The TV show House remains a brilliant addition to the medical drama genre, not just because of its central mysteries, but because of the episodes audiences still can’t stop talking about. Hugh Laurie’s work as Dr. Greg House, the titular character and misanthropic diagnostician who leads the show, is some of his best work to date.
Laurie’s charisma and ability to carry the dramatic arcs of the show serve to uplift the shocking events of House‘s most groundbreaking episodes. The best episodes of House are often the most traumatizing, as they deal with emotional and heartbreaking storylines. The episode “House’s Head” is significant because it changed the series forever and is a perfectly crafted piece of television.
“House’s Head” Was The Most Shocking Episode Of House
House season 4, episode 15, “House’s Head,” is one of the most game-changing episodes of the series, and looking back on the show, it’s still hard to believe that the series took things this far. The episode follows House as he tries to piece together the events of a bus crash he was in, bouncing between his hallucinations and memories and his work at the hospital, trying to unlock the mystery of the crash.
As always, this episode of House follows House and his team attempting to diagnose different ailments, and the stakes are higher than ever because House believes that there’s someone who nearly died in the crash that he must find and save. At first, it seems he’s talking about the bus driver, who’s in the hospital with House, but as the story escalates, House’s hallucinations make him think otherwise.
Throughout the episode, House can’t fully trust himself, which is destabilizing for someone who relies so heavily on their intellect and ability to remember the most minute details of every situation. The twist of the episode is that the person who nearly died in the crash was Amber, who had become romantically entangled with Wilson while fighting to win a spot working for House throughout the show.
Why The Plot Twist In “House’s Head” Worked So Well
When it comes to a series finale, as “House’s Head” was the first part of the two-part ending of season 4, the audience expects that something personal will happen, forcing the characters out of their comfort zones. However, the twist at the end of “House’s Head,” which reveals that Amber is out there somewhere on the brink of death, was something no one could have predicted.
House does a great job of using misdirections and centering on House’s unreliable experience of the crash, leaning into the mystery of how the bus crashed instead of leading us to believe that someone important is in danger. The stakes are high, and the fact that “House’s Head” delves so deeply into House’s subconscious creates many great opportunities for the episode to play with style and form.
House is better than other medical dramas because it’s a character study, not just a series about the highs and lows of working in a hospital. As the events of the episode progress, the audience picks up on some of the hints that the bus driver, whose illness is a red herring, isn’t the real mystery, and that House feels the need to solve it because it has a personal connection to him.
“House’s Head” And “Wilson’s Heart” Continued House’s Best Tradition
Part of the reason that House has remained so popular and easy to rewatch is thanks to its procedural episodes, similar to other classic medical dramas. However, House is at its best in episodes like “House’s Head,” when the series shakes up the formula and uses an unreliable narrator to force the viewer to question everything they see onscreen.
The shows similar to House, learned from unforgettable two-part finales like “House’s Head” and “Wilson’s Heart,” cementing House as a classic. Other episodes that break the mold, like “Three Stories,” stand out because they don’t just trick the audience; they make the doctors question their own beliefs and memories, as the characters can’t trust themselves to make accurate diagnoses.
The cliffhanger of “House’s Head” leads to the emotionally devastating conclusion of “Wilson’s Heart,” and it’s unlikely that House fans will ever fully recover from the upheaval of the two-part finale. House understood that sometimes the best way to create a perfect episode is to subvert the audience’s expectations at every turn, keeping viewers on the edge of their seats by breaking the rules.
- Release Date
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2004 – 2012-00-00
- Network
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FOX
- Showrunner
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David Shore
