Episode 17

We Need The Eggs 

So unofficially we've heard via Twitter (and on IMDb) that episode 17 of Season 8 is called We Need The Eggs. I looked up the title because I was curious as to what it alluded to. It appears to be a quote from Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977):

I thought of that old joke: This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well why don't you turn him in?' and the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

I was sure I'd heard that quote in part somewhere before on an episode of House. Well, it turns out I had:

During Season 2 I was a huge fan of the Stacy-House relationship, so let's say I've watched Failure to Communicate (Season 2 Episode 10) more than once. The episode is actually one of my favourites. There is a fantastic scene earlier in the episode in which Stacy uses 'curry' as an analogy to describe her relationship with House, which is why the sentence finishes with 'curry' instead of 'eggs':

The question is: Why this title? Is it a reference to House's relationship with Stacy or relationships in general? The latter is more likely in my opinion. Relationships are complicated (a notion personified by House), and this emphasises the fact that we can never really understand other people's relationships; we are outsiders. Relationships don't often 'make sense' and are often addictive as Stacy says. In hindsight it's interesting that House chimes in with 'drugs' when Stacy is thinking of something addictive. Medicine always gets in the way of House and his relationships (I don't only mean Cuddy here), as despite what he says, medicine does come first.

So We Need The Eggs could focus on romantic relationships but also on familial ones. We may well see a psych patient as the subplot, which would refer to the Annie Hall reference. Again, relationships are complicated. It could be the case that we get an insight into how someone diagnosed with a mental illness communicates with a sibling or parent and how difficult it can be for both sides. This is pure speculation.

Note: According to IMDb Peter Blake and Sarah Hess are the writers but nothing has been released OFFICIALLY as of yet. It may well turn out that this isn't the title of the episode at all. However, I thought I would share my thoughts about what I believe is an interesting concept; a potential self-reference (to Failure to Communicate) as well as an intertextual one to Annie Hall. 

A Brief Open Letter

Dear House,

I feel I've been neglecting you, I haven't written in a while. Then again, you don't exist, so I'm not entirely sure you'll mind. Yet while you've been not existing, you fake, you character, you've somehow managed to ambush me and steal my heart, my head, and in return you've left a mixture of light and dark. 

Cracks of uncertainty, insecurity, appear shallower, less significant. Utterly inappropriate Houseisms draw a half smile, knowing, on a bad day. Yet, you're just a figment of the imagination, not mine, unfortunately. 

Somehow you've paved the paths of greatest resistance, unconventionally of course. The unlikeliest of friendships exist because of you, international barriers obliterated through the common language that is sarcasm with an 'H'. 

You intrude when least expected, invading songs on the radio, daydreams on long journeys, conversations not about you. You are impossibly flawed, you antihero. How dare you make it okay to be who we are? 

You relieve pain, mental anguish, you give hope, you create dreams, all the while being who you are, an ass. So this is your fault, all these reactions, all the tears, the laughs, the time spent thinking, talking. 

But then again, you don't exist, so I won't miss you at all. 

Everybody lies. 

S.