Okay, so I tried to warn you in yesterday’s post with a spoiler alert, but it’s all over the interwebs today so I guess everybody knows by now:  Dr. Lawrence Kutner, played by Harold and Kumar actor Kal Penn, committed suicide on Monday’s episode of House:

Here are the six things you need to know up-front about last night’s House:

•    Yes, Kutner was the subject of my “suicide” blind item.
•    No, his death wasn’t a figment of House’s Vicodin-impaired imagination.
•    Yes, Kal Penn has left the show for good.
•    No, he wasn’t fired. He asked to go. (And man, wait ’till you find out where he’s going.)
•    Yes, this was the “cataclysmic” event that Hugh Laurie has been teasing all year.
•    Yes, the trio at the center of this grim turn of events — exec producers David Shore and Katie Jacobs, as well Kal Penn himself — spoke to me exclusively about the surprising story behind Penn’s exit, the decision to have the seemingly well-adjusted Kutner take his own life, and whether the tragedy will drive House-Cuddy and Cameron-Chase closer together or further apart…

And what is Kal’s next career move?  Starring in his own real-life version of Mr. Penn Goes To Washington:

I understand it was your decision to leave House. True?
KAL PENN: Yes. I was incredibly honored a couple of months ago to get the opportunity to go work in the White House. I got to know the President and some of the staff during the campaign and had expressed interest in working there, so I’m going to be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison. They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations. They’re basically the front door of the White House. They take out all of the red tape that falls between the general public and the White House. It’s similar to what I was doing on the campaign.

Will you actually be working in the White House?
PENN: This particular office is in the executive building. The White House has two buildings: the actual White House and an old Navy building called the Old Executive Office.

Are you there as long as Obama’s in office?
PENN: A lot of that stuff is up in the air. This is a relatively recent development.

Safe to say you’re taking a huge pay cut?
PENN: Oh, yeah. There’s not a lot of financial reward in these jobs. But, obviously, the opportunity to serve in a capacity like this is an incredible honor.

He goes on to say that he isn’t necessarily retiring from acting, but taking a bit of a hiatus for a while to pursue this new avenue in his life.

And y’know…as ticked as the departure of the character makes me (I really liked Kutner, he was one of my favorites), I have to say good on Kal Penn for not only talking the talk but walking the walk.  I can’t say as I necessarily like where he is going, but at least he is putting his money where his mouth is, not just flapping his yapper about how much he hates things going on in politics but never actually does anything about it.  I think that transcends political parties and ideology.  Entirely too many celebs like to spout off their half-baked ideas about how stuff ought to change; but put them in an actual Washington office where there are no fawning sycophants and yes-men and groupies to scratch their every itch, and they’d wither away like a hothouse flower in a penguin colony at the South Pole.

So, to get back to the show, it will be interesting to see just how this plays out over the rest of this season.  I wish they would not have killed off the character, maybe made him attempt it but not succeed and then cart him off to a mental hospital for recovery or something, but maybe there’s a story arc going on here that needed this to happen.

(I still think it should have been Thirteen.)

Source: k

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