House was one of the most popular television programs of the last twenty years. A medical procedural that helped usher in the “troubled genius” era of television, over eight seasons we watched Gregory House and his team of medical professionals as they fell in love, deceived patients and solved the most complicated cases in America. A modern update on Sherlock Holmes, the series also delved into the dark and misguided psyche of its focal character, and asked what the cost of genius is. Tackling complicated issues in both individual episodes and over the course of series’ long arcs, House, while not groundbreaking, provides great context for where North American society was post-911 and before the overabundance of social media. A moral time capsule, an era captured in ember.
The “troubled genius” trope was one of the stalwarts of the early to mid-2000s. Stretching across genres and with each having their own spin on the concept, various shows have featured this trope, from The Big Bang Theory to Bones to Monk and Scrubs. While all of them featured the struggles and weight of genius in one form or another, known had the same density of subject matter as House. Gregory House is bordering on being a bad person, not because of his genius, but because he doesn’t know how to be a good person. Discovering kindness is one of the main themes of House, and he uses his genius as a shield from having to be kind.
While genius as a burden is a common and easy-to-grasp trope, within House we actively see the character destroy his life constantly not because of his genius, but because of his unwillingness to connect with people. While this can be interpreted as an inability to connect (as in his genius makes him above others) that is shown constantly to not be the case, and it’s in House’s worldview that this disconnect happens. House sees himself as a staunch realist, that the world is a puzzle and needs to be solved, and that anything related to solving that puzzle is then justified. He lies, but only in pursuit of what he considers to be the truth. But this doesn’t come from his genius, as we see other doctors who are also great at their job while remaining more hopeful toward the world around them. These people could not be considered the genius that House is, but can one be a genius when it comes to solving problems with humans if they remove the human factor?
“Everybody lies” is House’s modus operandi. He believes not in the people but in the “facts”. But while this works in the sense that he can solve medical cases, it isolates him when it comes to the actual world. He has placed himself in a bubble, where everyone is always out for themselves and nobody can be trusted. He is a cynic, he plays the role well, but the struggle throughout the eight seasons is his desperate desire to rid himself of this cynicism. House can recognize that everyone lies, but he fails to understand the reason why. Even when he lies himself, not to solve a puzzle but simply for personal gain (as when he hides his green card wife’s immigration status from her) he does so without asking himself why. If he is presented with dealing with people, dealing with lies, he can not handle it for, unlike a sick body, sometimes lies have no meaning. A lie with no purpose is a puzzle he can’t solve, and so instead of facing them, he chooses to believe that all lies are for the same purpose: selfishness.
It’s in his isolation that House falls further and further into addiction. He claims to be in pain, and while he no doubt does suffer from physical stresses, it is his emotional pain that he is actually trying to hide. House feels he needs to numb himself to the world and those he works with in order to see objectively. He believes if he never sees his patients, if he keeps his colleagues at a distance, and even his best friend and romantic partners can’t trust him, he can more viably solve the puzzles and save lives. He sees himself as a martyr, as someone gifted with genius but who must sacrifice himself for this gift. The pain pills he takes are not to numb his leg, but to numb his self-inflected loneliness.
The addiction is just one of the numerous crutches he relies on to solve the puzzles that are presented to him. His use of humour and outrageousness are other elements that he uses to remain as objective as possible. He falls into a rather traditional idea that, if he treats everyone equally terribly, than he is treating them equally completely. He sees the racism, sexism, and various other “isms” he partakes in not as moral failures but as tools for objective reasoning. If everyone lies, everyone has faults, and no one can be trusted, then everyone deserves to be put down, punished, and with this will keep their distance from House. He once again creates a bubble of self-inflicted lonliness because he feels it is the only way to remain true to his cause.
