Unlike many main characters, the show makes little attempt to humanize Gregory House or make much excuse for his behavior. He’s acerbic. He’s misogynistic. He has little patience for patients and even less for his coworkers. He has no respect for authority, or even his own friends. For any other show, this would be a villain.
Unfortunately, Dr. House is a genius.
He can solve medical mysteries no one else can, save people that are seemingly beyond help. He is a medical Sherlock Holmes. For all intents and purposes, to those people, he is a hero… a God among men. It’s almost why he acts the way he does. He’s good, he knows it, and there’s little anyone can do about it, so they have to put up with his antics or lose the best thing the hospital has going for it.
With dark humor and a sarcastic, flippant wit, you almost come to like the doctor in spite of himself. It explains why people stay around, even though he does everything he can to push them all away. He saves everyone else instead of himself. Really, he does everything he can to destroy himself.
While the show is supposedly about Dr. House and the medical marvels, it’s really about the interpersonal relationships around him. You grow with the characters, love with them. As they become stronger and more in charge of their own feelings and reservations about House and his actions, you root for them when they win small victories. When you see them fight for House, for him to get better, you realize the bigger picture.
Everyone is messed up. Everyone has secrets, everyone has battles they’re fighting. The people around us are what hold us together, even if we don’t acknowledge it. Hurt people hurt people, and it takes a strong person to still be willing to fight for someone who is unable to continue fighting for themselves. Sometimes we might lose the battle, but it was still worth fighting for.
In the end, House MD is a brilliant show, not just because of the medical diagnostics, but because of the emotional ones. Everybody lies, says Dr. House. Which is true, of course. But everyone has the capacity to heal, as well, if they let themselves.