Episode Rating: A+

House, M.D. has inspired me to write on multiple occasions. I posted my first article about the show back when the season four finale aired. That was a pretty weak season, but that episode redeemed the show in my eyes, and I was compelled to share my thoughts with my readers. It inspired me so much that I decided to write weekly episode reviews when season five started. That venture stopped halfway through the season. Why? Season five let me down. It didn't live up to the potential that the one-two punch of House's Head/Wilson's Heart gave up. If anything, season five pushed the show further into "mediocre procedural" territory. And now, here we are at the start of season six. This is a show that I love despite having had it break my heart three years running. The first two seasons were strokes of genius. Season three made some bad choices. Seasons four and five...well, you know my feelings. But it's a new season, and time for a fresh start.

The two-hour premiere episode, titled Broken, has inspired me to write about the series once more. This wasn't so much an episode as it was a TV-movie; they even neglected the traditional theme song in favor of an excellent opening credit sequence that would have worked just as well in theaters as it did on the TV screen. And it didn't really feel like a series premiere-in fact, the moment where House told his psychiatrist that we wanted to be happy made me think that this episode was the perfect series finale. Literally every second of the show up to this point was leading up to this single moment. I've always wondered how this show should end, and Broken gave me the answer. It was a perfect episode for this reason and so many more, but it also makes me more nervous about the state of this series than I ever have been before.

But more on that later-for now, let's relish the episode...or TV-movie, whatever you want to call it. This is the best episode the show's done in years (quite possibly ever, though Three Stories comes to mind as a potential contender), and it's all because they took the series back to basics. Apart from Robert Sean Leonard's single scene as Wilson, the only main cast member to appear was Hugh Laurie, and he was in every last scene. This was an episode about House and only about House, and that's how it should be. Season five got too wrapped up in the bland supporting cast and forgot why we watch this show. Personally, the medicine on this show has never been the hook for me. House himself has been the hook. He's a fascinating character and the show works best as a character study.

So for fans like me, Broken was a god-send, an early Christmas present. It was two undiluted hours of getting inside House's head. No medicine, no team, no Cuddy, (almost) no Wilson, nothing but the good doctor himself. Hugh Laurie is always amazing in this role, but tonight he brought out the big guns-he was spectacular, and he will win the Emmy next year. No other actor has a better episode to submit to the academy then he does, and the TV season's only just started. I could go on for pages about Laurie's performance, but you all know what I mean. He's the reason this show works, even in the bad times.

Broken had no bad times, but it almost fooled me there for a minute. The episode started as we would expect it to, with House scheming and plotting to get what he wanted. He was acting like the same selfish, self-absorbed prat we've seen for years, and frankly, that's not what I was tuning in for. But the writers knew what they were doing. House had to go through this phase-that's who he is. The ordeal through which he went to recognize that his selfish methods were flawed was fascinating and heartbreaking, and it all led up to the moment when he asked for help.

I'll admit, watching Gregory House crying out for help and genuinely trying to become a better person left a tear in my eye. This is a moment we knew the show would have to give us at one point or another, but I'd lost my faith that the writers could deliver it so perfectly. All the pieces were in place in this one singular episode for that moment to feel organic and, more importantly, deserved. This wasn't some cheap shot to the emotional groin like Kutner shooting himself-this was the real deal, something for the audience to care about.

Amazingly enough, House followed through on his cry for help. He changed. He got better. He found happiness, and the way this happened was genius. House has always been a man who, by merely getting up and going to work in the morning, touches people's lives in profound ways. But he's never realized this, and that's his problem. He hates people because he needs them, but hates himself because he can't see that people need him too. Tonight, House went through profound change and healing when he saw the value he really can bring to the world. By saying he was sorry to "Freedom Man" and simply wheeling him across the room, he healed two people and made them more whole. And he himself became more whole, because for the first time in his life he realized what his life, his existence, really meant.

House has always been sick. From the moment we met him, he had mental problem. Broken wisely showed us no hallucinations or mental trips-that's the stuff that makes up lesser episodes. This was about House confronting himself, his own demons and problem, not about him confronting a mental illness. For the first time in the history of the series, he confronted the problems that make him such a "jerk" (albeit a loveable one). They did it in the best way possible-and I haven't even mentioned Franka Potente's character or House's roommate, another person who was saved by House's own journey.

Everything I love about Broken also scares me, however. This show has come back from the brink before with one outstanding episode only to sink down into the same boring, contrived, and shallow routine. If the show faltered, even a little, after this episode...I don't think it would ever recover. The changes House experienced tonight have to be permanent, and permanent change is not this show's strong suit. They'd also have to rediscover the focus of the show and keep things focused squarely on the doctor even when the rest of the cast returns.

But most of all, I feel that the writers have already played their trump card. Broken was the series-finale, coming to us much too early. The series has always been about House's struggles with himself, and tonight he tackled those struggles. Where do you go from here? To me, this was the end of his story, because it brought things full circle in so many ways. I would love nothing more than to be proved wrong, to see the writers hit another few home runs and show me that there are still places to go. But in my eyes, breaking down the mental barrier that makes House such a grouch and getting him to actually open up to other human beings is akin to destroying the one ring. Once you've done it, the story's been told.

But The Lord of the Rings also had the Scouring of the Shire, a beautiful coda once the main conquest was done. Perhaps House, M.D. has something like that in its future. If it does, then a show that has so often lost its way has finally come home.

Welcome back.