We see what happens when these tools don’t work, when the people in his life don’t run away despite his objectionable behavior; he pushes harder, and they either see his point of view or they burn out completely. The three loves we see him with throughout the run of the show get the brunt of this pushback, as House falls prey to the idea that if someone loves him than they fundamentally have something wrong with themselves. With Stacy Warner we see the afttermath of this burn out, as she left House due to his inability to forgive her for making the decision that ultimately led to his permanent injury. She made the decision to cripple House, knowing it was either that or he dies, and although he knows these were her options he can not bring himself to forgiveness. He can not accept that someone can love him so deeply that they would rather have him damaged than not at all. So he gives her his damaged self, all the horrors and pains that come with that, and she is unable to accept it.
Next we see his desires towards Lisa Cuddy, the head of the hospital and his immediate boss. The will-they-won’t-they is a major driving factor for the first six seasons of the show. Cuddy is a professional, a woman who has sacrificed endlessly for her career and has fought for the respect she demands. Even though she is attracted to House she is unwilling to sacrifice her entire career (and thus her entire being) to his whim. For years of their relationship it is this dynamic that keeps them together, he pushes and she pushes back. House is able to respect her (in his own way) because she treats him not as the unimpeachable genius but as another doctor. It is only after they begin a romantic relationship that everything falls apart. House, unable to accept someone both loves him and holds power over him, pushes even harder to see which aspect breaks. Cuddy, realizing that her love alone is not enough to calm House’s quest for self-destruction, must chose between love and the life she has built. House, after being rejected once again, sees no need to hold onto the relationship on any grounds, destroys it completely, martyring himself yet again. He again is the victim to heartlessness, and believes himself justified because the pain of rejection is yet another way to isolate. If he had allowed Cuddy to stay close to him, even in just a professional matter, he knew that there would be too much vulnerability there for him. Total destruction and nothing else, self-immolation at it’s finest.
The final love of House’s life, while not a romantic partner, is still House’s soulmate: Wilson. The platonic friendship between them is the healthiest one either has in their life. They can not exist without the other, no matter what trials they face and no matter what follies they thrust upon each other. The reason Wilson is able to stay so close with House, to actually be his friend, is that he is the only one who does not buy into House’s martyrdom. Wilson is well aware of House’ intelligence, but he doesn’t see his genius as the main facit of House’ personality. It is simply an aspect of his best friend, no different than if you were friends with a muscian or a talented artist. It’s Wilson’s ability to see House not as one thing, whether that be genius or addict or asshole, but as the entireity of his humanity, that allows Wilson to be the moral compass in the constantly temultious life of Gregory House.
Wilson is by no means a perfectly moral person, stumbling here and there throughout the series when it comes to taking the high ground. But it is Wilson that House always goes to when he is in a crisis (not that he would ever admit to being in one) and it is Wilson who acts as the soundboard to House’ more morally ambigious ideas. House sees Wilson as an equal, one of the only people he does. He challenges Wilson not in the serious and self-immolating ways as he does with Cuddy and his team of doctors, but in ways more akin to brothers playing pranks. Wilson is House if House did not choose lonliness. He is kind, generous, and self-effecaing, while being a great doctor. House sees this and knows they are the same. House is willing to sacrifice what Wilson isn’t, but House still needs Wilson’s humanity in order to thrive in the world.
House, like many long-running television shows, follows a common formula; destroy, repair, repeat. They take characters, establish stakes, amplify or destroy those stakes, then reset for the next week so that returning audiences aren’t too lost in plot contrivances. In a meta context, House the character follows much the same routine. He sets himself up as a genius, is forced to question this by the cases he faces and the people he must work with, he pushes against the forces that stand in his way, and resets himself for the next case, still an asshole, still an abuser. His success in medicine leads to his ultimate failures in life. It is only in his lowest of moments that he is able to rise, to change, to attempt for something more. He is Sissyphus, rolling the rock up the hill, attempting to be better, but it is no use. House is destined to destroy himself, rebuild himself, repeat. He is the ultimate victim of his own abuse.