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Lisa Cuddy

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Dr. Lisa Cuddy
File:Lisa Cuddy.jpg Lisa Cuddy in the Season 3 Premiere
First appearance"Pilot"
Portrayed byLisa Edelstein
In-universe information
OccupationDean of Medicine

Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy is the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.[2]

Characterization

Cuddy is "tough as nails" and brings "jewish glamour" to the hospital with her pencil skirts and low-cut sweaters.[3] She doesn't take House's nonsense, and is able to keep him in check to a degree. The show has given hints that there is some sort of romantic history between the pair.[4] It was later revealed that the pair had engaged in a one night stand.[5]

Reception

Nina Smith of TV Guide said that the "sizzling" chemistry of Edelstein and Hugh Laurie keeps the dialogue fresh enough to "warrant a slap on the cheek."[4]

History

She is the only character for whom the show has never given any family information. It is unclear whether she has siblings or whether her parents are still alive. However, a reference is made indicating she is Jewish in season 2 when House comments about her not having "luck with JDate", a popular online Jewish dating service. A small menorah is also visible when House visits Cuddy's house in season 3 episode 15.

Cuddy attended University of Michigan where she was an undergraduate. During this time, she met Gregory House who was already a legend on campus. [6] Her dream of being a doctor began when she was twelve, and she graduated medical school at age twenty-five as second best in her class, and became the first woman and second youngest Dean of Medicine ever at age thirty-two. [6]

Cuddy knew House before the show takes place. She met him at the University of Michigan after he had transferred from another school, Johns Hopkins University.[6] Later on, when House got an infarction in his right leg, he was treated at Princeton Plainsboro where Cuddy was not yet Dean of Medicine (specified in the unaired version of "Honeymoon").[7][8] His doctors could not figure out what was wrong with his leg, so Cuddy became his attending doctor. Despite the danger the dead muscle posed (generating clots that could block key blood vessels), House refused to amputate, saying he liked his leg and was willing to risk his life to keep it. Meanwhile his girlfriend, Stacy Warner, told him he should cut it off to survive. It was Cuddy who told Stacy that there was a middle ground between completely amputating the leg or keeping it. They would have to cut out the dead muscle with a 50% success rate. If this middle ground failed, House would be a cripple for the rest of his life and be in constant pain, but if it were to succeed, his thigh muscle would grow back and he'd be able to walk properly. During the worst of his leg-pains at the hospital, House requested being put into a chemically-induced coma to sleep through it. However, once he was unconscious, Stacy (as his medical proxy) consented to the middle-ground surgery for him.[8]

Development

There is a degree of sexual tension between Gregory House and Cuddy. It is later confirmed in "Top Secret" that they have had a one night stand sometime in the past. This conversation took place:[9]

House: "Give me a break. You hired me-"
Cuddy: "-because you're a good doctor who couldn't get himself hired at a blood bank, so I got you cheap."
House: "You gave me everything I asked for because one night I gave you everything."[9]

In Season 1, Cuddy mainly played the plot of a "foil" for Gregory House where she would have to constantly order him to finish his required hours of clinic duty, as he is known to slack off all the time. She also had to make sure he didn't get into any legal troubles and prevent him from doing anything dangerous to his patients.[10]

By the end of Season 2, Cuddy's character began to expand. In the episode "Forever" it is revealed that Cuddy wants a baby.[11] She had kept it a secret and had strangely asked James Wilson to have dinner with her (which was actually a secret audition to see whether he'd qualify as a dad, though Wilson was not aware). The morning before the "date", Wilson told House she had asked him to dinner, not vice versa. Becoming suspicious, saying Cuddy would never be interested in Wilson, House stole her garbage from her office to look through it. In it, he found Red Clover, an herbal booster. To confirm his suspicions, he later confronted Cuddy in her office, saying he knew she was taking Red Clover and that Wilson's date wasn't a date at all. She admitted to him that she was considering having a baby.[11]

In "Who's Your Daddy?", Cuddy tells House that in order for her to get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization, she needs injections twice a day. She asks him to help inject her, since she can't do it herself and because he is the only one who knows she wants a baby. House obliges and, despite his usual personality, keeps her injections and desire to have a baby a secret - even from his best friend, Wilson.[12]

In Season 3, Cuddy still has not succeeded in pregnancy. House often teased her and falsely accused her of being pregnant (Example: talking to her stomach and commenting on her breasts being firmer.)[13]

In "Finding Judas" however, Cuddy acknowledges that her in-vitro fertilization attempts have failed after House yells at her in a dangerously stressful situation:[14]

"It's a good thing you failed to become a mom because you'd suck at it!"[14]

She seems like she has lost most of her hope for being a mother, tearfully confessing to Wilson that she has had a total of three attempts at impregnation, one of which was miscarried (which means that House's constant remarks about her being pregnant in the earlier episodes of Season 3 may have been correct). She also says that the time he yelled at her was "the only time [she'd] ever seen him be mean, just because he could." This seems to surprise Wilson, implying that House usually censors his words and level of "mean"-ness around Cuddy. [14]

