House 604: The Tyrant
Everyone’s shoulder angels and shoulder devils get a work out as James Earl Jones tells them all to man up! Click the link below to read more about this episode. I’m proud to say there’s not one Darth Vader reference throughout the entire article… Yay, me!
We first see a rainy diplomatic USA plate. As the camera pulls back we see a fancy diplomatic car, oooh, a Mercedes. It is driving through the rain. Inside this car is the title character of the episode, although right now, this early in the show it looks a lot like James Earl Jones. Horray! I have anticipated this episode and I hope I’m not disappointed. We all know Mr. Laurie can act the absolute heck out of a scene, so it’ll be interesting to see how the others can bring on their mad actin’ skillz when facing an actor of Mr. Jones’ stature. The Tyrant’s assistant, Joseph, reminds him that the Americans will be pretty ticked off by them leaving the protection of the U.N. The Tyrant thanks Joseph for his concern and over-cautiousness, but he is going to visit his son, who is attending one of the finest universities in the world…they’re driving all the way to Arizona State? Wow! Go Devils! He will throw caution to the wind to see his son. Well, some caution, as he’s still driving a fancy Mercedes with diplomatic plates and is with bodyguards with guns. Let’s see him throw all caution to the wind and head out in a ’97 Astro Van with bald tires and a bad alternator and drive with four kids for three days to Idaho to visit in-laws. Now, THAT is throwing caution to the wind, my friend!
The car crosses over a bridge and turns onto the side streets of the Universal lot, which double for New Jersey. As they cross the camera frame we see a big van cut in front of the Mercedes, stopping it. Another van quickly pulls in behind it. The Tyrant shows obvious concern, but also determination. He finally gets down on the seat under the urgent bidding of Joseph. Joseph leaps out of the car and pulls out a gun. He flips from van to van. The door to the van in front of the car opens and a man leaps out. He reaches into his coat and pulls out a…..civil subpoena to serve on the Tyrant. A disgusted Tyrant gets out of the car at this point and stares down the man with the subpoena. Dang, Mr. Jones can be intimidating…. The dude from the van puts the subpoena on the hood of the car. He yells that it’s for crimes against humanity including genocide and some other really bad things. The guy jumps back in the van and both vans race off. The Tyrant picks up the paperwork and looks at it. It’s encased in a handy-dandy Ziploc bag so it remains fresh…oh and protected from the rain. And, as we soon see, protected from the blood that The Tyrant is about to hack up. And we have our POTW!
We are in Cuddy’s office. Chase is understandably appalled and curious when he confirms that Cuddy wants he and Cameron to work FOR Foreman. She assures it’s only temporary as he needs to hire a new staff because both 13 and Taub are gone. Chase asks what happened to them and Cuddy waves that question to Foreman. “He quit and I had to let her go,” says Foreman matter-of-factly. Cameron openly winces and Chase asks, shocked, “You actually fired your girlfriend?” Foreman states that Chase and Cameron are competent doctors and he knows he can work with them. Chase thinks Foreman’s wooing skills stink, but this should not be surprise to him…or anyone. People skills are definitely not in Foreman’s arsenal of talents. Chase does comment to Cameron that he thinks it might be interesting especially considering the patient. Cameron, who has been examining the patient folder this whole time, except for the “What the…” look she gives to Foreman on the firing of his own girlfriend, finally pipes up and says that she wants nothing to do with the patient. Dibala is a horrible man, who is openly killing hundreds of thousands of people in ethnic fighting in his country. She doesn’t want to fix him so he can go kill half a country when he gets better. Cuddy stops the soap boxing by saying that the Tyrant, Dibala, is a guest of the United States government and he will receive the best of care. They can’t worry about politics, they must do their job.
The three walk down the hallways of PPTH toward the Department of Diagnostics. Chase comments that the whole situation is apprehensible and he’s not referring to having to treat an evil dictator. Why is he always so surprised by what Robot Foreman does? He’s been around him AND House for over five years now…. Foreman says he had to do what he did to save their relationship. He points out that Cameron and Chase were never in the same kind of situation and they shouldn’t have an opinion. Chase suggests Foreman just call 13 and say he was wrong. Foreman emphatically states that he wasn’t, which earns him his second, “What the..” look of the day from Cameron. Foreman ends the debate and walks into the Diagnostics Department to start the differential and they find….HOUSE! Yeah, happy day. He’s back where he belongs. Right now the theme song from “Welcome Back, Kotter” is playing in my brain. And it’s pretty appropriate…if you substitute “dreams” for hallucinations and realize the names are still sorta the same…anyway, I digress. Let’s just say I’m excited to see Dr. House in the diagnosis department. Now let’s hope he’s not as “earnest” as he was in the last episode. I’m all for him staying on the wagon. I just need the wagon ride to pick up a little bit.
House knows what’s going on because he saw 13. Foreman immediately fluffs up his feathers and puffs out his chest. He launches into a “I’m in charge now” speech and then proceeds to mark his territory…again. House taunts him for a bit then launches into the differential for Dibala, because he doesn’t have to prove himself. Chase sits down and dives in, as does Cameron. Foreman is still mad. House is sitting in HIS chair and now Chase and Cameron are all following him again. They rule out a few diagnoses before Foreman decides to start treating for malaria, due to the bug bite on Dibala’s hand. House responds to this by making a rude sound. He calls Foreman on the lame diagnosis because Foreman wants to get away from House and is just picking something. House suggests it may be dioxin poisoning given through an injection on the hand which would look like a bug bite. Foreman and House have a staring contest and House, of course, wins as Foreman decides to go with that idea. Chase and Cameron leave. Foreman asks why he couldn’t just say he thought it could be dioxin poisoning and House softly says he was hoping Foreman would get there on his own. He pauses and then suggests they go talk to Cuddy.
Cameron and Chase are in Dibala’s room. He makes small talk with Chase. He detects that Chase spent some time in England, although Chase says he is Australian. Chase confirms that he attended seminary in England for a year. Dibala tells of the mission that was in the town where he grew up and how he admired the priests…until his sisters were dying from consumption and needed more than priests. Chase does not react, but Cameron rolls her eyes so far up in her head that she saw her own grey matter. By the way…Mr. Jones didn’t even get out of bed and managed to be endearing, menacing and imposing at the same time.
We have returned again to Cuddy’s office who’s listening to Foreman whine about how the starting quarterback has returned and taken his position. Foreman is not at all understanding or sympathetic to House’s need to return. House apologizes to Foreman for the situation and offers to talk to 13 about it. (He’s apologizing and trying to move on. Dr. Nolan will be so proud.) Foreman still thinks he’s getting the shaft. Cuddy bites at the chance to have House back…not only for his medical genius, but it’ll be easier to take those long, meaningful looks at him again. She tells House he can come back in an unofficial capacity until he gets his license back, with Foreman still in charge, which means no actual medical procedures or interaction with the patients. Oh, no, Bre’r Bear, not the briar patch!
Knock. Knock. We are at 13’s apartment. She opens the door to see Foreman standing there with his tail between his legs. She’s obviously not over the jerk thing he did to her and her career in the last episode. He tells her he won’t be in charge for long and he wants her to come back to work with him. She gets all 8th grader on him and says, no, he really fired her because he wanted to break up with her but didn’t have the guts to do it. Foreman just restates the situation as he sees it and dismisses her. So she dismisses him and slams the door closed. Go, girl. He shoulda brought her another donut.
Chase comes into the clinic room and I am happy to finally have clinic patients back, but this is not to be the case. It turns out that the “patient” is actually the husband of a victim of Dibala’s alledged genocide. He is Sibiti, a member of the “guerrilla tribe” in the civil war in Dibala’s country. He tells Chase that his wife, a trade unionist, was kidnapped, raped and tortured and then dumped on his front lawn by a group Dibala started called the Youth Labour League. The word “Cockroach” had been carved in her stomach. The Youth Labour League is a group of young men that Dibala has recruited from the streets to do his dirty work for him. He keeps them happy with alcohol and drugs. The man tells Chase that he cannot save Dibala because if he does two million Sibitis will die. Chase is obviously freaked out by the story and the man’s intensity and exits the room as fast as he can.
House comes home to the missus. Wilson is sitting on the couch, watching tv and eating his dinner. Wilson asks how House’s first day back at school went. House responds with a witticism about not even peeing in the sandbox. Wilson asks how it went with Cuddy, he’s such a match maker. House deflects by saying that’s what he was talking about with the sandbox comment. House then pulls out his pipe and starts Sherlocking the situation. He notices that Wilson didn’t use any garlic in his chicken Florentine, which he always usually does, and the tv sound is way down AND Wilson isn’t wearing any shoes. He suspects something is up and even though Wilson admits to being a vampire, House proceeds to pound loudly on the floor a few times with his cane. His pounding is responded to by loud pounding on the ceiling from the apartment beneath them. Wilson finally admits that the tenant below them, who sits on the condo association board, has complained of smells and noise since House moved in. Wilson is trying to be extra cautious as he wants approval from said board for the garden renovation. House offers to help and Wilson says that the neighbor is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who lost his arm in the war and that anything he does will be considered immediately offensive….by everyone. House “says” he won’t do anything and is saved from choking on his lie by his cell phone ringing. It’s Cameron telling him that Dibala is having a heart attack.
House tries to be helpful as he pops his head into the diagnostic department and blurts out “Lassa Fever.” He explains that this time he did what Foreman wanted and just said the diagnosis outright. Foreman shoots it down as well as House’s old diagnosis of Dioxin poisoning. Foreman starts shooting theories from the hip again as House raises his hand and waits anxiously for teacher to call on him. Foreman bites. House again makes a valid point for Lassa fever. And Foreman again shoots it down. Up comes the hand again and this time House’s point give definite reason for Foreman to treat for Lassa fever. Foreman caves and goes to give treatment. He hangs his head as he leaves the room. House cheerily calls after him, “Great having the ol’ team back together again, huh?” Chase lifts his mug in a toast, Cameron shakes her head and probably thinks, “Oh, why can’t you two boys get along?” and House smiles. He won…again.
Foreman is administering the IV medicine while Joseph, who’s actually Dibala’s second-in-command and not the assistant I called him earlier, is questioning whether the doctors are capable. Dibala defends his doctor then says his girlfriend is waiting out in the hallway. Maybe Dibala is psychic, too. 13 is indeed out there and tells Foreman that she got a call from Douglas at Princeton General for an interview, which is weird ‘cause she just called him and he said nothing was available so she didn’t even send in a resume. Foreman admits to calling in a favor. 13 retorts that most guys just send chocolates. Foreman responds, “I’d stand all night outside your apartment holding up a boom box, but you told me you don’t like 80’s music.” And that line, my friends, killed any hope of me ever liking 13. Who doesn’t like 80’s music?! Okay, maybe Color Me Badd and The Jets were not all that, but look…she obviously got the reference to the movie (Say Anything, so you don’t have to look it up) and ALSO knew that it was “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel playing on Lloyd’s ghetto blaster. And….really. Does anyone not like “In Your Eyes?” You’d have to be a cold-hearted, hard-nosed, too-thin bisexual haunted by the ghosts of your dead mom and your fatal disease to NOT love that song… Oh. Okay. Moving on. That said, 13 is dead to me. 13 caves due to Foreman’s obvious charm and agrees to dinner.
