Monsters of Television

“After missing so many little deaths, he should be here for the big one.”

Are we to believe that Taub could really pull this?

Taub is a jackass. I didn’t like him when he was selected from the pool of candidates that gave us Kutner and 13. I didn’t like him his first go-round as a fellow. I cheered when he left and growled when he came back (even though he was reintroduced with 13). So you can imagine my distaste when we have a Taub-centric episode. But, whenever they want to do a show about cheating spouses, they have to wheel out the hobbit.

The patient with the cheating heart is part of an open marriage and she, in fact, is about to get down with a sex buddy when she has an attack in her bowls. The idea of an open marriage intrigues the man-children of the group (i.e. not Chase or Foreman) and puts the idea in Taub’s itty bitty head that this might be a good idea to bring up to his wife.

What should have ensued was a loud guffaw from his long suffering wife but, instead, this is really the main source of non-patient drama for the episode because we’re to assume Taub is some kind of dwarvian lethario. We can only assume it’s because he offers women a peek as his pot of gold.

Over dinner with his wife, Taub brings up his patient engaged in open-marriage to which his wife mentions he never brings up his patients. Which means he brought her up to couch the topic of free cheating to a wife still recovering from his last escapade. Which means he’s such a schmuck he doesn’t have the balls to have a real conversation about it (demonstrated by the sheepish eyes he gives her when he gets called out) but is willing to put his wife through the grief of compromising an already damaged identity so her husband can fool around with a nurse that is well above his station. Which means Taub is a jackass. But we already knew that (because I said it at the top).

What’s worse is that she goes along with it and Taub (the next day!) makes a date with Nurse Maya. This oddity brings about the intrigue of Team House because it’s like seeing a leprachaun. Okay, not like that because they see one every day but like seeing a leprachaun pull tail while smelling like Drakkar Noir. Everyone is amazed that he’s really going to do it but most amazed is Dr “Love the One You’re With” Hadley. Her acceptance of Taub embarking on an alternative sexual lifestyle is the most dynamic, starting with disdain when Taub was just a monogamous schlub flirting with his coworkers, to finding medical justifications for his cheating ways (and for why an open marriage might be a good idea), to poking fun at him when he doesn’t go through with it. Lately she’s been the voice of True Love, telling people to follow their hearts, defending the less dominent partners in her patients’ relationships, and just being an all around romance freedom fighter. Her insistence at the beginning that Taub stay true seemed inconsistent with how she ends but Taub’s interest in Maya, to her, changes from threatening a romance to just sex and that is something 13 can understand. As long as the marriage part is okay, the sex stuff is inconsequential.

But, no, Taub doesn’t go through with his opportunity to capitalize on a marital loophole. The wife stops by work and says she can’t do it and good for her. Because there’s no reason she should have to be married to an ogre and have to suffer him spreading his ogre seed to other women, too. And for a moment, a brief moment, it appears that Taub might not be such a jackass after all. He goes home with his wife, cancels his date with Maya, and endures the barbs from House and 13 with his head held high. But then he sees Maya on his way out of work the next day and helps her put some stuff in her trunk. That’s not a euphemism. Yet. Because a lot of this show is premised on a Psych-101 understanding of people, he kisses Maya. Because men cheat for the excitement, for the power, for thrill of doing something naughty. Maybe 13 is right about Taub, that he is genetically-predilected to a multiple partner lifestyle but it seems to me, for a character that is constantly suffering punches to his ego (surrendering his practice, working for House as a fellow, bored by his home life) that cheating is his escape, his exertion of power. It is his measure of cutting. Instead of grabbing the razor, he helps put some stuff in Maya’s trunk. Now it’s a euphemism!

In other news, House is petty. In order to create a fight between Wilson and Sam (aka forever Libby), he plays on Wilson’s need for order and finally makes the couple erupt in a petty argument that Wilson later announces as the death of the relationship. Luckily, they’re not in high school so one fight does not the destruction of their coupledom make. They decide to let the small stuff slide and get back together (I think?) in spite of House. But House continues to do the small things (noted by placing the milk carton in the door like Wilson hates) even after their reconciliation. House is afraid he’s going to lose his best friend (and is probably a little jealous for Wilson being able to connect with people). Again, Psych-101.

Was there anything else? Oh, yeah, the patient. Turns out the husband was letting his wife screw around outwardly because “she needs this” but really out of guilt for losing tons of money. But Team House still doesn’t know what’s wrong. So, after our weekly kidney failure (as noted in Polite Dissent’s medical review of this episode), they start tossing around ideas until House notices some lilacs. Having nothing to do with anything, her disease was triggered by a bee sting about a month prior. File this one under House Rule #235: the symptoms for the illness are hidden in places no one would look. Like a few weeks ago when the football player had symptoms between his toes, this week the tell-tale rash was in her mouth. They treat her. She’s good.

This week has been better than the past two, thank goodness. The quips were good, such as when House goes to check on his patient in an open marriage, stating that he needs to find out if she is a “unicorn” or a “slutty horse.” The show seemed balanced, normal, not as contrived as the last two. I mean, it’s still House so nothing extraordinary but it’s what we’ve come to expect. Back to the grindstone, producers. Crank out some factory-made episodes before the much-hyped (Canon) 5D Finale.