Characterization
House describes Wilson as "a buddy of mine people say 'Thank you' to, when he tells them they are dying." House also describes Wilson as an "emotional vampire". On a date with Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), Wilson evades a question as to whether or not he wants children.
However, Wilson defends House when House's career is in jeopardy, after billionaire entrepreneur and then chairman of Princeton-Plainsboro's Board Edward Vogler (Chi McBride) proposes a motion for House's dismissal. Wilson is the only one to vote against the motion. In response, Vogler proposes and succeeds in obtaining Wilson's dismissal, but Wilson is soon reinstated thanks to Cuddy after she convinces the board that Vogler is the real threat to the hospital and his money is not worth his business-obsessed mindset. In a late Season episode it is revealed that Wilson suffers from clinical depression and takes medication. Wilson is also seen to be left-handed, a trait he shares with Cuddy and Foreman.
Wilson attempts to change House's drug habits, with little success. After Cuddy makes a bet to prove House's addiction to Vicodin, House concedes to Wilson that he has an addiction but says that the addiction is not a problem. It is, in fact, Wilson who usually writes House's Vicodin prescriptions (with Cuddy writing a few merely for leverage in her dealings with House). In Season 3, when Detective Michael Tritter (David Morse) threatens to jail House for his Vicodin addiction after finding a huge stash in his apartment, Wilson attempts to convince House to go to rehab as the situation worsens. After Tritter pressures Wilson to testify several times, Wilson reluctantly agrees, unknown to House. Before this, Wilson watches House punch Dr. Robert Chase, insult Cuddy, and incorrectly diagnose a child with a condition that would have required the amputation of her arm.
Near the end of Season 4, Wilson starts a romantic relationship with Amber Volakis, who is essentially a female version of House, and who competed for one of the open jobs on House's team in the wake of Foreman, Chase, and Cameron's departure. In the Season 4 finale, she dies as in a bus crash sustained while picking up a drunken House from a bar. Her death eventually leads Wilson to conclude that his relationship with House serves to enable House's dysfunctions. To remove himself from House's influence, he resigns from Princeton-Plainsboro at the beginning of Season 5. The two reconcile when Wilson forces House to attend the funeral of House's father. Wilson realizes that he had been afraid of losing House, who is his true friend, and that Wilson's life didn't get any better when he resigned. He then returns to Princeton-Plainsboro.
During Season 5, it is revealed that Wilson's homeless brother Danny suffered from schizophrenia since adolescence, which is what caused him to run away. Wilson blames himself for his brother's homelessness, having hung up on Danny right before he disappeared. Wilson also reveals to House that he took the position at Princeton-Plainsboro because it was near the place he had last seen Danny. When Wilson finds out that Danny is in the Psychiatric Ward of New York Mercy Hospital, House offers to come with him to keep him company, noting that it could end badly. However, when Wilson is let in to see his brother, House is busy with a differential with his team.
In Season 6, Episode 15, "Private Lives", House discovers that Wilson, in his youth, had been an actor in a porno flick titled "Feral Pleasures". Throughout the episode, after House hangs movie posters all over the hospital, people start paraphrasing a quote by Wilson's character: "Be not afraid. The forest nymphs have taught me how to please a woman". In addition, Wilson proposes a joke marriage to House in "The Down Low".
Gay references have been made to the relationship between the two characters of the show. House has made a comment about the relationship ("I'm gay!...Oh that's not what you meant. It would explain a lot, though: no girlfriend, always with Wilson, the obsession with sneakers..."). Barbara Barnett said that "House is the needy one in the relationship, and Wilson the doormat" Verne Gay of Newsday described House's love for Wilson as "touching and genuine". However, Robert Sean Leonard compared the relationship between to that of Cesar Millan and his Pit Bull, while Hugh Laurie said that it's "not just buddydom". The two characters appeared on the October 13, 2008, cover of TV Guide.
Read more about this topic: James Wilson (House)