bironic

F*cking FOX website, that is the LAST time I look at your "House" page before watching the show. You managed to spoil the entire episode with your two-line "teaser," and I will have my revenge! Just you wait.

Sigh. And now: Continuing evidence that "House" and "Boston Legal" have more in common than back-to-back airing slots, other than being the MOST OBVIOUSLY SLASHY SHOWS EVER, with emphasis on tonight's "Boston Legal":


Allusions to Romantic poets.

Alan Shore showed Denny a bottle of anti-anxiety pills his doctor gave him to try and clear up a case of "word salad" ("It's cheese, and breath, and wind," he told a jury with great gravity; "It's cheese.") and worried that by taking them he might lose himself, saying something to the effect of, "I value my melancholy. It used to be a trait people were allowed to have, like Abraham Lincoln, or Lord Byron. Now people are supposed to smile and say 'great.'"


Allusions to projects the actors have been involved in.

House's TiVo showed that he had taped not only Spongebob Squarepants and The New Yankee Workshop ("It's a moron with power tools. How much more suspenseful can you get?") but also Blackadder. This rivals "Boston Legal"'s repeated references to Star Trek, with Denny Crane cracking jokes about "what, did you want me to beam there?" and "Did you say Klingons [cling-ons]?" and having his cell phone ring tone set to the communicator chirp.


Other characters notice the slashiness of the main men's relationship.

As they sit in lawn chairs in white robes with green goop on their faces (and God, who'd have thought James Spader would look attractive having a facial?), Alan takes Denny's hand to thank him for taking him out of the office to relax, saying their spa getaway was better than their early-season fishing trip. The woman who had until just then been giving Alan a manicure looked at the men's joined hands, then up at them, then back at the hands. Alan, in all his unselfconscious glory, cheerfully told her, "Denny is my friend. He takes me places. Buys me things. We like to dress up." To which Denny added, in reference to the Halloween episode where they went in matching costumes, "Flamingoes."

(Need I also reference the "House" ep where the AIDS patient called House a "closet case" when he saw him come out of his apartment in the morning with Wilson in tow? Or "Histories," wherein Foreman asked aggressively whether they were taking on a case because Wilson asked?)


Moments of pathos, at once redeemed and undercut by the best friend.

Despite his many brilliant closing speeches and impromptu expoundings on various subjects, I hadn't realized before tonight exactly how much Alan loves and needs language. Maybe he didn't realize it so clearly, either, until it was taken away from him. (And maybe it was David E. Kelley talking more than Alan, but that's a sticky subject on a show like this where a lot of the time the characters parrot what I suspect are his moral and political views or play devil's advocate to them.) With confessions like "Words are my friends" and "Sometimes I feel that words are all that connects me to the world.... If I don't have words, I'm alone," he not only showed his sensitive side again (aw) but also, in a plot line where the difference between sympathy and empathy nearly broke a strong friendship, earned my complete empathy. Without words and writing, if not rhetoric, I don't know how I would relate to the world.

I was going to make a comparison about how House needs his misery and caustic wit like Alan needs his words and veneer of indifference, and how Denny points out that Alan can put his potential handicap to use and says they'll be friends whether Alan works at the law firm or not, just as Wilson is always there needling House about how being miserable doesn't make him special and whining reminding him that he relies heavily on their friendship regardless of whether House acknowledges it... but I think that's all there was to it.


Fun with sexual deviancy.

"Boston Legal" featured a man happily married to two women, collectively raising their children. "House" began with a couple playing rape games.


Ludicrous double entendres.

When inviting Alan to the spa, Denny said, "I'm gonna empty your bucket."

Suuuure, House likes Wilson's "pancakes."


Random slashy bits played for laughs.

House and Wilson sharing an apartment, and Wilson driving House nuts! Fighting over the TV remote and having conflicting morning schedules, sharing a plate of food on the couch, Wilson being too messy and House stealing his lunches. (But dude, we totally knew Wilson gets up earlier than House and preens.) And House asking with mock seriousness whether they needed to get counseling to try to work things out.

Did I mention Alan and Denny went to a spa together? And shared a milky bath with implied nudity beneath?


Serious moments hidden among the random slashy bits.

Alan and Denny had two fights and as many reconciliations at the spa/back at the office, involving both men's deep fear of aging and losing their faculties, as well as the value they place on their friendship.

Relevant plot summary: After one night -- and as Wilson stood in flattering soft light with his tie undone, ohh -- House told him it wasn't going to work. Wilson sputtered a little and then resigned himself to finding alternate accommodations, taking the opportunity to reference House's thinning hair in the process. That evening he said he'd found an apartment and would be out by Monday. Later, House hears a message for Wilson on his answering machine saying the apartment would be sold to someone else unless he hears back immediately. House looks at Wilson sleeping on his "lumpy couch," all comfy and peaceful and pathetic -- you can see him weighing the benefits and disadvantages in his head -- and erases the message. Actual point: You know House didn't do that just because he likes Wilson's cooking.


Other thoughts:

• More tidbits provided tonight for my Wilson/Julie House fic. At some point I will have to start ignoring new canon and write the story.
• It's too bad it was the wife who poisoned the husband and not the other way around, because that would have been a welcome twist on the "woman's weapon" stereotype. I love that they tested for arsenic, though. How appropriate after The Poison Principle, eh catilinarian?
• House/Cameron. I'm torn between thanking the writers for not having her kiss him in that armchair, shrieking at them that this had better not destroy the show. You would hope that, considering how well the writers have treated their characters so far for the most part and kept everyone more or less with the same dysfunctions they began the show with, if when these two do get together, it will be handled appropriately.
• Next week: Michelle "Buffy's sister Dawn" Trachtenberg guest stars as a girl with killer allergies! Hurrah!