House enters his apartment and runs into the downstairs neighbor. The guy is a one-armed jerk and I am proud of House for keeping his cool. Really, House was actually the level-headed one in the conversation. The man threatens House, points his hook at him and walks away. House is amazed at the guy’s jerkiness. I wonder if he thinks for just a second, “Man, tell me I was not that big of a jerk…” Probably not, but I was proud of House all the same.
Cameron enters the Dibala’s hospital room and is told that the woman standing there is a fellow countryman who is now living in the US. She recovered from Lassa fever two years ago and would like to donate her blood to Dibala. Dibala’s medical advisor has said that plasma from a survivor will be better. They even have a signed agreement. The lady, though obviously scared, agrees she wants to do this. Cameron refuses and she ends up in the principal’s office with the woman. Cuddy tells Cameron that she has to use the woman’s blood. Cameron is sure that the dictator is threatening her family and the woman agrees to being Sibiti. Ever practical, Cuddy states that she’d rather have a needle prick on her conscience then the death of the woman’s family. Cameron agrees to draw the blood. Cameron is not happy…
Chase is at the nurse’s station outside Dibala’s room when he sees the clinic patient, the husband of the torture victim, coming down the hallway. He is now wearing scrubs and pushing a medical cart. Everything goes in slow motion as the man pushes his cart to Dibala’s room and Chase drops the charts he’s holding to yell out a warning. Chase runs after the man into the room as gun shots fire. When Chase gets there Dibala’s men are holding the man down and beating the crap out of him. We are shown two bullets lodged harmlessly in the wall and heart monitor. Who’s paying for that, mister? Dibala is fine. Chase stops the men from pounding the assassin any further and again thinks to himself…”What the heck kind of security do we hire here at PPTH?” This is like what…the 3rd guy to make it in with a gun? Dibala is furious and demands to know who the guy is. Chase notices that Dibala’s right eye is bloodshot and checks it out. The UN guys asks if Dibala has been shot and Chase says, “no,” but he’s not sure what’s up the eye.
We return to Chase patching up the would-be assassin, who is now handcuffed. He’s propped up against the wall outside Dibala’s room. I guess assassins don’t get private rooms at PPTH. They do have standards. Chase assures him that although his stunt was stupid the courts should go easy on him once he explains about his wife and what was done to her. The man tells Chase that it wasn’t really his wife that Dibala kidnapped. Chase is confused. The man confesses that he was actually one of the members of the Youth Labour League and he participated in the torture and killing of the woman. He is horrified at what he’s done and what continues to be done and was trying to atone for it all by killing Dibala and stopping the madness. Chase is obviously affected by what he has heard. Later at their apartment, Cameron is angry at Chase for getting in the line of fire. He brushes it off. “He fired a gun in a hospital!” Yeah, normally that’s an anomaly, but at PPTH it happens all the time. Relax, Cameron. He hugs her to comfort her and then gets freaked out again when Cameron tells him to not warn Dibala the next time someone tries to kill him. That’s not very effective pillow talk, girl.
The next day we are in the differential and Foreman tells everyone that the bloody eye was from a blockage on the retina due to a swollen lymph node, which adds a new symptom and points away from the previous diagnosis. Foreman looks at House to throw out some idea but instead, House says he’s not going to say a word (uh-huh). He feels that maybe he’s been undermining Foreman’s authority recently so he’s going to stay out of it (uh-huh.) Then we get a REALLY funny sequence of House not literally saying anything, but managing to disprove any theory Foreman comes up with. Who got the thermometer charade before Foreman? Oooh, I did! I did! Now this is the Mr. Laurie that his British fans are familiar with. He is good with silly faces, that man. Finally, Foreman, in a state, declares that Dibala probably has lymphoma and tells them to start testing for it. House wants to enlist Cameron’s help in forming letters with her body to discredit that theory, but Foreman is adamant and sends Chase and Cameron out to do his bidding. House, who still doesn’t agree, says it’s obvious that he’s not needed and starts to leave. He pauses and turns back to Foreman, telling him that it’s kind of bright in the room and he should close the blinds. House walks out. Foreman knows that House doesn’t think it’s too bright and closes the blinds to see what House is up to. As the blinds come together we see that House has scrawled “Lymphoma. Ta Da!!” in black sharpie marker. That man rocks! He anticipated Foreman’s train of thought to the final station on the line. Man, that must tick off Foreman.
House has gone to Wilson’s office, where Wilson is trying to figure out how the dictionary in House’s brain works. Wilson’s neighbor has told Wilson that House was a rude jerk to him and House defends himself. Wilson should be in House’s corner for this. Come on, Jimmy. Have a little bit more faith. House tells a lamenting Wilson that he can still get his garden renovation and so much more if Wilson uses the info House has on the obnoxious neighbor as blackmail. House tells Wilson that he saw his mail while they were talking and he’s receiving private medical insurance bills, which wouldn’t happen if he was a true US Veteran. House says that the dude is faking the hero story to get sympathy. Wilson tells him to drop it AND write a letter of apology to him. House is disgusted. He doesn’t want this guy to get away with this. Wilson tells him to be nice, even if the guy’s a jerk because, “It’s easy to be nice to people you like, but being nice to people you hate-that’s a skill.” House doesn’t want to be nice, but he realizes the chance to grow.
Chase is with Dibala getting a biopsy of a lymph node. He flat out asks Dibala why he is killing the Sitibi. Dibala gets angry and tells him that the rebels killed hundreds of thousands in the past to try to rule the country and will do it again. He won’t let that happen. Chase accuses Dibala of genocide and Dibala gets angry, saying that his own son, who goes to school in the States hasn’t talked to him in years because of the incorrect and misinformed reports in American newspapers of what’s actually happening in their country. Chase, who suddenly has the gonads of Apollo, confronts him again on the Youth Labour League. Dibala grows quiet and admits that he started this group with good intentions, but then some of his leaders got out of control. He swears to never let it happen again. Chase’s indignation has to sit down on the side of the road for a bit with this information. He’s very confused. Don’t blow a fuse trying to sort all this out, Dr. Chase…
House has been trying to make good choices and change for the better. We see this trend continue as he walks down the hallway at Wilson’s apartment building holding an envelope with the letter of apology Wilson asked him to write. He is walking to the Jerk’s apartment and is startled when the cleaning lady comes out of the apartment, her hands full of trash bags. She doesn’t close the door all the way and we watch House battle with his shoulder angel and shoulder devil on whether or not he should go into the apartment. The shoulder angel wins and House goes to put the envelope on the front mat, but his cane slips on the freshly mopped floor and he goes down, knocking over the mop bucket in the process. He opens the neighbor’s door to mop up the spilled water and his shoulder companions begin battle again. This time House’s Shoulder devil wins and House hobbles into the apartment…but only to place the envelope on the coffee table. Then the shoulder angel is dragging House back out to the lobby when House sees the huge Canadian flag displayed proudly on the wall. House stares at it as he comes up with his next move, which in NOT to leave a note of apology, I’m bettin’.
Cameron and Chase are running tests in the pathology lab. Chase asks Cameron how she’s doing, since she kinda freaked him out with her “maybe you should have let Dibala get killed” comment. She’s immersed in her work and doesn’t pay much attention as Chase rambles on about how only psychopaths could kill someone without it affecting them. Cameron mentions war and soldiers and Chase assures her those guys have issues with it, too. Cameron admits that she doesn’t want to kill the guy, BUUUUUT if he were to die it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. This comment noticeably creases Chase’s brow. Cameron changes the subject by saying that Dibala does not have lymphoma.
Obnoxious neighbor returns home one evening to discover House razzing him from the stairs. House tells him that he smells not only the faint scent of maple syrup but of victory as he harshly tells the neighbor that he’s a big fat liar because Canada never sent troops to fight in Vietnam. The neighbor is furious House has broken into his apartment and bitterly tells House that Canada sent troops over for the peace talks. While he was there he tried to pull a 12-year-old boy out of a mine field when a mine exploded and to this day his arm is still clenched in pain around that little boy’s hand. House is at a loss for words and even looks a tad chagrin. He has nothing to reply except, “Go Maple Leafs,” and retreats upstairs. Which I’m sure made the neighbor even more angry because everyone knows the Flames are way more loved up north, eh?
We return from the commercials to Dibala’s room where he asks Chase and Cameron repeatedly if the biopsy results show cancer. Chase, Cameron and Joseph exchange concerned, confused glances at the short-term memory loss.
Foreman and 13 are out to dinner. She’s all dressed up and he’s….wearing what he had on at work. Sheesh. Just like a guy. He thanks her for understanding and says he had a choice of two crappy solutions. 13 opines that there was the third solution of Foreman stepping down and letting Cameron or Chase take the job. Foreman poo-poos this idea as folly. (Wow… that was a sentence straight from my Gramma’s mouth.) We see 13’s feathers get ruffled even further when she asks what would he do if he could do it all over again and he confirms that he did the right thing in the first place. She walks off and I’m thinking he’s not getting’ any tonight.
Back in the observation room of Dibala’s room, Joseph is asking Cameron for a medical opinion on the short-term memory loss of his leader. Cameron sees an opportunity to undermine Dibala’s power and tells Joseph that anything Dibala says from now on can’t be taken as sound judgement. Us House addicts know that short-term memory losses in a POTW can be resolved through the hard work of the dedicated staff and the miracle of a 3-minute wrap-up, but Cameron pretty much shuts down any “of sane mind and body” talk when it comes to Dibala.
Joseph almost seems to gratefully accept this news and walks away as Chase calls up from the room that Dibala is now spiking a fever.
Back in the diagnostics department, House is done playing games with the team and they are scrambling to find the answer. House spits out scleroderma. Foreman thinks its blastomycosis. They argue with Chase going on Foreman’s team and Cameron backing House, although she doesn’t really care what happens to the patient. House yells at Cameron that she better pick something and go with it. He’s done with all her “I don’t like the guy so I’m not going to help” crap. He tells her to make a decision he’s tired of her whining. She needs to just DO something. Cameron is, like, totally ticked off at House for, like, being so mean, so she, like, backs Foreman, just to show House, like, who’s boss. They all realize that although these two diagnoses are the only options left if they treat for the wrong one it will kill Dibala…. You know, when you hear that line week after week it kiiiiiinda loses its punch. House threatens to go to Cuddy because he’s still sure it’s scleroderma. Foreman shuts him down and says no, they’re going to treat him for blastomycosis. House, who ironically, appears to have about the same opinion as Cameron on this guy, says okay.
