As we’ve blogged before, Mad Men’s own Ann Dudek has absolutely stolen the season. I was all about how House had jumped the shark, and I was about to drop it from my DVR subscriptions, but she waltzed in on infinitely long legs and saved the series.
I don’t want to give away anything that happened, it was amazing and, while this blog spoils Mad Men left and right, no one comes here expecting House spoilers. As an episode of House, the writing was top-notch, the willingness to explore new character directions was laudable, and I was on the edge of my seat.
But Ann Dudek. Wow. It’s not giving anything away to say she both plays the character of Amber (aka Cut-Throat Bitch) and a dream version of Amber, so that she’s in various stages of real and imagined throughout the episode. She is by turns gorgeous and glamorous, ordinary and focused, vulnerable and tender, all thanks to superb acting and hey that makeup department.
I believe we know she’ll be back in season 2 Mad Men (do we know that? Should I double-check that?). I am so looking forward to seeing her work there.
May 21, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Weiner said in an interview that everyone will be back in Season Two. But I don’t know if it means Francine or like… Dale.
May 21, 2008 at 3:52 pm
That episode knocked me on my… yeah, you know! House has to have Wilson, Wilson has to have House!
Bones was amazing, too.
Good night of tv.
Anyhow, now AD can merely be Betty’s neighbor, Alby’s wife on Big Love, and maybe return to Bones as Booth’s ex. Not like she’s busy or anything.
May 21, 2008 at 6:33 pm
House has to have Wilson, Wilson has to have House!
Yes, but how??? It really got me at the end when House said he didn’t want to go back because Wilson will never forgive him. He’s finally having to take the consequences of being a self-involved, self-loathing louse (also “self-pity … I’m branching out.”) Can this marriage be saved?
Emmys (if I thought the Emmys meant anything) for Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard.
May 21, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Right? Brilliant. Incredible acting by Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard and the big prize has to go to Anne Dudek. Just the emotions changing visibly in only her eyes in the last seen between Amber and Wilson… wow…
May 21, 2008 at 6:52 pm
SPOILERS!
You know what? I don’t think of it as House’s fault. We tell people when you’re drunk to get a ride. The rest was just random chance, really. A whole chain of events had to happen. She was on the bus because of House, but where exactly she sat and taking the pills was just unfortunate. Now, if it was a car accident, and he was impaired…
House risked his life for her and that aint nuffin.’
I like that House does change, but always in valid ways. Then, he regresses again, but not completely. There was rare emotion here, but it was earned and valid. Certain people do matter to him.
And, as is discussed in the thread before this, life isn’t fair, and “you don’t always get what you want.”
AD alse deserves an aware or acknowledgement — her last scene was intense. I love how she delivered the line about not wanting anger to be the last emotion.
May 21, 2008 at 6:53 pm
award* (shoot)
May 21, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Glass, everything you said in your first two paragraphs, almost word-for-word, I said to my friend at work today.
And yeah, I think the most amazing thing about Amber was how smart she stayed all through, when she woke up and put it all together and knew the answers; she really knew her stuff! All that emotion AND smart, that’s acting!
AD deserves an award, but truly it is a shame that Hugh Laurie, who deserves awards, gets them, but Robert Sean Leonard has for four years gone unnoticed as a genius on that team.
May 21, 2008 at 7:46 pm
RSL is brilliant at playing the relationship — the anger, love, frustration, and weariness, admiration AND disappointment of being friends with someone that self-destructive and manipulative.
May 22, 2008 at 6:34 am
Well, I guess if anyone’s reading this far, they are past being concerned about spoilers, right? And if they are reading this far, they’re stupid and deserved to be “spoiled”! So can I go ahead and say how sad I am that they killed her off? I was really liking where her character was going – her love for Wilson being genuine, and how House was dealing with that scary fact, and how Wilson was learning, for the first time, how to be in a potentially healthy relationship.
Yeah, this kind of redeemed this season of House, which I’d found less than satisfactory. Especially disappointed with how feckless the writers have made Foreman, among other complaints.
Of course, I had to go back to one of your earlier post to see which Mad Men character Ann Dudek played. Huh – I had no idea!
By the way, hope y’all had a good time at the NY TV blog forum dealio.
May 22, 2008 at 7:05 am
Oh hey, look what I just found – something for everyone from TV colomnist and blogger Maureen Ryan:
First of all, give Anne Dudek an Emmy for ripping my heart up into little pieces. As Amber, she’s always been a treat, but she was especially great in the scenes that took place after she’d been resuscitated.
Link is also below in case my above attempt to link failed (dammit no preview button!). Check it out, great pic of Ann:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/05/a-gut-wrenching.html
And Ryan agrees with me that’s it’s too bad the Amber-Wilson relationship didn’t get more time to develop.
May 22, 2008 at 7:09 am
I think my last comment went into moderation because I included a link. Anyway, there’s no way for me to see if the comment is readable or gibberish. Please feel free to edit if it came out gibberish. It’s 5:08am…I’m going to bed. Will check back tomorrow. G’nite y’all.
May 22, 2008 at 8:21 am
I don’t know why your comment got spammed; we allow up to 3 links, but sometimes the spam filter gets enthusiastic. I restored it.
May 22, 2008 at 8:34 am
There were things I didn’t like, and chief among them was that Amber didn’t have a family showing up and holding hands and all. House is too insular; it shows only its regulars; so Chase now performs brain surgery? Because they don’t want to pay some hungry actor to fill the neurosurgery shoes?
Amber is (was) a spoiled, privileged girl with perfect hair and a tasteful string of pearls. She’s no orphan. I picture driven professionals as parents; two doctors seems likely. Where were they?
May 22, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Deborah – I was wondering where the hell Amber’s family and friends were, too.
Not a stretch for Chase to have been doing the brain surgery because that’s his character’s specialty, as I recall. The whole point of House’s original team was that they each had a different specialty that House could call on. That’s another thing that go lost this season.
May 22, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Chase was the team’s Intensivist; Foreman was the Neurologist, Cameron was the Epidemiologist. Chase doesn’t have the training to do neurosurgery.
May 23, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Sheesh! Then why wasn’t Foreman doing the surgery?
May 23, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Because Omar Epps already had plenty to do in the episode, and Jess Spencer has a contract. Seriously, they keep squeezing him in to justify keeping him in the opening credits.
May 25, 2008 at 2:32 am
It makes me wonder how House and Wilson will get along next season. I would think that to Wilson this will be an “unforgivable” he might blame House for her death due to his carelessness or whatnot. I was NOT expecting this ending, and have to say it had a powerful presentation all around. I felt moved by the tragedy, poor Wilson =(
May 28, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I finally watched. Now I gotta rehydrate or I’ll wake up with a migraine.
Fuck sake that’s good television.
Kisses–
May 29, 2008 at 6:28 am
Roberta, how did you get to watch the House season finale? Did you tivo it? Or was it rerun?
May 29, 2008 at 9:15 am
hulu.com, baby. Check it out.