"I know you're in there - I can hear you caring"

Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) consults with Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) in the HOUSE episode "The Socratic Method" ©2005 FOX BROADCASTING COMPANY Credit: Richard Foreman/FOX

There's so much I could pick up on about the House/Wilson friendship in Need to Know, so these are just a few thoughts on first viewing. No doubt after I've watched it a few more times I'll have more to say, especially about Wilson's attitudes to cheating.

Anyway, I love watching House/Wilson scenes, but I think this episode really gave more of an insight into why they're friends. There's a lot more of House in Wilson than we see at first - he's willing to bend the rules if it's for the good of the patient, just like House is; in this case he's willing to give his patients cannabis, although the locked office door and guilty look on his face suggest that Cuddy wouldn't approve.

We did see a bit of this side of his character in The Socratic Method with the schizophrenic woman, when he was the one who shrank the tumour so she could have the operation.

~

Foreman: "It’s big – 5.8cm."

Chase: "We do nothing; she dies from liver failure within 60 days."

Cameron: "She needs a transplant."

House: [Sarcastically] "That’s gonna happen. […] Plan B. Surgery to resect the tumour."

Chase: "Joe Bergen does the knife thing – laser cauterizes while it cuts, saves more liver."

Wilson: "The tumour’s way too big. He won’t even consider it."

Foreman: "Not a big risk taker, Bergen. He won’t even drink milk on its expiration date."

Wilson: "He has no discretion. Five point eight centimetres is past surgical guidelines."

House: "Would he do it at 4.6?"

Cameron: "Why don’t we just say it’s zero, then we don’t need him at all. Tumours grow, they don’t shrink."

House: "This one does."

[Cut to Lucy’s room – Cameron holding an ultrasound thingy and Wilson with a big syringe full of ethanol]

Wilson: "Ninety five percent ethanol. The ethanol dehydrates the tumour cells, literally sucks them dry. Shrinks the tumour temporarily."

Cameron: "How temporarily?"

Wilson: "Well, if we’re lucky, just long enough to fool the surgeon."

~

People just don't seem to expect this sort of behaviour of him though, like when the surgeon came back out shouting at House, so maybe he gets away with it more - after all, he's "the responsible one"!

Going back to Need to Know, the bit where they're watching the surgery was interesting too - House the romantic and Wilson the cynic. Nice role reversal there, and it makes it more believable in a way, because everyone has moments of cynicism and moments of romanticism, and House and Wilson balance each other out.