In Dibala’s room, Cameron is preparing the syringe to inject Dibala with the antibiotic. As she goes to inject the syringe, Dibala grabs her hand and lectures her about trying to kill him with an air bubble in the syringe. He knows that she talked to Joseph and accuses her of trying to kill him through Joseph. He says almost the same thing as House does to her about her lack of commitment. If she wants him dead, she needs to find the guts to do it herself. He’s clearly a few crayons short of a 24 pack, but I now think he came in that way… When his tirade is over, Cameron juts out her chin and shoots the syringe into the IV. Chase is shocked but nothing happens to Dibala and Cameron admits that she must not want him to die. She walks out. Chase approaches Dibala and threatens him for touching his wife. Dibala says he did her a favor and brought out her true character. Chase interprets this to be that Cameron is a good person, but Dibala only saw weakness and the lack of fortitude to act on her beliefs. He compares her to all his “advisors.” Dibala calls them all weak and unable to do what it takes to stop the rebellion in his country. All they want to do is negotiate. Chase asks him what he wants to do and what he’s willing to do to the Sibiti. Dibala belittles Chase and his lack of manliness due to the fact that Chase has never had to fight and kill for his livelihood. Chase is appalled and says that Dibala is letting drunk young men do all that for him now so what’s the difference? Chase flat out asks Dibala what he’s going to do to the Sibiti and Dibala responds fervently with, “Whatever it takes to protect my country!” We watch Chase realize that this man is evil and Chase decides to commit to something. We cut to commercial. Nice acting, Mr. Jones and Mr. Spencer. Way to hold your own.
We come back to Wilson’s apartment where Wilson is breaking up with House. He has received threats of prosecution and more nastiness from the neighbor. He thinks it’s best if House moves out. Wilson is totally not being a supportive friend right now…it makes me a bit angry. He still has no faith in House and manages to spin that fact into “I know you have better skills now and can handle this situation effectively…. Blah. Blah. Blah.” Oh, Wilson. I think YOU need to pick a side and make a commitment about House. Either plug up the toilet and do testing on him or throw him out on the street but stop yanking his chain in different directions. House looks sad, but doesn’t respond to the request.
Back at the hospital, Cameron is asking Chase to get another blood sample. She’s decided to pick the side of angels and find out what’s wrong with Dibala. With another blood sample they can prove if it’s scleroderma or blastomycosis. Chase says he’ll get her the blood.
Foreman is sitting in House’s chair in House’s office AGAIN when Cameron and Chase brings in the latest bloodwork, which indicates it’s scleroderma. They tell Foreman they need to get Dibala on steroids right away. Stubborn Foreman says the tests “only point” to scleroderma and they shouldn’t change treatment. Excuse me? Remind me to never have Foreman as my doctor. Ever. “Well, I understand that you’re 10 centimeters dialated and 100% effaced and in great pain but that ‘only points’ to imminent childbirth. Let’s just casually hang back and see if that sling I put on your arm for tendonitis does anything first.” Chase thinks that’s stupid, too. Foreman says that blasto fits best and he’s made his decision. He hands the EVIDENCE that he’s wrong back to Cameron. Cameron pauses and flips on her gentle, guiding advice switch. She reminds Foreman how well she knows him and that he’s usually willing to admit when he’s wrong (like when, ever?) but when things REALLY matter to him (like firing a girlfriend) he gets all insecure and refuses to back down on things, even if he is wrong. Foreman, swayed by the caring voice of Cameron’s reason, bends and says to switch Dibala to steroids and treat him for scleroderma. Oh, that Cameron. They should just send her to Dibala’s country. She’d have them all holding hands and singing Kumbaya in no time.
The obnoxious neighbor has unlocked his front door and steps in. As he shuts and locks the door behind him House steps out from the shadows and injects him with a knock-out drug. The neighbor collapses in House’s arms. Oh, House. I thought we were pass these retaliation tactics. Dang. I must point out here that whenever the writers/producers/etc have a character that is supposed to represent House they always get an actor that resembles Mr. Laurie a bit. Think about it – the similarities usually involve scruffy beards, baldness or thinning hair and tall and lanky. Go back and check this theory out. I would hope they’d know they didn’t need to be so obvious in their symbolism but hey… Anyways….The neighbor awakes, terrified and duct taped to a chair. His mouth is duct taped shut and House is calmly explaining why he’s there. House apologizes for everything as he’s going through some things right now. But he’s actually there to help. He brings out a file box that has been taped and cut so it has two holes on the side and a mirror down the middle. House pushes the neighbor up to the table and tells him to put his arms through the holes. Once they’re both in, House closes the lid over the half of the box that has the amputated limb in it and tells the neighbor to look at his magic reappearing arm in the mirror. House then says that he hopes this mental trickery will eliminate the pain that the neighbor’s been having for 34 years. He tells the man to pray this will work and commands him to clench his “fists” as tight as possible. The neighbor grimaces in pain as he does so. Then House softly says, “Now, let go.” Advice House has been taking recently himself. As he does so, the neighbor immediately feels the muscles in his amputated arm relax and he is pain free. He cries tears of happiness and gratitude. He thanks House sincerely. House ducks his head in shyness at the depth of emotion. Yeah, House. I’m proud of you and I’m sorry for ever doubting you. I’m as bad as Wilson sometimes and I am ashamed. I am pro-House from now on, sir!
We jump back to Dibala’s room where blood is pouring out of his mouth. Chase is desperately trying to cauterize the bleed in his throat, but just when he gets it another one happens. As they look they see a dozen more and the realize there is nothing they can do. They try to shock his heart when it finally flatlines and are unsuccessful. Chase calls the time of death.
Foreman is sitting at House’s desk when House walks in. He advises that the lounge chair is better for second guessing one’s decisions. Foreman says he switched Dibala’s meds and now doesn’t know if that’s what killed him ‘cause he was right with the Blastomycosis diagnosis or if he didn’t switch the meds in time because House was right with the scleroderma diagnosis. House tells him that because Foreman’s like him he won’t be satisfied until he finds out. Foreman says Dibala’s body is under lock and key because they don’t want anyone else to do the biopsy beside the country’s medical advisor. House looks at Foreman and reminds him that he didn’t only hire him for his medical skills. Foreman used to know what to do with a locked door….
We cut to Chase sitting in a darkened locker room. His head is hung low and he’s obviously contemplating something. Foreman walks in holding a piece of paper. He tells Chase that he went down to the morgue to re-run the tests, but he couldn’t get in. There was a guard as well as a locked door. Foreman did, however, look at the morgue sign-in sheet from that morning. Chase was there just before they ran the first blood test which pointed to scleroderma. It seems that there was a lady in the morgue who had died the day before from scleroderma. Foreman used his super sleuth skills and deduced that Chase drew blood from that lady for the tests for Dibala. He switched the results so they would treat for the wrong disease. Foreman is genuinely shocked and ticked off. Chase stands up to him and says that if Dibala had lived he would have gone home and killed off every last Sitibi and then all the lives that Chase and Foreman have every saved would be for nothing. Chase tells Foreman that the news is already good from the country. Peace talks have started. Conflicts are being resolved. Chase tells Foreman that if he lets people know that Chase killed him Dibala becomes a martyr and the massacre begins again. Foreman does what Foreman does best and thinks about how this whole thing will affect his own life. Chase doesn’t expect him to cover for him, but he softly requests that if the police do come to arrest him, that Foreman will call him so he can tell Cameron. Chase gives the morgue log back to Foreman and returns to his earlier pose. Foreman is appalled. “Do you really think you can kill another human being without any consequences to yourself?” he asks, stunned. Chase shakes his head. “No,” he softly replies.
We have returned to Wilson’s apartment where it’s a replay of the first scene we saw take place there in this episode. House has returned home after work to Wilson sitting on the couch watching television. Wilson tells House that his neighbor called and sounded…happy. The neighbor has approved the garden expansion as well AND he’s not going to press charges even if House doesn’t move out. Doubting Wilson asks, “What did you do to him?” “I was nice,” responds House simply. Wilson looks at him and decides that he doesn’t want to know the details and that’s he’ll accept that at face value. Looks like Wilson has returned to the Pro-House team as well! Hooray! They watch the show in which an alligator lunges out of the water and snaps up a frog sitting innocently on a lily pad. Both Wilson and I try not to read anything into that.
We are back at the hospital where we see Dibala’s son being lead into the morgue to see his father. He breaks down in tears and embraces his dead father’s body. Then we see Chase lay down fully dressed on the bed next to Cameron. He features haunted by his actions of the day . Next we watch as Foreman burns the morgue log and tosses it into the trash can. Foreman’s face is void of any emotion. Nothing new there. Fade to black.
I’d have to say this episode was pretty good. The common theme seemed to be “Choices and Sticking With Them.” Every main character either stayed true to character or made different choices. Foreman, Cameron and Wilson followed the same path as usual, but we got to see Chase and House try to make more far-reaching choices than they usually do. The POTW character, as usual, brings up the big thought of the week: Do any of us have the gumption to make a decision and stand behind it even if it is contrary to what we would normally do? I guess next week’s POTW will have something to do with consequences. Just a guess. We had some good comic moments from Mr. Laurie, but overall the episode was pretty heavy. Some great character development on Chase’s part, but everyone else seemed to move along as usual. James Earl Jones lived up to expectations and did so even though he was laying down in 99% of his scenes. It’ll be interesting to see where this storyline leads. I’m trying to stay away from spoilers, but seeing as how these recapments are posted on SpoilerTV it’s gonna be hard. I am excited at what I’ve read so far. Thanks again for reading and leaving comments. It’s good to know someone out there besides my mom and husband are reading them! Sorry, this one is being posted so late on Friday. It’s been a week…. Next week’s recapment will hopefully be out on Wednesday as I am leaving town for the weekend. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
"Epic Fail" 6x03
House 603: Epic Fail
Signing up for cooking lessons with a BFF: $1200
Solving a case online and besting your old team: $25000
Watching Taub get attacked by imaginary birds and seeing Cuddy get called a hooker in Mandarin: Priceless
When the show first starts I thought for a brief moment my hi-def tv was on the wrong channel. The screen is filled with a computer-animated scene of the inside of an old, grown-over tunnel system. Someone is walking through it and we are following his/her/its line of vision. The place looks like the InGen labs in Jurassic Park 3, a movie that tried to capture the awesomeness of the first one but fell about this……………………………………………………short. Anyway, the point of view changes and we see Steve the Monkey Warrior, Larry the Lizard Warrior and Bob the Cat-like Warrior. (Names were changed to protect the innocent.) They are walking through the corridors trying to figure out where everyone is. They decide to try the Feeding Area, although it means certain peril. They open the door and are greeted with bloody carcasses and killer birds. It looks much like the Feeding Area at my house around dinner time…. The Monkey Warrior heads in and is soon overtaken by birds. The Cat-like Warrior tries to help but they need the Lizard Warrior’s super bazooka. Unfortunately for both, Lizard Warrior is nowhere to be seen. The others call for Larry, but there’s no answer. We cut to a really cool game room and two total gamer dudes taking off helmets and putting down their plastic guns. The third place for game playing is empty. A helmet and plastic bazooka lay on the ground. “Vince?” one of the gamers calls out. “Where are you dude?” They find him in the office where he’s sitting on a couch that I want to own and he’s staring at his hands. “My hands are on fire!” he screams, clearly in huge amounts of pain.
