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Lawrence Kutner (House)
Encyclopedia
Lawrence Kutner M.D. (born Lawrence Choudhary) is a fictional character
on the Fox
medical drama
House
. He is played by Kal Penn
. He becomes a member of House
's new diagnostic team in "Games", the ninth episode of the fourth season. Kutner commits suicide
in the fifth season episode "Simple Explanation
".
Of all the new fellows, he is the most enthusiastic and the one most likely to go along with House in taking risks, including illegal activities. When House was finally forced to pick his new team, Dr. Cuddy
suggested he hire Kutner because Kutner "shares [House's] philosophy of medicine." He first got approval from House after successfully reviving a patient with a defibrillator
while in a hyperbaric chamber
, despite also setting her clothing on fire due to the high-oxygen atmosphere. Similarly, in "Mirror Mirror", he resuscitated a patient using a defibrillator while the patient's skin was wet, inadvertently shocking himself into unconsciousness at the same time. Defibrillators and Kutner have become a running joke for House now, who, in "Ugly", appoints him the "professional defibrillist", a title of which Kutner seems rather proud.
Kutner is a science fiction
fan and seems to be easily distracted by pretty women, having asked out Amber Volakis at the end of the contest. However, at the end of "Wilson's Heart
", while other characters were shown to be visibly upset over Amber's death, he spent the night after her death eating corn flakes while watching television. He tends to share a great deal of trivial personal details with others (Taub mentioned in "Let Them Eat Cake
" that he had informed the team of his subscription renewal to National Geographic).
In "Here Kitty", he is shown to be superstitious, throwing salt over his shoulder after House deliberately spills some and avoiding walking under a ladder. He also takes great pains to avoid walking past a cat who is rumored to predict the deaths of people to whom it is close.
, Kutner commented that "Kutner" is not an India
n surname. He revealed that his parents owned a deli and were shot to death during a robbery when he was six years old, suggesting that he got his surname from his adoptive family. In the episode "Birthmarks", Kutner admits that he liked being different, being Indian, after being adopted by a "Jewish family when he was six." In the season four episode "Ugly
", in order to put a patient at ease in admitting drug use, he claims to have used drugs as a teen. In "Adverse Events
" it is said that he holds a Guinness World Record
for crawling the longest distance, twenty-one miles. In "Joy to the World", as a response to other events in the episode, the epilogue shows him seeking out and apologizing to a high school classmate to whom he had been cruel. In "Let Them Eat Cake", Kutner runs an online medical advice clinic under House's name; however, his fellow employees and then House himself blackmail
s him into giving them most of the profits. In "Here Kitty," to get back at House for making fun of him for being superstitious, and for pretending to throw up blood all over him, Kutner apparently gets a cat to urinate on House's chair. It is implied that it is actually Kutner's urine. In "Simple Explanation
", it is revealed that Kutner streaked during the Penn-Dartmouth football game and a picture of him at graduation revealed him to be an alumnus of Dartmouth College
. The team also meets Kutner's adoptive parents, who tell them that Lawrence called them Mr. and Mrs. Kutner until his ninth birthday, when they became "Mom" and "Dad". They also tell him that Kutner's original name was "Lawrence Choudhary" and that he himself decided to change it.
Kutner is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his apartment by Thirteen and Foreman in "Simple Explanation
". Kutner left no reason for his suicide, causing Dr. House to suspect foul play. The show's producers have confirmed that his death was indeed a suicide
. Actor Kal Penn
, who portrayed Kutner, had accepted a job at the White House
as "a liaison connecting the Obama administration with arts and entertainment groups, as well as with the Asian-American
and Pacific Islander
communities."
In "Both Sides Now
", Kutner appears briefly in one of House's hallucinations.
, with columnist Alan Sepinwall arguing that the death was pointless, and seemingly written only to create a "Very Special Episode
". However, Entertainment Weekly
commended the show's handling of the death, believing that it was presented in a dramatically effective and realistic manner.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
on the Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
medical drama
Medical drama
A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the...
House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...
. He is played by Kal Penn
Kal Penn
Kalpen Suresh Modi , best known by his stage name Kal Penn, is an American film and television actor, producer, and civil servant....
. He becomes a member of House
Gregory House
Gregory House, M.D., or simply referred to as House, is a fictional antihero and title character of the American television series House, played by Hugh Laurie. He is the Chief of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, where he leads a team of diagnosticians...
's new diagnostic team in "Games", the ninth episode of the fourth season. Kutner commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in the fifth season episode "Simple Explanation
Simple Explanation
"Simple Explanation" is the 20th episode of the fifth season of House. It first aired on April 6, 2009.-Plot summary:As Eddie Novack lies on his deathbed, his wife Charlotte is stricken with respiratory failure. The team takes Charlotte's case and wheels Eddie into her room, as he seems to gain...
".
Characterization
Kutner is shown to be open-minded about any new experience which is the reason he wants to join House's new team. He was originally #6 during the games, but was fired in his first appearance for reporting Amber Volakis's recording of patient information. He continued to work even after being "fired" by House by flipping his #6 into a #9 and refusing to leave, and then coming up with a clever stress test for a patient's liver, using alcohol to intoxicate the patient, which impresses House to keep him, much to Amber's dismay.Of all the new fellows, he is the most enthusiastic and the one most likely to go along with House in taking risks, including illegal activities. When House was finally forced to pick his new team, Dr. Cuddy
Lisa Cuddy
Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. She also becomes House's love interest through the...
suggested he hire Kutner because Kutner "shares [House's] philosophy of medicine." He first got approval from House after successfully reviving a patient with a defibrillator
Defibrillation
Defibrillation is a common treatment for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the affected heart with a device called a defibrillator...
while in a hyperbaric chamber
Diving chamber
A diving chamber has two main functions:* as a simpler form of submersible vessel to take divers underwater and to provide a temporary base and retrieval system in the depths;...