In the first half of Season 3, House's career is threatened by Michael Tritter, who has a grudge against House. At the end, there is a court hearing where there was a chance that House would have to go to jail. Cuddy chooses to protect House, however, by committing perjury (and risking her career as well). By falsifying documents, Cuddy tells the judge that she thwarted House's attempt at stealing oxycodone from a dead patient. She claims to have replaced the pills with placebos at the hospital pharmacy because she knew House was in an extremely vulnerable state.[2] The judge seems skeptical, but decides to let it slide because she doesn't believe that House is a drug abuser, something Michael Tritter claimed he was. The judge then tells House that he has much better friends than he deserves, namely Cuddy and Wilson, because they were fighting with everything to keep him out of jail.[2]

Relationships

After the Tritter Arc, Cuddy's relationship with House begins to develop more. House openly flirts with her more often, and seems to view her in a different light, mainly thanks to her risking her entire career to save him.[2]

In "Insensitive", House notices that Cuddy hadn't worn her hat to work even though there was a huge snow storm outside and he quickly figures out she has a blind date that evening. He interrupts Cuddy when she is in the middle of her date in a nearby coffee shop, claiming he needs a consult for his CIPA patient. He purposely embarrasses her in front of her date, telling her loudly that Don (her date) is much better than her previous one.[1] That same evening, House goes to her home, asking for a second consult. He figures out that despite his previous attempts at shooing Don off, Don was currently in Cuddy's house. When House continually questions and makes remarks about her, she confronts him about his motives, asking him challengingly: "Do you like me, House?" to which he quickly looks away and doesn't answer.[1]

As Season 3 progresses, there is more focus on the tension between House and Cuddy, especially in "Fetal Position" where House's patient has a fetus that is killing her. The patient, Emma, had finally gotten pregnant through in vitro fertilization after 3 failed attempts. When House finally comes to the conclusion that it was actually Emma's fetus that was killing her, his recommendation was to abort the fetus, but Emma does not consent (because if she were to abort, this would be her 4th, and maybe final, attempt at pregnancy). Cuddy supports and sympathizes with Emma, and House later confronts her about whether or not her judgments are being clouded. He tells her that she is identifying with the patient too much (because Cuddy was a "woman in her forties" and had also tried to get pregnant through in-vitro). In the end, Cuddy (although with help from House), manages to save both Emma and her baby.[15]

In "Act Your Age" and "House Training", James Wilson asked Cuddy on two separate dates. In the first one, he took her to see a play and House immediately questioned Wilson's motives. Just before Wilson took Cuddy to a play, House had told him that "the only reason a man takes a woman to a play is if he wants to see her naked."[16] Wilson tells House that sleeping with Cuddy wasn't what he wanted and that it was just a casual outing between friends. At the end of "Act Your Age", House asks Cuddy to see a play with him on Thursday, but she refuses. It isn't until the next episode, "House Training", before it is revealed that Cuddy had said that she would be busy on Thursday. When House tells Wilson this information, suspecting Cuddy was lying, Wilson responds that she was telling the truth; he'd already asked her on another "non-date" on Thursday. Shocked, House contacts Wilson's ex-wife in an attempt to stop Cuddy from becoming the fourth "ex-Mrs.Wilson".[17]

In Season 4, at least as early as the episode "Mirror Mirror", Cuddy is taking birth control pills, of which House is aware. He further suggests that he switches the pills as a prank. During a conversation with Foreman, he quips that if Foreman stays: "No one's going to be happy here... and Cuddy's going to end up pregnant."

References

  1. ^ a b c "Insensitive". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 14. 2007-02-13. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b c d "Words and Deeds". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 11. 2007-01-09. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/05/29/hugh_laurie/
  4. ^ a b http://www.tvguide.com/news/house-lisa-edelstein/071120-01
  5. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-05-28-house-finale_N.htm
  6. ^ a b c "Humpty Dumpty". House, M.D.. Season 2. Episode 3. 2005-09-27. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ "unaired version of Honeymoon". House, M.D.. Season 1. Episode 22. 2005-05-25. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ a b "Three Stories". House, M.D.. Season 1. Episode 21. 2005-05-17. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ a b "Top Secret". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 16. 2007-03-27. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ "Pilot". House, M.D.. Season 1. Episode -01. 2005-11-16. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b "Forever". House, M.D.. Season 2. Episode 22. 2006-05-16. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ "Who's Your Daddy?". House, M.D.. Season 2. Episode 23. 2006-05-16. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ "Cane & Able". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode -02. 2006-09-12. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ a b c "Finding Judas". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 09. 2006-11-28. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ "Fetal Position". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 17. 2007-04-03. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "Act Your Age". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 19. 2007-04-17. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ "House Training". House, M.D.. Season 3. Episode 20. 2007-04-24. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
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