Overly Positive

 If you haven’t seen the latest episode of House, I warned ya.

Every so often an episode of a good TV show will come along that hits you straight out of left field. It points behind you and then takes the opportunity to punch you in the gut, causing you to double over while simultaneously declaring “that was a good one”.

The latest House episode was one of these.

Now, you’d think with the death of Kutner, one of the regular characters on the show, you’d see me diverting my thoughts to more somber things. But then, that wouldn’t be in line with this blog, right?

From a writing perspective, Kutner dying (and possibly being murdered) is unexpected but was appropriate, and not just because of the actor’s new digs (more on that later). Honestly, it was hard to peg Kutner for meaningful character development all season. While Thirteen has Foreman and her Huntington’s and Taub has his ongoing struggles with his spouse, Kutner had….well, we weren’t sure. As the most like House in terms of a risk-taker, Kutner was, like me, a bright spot of optimism in a sea of cynics, but aside from that, the depth of the character was never really explored. With Kutner dead, and now a possible mystery surrounding that, there is now more opportunity to explore Kutner in many different ways.

And the death of a character can bring out a lot of good potential things in the rest of the surviving characters as well. Some shows don’t really handle this too well (Star Trek: TNG). Others handle it quite beautifully (Babylon 5). Those that do better with it, learn to bring out authentic emotions based upon character templates they’ve already created, rather than going the “omg someone died” route and making a 180 with how someone would react. House treats Kutner’s death as another puzzle. Foreman wants to deal with it on his own. Taub, who by the way is acting strange for being Kutner’s closest friend, is at first apparently emotionless but is hiding his pain. There’s a lot of potential here, and while losing a main cast member has its drawbacks, the prospect of figuring out what the rest of the characters do is good for at least a few episodes.

You now realize the writers really did the audience an evil turn, as the previous episode, which had a superstition involving a black cat that curled up to people who were going to die, had a seemingly meaningless and light-hearted side story of Kutner being afraid of the cat since it curled up to him. That was the pointing of the finger before the punch in the gut. Well played, writers.

And shifting away from the actual show, let’s just say this really is a great new chapter for the actor. Kal Penn left the show for perhaps a more worthy cause, going into politics and working at the White House under the Obama administration. He could have left the door open for a guest appearance, but killing off his character cements the actor’s decision to leave his chosen field of profession and do something else. You might miss Kutner, but there’s no doubt Kal will be around for a long time to come.

So take heart – Kutner’s death? Tragic, but it good be a good thing – for everyone.