House of Pain

Like most of the best things in my life, I came to “House” because of a woman. And not just any woman, but one of the most beautiful, smart, strong, sexy, attractive actresses on the planet.

I had been hearing great things about the new medical mystery drama “House” for a while, but had never watched it for two reasons—I watch very limited TV and as a rule don’t start a series midway through. Then I heard Sela Ward would be joining the cast for a multi-episode arc, and knew I would gladly add another show to my must-sees, and start in the middle or even the end if I had to. Thankfully, because of TV on DVD, I didn’t have to.

Most people think of “Sisters” when Sela Ward’s name comes up, but it was as Lily Manning on “Once and Again” that I fell in love with her, and, for me, she will always be the sexy, recently-single mother, vulnerable Venus—smart, compassionate, resilient.

As Stacy Warner, Sela Ward, was actually a romantic equal to Hugh Laurie’s Greg House, but alas, nothing lasts. House destroys what he has—or could have had—with Stacy, Sela’s arc ends, Stacy leaves the show.

But I keep watching.

Though I originally tuned in for Sela, I kept tuning in for “House.”

One of the best written and bravest shows on network television, “House” has, for over a hundred episodes now, been consistently good and often great. Each year, as I watch the season finale, I always think, they’ll never be able to top it—and then they do. Year after year after year, they leave me truly grateful for the engaging, enriching, and highly entertaining experiences they give me.

I have a friend who says “House” is too formulaic, and she’s right that the medical mysteries always follow the pattern of a series of misdiagnoseses, failed treatments, and eventually House’s “aha” moment, but watching “House” for the medicine is like reading Shakespeare for the plot.

I watch “House,” like all the shows I watch, the novels I read, the films I watch, for the characters, the struggles and drama of their lives, their interaction with one another.

From the fist moment I watched the show, I thought, Greg House is Sherlock Holmes with a medical degree—a true anti-social, drug-addicted, music-playing, genius operating at a level that leaves mere mortals breathless and bewildered.

Like a fully functioning adult trying to get extremely important tasks completed with a team of impaired children, House lives in a state of perpetual frustration—add to it the physical pain Holmes never had and you have one unpleasant SOB.

Physician heal thyself? I’m not sure he would if he could, but he can’t. None of us can. We have our part to play in the healing process, sure (I’m not advocating passivity), but it’s in letting love in, letting fear and unforgiveness go—things House is unwilling to do.

Like Holmes, House needs constant challenges for his magnificent mind—puzzles, conundrums, mysteries. So much so, that he plays mind games with the lesser planets orbiting the enormous gravitational pull of his imploding star.

Unlike Holmes, who rarely interacted with anyone beyond Watson, House, who avoids patients as much as possible, is forced to work with a team, answer to an administrator, and interact with a friend, which is what makes the show work so well.

Like Paul Weston of “In Treatment,” House is a wounded healer, but unlike Weston, House, who’s in constant pain—and not just from the nerve damage in his leg—inflicts a lot of pain on others. Even those he heals. And unlike Weston, House takes no joy in healing, just hungers for the next mystery to apply his mind to.

Like Irene Adler was to Holmes, Sela Ward’s Stacy Warner will always be for House The Woman. Now that she’s come and gone and come and gone again, House, who never really had even the remotest chance for happiness, is a miserable, broken, mean misanthrope—the most interesting one in the history of TV.

Like House, we’re all in pain. Maybe ours is more intermittent, more manageable, but it’s there—even when we’re too distracted to notice it very much. We have the existential pain of mortality if nothing else (though usually there’s plenty else—including the pain of others our compassion makes us heir to). Even in those rare, perfect moments of our lives when all is right with the world and we are as perfectly happy as we can be, its edges are tinged with the certainty that it can’t last, that the moment will too soon be gone—and so will we. But instead of popping vicodin, we can watch House do it, share in his suffering, share some of our own. That’s the power of story. Stories heal. That’s why for viewers, the House of pain can also be a place of healing.