TV Review: House 8.18, "Body and Soul"
Well, here begins the final five episodes of House...
rating 4
(WARNING: significant spoilers ahead!) Well, here begins the final five episodes of House. Not to be confused, of course, with the Final Five from BSG. Anyhow. The case this week centers on a young Asian-American boy of Hmong descent who has vivid dreams of an old woman doing horrible things to him in his sleep. He wakes up from one of these nightmares and cannot breathe. Eventually he passes out. House (Hugh Laurie) and team investigate and begin throwing out the usual diagnostics and trying different treatments. Of course none of these work. The mother, turning desperate, begins paying attention to her father-in-law, who believes that the boy is possessed by evil spirits. When the kid apparently speaks in Hmong without any training in the language and then starts levitating, this is seen as evidence. The mother eventually consents to him performing an exorcism which finishes up at just about the same time as medicine is administered that cures the boy. The mothers confirmation bias kicks in and she credits religion with saving him. This case was kind of meh. I tend to side with House when it comes to religion, and I liked his explanation for why the boy was suddenly babbling in Hmong. I liked less the fact that we never found out exactly what was going on with the levitation, though I did also approve of Foreman (Omar Epps) finally returning, since hes not been on the show lately. We have two soap opera stories this week. The first centers on Park (Charlyne Yi) and Chase (Jesse Spencer), who despite living together dont want to have sex with each other at all, ever, never, never, why would you ever suggest such a thing, come do me you big white warrior. It was predictable and a little silly. I could have done without it, since it added nothing to the story or the characters. The second soap opera, however, was much more interesting, and focused on Houses efforts to keep his new wife from learning that INS sent a letter approving her presence in the USA. At the same time, hes growing ever closer to her and she seems to be growing closer to him. When she finally learns of his deceit, she moves out and both look like they are close to tears as she leaves (though her more so, obviously). This storyline I really liked. I think its great to see House showing actual human feeling, even if he does still have problems showing it to actual humans. I get the impression that had he simply asked her to stay, she would have, for practical reasons if no other. Instead hes just not able to do it and she leaves. I liked that, and I hope this pays off during the remaining episodes. No discussion of this episode would be complete without mentioning Wilsons (Robert Sean Leonard) bombshell at the end. It seems that our resident cancer doctor now has cancer himself. Irony! Anyhow, it looks like thats going to be dealt with in the next episode, though I certainly hope its not dealt with only in the next episode. Id like to see it continue for at least a couple. Weve only got four episodes left, after all, so we might as we use them right!