Blowing The Whistle centres around the theme of honour. As House suggests, honour is subjective. We do what we believe is honourable for reasons which matter to us. The question that permeates the episode is: Why do we do what we do? This not only applies to the young soldier who leaks a video showing the shooting of thirty four civilians by American forces but also to House. The POTW justifies his act of treason because he believed it is what his father would have done, as during the war, his father disobeyed orders and saved fellow soldiers. This appears to be somewhat of a parallel to the episode Parents, in which the POTW wants to follow in his biological father's footsteps to become a clown, and then we later discover that his father sexually abused him and caused his illness. The theme of parental care is something that has always featured in House episodes because House believes parents screw their children up; including himself. House shows a certain disdain for men in uniform, joking that they get served first in the cafeteria, but this is perhaps more a reference to his dislike of his own father. In Blowing The Whistle the POTW's brother later reveals that the army did not covertly assassinate their father, but that he was a drunk and was killed in a car accident in which he killed a civilian, ironic. Just as in Parents, where the mother is keeping the abuse from her son to protect him, the brother is doing the same thing. House asks the young soldier how many civilians must die to make his act honourable. Is it a utilitarian matter? The question of what is more honourable - serving your country and fulfilling your duties or making public the deaths of civilians in order to attempt to stop further similar attacks from happening (blowing the whistle) - is subjective.
House on the other hand appears to be suffering from hepatic encephalopathy. Adams notices that his reaction time is slow and that he hasn't publicly humiliated her for sleeping with someone and then turning up to work in the same clothes. The team even follows him to the bathroom, after which Taub collects his, I should say feces, but I'll say poo. The Taubinator beats House aka Occam's Chainsaw at his video games, something House never loses. Meanwhile House is trying to uncover the rat among the team; who told Foreman he's sick. Except he's not sick. This does remind me of when House pretended he had cancer in Half Wit in order to get an implant in his brain that releases medication which would soothe his pain. That had an obvious, deceitful purpose whereas this appears to be darker because it's so ellusive. House caused all his own symptoms. Except we never really know why, at least not from his perspective. In the end House accuses Chase of being the rat to which Chase retorts that House wanted him to tell Foreman, someone to notice straight away that he's losing his edge (his brain function, which matters most to him), because eventually it will happen. Chase was against telling Foreman, so it's unlikely it was him. We never know who told. House neither confirms nor denies Chase's theory, but Chase is somewhat of a House protege, so his assumption does make sense at least on some level, even if on an unconscious one. In fact, Chase suggests Typhus as the diagnosis right at the beginning of the differential diagnosis, which House suggests at the end of episode, and is correct. Also, he makes Taub suggest diagnoses under the pressure of playing the video game, thus being distracted and having to be extremely on point. As we know, House does project.
Wilson, confronts House about being ill and House says he wouldn't believe him if he told Wilson he were, jokingly. So is House really ill? Is he afraid of losing his capacity to practice medicine? Old age seems to be weighing heavily on his mind, grey hair, is what leads him to the eventual diagnosis. Very subtle.
We also have the clinic patient who is, to our amusement, singing while hopping on one leg. Diagnosis: he drank too much green beer (and has an allergy to the dye). Now this may be a stretch, so humour me, but he is allergic to green beer, green being the millitary colour and alcohol being what the POTW's father died from. Sometimes the connections aren't evident but they are usually threaded in.
Obviously I can't talk about everything that happened, but overall, it was an interesting episode, a good build up to the end, to what will happen to House. Now I look forward to some drama and to the unexpected.
