I love reading your thoughts so I was wondering. It seems to me that House is at his worst in terms of being manipulative/kind of an asshole when he's dating Cuddy. There are good things obviously about it but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that (canon Huddy), and what things (if anything) you would change about it. Sorry if this question doesn't make sense!
i try to keep my analysis a mix of watsonian and doylist — i really don’t like using “bad writing” as a crutch for explaining away certain things in the show, but i think season 7 is where i… have a pretty hard time doing that. for me, the clearest thing has always been (with hindsight of being a fan post-finale) that the crew was never really going to give huddy a real chance, not at the point of s7. shippers and non-shippers alike can debate about how well/unwell huddy were for each other but the fact of the matter is that i don’t think they were given a fair chance when it came to the writing, and i think that a relationship that had multiple seasons worth of buildup and a plethora of narrative importance deserves more than that.
s7 huddy puts me on this sort of uncertain ground, in which i don’t think the basis of what happens (short-run honeymoon, fighting, house not pulling his weight, a breakup that leaves house running back to drugs) is all that unfounded, but the ways they’re done in show don’t feel true to the huddy that we’ve gotten to know in the seasons prior. huddy having trouble adjusting their relationship to fit within not just boss/employee, but now partners? believable! cuddy suddenly dying on the hill of not wanting house to lie to her after them previously having a mutually understanding work relationship where that happened all the time for like 15 years? not believable! house struggling to be a good partner to cuddy because he’s rusty at relationships and there’s a lot at stake? believable! house being petty, childish, and flaky every time cuddy expects something of him? not really believable! i could go on.
tldr: there’s a lot i would change, less individual moments, more that i think the entire way that the relationship was gone about in s7 was inherently problematic. i don’t think it made anyone satisfied, let alone happy.
house really, like, is such an asshole when he’s dating cuddy. to almost a weird extent. i think a lot about Two Stories. i do think a big part of what they were trying to do with that arc was show us that house is a shitty partner, or whatever. but it just feels really negative and heavy handed and flanderized — especially when you compare it to the similar, and much better written, arc in s2 with stacy — that it’s hard not to just take it as the writers trying very hard to tell you that huddy is dysfunctional without actually writing huddy as dysfunctional, but a dysfunctional couple as huddy.
i hope that makes sense lol ^_^;;