The premise of House required a revolving cast of characters—as the eponymous doctor (Hugh Laurie), a medical genius with zero people skills, continued to act like an asshole, he would of necessity push away the people around him. Though almost every regular character left the show at some point as the series painfully wore out its welcome, James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) stuck around for the entire series, playing the necessary role of the one constant in House’s life.

Originally conceived as the Watson to House’s Sherlock Holmes (a role eventually filled by the diagnostic team), Wilson, the head of oncology at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital who looks like an all-grown-up nice Jewish boy, ended up as House’s only real friend and almost total emotional support system. Wilson advocated for House’s unorthodox methods to boss Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) and bailed him out of tough situations (like when House was arrested after stealing Wilson’s prescriptions). He was also the more emotional counterpart to House’s cold, logical way of practicing medicine. While House’s idea of bedside manner is confronting patients for lies, he describes Wilson at the beginning of the series as “a buddy of mine people say ‘Thank you’ to, when he tells them they are dying.”

He may have been compassionate, but Wilson’s relationships reflected a compulsive, serial need for affection through pleasing his significant others. He began the series married to his third wife, though they separated in the second season, leading Wilson to become House’s roommate for a time, strengthening their codependence. His most serious relationship in the course of the show, with fellow doctor Amber “Cutthroat Bitch” Volakis (Anne Dudek), uncomfortably mirrored his relationship with House until Amber was killed in an accident House was tangentially responsible for, temporarily destroying the friendship.

Wilson tended to place his faith in emotional connections with other people rather than religion, but those often failed him. His serial marriages were indicative of a broader, unhealthy approach to relationships buried in his neediness. Some of Wilson’s relationships end because of the codependence of his friendship with House, others because he cheated (he was unfaithful to each of his wives), and one because he was dating a patient, attracted to her emotional state while suffering from a terminal illness. House somewhat accurately describes him later on in the series as an “emotional vampire.”

Instead of truly acting selflessly, Wilson is merely deceptive in manipulating his relationship with House, attempting to use the many favors he does for his friend as fodder for blackmail. There is darkness in Wilson’s emotional openness, even with his best friend—in addition to masterminding a bet that House could give up Vicodin for a week and lying to his friend about a correct diagnosis he’d made, Wilson plays the martyr by telling the police that House had stolen his prescriptions, supposedly for House’s own good.

Appropriately, Wilson’s final role in House is as a sacrificial lamb. As the show came to a close, it was free to return to the original character premise of House—the potential for House himself to become a better person. That character beat was only effective for a season or two, since the show would have ceased to be compelling or have any real conflict beyond a boring medical procedural if the protagonist stopped being an asshole. The show’s attempts to continually pretend House might change were part of what destroyed it after the fourth season, leading cliffhangers and soap to replace real character development. But at the end, House was able to turn House into a “better man,” and it only required the show to sacrifice its longest-suffering character.

In the final season’s “Body and Soul,” Wilson reveals to House that he is suffering from stage II thymoma and, after a failed, highly dangerous, and experimental medical treatment (at House’s apartment, of course) ends up with a prognosis of five months to live. Other than the obvious irony of the hospital’s head of oncology getting cancer, Wilson’s diagnosis serves mostly as a teaching moment for House. The realization that his best and only friend is going to die is the blow that leads House to finally quit medicine; after faking his death, he and Wilson ride off into the sunset on motorcycles to spend Wilson’s remaining time together. It’s a gorgeous image, but the beautiful countryside masks that the pair is a bit more Sid and Nancy than Romeo and Juliet.

Previously on Network Jews:

Ari Gold, the Jewish Hollywood Agent on HBO’s Entourage

Police Detective John Munch on Law & Order: SVU

Dr. John Zoidberg, the Klutzy Jewish Crustacean on Futurama

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But even in the midst of chaos, a few things remain relatively steady from episode to episode. (Yes, this contradicts everything I just said. How very Glee!) There are the songs, of course, which form the show’s backbone even as they become increasingly irrelevant to its plot. And then there are the characters, who, in the grand tradition of long-running TV comedies, can each be described by a handful of rigid defining traits. Brittany Pierce (Heather Morris) is a dumb cheerleader. Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) is a sensitive jock. Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) is a bitch. And Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) is a talented, obnoxious, and Jewish superstar in training.

During Glee’s first few seasons, Rachel’s Semitism was as ingrained as her thirst for a Broadway spotlight. The character’s middle name is Barbra, as in Streisand—another Jewish performer who doubles as Rachel’s idol. Early in Season 1, she briefly dated fellow Member of the Tribe Noah Puckerman after he supposedly received the following message from God: “Rachel was a hot Jew and the good lord wanted [him] to get into her pants.” (Puck seduced his non-shiksa goddess by singing “Sweet Caroline,” presumably because Glee couldn’t get the rights to “Miracle of Miracles.”) During a second season episode that’s themed on religion, Rachel even told her once and current boyfriend that if the two of them ever have kids, they must be raised according to her faith. When Finn agreed, she allowed him to round second base.