, despite also setting her clothing on fire due to the high-oxygen atmosphere. Similarly, in "Mirror Mirror", he resuscitated a patient using a defibrillator while the patient's skin was wet, inadvertently shocking himself into unconsciousness at the same time. Defibrillators and Kutner have become a running joke for House now, who, in "Ugly", appoints him the "professional defibrillist", a title of which Kutner seems rather proud.
Kutner is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
fan and seems to be easily distracted by pretty women, having asked out Amber Volakis at the end of the contest. However, at the end of "Wilson's Heart
Wilson's Heart
"Wilson's Heart" is the sixteenth episode and season finale of the fourth season of House and the eighty-sixth episode overall. It aired on May 19, 2008...
", while other characters were shown to be visibly upset over Amber's death, he spent the night after her death eating corn flakes while watching television. He tends to share a great deal of trivial personal details with others (Taub mentioned in "Let Them Eat Cake
Let Them Eat Cake (House)
"Let Them Eat Cake" is the tenth episode of the fifth season of House and the ninety-sixth episode overall. It originally aired on December 2, 2008.-Plot:...
" that he had informed the team of his subscription renewal to National Geographic).
In "Here Kitty", he is shown to be superstitious, throwing salt over his shoulder after House deliberately spills some and avoiding walking under a ladder. He also takes great pains to avoid walking past a cat who is rumored to predict the deaths of people to whom it is close.
Biography
Little is known about his past. In the season four finaleWilson's Heart
"Wilson's Heart" is the sixteenth episode and season finale of the fourth season of House and the eighty-sixth episode overall. It aired on May 19, 2008...
, Kutner commented that "Kutner" is not an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n surname. He revealed that his parents owned a deli and were shot to death during a robbery when he was six years old, suggesting that he got his surname from his adoptive family. In the episode "Birthmarks", Kutner admits that he liked being different, being Indian, after being adopted by a "Jewish family when he was six." In the season four episode "Ugly
Ugly (House)
"Ugly" is the seventh episode of the fourth season of House and the seventy-seventh episode overall. It aired on November 13, 2007. The episode revolves around a teenager named Kenny Cyrus with a major facial deformity. He is set to get surgery in order to remove the deformity, but has a heart...
", in order to put a patient at ease in admitting drug use, he claims to have used drugs as a teen. In "Adverse Events
Adverse Events
"Adverse Events" is the third episode of the fifth season of House and the eighty-ninth episode overall. It first aired on September 30, 2008. Breckin Meyer guest starred as an artist who has an unexplained visual problem.- Plot :...
" it is said that he holds a Guinness World Record
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...
for crawling the longest distance, twenty-one miles. In "Joy to the World", as a response to other events in the episode, the epilogue shows him seeking out and apologizing to a high school classmate to whom he had been cruel. In "Let Them Eat Cake", Kutner runs an online medical advice clinic under House's name; however, his fellow employees and then House himself blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
s him into giving them most of the profits. In "Here Kitty," to get back at House for making fun of him for being superstitious, and for pretending to throw up blood all over him, Kutner apparently gets a cat to urinate on House's chair. It is implied that it is actually Kutner's urine. In "Simple Explanation
Simple Explanation
"Simple Explanation" is the 20th episode of the fifth season of House. It first aired on April 6, 2009.-Plot summary:As Eddie Novack lies on his deathbed, his wife Charlotte is stricken with respiratory failure. The team takes Charlotte's case and wheels Eddie into her room, as he seems to gain...
", it is revealed that Kutner streaked during the Penn-Dartmouth football game and a picture of him at graduation revealed him to be an alumnus of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
. The team also meets Kutner's adoptive parents, who tell them that Lawrence called them Mr. and Mrs. Kutner until his ninth birthday, when they became "Mom" and "Dad". They also tell him that Kutner's original name was "Lawrence Choudhary" and that he himself decided to change it.
Kutner is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his apartment by Thirteen and Foreman in "Simple Explanation
Simple Explanation
"Simple Explanation" is the 20th episode of the fifth season of House. It first aired on April 6, 2009.-Plot summary:As Eddie Novack lies on his deathbed, his wife Charlotte is stricken with respiratory failure. The team takes Charlotte's case and wheels Eddie into her room, as he seems to gain...
". Kutner left no reason for his suicide, causing Dr. House to suspect foul play. The show's producers have confirmed that his death was indeed a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. Actor Kal Penn
Kal Penn
Kalpen Suresh Modi , best known by his stage name Kal Penn, is an American film and television actor, producer, and civil servant....
, who portrayed Kutner, had accepted a job at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
as "a liaison connecting the Obama administration with arts and entertainment groups, as well as with the Asian-American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
and Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander , is a geographic term to describe the indigenous inhabitants of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, these three regions, together with their islands consist of:Polynesia:...
communities."
In "Both Sides Now
Both Sides Now (House)
"Both Sides Now" is the twenty-fourth episode and season finale of the fifth season of House. It originally aired on May 11, 2009.-Plot:...
", Kutner appears briefly in one of House's hallucinations.
Reception
Kutner's death was criticized in The Star-LedgerThe Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
, with columnist Alan Sepinwall arguing that the death was pointless, and seemingly written only to create a "Very Special Episode
Very special episode
"Very special episode" is an advertising term originally used in American television commercials to refer to an episode of a sitcom or television drama that deals with a serious or controversial social issue...
". However, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
commended the show's handling of the death, believing that it was presented in a dramatically effective and realistic manner.
External links
- Lawrence Kutner at House Wiki
- Official House website
- Facebook Obituary