User Reviews

Seriously though, this was a very interesting and creative way to make the underlying cause much more diverting. Whoa. LOL

I do have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by John Cho's performance as the sub/slave in desperate need of his Mistress. The cameo by veteran actors like Peter Graves (R. I. P) and June Squibb was an unexpected treat, especially with the double taboo they are engaging in, which is great because how often do patients get to make House uncomfortable?

As for the Titanic cluster-bomb that was the Cameron/House date? Ya see what I did there? It was exactly that and left the audience with a very resounding, and unsatisfying ambiguity that was frankly, underwhelming. It was the only real draw-back in the episode (imo)

"Love Hurts" is the twentieth episode from the first season of "House M. D." and this one runs for over 44 minutes as they usually do. The director was Bryan Spicer and the writer credited here (in addition to show creator David Shore) was Sara B. Cooper, so a woman for once in charge of writing a House episode. Did not happen too often, at least at the beginning. Spicer and Coooper have in common that they only worked on two episodes of House in the aforementioned fields and this was also the second and thus final time. Not too much compared to other writers and directors who were more on the regular side. However, if we look at the actors here away from the regular cast, there are at least two interesting mentions. John Cho plays the sick character this time although "sick" is a description that can be interpreted differently depending on what your perception on the man is. As for Cho, you may have seen him on Star Trek or Harold & Kumar. Perhaps the sick protagonist actor from the first season that is most known nowadays as Amanda Seyfried only played the sick character's girlfriend in an earlier episode. And number two would be June Squibb, who became an Oscar nominee a little later for a film I really like and it is also nice to see that almost 19 years after this episode she is still with us. Hopefully she will turn 95 later this year. If we are mentioning her already, she is the actress in here who plays the old lady that likes sex, but not all the time and there is some misunderstanding between her and her partner. Not her husband as we find out in the end. You can say that with this side story they returned to the early episodes again where those stories were more on the lighter side, but at the same time did not return because it is the only side story and at the very beginning of the show, they had three of those sometimes, at least two.

Before I get to the key story, let me say that I enjoyed this episode mostly for the funnier moments. If you thought those would come with the House/Cameron date, you were proven wrong. I will just mention the moments I liked and that made me smile: First would be the opening with House, Wilson and a patient watching television. Hilarious scene. Then another would be almost at the very end when a female character is dressed up as a nurse, but only pretending. House spots her immediately, but is fine with that. Then there is a comment by House about Cuddy's blouse. That even rhymes and I am not sure he would get away with this as easily in 2024. House's comment about his two male employees not wanting the same deal like Cameron was decent too. Also her face expression. She was cute to watch there anyway with how she is so delighted she finally gets to go on a date with House that she cannot keep quiet about it towards her colleagues. On the other hand, it is sad then that she does not tell anything to them afterwards about how it went and that says it all. Not even necessary for us to see and hear House's words there on the table that really must have stung. But we were with the funny moments. I think there was definitely some dark comedy to House calling the sick man's parents and telling them his son is dead. I also like actor Matt Malloy, even more if he is allowed to present more comedic material than in this episode here. There are more funny moments, but I will leave it at that. The somewhat controversial aspect of this episode is the female visiting Cho's character here and turns out she is a dominatrix. Chase realizes first and lets all the others now, so you can wonder if he has his own past wit this subject, even if we do not find out more about it. For Foreman, there is not too much to say about this episode. He got one diagnosis wrong, but other than that he is pretty much a non-factor. House then follows Chase's theory, so in this episode you do not really see any humiliation coming from him directed at Chase after the Vogler farewell and realizing where Chase's loyalties were.

What was in terms of the date maybe more interesting than the date itself was how the regular characters reacted towards it. Foreman was off the opinion that some relationships are just not meant to be and he told House. Chase told Cameron that she should really jump House. Cuddy was kinda happy for House that he might finally open up to somebody again and was almost hitting on him herself in this scene. Fear she might lose her chances? Well, the way the date went, nothing to worry for her. But who I liked most was maybe Wilson. He seemed like such a caring friend here, not only helping House with the outfit, but also how he approached Cameron and the words he said to her about potentially breaking House's heart. As for House himself, the little flower gift was nice too, even if it confuses me a bit why he took the effort to get this for her, but then does what he does during the date. But oh well, he was there with her and it became almost a challenge for him to prove her Freudian words wrong that there is nothing he can do to prove he is not really interested. I guess you can say he succeeded, which is pretty sad. I know I repeat myself there with what I said earlier about Cameron's lack of openness after the date. Maybe the best thing that came from all this was really the aforementioned patient at the very beginning. I would have loved him to become a regular. Or see more from him in another show or spinoff. Gotta check out the actor's name. This is pretty much it then. I am generous with my rating here now. I think I enjoyed this episode more when I first watched it a few years ago, but it is still pretty solid. For me the season peaked really with episode 18, the closure with Vogler's story line and all that followed afterwards before the end of season one was more on the epilogue side. I would not agree that the episode centering on House's ex stood out a lot. This episode here was maybe the best from what I just called the epilogue. I recommend checking it out, especially if you love Cho (or Squibb) in other projects. Thumbs-up for this episode dealing with all kinds of pain in male-female relationships.