Spencer and I watched tonight's episode of House together, and I'm chatting with Cary about it now. We're all three pretty much in agreement that the episode leaned toward being anti-open marriage. And I thought it was done a bit heavy-handedly: HEY EVERYBODY, THEY HAVE AN OPEN MARRIAGE! And this allows the doctors to ask all kinds of personal questions, even though it would have no bearing on her present condition.
I think Rachel [Taub's wife] was on the right track when she was giving him permission: I think if he'd have gone out with Maya while having permission, it would have taken the thrill out of it, and he probably wouldn't have gone through with it anyway.
Taub was a buffoon for broaching the subject of open marriage with his wife in a crowded restaurant--you can't discuss anything serious in that setting. And once Rachel did give him Thursdays, even if she could have followed through, he should have had more class than to jump on the very next Thursday. And why should it have been any of Taub's co-worker's business?? And why was Foreman especially hard on Taub?
I also wonder why the words polyamory or swinger were never spoken. Not that they're the same thing, but with all the conversation you'd think someone would have said one or the other.
Lots of food for thought in this episode, though it probably was done mainly for titillation and ratings--hey, it worked in getting us to watch!
Would love to hear anyone else's comments on it, too.
'Night,
~Pym
The concept of open marriage is gaining traction largely via Mo'Nique's admission about her open marriage to Barbara Walters. It seems that the default assumption is that an open marriage is designed to allow sexual flings without romance, so I'm just as glad the word polyamory wasn't used. I felt very sorry for the patient's lover when he showed up at the hospital out of concern for his lover only to be greeted with hostility and orders to leave because he was intruding on their family. It said loudly and clearly that his relationship with her was to remain superficial and a low priority for her.
ReplyDeleteI liked that the subject matter sparked a lot of conversation between a lot of different people and that we heard a lot of the same discussions that poly people have, especially when starting to explore. Otherwise I agree with your analysis entirely. The medical staff's questions about the open relationship seemed entirely unprofessional to me, but they did facilitate more discussion between the characters than there might otherwise have been.
A couple of thoughts...
ReplyDelete1) I fully agree with Anita that throwing the word polyamory into the episode wouldn't have been a necessarily good thing for all the reasons she stated. However in disagreement with Pym, I did think though that overall the spin was positive - or at least not definitively negative - on the basic idea.
Taub's wife Rachel comes out and says that what she really wants is honesty, not fidelity, and is open to the idea of an alternative marriage. Though she later gets cold feet it's encouraging that a sympathetic character actually takes the time to think rationally about the subject and not just have an emotional meltdown.
Obviously the scene in the hospital where the husband shouts at the boyfriend was pretty unfortunate, but to me it didn't seem as bad considering that he was pretty cordial with him in the beginning of the episode. I think the husband's behavior there was partially due to extreme worry for his wife's condition leading him to lash out coupled with being concerned about his daughter's presence when the boyfriend showed up. Not wonderful, but maybe understandable.
2) Taub seeing the nurse the VERY NEXT DAY after his wife gives the okay, and after she withdraws permission succumbing to temptation after what seems like only a few hours.
Both of those things really bothered me until I reflected that it's a TV show and they have to essentially wrap up all those threads in this episode to avoid dragging them into the next one. Either that or Taub has an almost unbelievable impulse control problem.
3) The staff's inappropriate questions, their intense interest in each other's personal lives, and House's dismissive and negative comments.
If you are a regular viewer of the show you will probably realize that these things are not uncommon in ANY of the episodes and certainly weren't any more prevalent in this one. Basically everyone's kind of a dick on this show :)
Anyway, personally I think that it's great that the idea of an alternative to monogamy is starting to enter the collective consciousness so much so, that it pops up in not 1, but 2, prime-time shows (the other being The Mentalist) in the space of only a few months. And in both shows the illness of the female character had NOTHING to do with jealousy in any way. To me, that's pretty huge. If you think this episode was poly negative, imagine if the husband had turned out to have poisoned her. A year or two ago, I would have bet money that's where they would go with it. Seems like good progress to me.