'We Need The Eggs' Episode Review

At the beginning of We Need The Eggs we see what appears to be a couple at a fairground. The girl, Molly, tells the soon to be POTW (who soon after begins to cry blood) to shoot around the star. To me, in hindsight, this was a metaphor for romantic relationships in the episode. Shooting around the star meaning settling for relationships that remind them of the winning prize, the person they really want to be with. Also, instead of dating a woman clearly interested in him, he has a customised doll called Amy as his girlfriend. He explains that dating is far too difficult and that he has had enough of suffering after the team finds out that his doll was modelled on a woman he used to date, who was extremely different from him (who practised yoga) and broke his heart. In fact, it is a gift from that girlfriend that makes him sick, an Indian device which looks like a teapot to flush out the nostrils during allergy season.The House/POTW plotlines are extremely intertwined in this episode. In my opinion this relates to House's relationship with Cuddy. He lost the woman who changed his life, and ended up in jail.

So in the meantime we see House is interviewing hookers because his favourite tells him she can't see him anymore. He asks one of the hookers what her favourite Woody Allen movie is. She says Annie Hall, but not because she 'needed the eggs'. I wrote about the title a few weeks ago because it really interested me, so if you want to check that out: Episode 17

So the episode is based on relationships, and as House says, what everyone does to avoid them; calling the excuses they make their own personal 'sex dolls'...from Adams volunteering during any free time she has to Chase dating patients for convenience. So in terms of subplot we have Taub's fleeting relationship with a woman he meets in a supermarket who he initially tells that his child's mother died at childbirth. When he opens himself up to her she rejects him, though with the funniest expression: 'Was that a different baby?' Adams also opens herself up to Chase and gets rejected. This shows why people are often so reluctant to open up to relationships. At least we see Park jamming in the end with guitar guy. I liked that scene. 

The irony of House telling other people that they are socially inept is of course that his 'sex doll' is a hooker, who he uses more for companionship than for sex. (Why would he care what else they can do otherwise?..Juggle, cards etc.) That appears to be the reason why he has one hooker who he is in a pseudo relationship with, because he wants to feel that something is real, even if it's not. This links to Chase talking to Adams about taking the doll into a procedure room rather than cutting her open in front of the patient: 'You can know something is not real and still love it'. House isn't in love with the hooker, he's in love with the idea that he is in control of the situation, that he doesn't have to worry about all the relationship-y parts, like arguing, exactly like the patient with his doll. So when the hooker tells him she is getting married, House loses control, and wants to gain it back by sabotaging the marriage. It's a nightmare scenario for him because it reminds him of his past, of Cuddy leaving him. Ironically, this time it's the hooker who has the 'fake marriage', which serves as a mirror for him and his actions, and the pain Cuddy must also have suffered. This nightmare scenario manifests itself for the patient in the form of a hallucination of his once-time girlfriend undressing for him (Cuddy: House's Head). She begins to bleed severely from her stomach and the scenes are dark and dramatic to emphasise the mental pain he suffers. Wilson even says, in a passive agressive, reverse psychology kind of way to House that the favourite hooker represents a long term relationship which can't hurt him. Although House tells the hooker she shouldn't leave him because the only real thing about his marriage is the green card, he throws the green card away. He appreciates the companionship. So in the end he continues to play pretend, as we see the patient doing (watching TV with Amy), because real relationships are more than complicated. There is perhaps a glimmer of hope for the patient when he looks down at the bear he got with Molly. Although more likely, the fear of that relationship is greater than the fear of missing out on something great.

So many fantastic quotes from this episode, the writing is so detailed. I loved House talking to Wilson in front of the elevator and the scenes before and just after Dominika seduced the hooker's brother. For me, it's always a great episode when the serious, emotional moments blend well with the humorous ones. One of my favourites this season.

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.