Cut to opening credits. Did they put the rowing guys on the river in homage to Mr. Laurie’s fabled rowing past. Hmmmmmm.
We open to the ER Room at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (Yeah! There’s no place like home.) 13 is talking to Vince, burning hand guy. She has no idea why he has the symptoms he does and she’s transferring him. He asks, “Don’t you have some kind of famous diagnostic guy?” he wonders. “Where is he?”
“He” is currently in Cuddy’s office quitting. Foreman says he can’t do that, but I’m not sure of his reasoning. Cuddy asks House if he’s okay. House, sadly, tells her that he is and he wants to stay that way. His doctor thinks it’s best if he doesn’t come back to the department as it might make him regress. Booo, Dr. Nolan. House does look disappointed, but he’s definitely trying to change so Kudos to Dr. House. Cuddy says fine to House’s resignation and House leaves. It takes all of 11 seconds (I counted) for Foreman to swoop in and ask for House’s job. Cuddy is disgusted but realizes that House would have done the same thing. She gives Foreman one chance to convince her he’s up to the task.
Back in the Diagnostics department 13, Taub and Foreman enter and begin taking off big white sheets that are draped over everything. I guess it’s to signify that nothing has been happening since last season but it looks like my grandparent’s cabin when we went back up in summer. Oh well. They throw out ideas and come up with a good one, Complex Regional Pain Syndrom, to run with. Foreman crows that they did that all by themselves. They don’t need House. 13 comments that something is still missing. Taub pipes up with, “I’m short. He’s black. You’re gay….-ish.” “That’s it,” says 13, smiling.
Taub and 13 visit Vince to tell him what they think he has and he counteracts with a different diagnosis. It seems he’s Googled his symptoms and has come up with mercury poisoning. He insists on being tested for it and Taub and 13 agree, seeing no harm in letting the patient have some input. Oh, they’re going to regret that decision!
Foreman is entering the inner sanctum of the diagnostic department, House’s office. He pulls the sheet off from House’s desk to reveal it’s been left untouched since House sent himself into insulin shock last season. We get a huge close-up of House’s thinking ball. NO, Foreman! Don’t do it! Don’t touch House’s ball! UHG! He not only touches it but picks it up and bounces it around. Look, Dr. Foreman. I knew Gregory House and you, sir, will never be Gregory House. Cameron walks in and Foreman manages to insult Chase, Mr. Cameron to you, within seconds of saying hi. Maybe he is closer to being Gregory House than I thought…. Cameron congratulates Foreman and tells him he’ll do a great job. Foreman is hesitant but thankful. They talk about House and Foreman relates that he was honest, sincere and…that the encounter was kind of weird. Cameron asks where his peeps are and Foreman says in the cath lab doing spine stimulation on Vince. Cameron says, “No, they’re not. I was just there.” Uh-oh. Foreman’s team is already not doing as instructed? Not a good omen, my friend.
Foreman finds his team in the lab testing Vince’s blood for mercury poisioning. Foreman proceeds to assert his dominance over everyone by getting all huffy and preachy and “I’m-in-chargey” with them. It is not appreciated, but kinda expected. The team should have done what Foreman asked them too. Taub agrees but only because the mercury levels weren’t high enough to support the mercury poisoning theory. They go to tell “Marcus Webby” he’s wrong. Tee-hee. Loved that pun.
House is in a therapy session with Nolan and my hand immediately cramps up because it remembers the last episode where there was so much dialog and character development in those therapy sessions that I almost always ended up writing the scene verbatim onto my notebook. I am relieved that this scene is not nearly as in depth. House reports his leg pain is getting worse and Nolan suggests a “non-lame hobby,” to distract House. Nolan suggests doing something with his new roomie that his roomie would like to do. Whew. That wasn’t so bad.
Foreman is at Vince’s bedside introducing himself as Genius 2.0. Vince seems okay with House not being there and the lame computer programmer joke. Foreman reports the results of the mercury poisoning tests and says that it’s now time for Spine stimulation, the originally requested test. Vince still wants to be treated for excess mercury in his system through mercury chelation. He definitely doesn’t want a needle shoved into his spine. Foreman decides to pull a House and tells Vince that if that’s the case they’re done. Vince can just go somewhere else and have another doctor do whatever he wants. “Or you can stick around and be cured.” Foreman begins to leave the room but is called back by Vince. Fine, he says.
We are in the cath lab with Taub, 13 and Vince, who is getting the needle shoved in his spine. 13 commends him on choosing to do the procedure and Vince tells her that Foreman strongarmed him into it, which he admires, by the way. During the procedure, however, Vince starts having chest pains and can’t breathe. They have to stop the procedure and give him oxygen as his lungs are filling with fluid. That’s a bad thing, right?
The team is sitting at the conference table and tell Foreman that Vince has a thickened left ventricle, which freaked out with the high heart rate from the stress of the spine stimulation and caused fluid to leak into his lungs. Foreman realizes his test was to blame but his loving, supportive girlfriend says that the test did lead them to the heart problem. Foreman sighs and says, “We just lucked into it.” Welcome to Houseland my friend. Where the first, second, third, and fourth diagnoses are never right and leads to the fifth, sixth and seventh diagnoses. One day, I’d like to watch an episode where the team in on a roll and diagnosing the correct disease on the first try with a series of patients. Of course, it wouldn’t make for much drama, but it could be funny…. Foreman thinks that with a software deadline looming, Vince might be using Cocaine. 13 offers to search Vince’s office, but Foreman decides to just ask the patient….wait. Ask the patient? Hmmmm.
House and Wilson are in a big industrial kitchen with multiple stovetops and cooking stations. It’s a cooking class! House has signed up with Wilson for a cooking class. I can almost taste the humorous interaction coming. They are making meatballs, and House is having a hard time being mature about that fact, but he’s trying. I’d love for a voice over on House’s thoughts during this scene! Wilson chastising him for not taking this seriously, after all it was Nolan who suggested it. House apologizes then sees Wilson’s meatballs burning. This time he doesn’t do so well at biting his tongue. As House is just getting started with the “ball-related” comments, he has an epiphany about the burned meatballs. Using medical lab reasoning, House uses vinegar to take the burnt edges off the meatballs and keep them from burning more before they cook. “Thanks, House. You saved…my balls.” Wilson deadpans. “That’s the spirit!” House says happily. Yeah, but that’s also going to be a nasty tasting meatball with vinegar on it. Hope Wilson is making a sauce of some kind….
13 and Foreman are talking to Vince in his hospital room. Vince is not impressed with his near death experience and decided to do a background check on his doctors. He has hacked into Foreman’s profile and discovered a hot picture of Foreman and 13 in swimwear. 13 is “rockin’ a cheetah print bikini.” Vince asks Foreman if he blocks everybody or really only has 3 friends. Tee-hee. Who? 13 for sure. Cameron, probably, ‘cause she’s everyone’s friend and I can see her accepted total strangers ‘cause she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. Don’t know about the 3rd. Ideas, anyone? Foreman is mad that Vince is ogling his girlfriend and asks him if he’s taking drugs. He responds sincerely that he did but got cleaned up when his roommate overdosed in college. 13 and Foreman leave Vince to drool over 13’s bikini shot. Out in the hallway, Foreman tells 13 to search Vince’s office anyway. Foreman starts to whine about not being House and 13 comforts him and says he’s doing fine. She gives him a pep talk and he feels better. Then he orders her to meet him for dinner at 7pm, not 8 like she requested. She does not like this.
House opens the door to find Cuddy at the door. She says hi and he announces he’s making gnocchi. She follows him to the kitchen where House introduces Cuddy to Cecilia, a cooking school classmate, who, according to House doesn’t speak English. She’s stirring something in a big pot on the stove. The woman turns and raises her eyebrow at Cuddy, then looks at House, asking in Mandarin, “Who’s the broad?” “A missionary,” he responds to Cecilia’s disbelief. “If she’s a missionary why is she dressed like a prostitute?” Cecelia asks. “I was talking about the position,” House responds without looking up from the pasta he is now cutting on his butcher block island. Even without knowing the topic of conversation going on around her, Cuddy is uncomfortable, obviously, and gets up her gumption to ask House if she’s the reason that he’s not coming back to the hospital. Is their mixed up and then non-existent relationship behind his running away? House says no. He summarizes their relationship last season in four sentences: We flirted. We kissed. I fondled. I hallucinated a night with you and screamed it from the balcony. House assures Cuddy that she is not the reason behind his leaving….although we all know she’s a big chunk of it. Not having to deal with his feelings for her right now can only speed up his other processes of keeping clean and moving on. Right? Well, Cuddy gets the guts and asks House, “Well, what am I?” And House immediately responds with, “Not the reason I left.” Deflecting comes too naturally, I’m afraid, but he’s smart too by playing it safe right now. They give each other The Look of Love. Oh, I missed that look. Then Cecelia breaks the moment by saying…in English, “Lady, either kiss him or leave. We got work to do.” Cuddy is embarrassed not only to be called out on her intentions but to learn that Cecilia speaks English and understood everything she and House just discussed. Cuddy leaves but not before one more lingering look. House stares after her and processes. This is going to be a long season, I’m thinking, and my Huddy heart can’t take a season like last year’s again. Oh, boy.
We see Lizard Warrior and Monkey Warrior walking through the corridors of the InGen lab like we saw in the opening sequence. I start laughing when the Lizard Warrior speaks and it’s Taub. The Monkey Warrior replies using 13’s voice. Yeah! Taub is the tall one! I can hear the conversation before the game. I bet Taub straightaway refused to be the short hairy character…again! They are playing the game at Vince’s office and talking about the awkwardness hovering around the team now that Foreman is in charge. Taub is not surprised with how things are going. He is surprised however by the “big-ass bird” he sees busting into the lab in the game. He and 13 start to shoot the birds but 13 is more interested and impressed with the amount of detail that the birds have. Then we get a first. We’ve seen a lot doctors get that “Bing!” look of epiphany on the show but this is the first time we see a Warrior Monkey get it. We see the Monkey and hear 13 say, “I know what’s wrong with him!” It’s very cool. She takes off her gear and races out, meanwhile Taub is laying on the floor swatting at imaginary birds. “A little help here!” It’s funny. I watched it twice.
