TV Review: House 8.5, "The Confession"
You’d think that an episode of House that brings us Jamie Bamber, would be very interesting and compelling. You’d think they’d use him to do something really cool. Not so much.
rating: 3
Youd think that an episode of House that brings us Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Law and Order: UK), would be very interesting and compelling. Youd think theyd use him to do something really cool. Not so much. Our story opens with Bambers character receiving all sorts of praise and accolades from the people of his town. Then he goes off with a woman not his wife and experiences a sort of seizure during sex. He ends up at Princeton Plainsboro, where House (Hugh Laurie), has managed to recover his full office and has also managed to recover Taub (Pater Jacobson) and Chase (Jesse Spencer), who get to work alongside new doctors Park (Charlyne Yi), and Adams (Odette Annable). We learn from the first scene with all of them that Taub has two babies, at least one of which might not be his, and we also learn that Jesse Spencer looks really bad with a beard. The patients initial problems appear to just be some variety of the usual sort of things that Houses team guesses before hitting the right thing. As they do this, the patients liver begins to fail. His wife volunteers part of her liver for a transplant, but she isnt compatible. Fortunately, theres a huge line of townsfolk ready to help him. Well, that is until they hear him confess to cheating them out of large sums of money and stealing $10,000. At first, all this seems moot as our patients liver begins to regenerate, but then then things go from bad to eeeeeew as he starts shedding his skin. Its as pleasant an image as youd expect. Meantime, on the soap opera side of things, House keeps bugging Taub about the possible parentage of his children. Soon theres a bet on, and everyone is trying to get samples of Taubs DNA to test. Its less interesting than it sounds. The other soap opera end of things consists of Chase hitting on Adams and testing the limits of Dr. Foremans (Omar Epps), patience. This wasnt a bad episode, and it did keep my attention, but I cant help but feel that there was something missing. It feels like they had an opportunity to do something really impressive here with Jamie Bamber, and like they had a chance to do something really impressive with the return of Chase and Taub, but really none of this episode was very impressive or memorable. I did enjoy parts of it, and the show still remains decent. If nothing else, Hugh Laurie is always compelling on screen. But I just wish there had been moreI dont know what. Just more something, I guess.