not supportive and happy about it because it might influence whether Chase comes back to the team and/or how he'll practice medicine. He says, "'Noradrenaline and near-death experiences.' Oh, dear. You saw God?" when he sees Chase is reading a study on near-death experiences and in the same episode, asks "You turning back to your long-abandoned faith in time of trouble?" in a way that, imo, implies mockery and arguing will result if Chase says yes.

House tells Chase, "God's loss, our gain" when Chase says God didn't talk to him while he was in seminary (House v. God, 2x19) and it seems like he doesn't realize that Chase still prays on his own (Forever) or that he's willing to pray with patients (Damned if You Do), or that even if he's not 100% positive there's a higher power out there, he'll talk to one like there's someone listening ("Sometimes I need to think there’s something out there paying attention. So when I can’t talk to anybody, I talk to God, and pretend somebody’s listening," 3x20, House Training). I think that's why he doesn't make fun of Chase for having been in seminary and is fine with the House v. God scoreboard. He's pretty sure Chase's faith is "long abandoned."

I'd say it's not, but not in a way that would get in House's way. As Chase says in Here Kitty (5x18), "I really believe that there are things that science can't understand. That there is a role for faith and prayer. But it's in the waiting room. Not the O.R."

Chase ultimately decides not to argue further with Moira and leaves her with, "I'm happy I knew you." But it was interesting to see how being genuinely interested in her (it's not just that he wants a relationship with her—he also seems to really think she's joining religious life for the wrong reason) shaped how he talked about religion and his own experiences with it. He doesn't want her to join, which is why he was talking up what a mistake it had been for him to be in seminary. And it was a mistake for him, but I don't think he'd necessarily have talked about it the same way to someone other than her. He doesn't talk about it quite the same way in Damned if You Do. For example, though he does say that he failed the test of faith, he's largely more supportive of it, even if he suggests that doing good in the world is more important than serving "Our Lord" in a monastery.