Taub and 13 tell Vince that he has psittacosis from the birds he dissected while doing research for his game. Vince says, yeah, whatever, if that can give you a three-hour erection. He’s had it since checking out 13 on the internet. Taub and 13 quickly realize it’s not psittacosis. I have all sorts of off-color comments in my brain right now but I shall move on.
Back at the department, the three members of the team are shooting around ideas. Taub sort of agrees with Foreman, but 13 feels strongly about her idea. Foreman ends the conversation by saying the team will be going with his idea. Taub looks on and you know he’s noticing that the Love Boat is racing straight toward the jagged outcropping of rocks….
As Foreman and 13 walk to Vince’s room they bicker more and it bugs me so I won’t tell any of it. Let’s just say I’m reminded of some conversations I had….in junior high. The approach Vince’s room and see two men in with Vince. Vince introduces them as doctors. It seems as though Vince has posted his symptoms online and is taking multiple opinions. One of the doctors gets the boot when his opinion involves using his Papaya Toxin Cleanse System for $395. The second doctor thinks Vince has a brain tumor and needs an MRI. Foreman thinks that’s a load of crap and presents the diagnosis “his team came up with.” Vince asks 13 for her opinion for the tiebreaker. Instead of clearly backing Foreman, she says both ideas have merit. Foreman, takes the knife out of his back as Vince says he wants the MRI.
It’s early morning and Wilson stumbles into his kitchen. House is awake, having never gone to sleep due to leg pain. He has been creating culinary masterpieces. Wilson whines about it being early and having to taste test things, etc, etc. House quietly confides that he wanted to go out and score some vicodin, but got out the pots and pans instead. Wilson instantly becomes House’s Number One Foodie and tastes House’s creations, praising the food and House with one line, “Good choice. So, so good.”
We are at the MRI with Vince in it. Foreman and 13 are still in junior high and bicker. Blah. Blah. Blah. They also see no brain tumor so it’s back to “the Team’s diagnosis.”
When House opens the door of Wilson’s apartment this time he finds 13 standing there. She’s there on a “medical consult” which House calls her out on. He has just been waiting for her to show up to whine/discuss Evil Foreman. He actually gives pretty good advice. He tells her she’ll be happier if she learns when to give in. 13 is surprised to get such sound advice from House. While talking House has created a treat and asks 13 to try it. She is amazed at how delicious it is, claiming it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten, including what House, who’s leering at her, is thinking of right now. She congratulates him on his Super Mad Cooking Skillz, but it’s empty praise as House softly states that his leg still hurts. It was a good scene and I didn’t hate 13 in it. Wow.
Foreman meanwhile has run to Chase for advice. Chase says to fire her or break up with her. He says 13 is just doing her job so Foreman has to deal with it. Foreman decides he doesn’t want to talk about it with Chase after all. I think he was wanting a bit more “She’s crazy for acting that way to you. You rock,” from Chase, but Chase ain’t stupid, man. He’s learned a lot from that whole dead husband sperm thing.
It’s morning at Wilson’s apartment and Wilson finds House sitting on the couch watching The Biggest Loser on TV. He’s downing a quart of ice cream straight from the box. Yo! I’ve been there, man. Wilson is surprised he’s not cooking. House just claims that he’s taking a break from cooking and lies to Wilson about his leg pain. I get sad seeing House reverting back to his old downer self.
The next scene House is with Nolan telling him the truth. His leg is killing him and he’s close to breaking down. Cooking only helped for a while and now he’s worried he’s going to go back to what it was like before. Pills and all. Nolan tells him to keep trying and have patience. Yeah, thanks, Dr. Nolan.
13 opens the door of her loft to see Foreman standing there in the hallway holding a pastry bag. He offers her the “I’m totally stupid, please forgive me” symbolic….donut. The florist was closed. He apologizes, she accepts and they start to get busy, but get interrupted by their pages.
Taub is with Vince and his enormous lymph nodes, which have swollen up since the MRI. This new symptom AGAIN voids their previous diagnosis. Vince is ticked and it now offering $25,000 online to anyone who can solve the case.
House has returned to his old apartment. He is very cautious as he looks around and remembers what didn’t really happen there. Sad. He shuffles over to his hallway closet and pulls a bottle of Vicodin pills from a tennis shoe. He stares at it trying to decide which is worse- leg pain or delusions and depression….. hmmmmmmmm.
Back in the Diagnostic Department at PPTH the phone is ringing off the hook. The fax machine, too. And all the doctor’s cell phones and pagers. It’s loud and crazy. Finally, 13 unplugs the phone and fax machine and the three realize they’ve got a mess on their hands. They go to Vince’s room with a big stack of faxes with diagnoses. Foreman stands there and discredits a few before telling Vince to stop it with the online stuff. Vince is obviously not a good listener because he tells Foreman that he has amylodosis, which is the “wisdom of the crowd” online. Foreman makes a deal (dude, you are so not tough. House would have kicked him to the curb after the first online suggestions.) Vince will get tested for amylodosis and when it returns negative he will allow Foreman and his team to test and treat him for whatever they decide is wrong. Vince agrees.
Wilson shows up midday at his apartment. He’s there to “have lunch” but House knows differently. House is folding laundry, he’s happy, he’s singing and apparently not in any pain as he carries a full laundry basket down the hallway without using his cane. I can hear Wilson’s suspicion radar beeping from here.
Taub enters House’s…Foreman’s office and says that the test for amylodosis came back positive. Foreman is chagrined that the crowd was right. Taub gives his resignation to piggyback the already crushing ego blow Foreman has just received. It seems that, no offense, he came to PPTH to work with House so…he’s been offered another job. No offense.
13 and Foreman are laying on her bed. Yuck. She’s giving him a pep talk and telling him that he fixed the patient even though he didn’t really solve the problem. He’s clearly not impressed with her reasoning. She offers to tell him a bedtime story about her college roommate and I immediately fast forward the DVR.
Wilson is in Cuddy’s office and tells her that House is up to something. Wilson put a trap in the toilet to catch House’s pee for testing and while the pee came back negative for drugs it tested positive as belonging to a Labrador retriever. Cuddy immediately thinks House is using again. Where’s the trust among friends, people? He’s your friend! What has he done to deserve this lack of trust….. Oh…yah. Okay. Point taken. Moving on.
13 goes to Vince’s room and doesn’t find him there because Vince is currently in the lobby of PPTH hallucinating that he’s in his video game fighting off killer bats and “big-ass birds.” Wow. That lobby is a happening place: hallucinating patients and doctors; half-dressed pirate strippers; announcements of secret trysts; fat guys falling on skinny doctors through glass doors. That lobby rocks! Vince sees two bad guys who look suspiciously like his doctors come to get him and he tries to fight them off by throwing a coffee/thermal bomb at them. They discover he’s burning up with fever which also burns up the amylodosis as the main cause of everything.
Vince is in the ice tub. It’s the only thing that is keeping his fever at a controllable level. Foreman and 13 have forgotten their make-up sex and are arguing again over the diagnosis. 13 wants to look online again but Foreman says that wasn’t the deal he had with Vince. It’s the Foreman Show now, baby and he’s taking the stage. He’s going with Light Chain Deposition Disorder and asks 13 if she’s okay with that. She stops to think and I know she hears House’s voice in her brain when she replies, “Yes,” giving in to Foreman. It doesn’t appear to make her as happy as House said it would. She leaves and Foreman goes in to talk to Vince. Foreman tells him his new diagnosis and that the treatment could be deadly. Vince is totally defeated. Hallucinations will do that to a guy. Ask House. Oh, he can’t. Nevermind. Foreman asks if he wants more information but Vince says to do whatever he thinks he should. Foreman tells Vince that his career rides on this case, which doesn’t seem as important as Vince’s life, he knows, but he won’t mess up. Vince is still, “Whatever,” and Foreman pulls him out of the tub.
The next scene we see Wilson and Cuddy standing in front of House, who is sitting on the sofa in Wilson’s apartment. It reminds me of many a scene I had with my parents during high school. I was the one on the couch…. They know he’s on vicodin. House counters that all they know is that he got a dog to pee in a toilet. Aren’t they impressed? They are not amused and House is miffed. He’s just having fun. Cuddy sadly says they can’t trust him. House replies, “Et tu, Boo-tay?” I died laughing and had to rewind the scene to catch the dialog I missed while laughing. So House says, Fine. I’ll give you proof. He does this by pouring his coffee into a plant by the couch, standing up and turning away from Wilson and Cuddy. Then he pees into the empty mug. “My godson made that mug for me,” laments Wilson. House puts the mug on the coffee table, although that is now a misnomer, and walks off. Cuddy thanks Wilson for dragging her into this mess.
We get a generous helping of Foreman when he comes out of the showers in the locker room wearing nothing but a low-slung towel. He reaches for his Axe body spray because he is their target market, and has an epiphany when he sees his wrinkly fingertips. He races to the Chemo Room where he tells 13 to stop the chemo treatments on Vince. Vince has Fabry’s disease, which apparently makes it impossible for your skin to absorb water, among other things, I’m sure. 13 has already stopped treatments because she already tested Vince for Fabry’s disease and he tested positive. Foreman asks how she came up with that. What…no one can figure anything out but you? Egotistical…. Oh, no, she didn’t figure it out. She checked online again and someone posted that diagnosis this morning. Foreman walks away, disgusted but shiney clean.
Later that night 13 comes into Foreman’s office and congratulates him on his new job. It seems they didn’t let Cuddy know they didn’t really come up with the correct diagnosis themselves. Hmmmm. They bicker again, sort of, but then 13 tells him that it’s only their first case with this type of relationship and they’ll work it out eventually. Foreman is afraid that by the time they figure out how to work together they’ll hate each other. 13 thinks he’s breaking up with her, but Foreman is too twitterpated to let her go…..so, he’s just letting her go. Professionally, I mean. She is understandably confused to get fired… by her boyfriend.
House is sitting across from Nolan. House tells Nolan that he slipped. He hands Nolan a check made out to Greg House for $25,000 (and I won’t get into the fact that Vince had to know that was the Genius 1.0’s name). He knew he wasn’t supposed to do it, but he was about to pop some pills when he went online to a diagnosis website. He saw his old team’s case there and solved it. And his leg stopped hurting for a while. Nolan is surprised but realizes that the very thing that might make House fall again could also be the one thing that keeps him from falling again. And that, my friends, is the definition of a double-edged sword. Nolan says he needs to go back because the risk of not going back may be too great. House looks up and thinks about this before saying quietly, “Guess we’re going to find out.” Cut to black.
Overall I think this is a pretty good episode. I could have used more Hugh Laurie in it, but understand the producers/writers reasoning. I look forward to have the old team back together, but will actually miss Taub. He was great in this episode. I’m sure he’ll return once House returns….right? Fingers crossed. Thanks for reading. See you next week!
