Welcome to Dissecting House: a blog dedicated to the television show House MD, where analytical reviews of season 8 episodes are posted weekly.

Sunday 25 March 2012

Episode 17

We Need The Eggs 

So unofficially we've heard via Twitter (and on IMDb) that episode 17 of Season 8 is called We Need The Eggs. I looked up the title because I was curious as to what it alluded to. It appears to be a quote from Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977):

I thought of that old joke: This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well why don't you turn him in?' and the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

I was sure I'd heard that quote in part somewhere before on an episode of House. Well, it turns out I had:






During Season 2 I was a huge fan of the Stacy-House relationship, so let's say I've watched Failure to Communicate (Season 2 Episode 10) more than once. The episode is actually one of my favourites. There is a fantastic scene earlier in the episode in which Stacy uses 'curry' as an analogy to describe her relationship with House, which is why the sentence finishes with 'curry' instead of 'eggs':



The question is: Why this title? Is it a reference to House's relationship with Stacy or relationships in general? The latter is more likely in my opinion. Relationships are complicated (a notion personified by House), and this emphasises the fact that we can never really understand other people's relationships; we are outsiders. Relationships don't often 'make sense' and are often addictive as Stacy says. In hindsight it's interesting that House chimes in with 'drugs' when Stacy is thinking of something addictive. Medicine always gets in the way of House and his relationships (I don't only mean Cuddy here), as despite what he says, medicine does come first.

So We Need The Eggs could focus on romantic relationships but also on familial ones. We may well see a psych patient as the subplot, which would refer to the Annie Hall reference. Again, relationships are complicated. It could be the case that we get an insight into how someone diagnosed with a mental illness communicates with a sibling or parent and how difficult it can be for both sides. This is pure speculation.

Note: According to IMDb Peter Blake and Sarah Hess are the writers but nothing has been released OFFICIALLY as of yet. It may well turn out that this isn't the title of the episode at all. However, I thought I would share my thoughts about what I believe is an interesting concept; a potential self-reference (to Failure to Communicate) as well as an intertextual one to Annie Hall

1 comment:

  1. You've convinced me that the episode's title is a reference to Annie Hall!

    I don't think they will mention Stacy or even bring her back for the episode, so I'm for the relationships theory. I think it would be really plausible for all the subplots to be focused on that. I'd like to see Taub's family btw, I'd rather not have another girlfriend/ex-wife story.
    And maybe this is the episode where Chase gets a girlfriend (go Park! #Chark).

    PS: awesome that you added the videos ^^

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