“Before there was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there was Simon and Garfunkel — an extraordinary, a singular love affair. There is no gay component in the two of us that I am aware of, but the way these two lives wrapped around each other is poetically stunning. From age eleven to today, a span of sixty-four years, Art and Paul have been at work to entertain, win the respect of, and dazzle one another. It worked so well that the whole world pulled up chairs to watch and listen.”
— Art Garfunkel, What is it All But Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man (via dominik528)
as someone interested in puzzling all the little details together from what the narrative gives me, i'm very interested by the way house md uses sub plots to reflect on the show as a whole. often it's achieved through the means of a certain parallel between a main character and the patient, but in some cases it's also a whole separate b plot.
so, as someone who is 1/3rd through season 8 (watching it for the first time) and who knows what is up ahead, i cannot help but notice the way the first episodes discuss themes that will later end up being very central to the story.
the first one is the plotline with thirteen, who really just wants to go to mykonos and spend her remaining years alive to have fun. house initially believes that she should use her talent as he thinks she will be miserable out of guilt if she doesn't, but later (after seeing them lovey-dovey) he cuts her free from this burden and let's her have fun. i don't think this episode fully reflects on house later, though. it mostly reminds me of the conversation thirteen and wilson will have later, where wilson is the one telling thirteen that he just wants to spend his remaining life with family and friends (- "friend"). this draws the obvious parallel between thirteen and wilson in the face of death and imho [hilson shipper hat on] also pushes a romantic interpretation into the narrative regarding house and wilson spending that remainder together.
then there's S08E09, where one central theme ends up being "jumping ship" when a partner ends up having a terminal disease, which is also neat (and cruel) to raise as a question considering what is bound to happen to wilson. i think in this case it just really pushes the question to the front of what one would do facing this reality, and showing the difficulties of the partner who is watching theirs get increasingly worse. again - i personally end up viewing this as a parallel with house and wilson later, where house makes the choice to face this difficult reality. imho this just adds more meat to the bone of the story.
my thoughts aren't fully formed on this yet as I am only on episode 10, but I really feel like the writers have been preparing their audience for a certain interpretation of later events by doing stuff like this. and i'm eating it all up!!