I rewatched House and realized that this Episode was the perfect end than the official finale 

While House officially ended with Season 8, Episode 22, “Everybody Dies,” many fans and critics agree that a previous episode could have been a more perfect ending. One episode in particular often comes up in that conversation is "Broken", which highlights a deeply important moment in the series.

House is a medical drama that centres around Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant but deeply flawed diagnostic physician who leads a team of doctors at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. The episode "Broken" in season 6 showcases Gregory dealing with a drug addiction problem and suffering a bad mental state, where he starts hallucinating.

This episode could have served as a natural and poignant conclusion to Gregory House's arc. Read on to know how.

**Disclaimer: The below article is the author's opinion; the reader's discretion is advisable.

Here is how "Broken" could have been a much better ending for House

While House’s Vicodin addiction is a constant and visible struggle throughout the series, "Broken" makes it clear that the addiction is a symptom, not the root cause. The main problem behind why he resorts to drugs is emotional isolation and fear of being vulnerable. House, who is depicted as an intelligent doctor, is also deeply damaged, and his coping mechanism is to push people away. He also masks his pain with sarcasm and relies on drugs to numb what he doesn't want to feel.

This episode compels him to confront this isolation. He goes to a psychiatric hospital for healing, where he meets Dr. Nolan, who doesn't let Gregory manipulate or dismiss him. Dr. Nolan insists House must do the hard work of dealing with his emotional wounds, not just his chemical dependency. Lydia helps House open up emotionally and allows him to feel love and attachment. But then she returns to her family, therefore their relationship was for a brief time.

In this episode of House, Gregory was finally healed

Lydia's departure comes as a test for Gregory. He learns that he opened up to someone, and the person is not there anymore, but it is not the end of the world. Therefore, this becomes a personal victory for House, which was a central conflict for the character. He starts to see that vulnerability isn’t weakness. That lesson, learned through therapy and his experience with Lydia, leads Dr. Nolan to conclude that House is ready to go back to the real world.

If the show had ended here, it would’ve been a redemptive ending—not a neat one, but a powerful one. It wouldn’t mean Gregory was “fixed,” but that he had turned a corner, learned a major life lesson, and was on a new, more hopeful path, stemming from connection and solitude and not emotional isolation and hiding one's vulnerabilities.

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According to many reviews, continuing House after season 6 doesn't make sense. Some seasons were even unreceptive. While Season 8 tried to give closure with Wilson’s cancer diagnosis and House faking his death to be with him, it didn’t land for everyone. The final scene felt abrupt and didn’t resonate as strongly with the central character arc as “Broken" did.

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