Speaking of Freak Shows - "House"

Speaking of freak shows, what about “House” last night? AfterEllen.com showed a promotional clip of the opening sequence which was at least 20 seconds longer than the sequence that aired at the beginning of the show. The shortening of that sequence aside, the whole storyline just really angered me.

The show starts out with a steamy make-out sequence with Thirteen and an anonymous woman. (The sequence was very reminecent of those in an "L Word"episode.) Afterward, the woman has a seizure, Thirteen dials 911 and the investigation of her illness begins, but not until House makes a number of smarmy, really insulting remarks. House's "Another life saved by girl-on-girl action," was just a bit much. This goes on throughout the show. House even accuses her of a downward spiral of partying and anonymous sex with women.

Is he jealous?

Who is he to judge?

And why is Thirteen’s experience with her bi-side a “downward spiral”?

Would anonymous sex with men not be a “downward spiral”?

I've seen a handful of episodes of "House" and I have to say I've usually enjoyed them. I don't know if I could bring myself to watch again after this episode. After all the really negative stuff spewing out of House’s mouth, I thought for a moment, maybe this will end well.

When Thirteen and the woman discover they have the same terminal illness, they bond and you see them comforting each other in the hospital bed. Not in the kinky, smarmy way both my partner I thought the scene was going. We both looked at each other wide eyed when the sequence began with Thirteen getting into Spencer's hospital bed. We thought, oh no, they are not doing some gratitous sex scene in a hospital bed! They were comforting each other in the way a spouse or good friend would, when one finds out some terrible news. That made me think, wow, they are showing lesbians & bi-sexuals as human. But then the last sequence of the episode is Thirteen making out with an anonymous blonde. Way to burst my bubble.

Once I got beyond my anger about House, it made me think for a moment, what if I were in that situation? What if I discovered I had a terminal illness?

Would I go out and “live life to it’s fullest” and start some self destructive behaviors like partying hard and having anonymous sex? Or maybe daredevil type behavior?

In a word, NO!

I can’t imagine anyone else who I would rather spend my final time with.

It would be with my partner and my children. And we would make the best of it.

What about you?

If you discovered you had a terminal illness, what would you do?