Signing up for cooking lessons with a BFF: $1200
Solving a case online and besting your old team: $25000
Watching Taub get attacked by imaginary birds and seeing Cuddy get called a hooker in Mandarin: Priceless
When the show first starts I thought for a brief moment my hi-def tv was on the wrong channel. The screen is filled with a computer-animated scene of the inside of an old, grown-over tunnel system. Someone is walking through it and we are following his/her/its line of vision. The place looks like the InGen labs in Jurassic Park 3, a movie that tried to capture the awesomeness of the first one but fell about this……………………………………………………short. Anyway, the point of view changes and we see Steve the Monkey Warrior, Larry the Lizard Warrior and Bob the Cat-like Warrior. (Names were changed to protect the innocent.) They are walking through the corridors trying to figure out where everyone is. They decide to try the Feeding Area, although it means certain peril. They open the door and are greeted with bloody carcasses and killer birds. It looks much like the Feeding Area at my house around dinner time…. The Monkey Warrior heads in and is soon overtaken by birds. The Cat-like Warrior tries to help but they need the Lizard Warrior’s super bazooka. Unfortunately for both, Lizard Warrior is nowhere to be seen. The others call for Larry, but there’s no answer. We cut to a really cool game room and two total gamer dudes taking off helmets and putting down their plastic guns. The third place for game playing is empty. A helmet and plastic bazooka lay on the ground. “Vince?” one of the gamers calls out. “Where are you dude?” They find him in the office where he’s sitting on a couch that I want to own and he’s staring at his hands. “My hands are on fire!” he screams, clearly in huge amounts of pain.
Cut to opening credits. Did they put the rowing guys on the river in homage to Mr. Laurie’s fabled rowing past. Hmmmmmm.
We open to the ER Room at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (Yeah! There’s no place like home.) 13 is talking to Vince, burning hand guy. She has no idea why he has the symptoms he does and she’s transferring him. He asks, “Don’t you have some kind of famous diagnostic guy?” he wonders. “Where is he?”
“He” is currently in Cuddy’s office quitting. Foreman says he can’t do that, but I’m not sure of his reasoning. Cuddy asks House if he’s okay. House, sadly, tells her that he is and he wants to stay that way. His doctor thinks it’s best if he doesn’t come back to the department as it might make him regress. Booo, Dr. Nolan. House does look disappointed, but he’s definitely trying to change so Kudos to Dr. House. Cuddy says fine to House’s resignation and House leaves. It takes all of 11 seconds (I counted) for Foreman to swoop in and ask for House’s job. Cuddy is disgusted but realizes that House would have done the same thing. She gives Foreman one chance to convince her he’s up to the task.
Back in the Diagnostics department 13, Taub and Foreman enter and begin taking off big white sheets that are draped over everything. I guess it’s to signify that nothing has been happening since last season but it looks like my grandparent’s cabin when we went back up in summer. Oh well. They throw out ideas and come up with a good one, Complex Regional Pain Syndrom, to run with. Foreman crows that they did that all by themselves. They don’t need House. 13 comments that something is still missing. Taub pipes up with, “I’m short. He’s black. You’re gay….-ish.” “That’s it,” says 13, smiling.
Taub and 13 visit Vince to tell him what they think he has and he counteracts with a different diagnosis. It seems he’s Googled his symptoms and has come up with mercury poisoning. He insists on being tested for it and Taub and 13 agree, seeing no harm in letting the patient have some input. Oh, they’re going to regret that decision!
Foreman is entering the inner sanctum of the diagnostic department, House’s office. He pulls the sheet off from House’s desk to reveal it’s been left untouched since House sent himself into insulin shock last season. We get a huge close-up of House’s thinking ball. NO, Foreman! Don’t do it! Don’t touch House’s ball! UHG! He not only touches it but picks it up and bounces it around. Look, Dr. Foreman. I knew Gregory House and you, sir, will never be Gregory House. Cameron walks in and Foreman manages to insult Chase, Mr. Cameron to you, within seconds of saying hi. Maybe he is closer to being Gregory House than I thought…. Cameron congratulates Foreman and tells him he’ll do a great job. Foreman is hesitant but thankful. They talk about House and Foreman relates that he was honest, sincere and…that the encounter was kind of weird. Cameron asks where his peeps are and Foreman says in the cath lab doing spine stimulation on Vince. Cameron says, “No, they’re not. I was just there.” Uh-oh. Foreman’s team is already not doing as instructed? Not a good omen, my friend.
Foreman finds his team in the lab testing Vince’s blood for mercury poisioning. Foreman proceeds to assert his dominance over everyone by getting all huffy and preachy and “I’m-in-chargey” with them. It is not appreciated, but kinda expected. The team should have done what Foreman asked them too. Taub agrees but only because the mercury levels weren’t high enough to support the mercury poisoning theory. They go to tell “Marcus Webby” he’s wrong. Tee-hee. Loved that pun.
House is in a therapy session with Nolan and my hand immediately cramps up because it remembers the last episode where there was so much dialog and character development in those therapy sessions that I almost always ended up writing the scene verbatim onto my notebook. I am relieved that this scene is not nearly as in depth. House reports his leg pain is getting worse and Nolan suggests a “non-lame hobby,” to distract House. Nolan suggests doing something with his new roomie that his roomie would like to do. Whew. That wasn’t so bad.
Foreman is at Vince’s bedside introducing himself as Genius 2.0. Vince seems okay with House not being there and the lame computer programmer joke. Foreman reports the results of the mercury poisoning tests and says that it’s now time for Spine stimulation, the originally requested test. Vince still wants to be treated for excess mercury in his system through mercury chelation. He definitely doesn’t want a needle shoved into his spine. Foreman decides to pull a House and tells Vince that if that’s the case they’re done. Vince can just go somewhere else and have another doctor do whatever he wants. “Or you can stick around and be cured.” Foreman begins to leave the room but is called back by Vince. Fine, he says.
We are in the cath lab with Taub, 13 and Vince, who is getting the needle shoved in his spine. 13 commends him on choosing to do the procedure and Vince tells her that Foreman strongarmed him into it, which he admires, by the way. During the procedure, however, Vince starts having chest pains and can’t breathe. They have to stop the procedure and give him oxygen as his lungs are filling with fluid. That’s a bad thing, right?
The team is sitting at the conference table and tell Foreman that Vince has a thickened left ventricle, which freaked out with the high heart rate from the stress of the spine stimulation and caused fluid to leak into his lungs. Foreman realizes his test was to blame but his loving, supportive girlfriend says that the test did lead them to the heart problem. Foreman sighs and says, “We just lucked into it.” Welcome to Houseland my friend. Where the first, second, third, and fourth diagnoses are never right and leads to the fifth, sixth and seventh diagnoses. One day, I’d like to watch an episode where the team in on a roll and diagnosing the correct disease on the first try with a series of patients. Of course, it wouldn’t make for much drama, but it could be funny…. Foreman thinks that with a software deadline looming, Vince might be using Cocaine. 13 offers to search Vince’s office, but Foreman decides to just ask the patient….wait. Ask the patient? Hmmmm.
House and Wilson are in a big industrial kitchen with multiple stovetops and cooking stations. It’s a cooking class! House has signed up with Wilson for a cooking class. I can almost taste the humorous interaction coming. They are making meatballs, and House is having a hard time being mature about that fact, but he’s trying. I’d love for a voice over on House’s thoughts during this scene! Wilson chastising him for not taking this seriously, after all it was Nolan who suggested it. House apologizes then sees Wilson’s meatballs burning. This time he doesn’t do so well at biting his tongue. As House is just getting started with the “ball-related” comments, he has an epiphany about the burned meatballs. Using medical lab reasoning, House uses vinegar to take the burnt edges off the meatballs and keep them from burning more before they cook. “Thanks, House. You saved…my balls.” Wilson deadpans. “That’s the spirit!” House says happily. Yeah, but that’s also going to be a nasty tasting meatball with vinegar on it. Hope Wilson is making a sauce of some kind….
13 and Foreman are talking to Vince in his hospital room. Vince is not impressed with his near death experience and decided to do a background check on his doctors. He has hacked into Foreman’s profile and discovered a hot picture of Foreman and 13 in swimwear. 13 is “rockin’ a cheetah print bikini.” Vince asks Foreman if he blocks everybody or really only has 3 friends. Tee-hee. Who? 13 for sure. Cameron, probably, ‘cause she’s everyone’s friend and I can see her accepted total strangers ‘cause she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. Don’t know about the 3rd. Ideas, anyone? Foreman is mad that Vince is ogling his girlfriend and asks him if he’s taking drugs. He responds sincerely that he did but got cleaned up when his roommate overdosed in college. 13 and Foreman leave Vince to drool over 13’s bikini shot. Out in the hallway, Foreman tells 13 to search Vince’s office anyway. Foreman starts to whine about not being House and 13 comforts him and says he’s doing fine. She gives him a pep talk and he feels better. Then he orders her to meet him for dinner at 7pm, not 8 like she requested. She does not like this.
House opens the door to find Cuddy at the door. She says hi and he announces he’s making gnocchi. She follows him to the kitchen where House introduces Cuddy to Cecilia, a cooking school classmate, who, according to House doesn’t speak English. She’s stirring something in a big pot on the stove. The woman turns and raises her eyebrow at Cuddy, then looks at House, asking in Mandarin, “Who’s the broad?” “A missionary,” he responds to Cecilia’s disbelief. “If she’s a missionary why is she dressed like a prostitute?” Cecelia asks. “I was talking about the position,” House responds without looking up from the pasta he is now cutting on his butcher block island. Even without knowing the topic of conversation going on around her, Cuddy is uncomfortable, obviously, and gets up her gumption to ask House if she’s the reason that he’s not coming back to the hospital. Is their mixed up and then non-existent relationship behind his running away? House says no. He summarizes their relationship last season in four sentences: We flirted. We kissed. I fondled. I hallucinated a night with you and screamed it from the balcony. House assures Cuddy that she is not the reason behind his leaving….although we all know she’s a big chunk of it. Not having to deal with his feelings for her right now can only speed up his other processes of keeping clean and moving on. Right? Well, Cuddy gets the guts and asks House, “Well, what am I?” And House immediately responds with, “Not the reason I left.” Deflecting comes too naturally, I’m afraid, but he’s smart too by playing it safe right now. They give each other The Look of Love. Oh, I missed that look. Then Cecelia breaks the moment by saying…in English, “Lady, either kiss him or leave. We got work to do.” Cuddy is embarrassed not only to be called out on her intentions but to learn that Cecilia speaks English and understood everything she and House just discussed. Cuddy leaves but not before one more lingering look. House stares after her and processes. This is going to be a long season, I’m thinking, and my Huddy heart can’t take a season like last year’s again. Oh, boy.
