okay... if you could REWRITE the whole of simple explanation, what would you do? you dont have to answer this in detail just... what would make it better. a two parter? removing/changing the patient plot? curious to hear your thoughts!!
(sorry for taking so long to answer this... you asked this in, like, march)
short answer: make it a two-parter. and we don't meet kutner's adoptive parents (I GUESS thirteen foreman and house can visit them, but off-screen).
lomg answer: honestly... I don't hate the fact that in the episode where kutner dies, we also have a patient (well, kinda two patients). I think it makes sense (they got the case before they found out kutner died, and house and taub are trying to distract themselves from their grief). I get what they're trying to do. it's just that, with everything else going on and all the twists and turns of it, the case feels like a mess. I could not explain to you key points from it. as a whole, i feel like the pacing in this episode is terrible.
I feel like if we were to turn it into a two-parter it would solve a lot of its problems:
i feel like if we spread out the case over two episodes it would... make it more coherent? let it breathe?
in my vision, the first part is where we find out kutner dies. the second part is when the funeral takes place, at the end of the episode as it does in the actual episode.
focus on how EVERY character is handling kutner's death. not just mainly house.
we don't need to meet kutner's adoptive parents. as I've already said, they should be treated sort of the same cameron's dead husband and family are: people we never meet, and can only wonder about. because kutner's death is not about them. it's also wasting time we could spend focusing on something else. and I also feel like never meeting kutner's parents and thus never knowing if everything kutner says about them is true is more interesting.
one of the main things this episode is trying to say is that there is no simple explanation to kutner and his suicide, and house is trying to find one and to make it into a mystery because of his grief. i feel like because of the general mess this episode is, the message is not coming across that well. so uhm, I'd make it more obvious somehow
get rid of that bad lighting. i get what they're going for, but it's still so bad and I hate it