Essay: Get a Handall on It

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Title: Get a Handall on It: The House/Crandall Friendship as a Precursor to  House/Wilson
Thesis: House’s relationship with Wilson is a deeper version of the his relationship with Crandall.  
Spoilers: Through Son of Coma Guy
Word Count: 1400

N.B. For the purposes of this essay, the relationship between House and Crandall will be referred to as Handall. House/Wilson will just be H/W, so as not to tread on anyone’s toes.

The fact that the House/Wilson friendship is one of a kind is one of the most basic assumptions of House MD fandom. But just how singular is it, really? For the audience is given one glance at a House relationship that isn’t anchored by ties of employment, outside of H/W. Granted, it’s only for one mediocre episode (Who’s Your Daddy?), but that renders the evidence all the more significant for its scarcity.

The episode revolves around House’s renewed acquaintance with a friend from decades ago. Though perhaps House was once the social butterfly, I ascribe to the House the eternal misanthrope camp and assume that House had as many friends twenty odd years ago as he has today. This makes Crandall all the more significant. The audience is taken aback by this Crandall person: he is gullible, good-natured and affectionate. How could he have ever stood in our House’s good graces? But it is apparent that he still did and does. House treats him with something approaching gentleness. Though his explanation of Crandall’s daughter’s (Leona) condition is glib, it lacks the utter callousness which usually attends such speeches. Even as he seeks the truth about Leona’s parentage, his inquires never take on the brutal ring of interrogation he would more normally adopt.

The audience is not alone in their surprise at House’s attitude. Wilson demands to know the reason for House’s baffling behavior. “We were twenty. He had a car. If he'd been a girl, I'd have married him,” House says by way of explanation. Let’s stop the DDX and discuss that comment. They were twenty, okay, young and stupid, uh huh. Car? I am unsure whether to take this as House really liking Crandall’s sweet wheels or House really needing a ride. Either way, a car seems a poor basis for friendship, and House doesn’t seem the type to suffer fools for any reason, even their automobile. But it’s the final statement that is particularly intriguing. Possibly it’s an extension of the previous statement and House really, really liked that car or really, really needed a ride. But the comment about age seems in no way related to the other two, so this sounds more like a series of random recollections on House’s part. Though House is being his usual snarky self, the statement has a certain vulnerability and contains the ring of truth, which speaks to a deep and emotional bond House once had with Crandall. The ‘if he’d been a girl’ statement seeks to assure the audience that there is no sexual desire present, but it is ultimately up to the audience to decide just how much they buy it. 

Further explanation for House’s kindness toward Crandall may be explained by the guilt he feels for ruining a serious relationship of Crandall’s. He tells Wilson that he went to talk to Crandall’s girlfriend and wound up sleeping with her instead. But he’d already stated that he found her flaky and sending mixed signals, in short, that she wasn’t good enough for Crandall. Though he’d sought her out to merely talk to her, and presumably smooth her relationship with Crandall, he ends up acting to utterly destroy that very same relationship. House sleeps not with a girl he likes but with one he has no respect for. And while no details are given, I posit that House either actively sought the act or more passively allowed it, fully conscious of the fact he was destroying the relationship he’d been sent to cement, thereby ridding his friend of a girl he didn’t like and keeping Crandall to himself. Only now he feels obvious guilt for his actions. His story to Wilson is chagrined. When he finally lies to Leona on Crandall’s behalf, he tells his friend that they are even, as if it is only now that he has atoned for betraying Crandall’s trust.

This jealous destruction of a relationship, along with the previously discussed marriage comment seems to suggest romantic feelings in Handall, though possibly one-sided. House frequently repeats this destructive pattern in other relationships- both those canonically recognized and in less obvious romantic pairings. House is combative and antagonistic towards Mark, Stacey’s new husband. He actively undermines Cuddy’s would-be sperm donors. Wilson, especially, seems to bear the brunt of House’s anti-relationship campaign. Though House’s interaction with Wilson’s wife(ves) is never seen, he does remark that Julie hates him. If Julies hates him, it would be a safe bet to assume he has given her very good reason. After all, he monopolized her husband’s time and energy, randomly exerting his influence over Wilson by making him abandon Julie’s company for House’s. House deprecates the marriage and Wilson’s commitment to it at every opportunity. Or perhaps he exaggerates her dislike and thereby further forces Wilson to take his side.

But it is not just to Julie to whom House objects. Even the most innocent of conversations Wilson has with a pretty nurse is enough for House to immediately interrupt the current DDX to go break up the ‘flirting’ in the most verbally aggressive way possible. In doing so, he abandons the puzzle that the show frequently states is the most important thing to House. Clearly though, this is not true- above all else, ruining Wilson’s romantic opportunities is House’s main prerogative.

It may be interesting to note that House never exhibits the same destructive tendencies toward Cameron. The closest he comes is in TB or Not TB, when she shows interest in Sebastian Charles. But here the resentment hinges more on his extreme dislike for Sebastian than jealousy. When Cameron spends one strung-out night with Chase, it elicits nothing more than a vague disgust in House. It gives him ammunition to use against Chase, but the idea of a relationship between his fellows doesn’t seem to bother House.

Wilson and Crandall have more in common than House-doomed relationships, though. They each share a few personality traits. Both are optimistic, occasionally to the point of naiveté. Both try to adhere to a higher moral code, to one degree or another. House enjoys mocking Wilson’s do-gooder ways throughout the course of the show. Crandall, though the audience has less by which to judge his character, also shows a strong tendency to want to do the right thing in enthusiastically undertaking the care of a daughter he just learned he had, possibly to his own detriment. Each have a fresh-faced honesty to them (whether deserved or not). Maybe it is these traits that drew House to them both originally. However, whereas Crandall eventually lost House’s interest, Wilson maintains it still, due in part to the aspects of his personality that differs from Crandall. Wilson is quicker than Crandall and is better able to counter House’s offensives.   Wilson can see through House’s bullshit, when Crandall never can. And, in turn, Wilson is one of the few people who can successfully lie to House. These make him more of a challenge to House’s inquiring mind. Crandall is, in short, too easy. Yet House maintains a clear affection for Crandall. He doesn’t lie to him when he normally would lie to a patient, and does lie when he normally wouldn’t (i.e. the paternity test). When has House ever withheld the ugly truth to protect people?

House does extend this selfsame kindness to others for whom he cares, if I may use ‘House’ and ‘kindness’ in the same sentence. He protects Cuddy’s fertility treatment secret, when it is possibly the juiciest bit of gossip he has ever gotten about her.  And though at first cruel and incomprehensible, his dismissal of Stacey was, in the end, for her own good. Plus, the writers really needed to get rid of her. For Wilson, he makes what seems the smallest, but perhaps most significant allowances. In Babies and Bathwater, he outright acknowledges the importance of Wilson’s friendship and in Son of Coma Guy he makes the concession that though he tests every relationship to the point of breaking, this is one that he doesn’t want to destroy.

So we see the template set for the H/W relationship within Handall. But H/W goes beyond the parameters of Handall; it is a deeper, more lasting and more meaningful connection. It is one that House has been looking for in Crandall and now as finally found with Wilson.

Comments

The business about the car?

[(Anonymous)]

He liked the car??? Really needed a lift???? It's no mystery. He was making a joke. You know? He was alluding to the whole girl guy car sex in the back seat thing? He was saying Crandall was a really close friend and had a car. If he (House) had been a girl, he would have been having sex with him in the back seat which would have eventually led to marrying him. It's not that cryptic.