We see Lizard Warrior and Monkey Warrior walking through the corridors of the InGen lab like we saw in the opening sequence. I start laughing when the Lizard Warrior speaks and it’s Taub. The Monkey Warrior replies using 13’s voice. Yeah! Taub is the tall one! I can hear the conversation before the game. I bet Taub straightaway refused to be the short hairy character…again! They are playing the game at Vince’s office and talking about the awkwardness hovering around the team now that Foreman is in charge. Taub is not surprised with how things are going. He is surprised however by the “big-ass bird” he sees busting into the lab in the game. He and 13 start to shoot the birds but 13 is more interested and impressed with the amount of detail that the birds have. Then we get a first. We’ve seen a lot doctors get that “Bing!” look of epiphany on the show but this is the first time we see a Warrior Monkey get it. We see the Monkey and hear 13 say, “I know what’s wrong with him!” It’s very cool. She takes off her gear and races out, meanwhile Taub is laying on the floor swatting at imaginary birds. “A little help here!” It’s funny. I watched it twice.
Taub and 13 tell Vince that he has psittacosis from the birds he dissected while doing research for his game. Vince says, yeah, whatever, if that can give you a three-hour erection. He’s had it since checking out 13 on the internet. Taub and 13 quickly realize it’s not psittacosis. I have all sorts of off-color comments in my brain right now but I shall move on.
Back at the department, the three members of the team are shooting around ideas. Taub sort of agrees with Foreman, but 13 feels strongly about her idea. Foreman ends the conversation by saying the team will be going with his idea. Taub looks on and you know he’s noticing that the Love Boat is racing straight toward the jagged outcropping of rocks….
As Foreman and 13 walk to Vince’s room they bicker more and it bugs me so I won’t tell any of it. Let’s just say I’m reminded of some conversations I had….in junior high. The approach Vince’s room and see two men in with Vince. Vince introduces them as doctors. It seems as though Vince has posted his symptoms online and is taking multiple opinions. One of the doctors gets the boot when his opinion involves using his Papaya Toxin Cleanse System for $395. The second doctor thinks Vince has a brain tumor and needs an MRI. Foreman thinks that’s a load of crap and presents the diagnosis “his team came up with.” Vince asks 13 for her opinion for the tiebreaker. Instead of clearly backing Foreman, she says both ideas have merit. Foreman, takes the knife out of his back as Vince says he wants the MRI.
It’s early morning and Wilson stumbles into his kitchen. House is awake, having never gone to sleep due to leg pain. He has been creating culinary masterpieces. Wilson whines about it being early and having to taste test things, etc, etc. House quietly confides that he wanted to go out and score some vicodin, but got out the pots and pans instead. Wilson instantly becomes House’s Number One Foodie and tastes House’s creations, praising the food and House with one line, “Good choice. So, so good.”
We are at the MRI with Vince in it. Foreman and 13 are still in junior high and bicker. Blah. Blah. Blah. They also see no brain tumor so it’s back to “the Team’s diagnosis.”
When House opens the door of Wilson’s apartment this time he finds 13 standing there. She’s there on a “medical consult” which House calls her out on. He has just been waiting for her to show up to whine/discuss Evil Foreman. He actually gives pretty good advice. He tells her she’ll be happier if she learns when to give in. 13 is surprised to get such sound advice from House. While talking House has created a treat and asks 13 to try it. She is amazed at how delicious it is, claiming it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten, including what House, who’s leering at her, is thinking of right now. She congratulates him on his Super Mad Cooking Skillz, but it’s empty praise as House softly states that his leg still hurts. It was a good scene and I didn’t hate 13 in it. Wow.
Foreman meanwhile has run to Chase for advice. Chase says to fire her or break up with her. He says 13 is just doing her job so Foreman has to deal with it. Foreman decides he doesn’t want to talk about it with Chase after all. I think he was wanting a bit more “She’s crazy for acting that way to you. You rock,” from Chase, but Chase ain’t stupid, man. He’s learned a lot from that whole dead husband sperm thing.
It’s morning at Wilson’s apartment and Wilson finds House sitting on the couch watching The Biggest Loser on TV. He’s downing a quart of ice cream straight from the box. Yo! I’ve been there, man. Wilson is surprised he’s not cooking. House just claims that he’s taking a break from cooking and lies to Wilson about his leg pain. I get sad seeing House reverting back to his old downer self.
The next scene House is with Nolan telling him the truth. His leg is killing him and he’s close to breaking down. Cooking only helped for a while and now he’s worried he’s going to go back to what it was like before. Pills and all. Nolan tells him to keep trying and have patience. Yeah, thanks, Dr. Nolan.
13 opens the door of her loft to see Foreman standing there in the hallway holding a pastry bag. He offers her the “I’m totally stupid, please forgive me” symbolic….donut. The florist was closed. He apologizes, she accepts and they start to get busy, but get interrupted by their pages.
Taub is with Vince and his enormous lymph nodes, which have swollen up since the MRI. This new symptom AGAIN voids their previous diagnosis. Vince is ticked and it now offering $25,000 online to anyone who can solve the case.
House has returned to his old apartment. He is very cautious as he looks around and remembers what didn’t really happen there. Sad. He shuffles over to his hallway closet and pulls a bottle of Vicodin pills from a tennis shoe. He stares at it trying to decide which is worse- leg pain or delusions and depression….. hmmmmmmmm.
Back in the Diagnostic Department at PPTH the phone is ringing off the hook. The fax machine, too. And all the doctor’s cell phones and pagers. It’s loud and crazy. Finally, 13 unplugs the phone and fax machine and the three realize they’ve got a mess on their hands. They go to Vince’s room with a big stack of faxes with diagnoses. Foreman stands there and discredits a few before telling Vince to stop it with the online stuff. Vince is obviously not a good listener because he tells Foreman that he has amylodosis, which is the “wisdom of the crowd” online. Foreman makes a deal (dude, you are so not tough. House would have kicked him to the curb after the first online suggestions.) Vince will get tested for amylodosis and when it returns negative he will allow Foreman and his team to test and treat him for whatever they decide is wrong. Vince agrees.
Wilson shows up midday at his apartment. He’s there to “have lunch” but House knows differently. House is folding laundry, he’s happy, he’s singing and apparently not in any pain as he carries a full laundry basket down the hallway without using his cane. I can hear Wilson’s suspicion radar beeping from here.
Taub enters House’s…Foreman’s office and says that the test for amylodosis came back positive. Foreman is chagrined that the crowd was right. Taub gives his resignation to piggyback the already crushing ego blow Foreman has just received. It seems that, no offense, he came to PPTH to work with House so…he’s been offered another job. No offense.
13 and Foreman are laying on her bed. Yuck. She’s giving him a pep talk and telling him that he fixed the patient even though he didn’t really solve the problem. He’s clearly not impressed with her reasoning. She offers to tell him a bedtime story about her college roommate and I immediately fast forward the DVR.
Wilson is in Cuddy’s office and tells her that House is up to something. Wilson put a trap in the toilet to catch House’s pee for testing and while the pee came back negative for drugs it tested positive as belonging to a Labrador retriever. Cuddy immediately thinks House is using again. Where’s the trust among friends, people? He’s your friend! What has he done to deserve this lack of trust….. Oh…yah. Okay. Point taken. Moving on.
13 goes to Vince’s room and doesn’t find him there because Vince is currently in the lobby of PPTH hallucinating that he’s in his video game fighting off killer bats and “big-ass birds.” Wow. That lobby is a happening place: hallucinating patients and doctors; half-dressed pirate strippers; announcements of secret trysts; fat guys falling on skinny doctors through glass doors. That lobby rocks! Vince sees two bad guys who look suspiciously like his doctors come to get him and he tries to fight them off by throwing a coffee/thermal bomb at them. They discover he’s burning up with fever which also burns up the amylodosis as the main cause of everything.
Vince is in the ice tub. It’s the only thing that is keeping his fever at a controllable level. Foreman and 13 have forgotten their make-up sex and are arguing again over the diagnosis. 13 wants to look online again but Foreman says that wasn’t the deal he had with Vince. It’s the Foreman Show now, baby and he’s taking the stage. He’s going with Light Chain Deposition Disorder and asks 13 if she’s okay with that. She stops to think and I know she hears House’s voice in her brain when she replies, “Yes,” giving in to Foreman. It doesn’t appear to make her as happy as House said it would. She leaves and Foreman goes in to talk to Vince. Foreman tells him his new diagnosis and that the treatment could be deadly. Vince is totally defeated. Hallucinations will do that to a guy. Ask House. Oh, he can’t. Nevermind. Foreman asks if he wants more information but Vince says to do whatever he thinks he should. Foreman tells Vince that his career rides on this case, which doesn’t seem as important as Vince’s life, he knows, but he won’t mess up. Vince is still, “Whatever,” and Foreman pulls him out of the tub.
The next scene we see Wilson and Cuddy standing in front of House, who is sitting on the sofa in Wilson’s apartment. It reminds me of many a scene I had with my parents during high school. I was the one on the couch…. They know he’s on vicodin. House counters that all they know is that he got a dog to pee in a toilet. Aren’t they impressed? They are not amused and House is miffed. He’s just having fun. Cuddy sadly says they can’t trust him. House replies, “Et tu, Boo-tay?” I died laughing and had to rewind the scene to catch the dialog I missed while laughing. So House says, Fine. I’ll give you proof. He does this by pouring his coffee into a plant by the couch, standing up and turning away from Wilson and Cuddy. Then he pees into the empty mug. “My godson made that mug for me,” laments Wilson. House puts the mug on the coffee table, although that is now a misnomer, and walks off. Cuddy thanks Wilson for dragging her into this mess.
We get a generous helping of Foreman when he comes out of the showers in the locker room wearing nothing but a low-slung towel. He reaches for his Axe body spray because he is their target market, and has an epiphany when he sees his wrinkly fingertips. He races to the Chemo Room where he tells 13 to stop the chemo treatments on Vince. Vince has Fabry’s disease, which apparently makes it impossible for your skin to absorb water, among other things, I’m sure. 13 has already stopped treatments because she already tested Vince for Fabry’s disease and he tested positive. Foreman asks how she came up with that. What…no one can figure anything out but you? Egotistical…. Oh, no, she didn’t figure it out. She checked online again and someone posted that diagnosis this morning. Foreman walks away, disgusted but shiney clean.
Later that night 13 comes into Foreman’s office and congratulates him on his new job. It seems they didn’t let Cuddy know they didn’t really come up with the correct diagnosis themselves. Hmmmm. They bicker again, sort of, but then 13 tells him that it’s only their first case with this type of relationship and they’ll work it out eventually. Foreman is afraid that by the time they figure out how to work together they’ll hate each other. 13 thinks he’s breaking up with her, but Foreman is too twitterpated to let her go…..so, he’s just letting her go. Professionally, I mean. She is understandably confused to get fired… by her boyfriend.
