The first thing to catch my attention was the array of odd characters on the ward. Throughout the majority of this episode, House acts as the audience's eyes, and when he enters long-term care it is immediately apparent that he's the Normal One. I think many people experience this feeling when they join any group tacetly designated as "different." It doesn't matter if I'm different too - I'm not NEARLY as odd as THOSE people. This is an understandable tendency. Any person's conception of "normal" is necessarily focused on his or her own identity.
And yet, understandable or not, labeling yourself as the Normal One can have disastrous consequences. It might make you look at a group of the "different" - perhaps doctors, celebrities, the wealthy - as superior, making you doubt your own worth. More often, though, it will make you look at a group of the "different" - the mentally ill, the poor, Trekkies - with pity. Pity is nothing but thinly-veiled condescension.
Dr. House is known for his condescending attitude, but on the ward he gets a painful lesson in the value of the "different," in this case different medical disciplines, when his disregard for psychiatry has some disastrous consequences. This brings me to my second topic: Freedom Master.
House, in his desire to lash out against the establishment, tried to take Steve (also called Freedom Master) out of his depression by convincing him that he WAS, in fact, gifted with superpowers. It worked. The deliriously happy Steve leapt out of the parking garage and ended up in hospital.
The point to note here is that the pursuit of happiness is not always congruent with the pursuit of a happy life. One brief happy moment may not be worth all the pain that follows, and no, nobody can do everything. We may not be able to accurately foresee the long-term consequences of our actions... but it's worth taking a guess. Part of being Homo sapiens sapiens, right?
