House M. D. is a medical drama and investigative series that centers on the job of Dr. Gregory House. He is a physician who works at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital as the Director of Diagnostic medicine where he supervises a team of highly skilled doctors who take on medical cases that other doctors fail to solve. In season six, episode three of House M. D, House explores different ways of distracting himself after completing a rehab program. As an addict to Vicodin, he must cut all of his old habits that lead to his self-destruction and using, among which his job.
He quits his job leaving his fellows to solve cases on their own while he takes different hobbies that will keep him from using Vicodin. Consistently in this episode the writers use various appeals to force the audience to feel sympathetic towards House and his fellows who both struggle without one another. The authors of this episode are also effective in capturing a very serious subject while using humor to give comic relief in between scenes of intense action or drama. The episode starts off with a scene showing the patient’s original symptoms appear while he is working on producing a video game.
The action provided by the virtual reality of the video game contrasts with the patient having to sit down and stare at his hands as he proclaims “my hands feel like they are on fire “. This introduction of a mysterious medical symptom is typical of all other House episodes, similar to catching a murderer in the act of killing. This method of introduction is very effective in capturing the audience’s attention through the use of mystery and forcing the viewer to engage. Normally the next scene would show the presenting of this case to Dr. House, however, instead House gives his resignation at the advice of his therapist Dr. Nolan, as part of his therapy to maintain sobriety after rehab.
House is solemn, perhaps a little tired as he delivers his resignation to his boss Dr. Lisa Cuddy and former employee Dr. Eric Foreman. This scene shows the author use pathos by invoking a sense of sympathy in the viewer towards Dr. House. He says “I quit” to which Dr. Foreman replies “you can’t quit quote and then the riders include a bit of humor to lessen the scene’s tension by having House reply in a sarcastic way, “I think you have me confused with Jake Gyllenhaal. “. Here he is referring to the famous quote from the movie Brokeback mountain “I wish I knew how to quit you”.
After explaining that continuing to work at Princeton-Plainsboro hospital would threaten his sobriety, he leaves. Leaving a void in the scene again leaves the audience to question “what next? “. Dr. Foreman, overly confident in his abilities, immediately offers himself to run the department which turns the audience against him because it seems he is so concerned about himself and not House’s well-being which goes against everything the doctor really stands for. Dr. Cuddy discredits Dr. Foreman by saying how diagnostic departments don’t really exist, it was just House that made it a specialty.
This is an excellent piece where the author uses ethos by providing credibility to House’s abilities and at the same time foreshadowing the abilities of Dr. Foreman and the diagnostics department without House. In the next scene, Dr. Foreman and the rest of the team are differentiating over a diagnosis of their new patients. After discussing his symptoms they seem to come to what isn’t easy conclusion about the patient’s condition, however, when the team goes to tell about their findings, the patient has taken upon himself to research his symptoms and come up with a very rare but still possible diagnosis of mercury poisoning.
Since the test for mercury poisoning was very simple, the doctors under Dr. Foreman decided to run the test and disprove the patient, however, when Foreman finds out of their defiance, he quickly asserts himself as their boss by disciplining them verbally, even Dr. Hadley who is his girlfriend. This scene creates Dr. Foreman as a kind of antagonist and places the audience’s view against him and sympathetic towards Dr. Hadley, whose facial expression after his disciplining expresses her dislike for her boyfriend’s new place as her boss.
House meanwhile meets with his therapist Dr. Nolan, who recommends House get a hobby. Houses best friend Dr. Wilson, whom he lives with, takes up a cooking class which house engages in to distract himself from his leg pain in thus Vicodin. Again, during their conversation house makes a sarcastic pun in response to Dr. Nolan telling him he needs to get closer to people. This demonstrates the author’s use of comic relief to desensitize the viewers in a serious conversation between the patient and his therapist. Dr. Foreman has started the patient on spinal stimulation to confirm his diagnosis against the patient’s self-diagnosis of mercury poisoning.