Rachel, then, is the classic prudish overachiever with a kosher twist—Election’s Tracy Flick with a better voice and a bigger nose. (TV creators really need to think of a more creative way to describe their young, type-A female characters.) Or, at least, that’s who she once was. As time has passed and Glee has burned through storylines with increasing manic frequency, the series’ writers have been forced to take shortcuts. And instead of slowing down Glee’s breakneck pace or sacrificing potential iTunes singles for extra scenes of dialogue, they’ve chosen to neglect previously established characterization—thus making their show’s already archetypal characters even less dimensional.

Much like Will Schuester’s redeeming qualities or Tina Cohen-Chang’s entire personality, Rachel’s Jewish-ness has been a casualty of this downsizing process. There was a time when an entire episode—Season 2’s “Born This Way”—focused on Rachel’s yearning to transform her Semitic schnoz into a dainty, goyish nose like blonde cheerleader Quinn’s. (The irony: Quinn is played by Dianna Agron, a Southern Jew who’s a card-carrying bat mitzvah. By contrast, Lea Michele has a Jewish father but was raised Catholic.)

But as Season 3 draws to a close tonight, Rachel’s once-vital religion has been all but forgotten. In this year’s emphatically denominational holiday episode, for example, Rachel presented Finn with an exorbitant Christmas list, enthusiastically participated in an homage to The Judy Garland Christmas Special, and cheerfully sang a bevy of Christmas carols—only remembering her heritage during a quick, barely audible “Happy Hanukkah!” shouted just as the hour ended. And when Rachel noted during last week’s episode that she’s “still Jewish,” her remark was more of a sheepish reminder than an affirmation.

Demanding some semblance of reliability would be asking too much of Glee at this point. Nonetheless, it’s disappointing to watch one of network TV’s most visible Jews lose an affiliation that used to define her—even if her rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” can still put Barbra to shame. (Provided, of course, that she can remember the words.)

Previously on Network Jews:

Maurice Levy, the Jewish lawyer from David Simon’s HBO drama The Wire

Krusty the Clown from FOX’s long-running animated classic The Simpsons

Annie Edison from NBC’s cult favorite Community

The post Network Jews: Rachel Berry from FOX’s ‘Glee’ appeared first on Jewcy.

On his 29th birthday, as he sits on a school bus-turned-party mobile, inquiring about the career of a male stripper hired mistakenly by the titular new girl, Jess (Zooey Deschanel), the (thankfully, clothed) gentleman asks Schmidt to describe his persona.

“Luxury. Dessert. I’m a warrior poet, man.”

So he says—and enthusiastically asserts—despite persistent repudiation by his friends. They may be willing to stock a party bus with Schmidt’s beloved kosher yogurt and chug bro juice in his honor, but they roll their eyes as he presumes to be a “Los Angeles baller” with a high production value online dating video to prove it (which he purportedly posted to his JDate profile).

Still, Schmidt appeals because, among all the residents of the loft, he has the clearest sense of who he is. Whereas Jess fumbles through insecurities about dating, overalls, and bell chiming, Schmidt maintains deep certainty. Nick and Winston, the other roommates, are half-drawn in comparison: best friends with plenty of goofy memories to mine through and very little future direction. Schmidt may be misguided, but he nonetheless marches ahead, hilariously.

In a recent episode, “Secrets,” Schmidt’s teachings—in a surprising first—are solicited by Nick, who has taken to seducing college girls but (golly, gee) can’t seem to get rid of them in the morning. Resident lothario-creep Schmidt gives him some tips that turn out to actually be helpful—at least when it comes to blowing off dates. Schmidt takes up the lecture with pleasure and pride, as he is thrilled to be called upon for his particular brand of insight. As it happens, this bit follows an opener in which he is seen hiding (naked) inside his own just-sex-pal’s sofa, popping out as a Russian supermodel points a finger: “Jew in the couch! Jew in the couch!” To which Schmidt replies, “She’s not wrong.”

Schmidt Jew jokes—like the punch lines about lesbians, black people, and Indians—operate on the assumption that everybody on New Girl is quirky; gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion are all taken to be particularities of a kind. This approach achieves mixed results, though there are some clever allusions to Schmidt’s membership in the tribe. In an early episode, Schmidt rummages through a hook-up lost and found and fondly recalls, “Rosh Hashanah ’06. Nothing Orthodox about what we did that night.” Later in the season, he explains to Jess that he was told Santa Claus never delivered him presents because his room was messy.

Today, we find Schmidt neat to the point of being a control freak. This desire to carefully manage every aspect of his life—his white whale is cleaning Nick’s room—evidently leads Schmidt to this “douchey” existence, of suede loafers and mango “chut-uh-ney,” by way of escaping the pathetic, porky days of his past. Through his frenzy to maintain order, New Girl’s false teacher can either make you laugh or, understandably, make you heave a dismayed sigh. Although you may not like him as a friend, you’ll love him as a character—and find yourself in enthusiastic company. Luckily for us, Greenfield is game to have fun in character, creating this fake workout video on his own:

Betsy Morais is sometimes a writer and other times an eater of sandwiches and occasionally both. You can follow her on Twitter.

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