One of the most polarizing characters onHousewas the seemingly cold-hearted Amber Volakis, but her death became one of the most tragic moments in the show. After Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) fired his entire staff and set out to create a new team, Amber was one of the applicants. While trying to prove her value as a potential member ofHouse’s diagnostics team, she earned herself the nickname “Cutthroat B****” for her apparent lack of empathy and her willingness to throw other characters under the bus for her own gain.
While Amber was never one ofthe biggest villains inHouse, her character was extremely unpopular. That said, viewers saw another side to her when she started dating Wilson. House doubted her intentions, but the two appeared devoted to each other and the relationship was set to be one ofthe most important relationships inHouse. This was cut short in season 4, when Amber died as a result of a bus crash. The mystery surrounding what happened, and even the identity of the dying person, was the central plot for two ofHouse’s darkest episodes.
Amber Went To Pick Up A Drunken House After He Called Wilson
The season 4 episode “House’s Head” follows House in the aftermath of a crashed bus, which he had been on. House goes to great lengths to piece together what happened that night, after he stumbled out of a strip club to discover the scene, without realizing at first that he had been on the bus. Earlier that evening, he had drunkenly called Wilson to pick him up, but Amber answered and came to get him.House persuaded Amber to have a drink with him, and afterward, she got on the busto return his cane after he left it behind.
House and the diagnostics team work to restore House’s memory.
The episodes “House’s Head” and “Wilson’s Heart” are the twohighest-rated but most tragic episodes inHouse, as House and the diagnostics team work to restore House’s memory and work out how to treat Amber. Amber had surgery to repair her kidneys, which were damaged in the bus crash, but her heart began racing, and she became jaundiced. She developed a rash and hypothermia, which House deduced was linked to her having the flu.While this became the key to diagnosing Amber, it also revealed that she couldn’t be saved, leading to some of the most heartbreaking scenes inHouse.
Amber Was On Amantadine For The Flu (But Her Liver Was Destroyed)
Amantadine Poisoning Is Unusual, But It Can Happen
The bartender remembered that House’s companion was sneezing, which House also noticed. As the two settle on the bus, Amber takes Amantadine, an antiviral drug meant to lessen flu symptoms. Amantadine is filtered by the kidneys, butwhen Amber’s kidneys were damaged by the crash, they couldn’t effectively filter the drug. Instead, it circulated in her bloodstream, causing an overdose and poisoning her vital organs. After she had a heart attack, there was nothing that could be done. There are severalHouseepisodes where the patient dies, but this was one of the most tragic, as Wilson was devastated.
Houseoften stretched the truth and, like many medical dramas, the show did not always reflect the reality of diagnosing a rare condition.Many cases inHousedefied medical accuracy, but Amber’s wasn’t one of them. It would be difficult for most healthy people to overdose on Amantadine, as their kidneys would quickly filter the drug. However, Amber was suffering from damaged kidneys, preventing this, and leading to heart damage. While aggressive dialysis can lower the drug’s concentration,there is no cure for Amantadine poisoning, and it was too late for Amber.
How House Was Able To Remember What Happened To Amber
The Episodes Covering The Bus Crash Are Some Of The Most Disturbing In House
In the episode “House’s Head,” House took extreme measures to try and restore his memory, which came to him in a series of surreal flashbacks. He undergoes medical hypnosis and a sensory deprivation tank, and hallucinates a woman who is wearing distinctive jewelry and doesn’t appear to fit in with the other passengers. She asks House to tie a ribbon around her, which mirrors the effect of the tourniquet he placed on Amber, but it is only when he dreams of her asking him “what’s my necklace made of?” that he realizes the answer is Amber.
TheHouseepisodes that cover the bus crash
Episode number
Who is the dying patient?
Season 4, Episode 16
What is wrong with Amber?
Multiple organ failure due to a kidney injury after an accidental overdose of amantadine
Housechanged throughout its eight seasons, but one of the main features was that House was generally always right. This predictability was one of the few complaints about the show, butby the time Amber died,Househad occasionally shown that House’s mind was not infallible. The most stressful and disturbing episodes in the show are generally when House has to wrestle with his own brain, and “House’s Head” and “Wilson’s Heart” use his fear and frustration to great effect. House (and the viewer) knows that there’s something different about this patient, but the inevitable reveal is still a shock.
Why Wilson Was Angry At House For Amber’s Death
As House’s best friend and the character who understands him best,Wilson does not blame House for Amber’s death. He understands that House never intended for Amber to get hurt, but that his selfishness and recklessness led to her joining him on the bus. Still, he is still furious, telling House, “I don’t blame you for Amber’s death. As much as I’ve tried to find a way to, I couldn’t. But we’re not okay.” This was a turning point in House and Wilson’s relationship. While House had hurt Wilson before, this was his worst moment.
House’s most surprising love storywas the relationship between Wilson and Amber. For most of her time on the show, Amber had been a deeply unlikable character, only becoming more relatable when she tried to hide her feelings after being fired. Viewers saw a more caring side of her when she began dating Wilson, andwhile the relationship was unexpected, it had the potential to be the best inHouse. Wilson and Amber were polar opposites, and while Wilson could have made Amber a better person, she looked set to help him stand up to House.
Was House To Blame For Amber’s Death?
Amber Returned For The Excellent House Finale
House is not directly to blame for Amber’s death, but it could be argued that he is responsible. If Amber had not gone to collect him, then chosen to stay on the bus with him, she would not have been on the bus when it crashed. On their own, the flu pills would not have killed her, and it was the bus crash that caused the chain reaction that resulted in her death.House has deliberately done many unpleasant thingsthroughout the show, but while he was partly responsible for Amber’s death, it was an accident.
Househas won 56 awards in total, including 5 Primetime Emmy Awards.
In the critically-acclaimedHousefinale, “Everybody Dies,” Amber returns to give House some of her signature brutal honesty. Over the course of the episode, House hallucinates several people who were important to his personal development, including Kutner and Amber. Each of these has a different kind of wisdom to give House, and while Kutner encourages House to be honest about how he is feeling (as Kutner wasn’t in life,) Amber is more direct. The moment showed Amber using her more abrasive traits as a force for good, motivating House to get up, and redeeming her at last.
House
Cast
House is a medical mystery drama in which the villain is typically a difficult-to-diagnose medical malady. It follows Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), a world-renowned disabled diagnostician with a notorious substance abuse issue. With his team of world-class doctors, House has built a reputation as one of the most brilliant doctors in the world - an especially impressive feat when taking into account that he rarely actually sees his patients.