During the procedure, Dr. Hadley and Dr. Tao are talking to the patient while they stick needles in his spine. The patient expresses how Dr. Foreman strong-armed him into this procedure, thus proving to Dr. Hadley that it is not just her that sees Dr. Foreman’s potential abuse of power. During the procedure, the patient suffers massive chest pain due to fluid buildup in the lungs not caused by the spinal stimulation, which, as the doctors frantically work, trying to revive the patient, the author uses ethos to discredit Dr. Foreman and his team’s diagnosing ability without House.
House and his friend Dr. Wilson are in their cooking class where the teacher compares music to cooking. House replies under his breath that remark is stupid by saying that logically “Yes, except Beethoven’s fifth isn’t going to be poop tomorrow. “. Houses obvious lack of interest expressed by his face and lack of participation in the cooking class until Wilson’s meatballs start smoking and House uses his knowledge of biochemistry to create a quick solution to prevent the meatballs from burning by applying vinegar. Here House shows the same interest that he used to have in his job as the head of diagnostic medicine.
His craving for a puzzle is somewhat fed by this problem of burning meatballs. He then makes a quirky remark about saving Wilson’s balls. Again comic relief provides a humorous outlet in the scene. Returning to the team, Dr. Foreman visits the patient only to find out he has posted his symptoms online and attracted doctors from around New Jersey to visit him in his hospital room. Here the team demonstrates a complete unknowing of the patient’s diagnosis, so much that the patient has had to consult with other doctors, further discrediting Dr. Foreman and the team’s ability without House.
Before the same Dr. Hadley had mentioned a possible brain tumor however Dr. Foreman exercises his superiority over her by overruling her idea. but when Dr. Foreman confronts the patient and his doctor, the other doctor also suggest a possible brain tumor which makes Dr. Foreman call into question his own judgment which shown by the frustrated expression on his face as he leaves the scene. Here the audience feels pity for Dr. Foreman because even though he is highly trained and worked with House the longest, he is not House and has come to realize it in his failure to diagnose the patient.
House, Meanwhile, have started to obsess over cooking to get his leg to stop hurting. Having the scenes flip from house to the team express is the dichotomy or how reflective the two stories are in that both is worse off without the other. Dr. Hadley pays House a visit for some advice about the patient’s case. House demonstrates his intellect when she walks in by “You’re early. “indicating that he had already predicted Dr. Hadley’s visit. she expresses her concern about Dr. Foreman being the boss of the teen while House cooks embryonali.
House has Dr. Hadley try some of the food he has prepared with two which she says “this might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and yes even better than what you’re thinking of now. “. She is referring to the fact that she is a known bisexual in response to the smirk on House’s face. She tells House he’s an amazing cook while he grabs his leg, slightly cringing in pain and says “And yet my leg hurts. ” which indicates that House’s use of cooking as a distraction is failing. After another failed diagnosis and another new diagnosis from a doctor outside the team, Dr.
Foreman is afraid he will not solve the case. And worse, Dr. Taub visits him and tells him he’s going to quit because even though he is a good doctor he is not House. Foreman sees his team falling apart, and the patient rapidly declining as he starts to experience hallucinations of his video game. An anonymous doctor, however, tips off Dr. Hadley that his symptoms fit with Fabre’s disease. The scene switches to Dr. Foreman sitting sadly in his office, knowing that it was not a result of his actions that cured the patient, but some other doctors.
This exemplifies pathos in that it produces sympathy and pity for Dr. Foreman even though it was a failure from the beginning because he stepped into a job that only House could do. House goes to see his therapist Dr. Nolan to tell him that he slipped. He was the one who tipped off Dr. Hadley and solve the case. This demonstrates houses persona as an addict has he is unable to relinquish his medical abilities for the sake of his sobriety. He does, however, express that once he diagnosed the patient his leg stop hurting somewhat and thus that is what he needs to stay sober.
Dr. Nolan agrees with him and tells him to go get his old job back. Finally, both parties are in a realization that neither can exist without the other. House must work at the hospital as a diagnostician to keep his leg from hurting while the team needs his intellect to solve medical puzzles that others cannot. There is a fair bit of irony shown here because at the beginning of the episode house quits his job as part of his rehabilitation but by the end of the episode, he realizes that he needs it as part of his rehabilitation.
