No. No! NO!!!
Okay, I'm behind the times. I just finished watching House S7 on DVD. Don't ask why. Okay, you can if you want to. It's just not relevant to the rest of this post.
I also just finished watching the various bonus features on the DVD set, like "Huddy Dissected."
And my response to it is this: No. No! NO!!!!!!
Huddy was NOT doomed to failure from the beginning. It DIDN'T have to end as it did (although I think House driving his car through front of Cuddy's house was (for him) a major breakthrough). Yes, he drove her up the wall and back down the other side, but you know what else I think???
Most of it was HER fault. She should never have broken up with him, despite what the writers say.
Why? Because Cuddy KNEW how damaged House was when she began their relationship. She knew what she was getting into, she acknowledged it, and then she expected him to act like regular-guy boyfriend. That is UNFAIR.
NO ONE deals well with a cancer scare. NO ONE. Least of all House. Sure, he felt that he had to resort to Vicodin in order to be there and come through for Cuddy, but that speaks to his depth of feeling for her, AND it's an admittedly somewhat twisted admission on his part that he's not the person he'd like to be for her. For a months-old relationship to someone as broken as House, coming through in the end even with drug use is a VERY BIG DEAL. And yet, instead, Cuddy sees it as a failure.
In just the episode before, House gets wildly drunk, shows up on Cuddy's doorstep, and tells her point blank that if he has to choose between being the best doctor possible or loving her, he will always choose her. DOES NO ONE SEE WHAT A HUGE DEAL THAT IS???
House is someone who has always taken refuge in his intelligence, his pride of intellect, his escapism into solving medical puzzles that no one else can--ferhevvinssakes, immersing himself in intellectual pursuits relieves him of acute physical pain!--and he is willing to let go his stranglehold of that for love of her. Without, I might add, her even asking for such a thing. He searched inside himself, and this is what he discovered.
Is there such a thing as deeper love than this? He is willing to let go of that which has sustained him for so many years for love of her. What greater thing could she possibly ask???
When Cuddy breaks up with House, you can see the terror in his eyes and hear the fear in his voice. There is nothing he wouldn't do for her. No part of himself that he would not give.
Yes, he struggled with the cancer scare. WHO THE HELL WOULDN'T??? No, he didn't deal with it as best he could have, but he found a way--however wrong--to come through for her in the end.
These things are hard. This is new territory for emotionally deficient House. But he did as well as he could at the time. Perhaps it wasn't enough for her and her impossibly idealized vision of her life partner, but House tried and did the best that he could. If she'd sat down and talked to him and embraced what he did do instead of rejecting him on the basis of what he didn't or couldn't do, it would have helped him grow and cope better the next time. He's a human being. He needs time and chances to learn.
Cuddy's mother wants them back together. Cuddy's daughter wants them back together. Cuddy heard what he said when he was drunk and nakedly open and vulnerable: "I will always choose you." Honestly, what more could she want than that???
House is no saint. He's a deeply flawed, emotionally stunted character. But he understands love instinctually, and he was striving towards the fulfillment of the responsibilities and obligations of his relationship with Cuddy. He didn't choose the right path, but he was trying. He would have done better the next time, and the time after that, but Cuddy never gave him that chance.
How do I know this? Because I live with a sort-of House and have done for a long time. He and House are vastly different in almost every way, but they share some of the same emotional roadblocks. I know--I know--Jim's depth of love for and loyalty to me. He's sometimes a jerk, sometimes insensitive, almost always a dork, and strong emotions (especially his own) make him crumble into little bits. But he's learning. He's had to, because I suffer from depression, and the last several years would have tested any man. He doesn't get it right every time, and he certainly screwed up BIG the first few times, but he's getting it. Dear and good-hearted man, he's come through when it counts, even if not always in quite the way that I expected or hoped.
I've no idea how much this has been debated on LJ because I'm so terribly out of the loop, but my convictions w.r.t. a television show have never run deeper.
House screwed up because that is what he does, just like Jim. But in the end, he's there, and for all the right reasons.
Cuddy abandoned their nascent relationship because of her own wildly unrealistic expectations. She knew his limitations, and she said she loved him anyway. And then she dumped him at the first sign of trouble.
Shame on you, Cuddy. However, it was a completely human and not an unrealistic response, and you can still make things right, if the writers allow you to do so. I hope they do.
/rant
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