Lesbians in the House

House is one of those shows that give me really mixed feelings in its treatment of lesbian relationships. On the one hand, I've recently come to really like the show in general. It took me a while, as I've mentioned, to get past the incongruity (to me) of Hugh "Mr. Music" Laurie playing scruffysexycool. But I think the characterization, performances and writing are excellent.

Besides Laurie, I really like Lisa Edelstein and I'm glad to see her as a regular on a hit. She has just about the most important credit I can see in an actor, she had a recurring role on not one but two Aaron Sorkin/Tommy Schlamme series; that means she can pretty much do anything as far as I'm concerned.

A couple of days ago I completed a two-week process of watching the first two seasons on DVD. In one episode from each season, the medical "case of the week" involved a lesbian couple. The actresses who played them for the most part played it very "straight"-you should pardon the expression-and belivable.

And I like the fact that everyone in the show, all the other characters, took the relationships seriously and accepted them for what they are-good or bad, these women were in a relationship.

In the first season the lesbian couple featured were one of two sets of new parents whose babies had both come down with some unknown ailment. In diagnosing the children, House had to give one medication to one child and a different one to the other, and see if one got better. One did. One didn't. Guess which one.

Again, it was played very simply and movingly, and with great respect for the reality of the terrible loss these women had suffered. But you have to ask-I did anyway-would it have hurt the story if the gay couple had been the ones who got to take their baby home at the end of the day?

I don't think it would've.

I actually liked the second season episode featuring a lesbian couple-at first. A woman offers to donate a part of her liver to save her girlfriends life, unknowing (the doctors think) that her partner is planning to break up with her.

It presented an interesting moral dilemma-which has precedence, your sense of preservation or your sensitivity to another's feelings? But in a deeply cynical twist, we learn that she has known all along. The reason she chose to give up her liver is because she knows her girlfriend will never leave her now, out of guilt.

This resolution changed the picture of a lesbian couple from one prey to the same frailties and screwups as most of us into one in which one partner is trapped, the other manipulative to an arguably evil degree.

Once again we have a show in which lesbian always equals doomed to unhappiness. The writers do give some of the characters happy endings and a chance at new life. It's just that the two times they've dealt with lesbian characters so far, they've chosen not to do that.

On the other hand, I'll forgive almost anything for lines like this:

House: Tonight-L Word marathon.
Wilson: You watch The L Word?
House: On mute.

Only way to watch it, as far as I'm concerned.