I think my favorite thing about him is that juxtaposition of, like, impenetrability and vulnerability. He's abrasive, impulsive, arrogant, vulgar; he's also wildly self-destructive, wracked with self-loathing, isolated, traumatized, and miserable. He's edgy and obnoxious and physically and mentally ill. He's a brooding agent of chaos with a silly animated face.

Plus he's just incredibly well-rounded and talented: an avid listener of music and musician alike, a polyglot, a monster truck enthusiast, a soap opera connoisseur. There are many things about him that shouldn't go together, but do - the most brilliant doctor in an undefined varying episode-to-episode radius is an incorrigible manchild. He's a maverick. He's without a doubt a singular person.

Differential diagnosis for parentage? Our protagonist offers contradicting yet compelling explanations to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital for his newfound condition. Evading getting up-close-and-personal or not, sometimes you need to keep ’em on their toes.

Posting here totally ruined the quality despite my best efforts, so I'll also add the scenes separately.

Me when House appears onscreen:

Pics of Francis and Lois in the reboot. (Their relationship picking up where it left off just warmed the cockles of my heart. Plus, I love what Lois is doing with her hair nowadays.)

Him and those damn tacos (accompanied by Dr. Allison Cameron looking smashing in Aviators). He even has them later on at the same spot with shooter "Moriarty". Between that and the pancakes he was digging into in his hospital bed, was he very hungry before getting shot? (He did tell Moriarty to leave the hypothetical thank-you chocolates downstairs.)

Funny and touching.

*The scene pans to House interacting with a "patient" ("Carmen Electra" with leg pain, fresh off the golf course)* House: Here's how a well-adjusted doctor handles a case. 🙂

One random Tuesday during my latest Malcolm in the Middle rewatch, I came down with an acute-onset obsession with this character. Pompous sociopathic has-been overgrown Krelboyne. Mr. Herkabe has worn many hats since his birth to John and Ida in 1963 (Lloyd compiled the dossier *distributes thick packets of 8x11” sheets of paper to my friends on my first day of gifted 8th grade*), and he’s excelled in all of them. He was a child genius. He shirked gym class (er, pioneered an AP renaissance poetry course during 7th period phys. ed) and snatched the North High School highest GPA plaque from a blind, clubfooted record-holder. He has a double doctorate from Harvard. He was in a government think tank (what, may I ask, was he thinking about?). He’s a divorcee. He lost a fortune to a dot-com. He’s a middle school teacher. He’s a high school Dean of Discipline. He drives a Honda Civic held together with duct tape. He spearheaded a bold modern rendition of the Milgram experiment to the tune of orchestrating the humiliation of two brothers (is your head cold? Mine is…). He exchanged very meaningful glances with a married middle-aged green-sweatsuit-clad mom in a beauty pageant from his spot on the judges’ panel and blackmailed his student into doing his romantic bidding via note-passing.