Cuddy left House before the final season aired and didn’t even return for the finale, and while it was shocking for viewers at the time, Lisa Edelstein has been open about why she left the show. Apart from Hugh Laurie’s Dr. Gregory House, the genius Head of Diagnostic Medicine at a hospital in New Jersey, House MD featured a great supporting cast, including Lisa Edelstein’s Dr. Lisa Cuddy. The Dean of Medicine at the hospital and Gregory House’s boss throughout the show, Cuddy acknowledged the genius of her underling, but was regularly exasperated by House’s frequent rule-breaking, lack of stricter, and disregard for even basic manners.
In spite of this, the pair formed a strong attraction, and fans shipped the couple as “Huddy,” though it would be a long path to their inevitable romance, which came with obstacles like Cuddy being engaged to someone else and House moving on from his painkiller addiction. Their happily-ever-after never came though, so why did Cuddy leave House MD? After the events of House MD season 7, Cuddy and Lisa Edelstein left the show for good — and the narrative included a brutal breakup with House. The series came to an end in 2012 after House MD season 8, and while revival is always possible, bringing Cuddy back will be even trickier.
Why Cuddy Left House MD After Season 7
Lisa Edelstein Chose To Leave The Cast Of House
In the House MD, Cuddy moved away from New Jersey due to the violent end of her relationship with Gregory House. During House MD season 7 episode “Bombshells,” Cuddy undergoes tests to find if she has cancer. It’s revealed she has a benign tumor, but when she realizes House resorted to taking pain medication in order to support her, she breaks up with him.
Naturally, House took the breakup poorly, and in the finale, drove his car through her dining room. Cuddy didn’t die on House MD, but House MD season 8’s opening episode reveals how Gregory went to jail for this violent act, and Cuddy resigned from her position and moved on.
In a way, it was entirely predictable a “Huddy” romance was doomed to failure, but Cuddy’s abrupt departure from House MD season 8 felt like a glaring omission. The character didn’t return for the finale either, despite pretty much every other major cast member making a cameo. This was partly down to Lisa Edelstein being busy on other projects, but the actress departed the show under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Lisa Edelstein left House MD to move onto the next stages of her career — and behind the scenes, a convenient opportunity to exit the show presented itself. Most of the actors’ contracts ended with House MD season 7, and the network wanted to cut down on costs by bringing them back with pay cuts. Lisa Edelstein refused and decided to leave the show instead.
This is likely another reason why Cuddy didn’t return for the final episode (unlike fellow House MD departee Jennifer Morrison). Edelstein has since revealed (viaDigital Spy) she has no regrets about not appearing, feeling that House ramming his car into Cuddy’s dining room would be a very logical endpoint for their relationship.
What Lisa Edelstein Did After Cuddy Left House
The House MD Actress Has Had Several Prominent Roles After Playing Cuddy
Cuddy’s House MD performance earned Lisa Edelstein the People’s Choice Award for Favorite TV Drama Actress and the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film, which afforded the actor plenty of career opportunities following her exit. This includes recurring roles in The Good Wife, Castle, The Good Doctor, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, and the critically acclaimed comedic drama The Kominsky Method.
Outside live-action series and a handful of films, Edelstein also provided the voices of several cartoon characters in shows like King of the Hill, American Dad, and most notably The Legend of Korra, in which Edelstein played Kya, one of Avatar Aang and Katara’s children. Lisa Edelstein is currently slated to star in several upcoming projects, such as the miniseries Little Bird and several short film appearances.
Will House Ever Return To TV?
There Are Currently No Plans For A House Revival
As with many popular medical series, House MD had (and continues to have) a loyal following. While many would be pleased to see the show rebooted, however, it seems very unlikely to happen, primarily because of star Hugh Laurie. While House was a huge role for his career, it was also far from his first incredibly successful venture, and Laurie is probably looking to move forward rather than backward.
This is especially true given that House MD apparently took a heavy toll on him. Laurie has said that “the repetition of any routine, day after month after year, can turn into a bit of a nightmare. I had some pretty bleak times.” (via Hello! Magazine). With comments like these, it’s hard to see Hugh Laurie returning to his role on House MD for a revival.
Related
15 Best House Episodes, Ranked
The House M.D. series wrapped over a decade ago, but the show is still one of the best medical dramas around, these are the best episodes.
What Lisa Edelstein Thought Of Her Final House Episode
The Cuddy Actress Felt It May Have Been Too Extreme
It was a shock for viewers when Cuddy left because she was so important to Greg House’s story. However, Lisa Edelstein left House because she felt the time had come, and it was the best thing for her professionally.
Edelstein had started to get a lot of calls after her role on House MD, and she said it felt like her career was finally starting to take off (via TV Line). She then chose to leave the show, turning in her resignation and allowing the writers to figure out the best way to write Cuddy out of the show. Her first job after leaving was a small role on The Good Wife.
“It was very sad and very disappointing and a really difficult decision to make. But ultimately I felt like it was the best thing for me to do for myself and for my business.”
While she didn’t feel the need to return to the finale because Cuddy’s story with House had ended, she did have strong feelings about her last appearance on the show. Edelstein said that it was clear fans were “up in arms” and thought House was really trying to kill Cuddy.
She called it homicidal, although she said it wasn’t meant to be in the script since they had left the room. “In order to affect any kind of change for a character like that you have to go to extreme places, [but] maybe it was too extreme for the audience. It’s just not that kind of show,” Edelstein said about her final House MD episode.
House Struggled Without Cuddy
Ratings And Storylines Suffered
Season 3 of the series… averaged over 19 million viewers…
When Cuddy left the series permanently, the decision was made to put Foreman in her previous position, but the dynamic between House and Foreman is not the same as that between House and Cuddy. While some enjoyed seeing Foreman in his new role, for many, the absence of Cuddy caused the show to decline.
House was no longer in check at all because he didn’t put the same kind of stock in Foreman’s instructions as he did Cuddy, for one thing. That meant House unraveled even faster than he would have had she remained on the series. It also gave the final season of the show a more chaotic feeling as storylines didn’t seem to be following the same narrative.
In addition to the storylines sorely missing Cuddy, so did the ratings. Season 3 of the series, for comparison, was the peak of the show’s success. It averaged over 19 million viewers. By season 7, the average had declined to just over 10 million, and season 8’s average was about 8 million (via Nielsen Business Media).
Now, it is true that many long-running shows will see a decline in live viewership the longer they are on the air. But to have the later seasons coincide with Cuddy’s absence does make it seem like some viewers abandoned ship when they realized the character really wasn’t coming back to House.