Original Air Date: 13 February 2012
House: Anyone can screw up a life. I never said that wasn't possible.
Chase: You're incapable of human connection so you want everyone to be like you.
House: If I wanted you to be like me, I would be urging you to make a stupid, stubborn decision that blows up your life and leaves you lonely and miserable. You reassess your life when you make mistakes. You didn't. You just got stabbed.
It was Jesse Spencer's time to shine, and shine he did. While most of the characters have intriguing lives (OK, we can take Adams and Park out of this list, especially since I doubt there's going to be time to develop their backstories), Chase's is especially interesting and this episode reminded us of his past as a seminarian and played on his religious beliefs, or lack of, thereof. Me, I'm one who doesn't really believe in the concept of deity, at least not in its christian sense, so religious themes do not always appeal to me. But this time it was more about finding the meaning of life than religion so I could get passed the fact that Chase's love interest was a nun.
Of course, there's that element that I've been complaining about before with other procedural shows, medical or not, and that's turning the case of the week in some kind of parallel to the hero's life; here we have Chase in desperate need of finding some meaning to his existence and he is miraculously paired with a postulant who, much like he did in his youth, questions her decision of turning her back to real life for good. But Chase's struggle between reshaping his life and returning to the workplace where he got stabbed is a thrill ride and that makes this one of my favorite episodes of the season.
On the House side, things are not too different. He's trying to mend fences with his favorite employee but things are not easy at all; they're not as hard, though, as the first time he lost Chase, but that's mostly because Chase himself changed a lot since the days he was more influenced by morality than by practicing good medicine. But what really great is House actually showing that he cared - in his own way, of course. He knows Chase won't be happy someplace else, especially since he's tried getting away multiple times. And he knows Chase is struggling with turning into his boss and that's something House doesn't want either. The Huddy allusion was quite fitting, showing that House is really struggling with his bad decisions (but don't mistake this comment with me wanting all that shit back!).
As for the rest, each had their own filler little plots, with no real meaning or contribution to the main story. Adams keeps being a judgmental bitch who makes my list of most hated characters on TV (didn't she perform surgery on Chase and was clearly emotionally involved in that situation? Thank why is she insisting that Chase, who has years of experience ahead of her, cannot perform his job properly when it comes to Moira?), Park is useless in every capacity (how is she even a doctor?) and Wilson was, once again, virtually absent. The comical release came from House's war with Taub, which reminded me of the chicken arc with Wilson.[H]ouse 8x11: Nobody's Fault Back to Season 8