Wow.
I promise I'll write more than just that, but wow. Wow to the first time I watched the series finale of House, wow to the second time I watched it, and wow to the entire series as a whole, and the kind of meaning I've been able to take away from it. The writers have said that from the very beginning, we weren't supposed to like House. Too bad, because I've always loved him. And it's taken on a different feeling, because I understand him way more now than I ever have. Especially after watching the series finale. If you're reading this, I'm assuming that you've watched the episode, so I'll go into the meaning of it instead of simply what happens. Which is what House has always been about, anyway.
From the beginning of the episode until midway through Wilson's part in the funeral, I thought the episode was perfect both times I watched it. It was the perfect way to represent House in the eyes of people who knew him best. Each hallucination said and acted exactly how they had been throughout the series, but since it was House's hallucination, they interacted as though they were House, as well. It was a perfect culmination of what House really believed in, which was accompanied by the paralleling House/patient conversations.
From the latter point on, I didn't really understand it the first time. I initially thought that House might have actually died, and that Wilson was hallucinating House and what he wanted to see, and how he wanted to go about his last five months. It fit, but there was a better explanation the second time around. House did actually die, but as always, the reason is more important, and the reason is that I have finally decided that this might have been one of the best episodes ever for House.
What House told Cameron was that he skipped a chunk of a conversation with the patient, and it was the part where House realized that the patient was better off dead - that he was a better person dying than he ever was living, and that the world would be a better place without him. Harsh, but true. The beauty in it, however, is that House realized that the same is true for himself. He had been burdening everyone around him, and that his death would lift an enormous weight off of everyone's shoulders. Especially Wilson, the one person that House actually cared about besides himself. That one scene where House decides to get up from lying down with Cameron is amazing. House realized that it was more than just a puzzle, that life is more than just a puzzle. Easy for us to see, but not House, because that's what his entire life had become.
So, after having seen the series finale for a second time, everything makes sense. The puzzle is complete. I already know that I want to watch all eight seasons straight through one summer, so I can experience the entire series as a whole, cohesive unit, going through my favorite episodes, scenes, quotes, and meanings.
The one thing remaining is that I'm not entirely sure how to end this post. I'm sure that I've gone through this explanation before, but I feel that I'm pretty adept at bringing everything together nicely at the end. Sort of that driving-off-into-the-distance kind of thing. I don't really have that here. But you know what?
You can't always get what you want.
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