House won't go gently into its good night

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Hugh Laurie has played the irascible Dr. Gregory House for eight seasons. (POSTMEDIA)

The two phrases may look and sound similar, but there's a great distance and difference -- eight prime-time years, to be precise -- between Everybody Lies and Everybody Dies.

The former was the title of the series pilot for the Fox medical drama House, which debuted on Nov. 16, 2004; the latter is the name of the series finale, which brings House's eight-season run to a close this Monday (7 p.m., Fox and Global).

The title certainly implies an all-encompassing sense of doom, but series creator/executive producer David Shore insisted last week that House won't end on a completely dark note. Less than cheerful, to be sure, but not completely without hope.

"It's definitely an ending; I don't want to say more than that," Shore said during his final conference-call interview before the House sendoff airs. "We never do happy endings, but we also try not to do miserable endings. Bittersweet is the most you can hope for from us."

The two-hour House event actually begins with an hour-long retrospective, titled Swan Song, that looks back at major storylines and memorable characters in the show's eight-year journey. The second hour will wrap things up in as complete a manner as Shore and company are willing to endeavour.

It might be bittersweet, as the show's creator suggests, but it's a safe bet that it will also be filled with confrontation and contradictions. In last week's penultimate episode, prickly Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) was finally forced to come to terms with cancer-stricken best friend Dr. James Wilson's (Robert Sean Leonard) decision to discontinue chemotherapy treatments. Just as he'd arrived at a willingness to help his pal get the most of his final few months, the consequences of a childish, destructive and typically House-ish prank created a scenario in which House might be forced to spend Wilson's last months alive behind bars.

Based on that narrative twist, and the fact several former cast members have been written back into the story for the finale, Everybody Dies will have a lot of delicate unravelling and loose-end tying in order to provide a conclusion that provides viewers with the necessary sense of closure.

When asked why House's creative team decided to write a terminal-illness storyline for Wilson during the series' stretch run, Shore said they felt it was time to fully test the relationship that lies at the show's emotional core.

"A lot of ideas are bandied about every year, and one of the ideas... as we were pretty sure we were heading toward the end of the show, was this idea, (which) fell in to the category of challenging and exploring the House/Wilson friendship," said Shore.

"I think one of the things we've done very well on this show, if I do say so, is the House/Wilson relationship. There are a lot of good explorations on TV of romantic relationships... (but) I think there are very few explorations of male friendship -- not just a wingman-type friendship, not just an opportunity for humour, but to really explore two friends and their relationship. I think it's something we've done, and done well, that isn't done that often. I'm proud of it. So it felt like a natural way, and it felt like the right idea to explore as we headed toward the end of the series."

Speaking of that friendship, which has endured so many challenges during House's eight-year odyssey -- exactly why and how, Shore was pressed to explain, would a level-headed guy like Wilson remain a friend to someone as difficult and consistently prone to toxic behaviour as House has been?

"I think there's clearly something wrong with Wilson, as well," Shore offered. "We've always been aware that there has to be something about this character that's a little broken, and I think there is."

And now, Wilson is broken in a way that not even House can fix.

And just how House deals with putting the pieces of his fractured relationship with his irreparably damaged best friend back together -- at a time when his own bad behaviour may prevent him from being where he most needs to be -- will certainly make Everybody Dies one of the can't-miss hours of this TV season.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 17, 2012 E5