'House' season finale: Crash into me

Season finale time on "House" the past couple years has meant a big development in the relationship between House and Cuddy. The Season 7 ender "Moving On" sure qualifies in that regard.

That's not to say it was a good development, though. In fact, it left a pretty bad taste for us.

Obviously "Moving On" was filmed before the show and Lisa Edelstein failed to come to terms on a new contract and she left the series. Which means, unless something can be worked out for her to return as a guest star, our last image of Lisa Cuddy will be of her standing in the house that House just drove a car through and telling the cops that if House so much as comes near her again, she wants him arrested.

Say what you will about the way the Huddy romance was handled. The character deserves better than that. Instead, when House returns from his tropical sojourn sometime in Season 8, it appears Cuddy will be gone. Which in turn means that even though he just committed a major felony and then skipped town, House wins. That's not good, for the character or the show.

Prior to House crashing Cuddy's dinner party, both she and Wilson tried to get House to discuss his motives for last week's botched self-surgery, to little avail. House hides behind the usual wall of deflections and wisecracks, breaking only momentarily to tell Cuddy "I feel hurt" after she presses him.

The patient of the week, a renowned performance artist (played by Shohreh Aghdashloo) who sought out House so his diagnostic game could become part of her final work, also ends up disappointing him: She chooses radiation treatment that will most likely cure her but weaken her brain over an option that will leave her mind intact but shorten her life. He can't fathom the choice -- the brain is "where everything comes from, any meaning in your life, any happiness," he tells her -- and projects more than a little bit about her attachment to people who will let her down.

And so a few minutes later, after Wilson urges him to "let it out -- you'll feel better," House finally lets emotion overcome reason and drives his car into Cuddy's dining room. She has major property damage and worse emotional scars, and he walks away with a smirk on his face, quipping to Wilson, "You're right. I do feel better."

Even for someone like House, from whom audiences expect bad behavior, that's going to be tough to come back from next season. "House" has had a way of walking up to the edge of the character confronting his demons before reverting to the what-are-you-gonna-do mentality that has dominated much of the series. To do so again next year, in what could be the show's final season, would feel like a sellout for House and for the show's fans.

What did you think of "House's" season finale?