House is sitting across from Nolan. House tells Nolan that he slipped. He hands Nolan a check made out to Greg House for $25,000 (and I won’t get into the fact that Vince had to know that was the Genius 1.0’s name). He knew he wasn’t supposed to do it, but he was about to pop some pills when he went online to a diagnosis website. He saw his old team’s case there and solved it. And his leg stopped hurting for a while. Nolan is surprised but realizes that the very thing that might make House fall again could also be the one thing that keeps him from falling again. And that, my friends, is the definition of a double-edged sword. Nolan says he needs to go back because the risk of not going back may be too great. House looks up and thinks about this before saying quietly, “Guess we’re going to find out.” Cut to black.
Overall I think this is a pretty good episode. I could have used more Hugh Laurie in it, but understand the producers/writers reasoning. I look forward to have the old team back together, but will actually miss Taub. He was great in this episode. I’m sure he’ll return once House returns….right? Fingers crossed. Thanks for reading. See you next week!
"Broken" 6x01-02
Okay, just a warning…this recap is long. Let me tell you why. I have read other recaps of other shows and discovered that I prefer the ones that make comments about what’s happening along the way and not just tell you what’s happening. So I’m creating a new word. I’m going to start calling these postings “Recapments” instead of “Recaps” due to the fact that it’s chock full of comments and observations. If you are looking for concise…you should look elsewhere. Now let’s begin.
BROKEN 601
We open on a shot of Hugh Laurie’s beautiful blue eyes, made even bluer by the stark, almost black and white filming of the scene. House is in detox and having a crappy time of it. The opening scene is without words just the soft angsty music of Radiohead’s “No Surprises.” It appears as though it covers 3-4 days, with each day getting worse and worse. It’s beautifully filmed and Mr. Laurie does an amazing job (stupid Emmy people must have been paid off…again!). House is in a tiny room with a metal bed and mattress and vomit basin. At first he’s in early withdrawal where there’s pain and nausea. At one point he’s curled up in the fetal position on a metal framed bed. At the nurses’ station, he gets his first new pain dosage, a tiny little pill, and takes it because there’s nothing else. The second day is tougher. He’s in massive pain. He’s barfed on himself and he’s getting an IV. His second dose of pain killers mocks him from his shaking palm. The next day is hell. He’s struggling for life. He pounds on the door for help. The next scene shows him restrained to the bed. He’s a huge tense ball of muscles. He’s sweating so much that there’s an outline of his body in sweat on his bed. Then, thankfully, his body relaxes. The last of the addiction is gone and he’s free. He sleeps calmly…finally. Wow. Remind me never to get hooked on Vicodin. I’ve only had to detox from carbs and caffeine and that experience was bad enough. Whew. I can’t imagine.
House wakes up to a world now filled with color and limps to window. He looks proud that he has succeeded in his detox. But now he’s done. He packs his bag and heads to the floor nurses’ station to check out. “Dry heaves are gone and so am I,” he says to the floor nurse. She politely tells him that he will need to see Dr. Nolan before he can do that. House refutes that saying he checked in voluntarily, he can leave voluntarily. But no, Dr. Nolan has flagged House’s chart and so House must wait for freedom.
House interrupts Dr. Nolan (an amazing Andre Braugher,) who is talking to a cute, blond lady in a doctor’s coat. House, being House, knows his conversation is more important than whatever conversation they are having and demands to talk to Dr. Nolan. House tells Nolan that he can’t keep him there. Nolan agrees but thinks House’s problems were from something more than Vicodin abuse. He tells House he was always narcissistic and arrogant but, “Your issues run deeper than Vicodin.” “Well, that’s not going to cheer me up now is it?” House retorts. But Nolan pulls out an ace and tells House he won’t give sign the go-ahead for House to get his medical license reinstated unless House sticks around and figures out those deeper issues. Wow…can you stay in a mental institution for 500 years ‘cause that’s just about how long it would take House to figure out his deeper issues, I would think. House has to comply because his ability to practice medicine and fix other people’s problems is about all House values about himself.
House is shown to “Ward SIX.” If he had been committed last season it would have been “Ward Five,” I’m thinking. There is your basic cliché-ridden group of mental hospital misfits. More about them later. He sits down with Mrs…..Dr. Beasley, the pretty blond doctor from Dr. Nolan’s office. I immediately cringe and feel sorry for her. I have a vision of her crying and running from the office as House cackles in the background. And then House tells her to basically expect major chaos and no compliance from him and my vision then includes her tearing her hair out as she cries and runs from the office.
House is unpacking in his room at the end of the hallway. In walks his new roomie, Juan Alveraz, aka JA, aka Alvie, manic depressive. He’s wearing an ironic happy face t-shirt and played by the wonderful Lin Manuel Miranda, who is the big bright broadway star du jour. I haven’t actually seen “In the Heights” but I saw a documentary about its production and opening night and I loved that. Can’t imagine how good the actual musical is… Alvie asks House his name finally after a rambling diatribe on the faults of anti-depression medication. House responds, “Just call me House.” To which Alvie pauses and then bursts into song with, “’Cause he’s a brick House…” He continues to sing as House gives him a wonderful “I can’t believe this is happening to me” look.
Then we jump into the Looney Tunes cartoon with the big dog, Spike, and the little dog, Chester, bouncing around him. Remember that one. The little dog is super hyper and bouncing all around and over the big bulldog asking, “What are we gonna do today, Spike? Huh, Spike? Huh?” Well that’s Alvie bouncing around House as the walk down the hallway and into the rec room for Ward Six. The rest of this duo’s interactions remind me of that cartoon. Oh! And then Spike keeps getting beat up by the panther that escaped from the zoo and Chester is always amazed because he thinks Spike is just going up against Sylvester. Wow. That could totally parallel House and Nolan, too. Who knew David Shore was a fan of Looney Tunes?
Alvie continues to bounce around House as he explains all the people on the ward and their particular issues and what goes on in certain areas. House becomes Alvie’s hero when he hears that House refuses to take meds, too. As Alvie shows House around, House doesn’t say a word. He looks around as though he’s casing the joint while at the same time growing more unbelieving of the situation he’s in. Nolan, Beasley and another doctor look on and wonder about House and his intentions. I can tell you right now, from past experience, his intentions are rarely good.
We have our first therapy session. It’s quite amusing as the individuals rattle off concerns and issues and House keeps asking for something to write it all down with so he can use the info later. The other members of Ward Six are: Yeah! It’s Booger, who’s paranoid (the character’s real name is Richter, but he’ll always be Booger to me); Gabby (who’s real name is Annie,) who ironically doesn’t talk; Hal, who’s addicted to Haldol and is an anorexic; Jay, a clausterphobic; Stomp, a guy who pounds on himself and doesn’t talk; Susan, a lady who just tried to commit suicide; and Diane, a girl with big glasses, who I think is just a bit slow. She’s Maybe she was put there by a family who didn’t want to deal with her. Anyway, just about every mental stereotype is present and accounted for. House has to make mental notes about each one but doesn’t say anything until he sees Susan’s wrists and makes a comment. Beasley reminds him of protocol. House fakes embarrassment. “Is suicide taboo,” he says mock horrified. “Gosh, if I’ve broken a rule on the first day I will KILL myself.” “Group’s over,” Beasley says. For his anti-social behavior, Dr. Beasley sends House to the Uncooperative Patient Club’s clubhouse, also know as the padded-wall isolation room. House gets locked in. He thinks he’s well on his way to early parole.
The scene moves to the basketball in the courtyard. House joins his group. Beasley asks if House is ready to play nice. She tries some psychiatry stuff on him and he rejects, deflects, and negates everything….he’s House. Beasley earnestly tells him, “Try to work with people. Try to deal with people.” And then House manages to work an entire episode of patient insults into 45 seconds as he joins his new friends on the baskeball court.
To Alvie: “Shut Up. No one likes you.”
To Jay as he closes in on him: “Oh no it’s closing in.” And he takes the ball!
To Booger about his green sweatshirt: “The CIA satellites aren’t watching me, they’re watching you ‘cause you’re wearing green.”
To Hal: “Yes, those pants make you look fat.”
To Susan: “How upset were you when you woke up in the ER alive and still a failure?”
House then shoots the ball for two points and walks back over to Beasley. “You’re right. It is rewarding to reach out.” House leaves against rules…again.
At this point I am feeling bummed, because here is House being a jerk again. Now, I know he’s naturally not a nice person, but in the first seasons although he was annoyed and easily perturbed, he was rarely spiteful and mean. As the show progressed he became meaner and meaner (especially in season 3) and at parts during the 5th season I stopped liking the character and wondered why I still watched the show. Okay…I still watched because Mr. Laurie was still playing Dr. House. Mr. Shore is lucky he kept that man around, I tell ya’. So now, I’m sad because I was hoping for more of a return to first season House or even part of second season House. Hmmmmm. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
House hears music coming from rec room and walks in to find Annie’s sister-in-law playing the piano. House is obviously attracted to her, after all, she’s an anomaly, something to figure out. Why would a German sister-in-law who plays piano wonderfully be visiting so regularly? Hmmmmm. And House manages to charm her by immediately stomping on her hope by saying Annie’s not responding to music but to her own pulse. Oh, the charmer. How does he stay single? The orderlies make their appearance to take House away to the clubhouse again and House tells her to leave the piano unlocked when she leaves.
A cool cover of “Love Vigilantes” plays as we see House in the isolation room. Eventually, Dr. Beasley enters asks how much longer House is going to be a jerk…ah forever. She suggests coming up with another strategy. He seems to come up with one pretty much on the spot.
Back in Ward Six, Alvie and Hal are playing ping pong without paddles or a net. They just bat a ball to each other. House comes in and does an Attica routine for paddles and a net. This time his efforts are much more effective. He riles up the entire ward, making Beasley nervous. I think the vision I had earlier of her might happen any moment. House is not using his powers for good. Then it all stops as Nolan comes in and gives them paddles. The ward is happy and move on. House is miffed. He asks Nolan if he’s going to continue to give others what they want but deny House everything. Nolan asks House if he thinks he’s not every bit as stubborn as House. House realizes quite quickly that he has met his match. Just a side note of a personal matter: the makeup people need to lay off the yellow cover-up for Hugh’s dark circles. My new high def television and cable box make him look like he has end-stage liver failure. Nolan walks off and House formulates a new plan.
We go back to Spike’s and Chester’s room. They are lying on their beds, starring up at the ceiling. Alvie can’t help rap incessantly about House’s situation. Fed up House finally speaks. “It’s easier to come up with a plan in silence.” House says almost politely. “Right. Cool,” responds Alvie. Pause. Pause. “Can I hum?” House chucks a book at him. It looked like it was a small paperback so no harm done with Mr. Laurie’s good aim.
We’re back at Mayfield in group therapy and we have a new patient..Steve. Well, Freedom Master, actually. Steve is just his secret identity. Alvie thinks this is cool. “We have more Jesus’ than superheros.” Steve thinks he can fly, much to Alvie’s delight. Steve wonders what is wrong with Annie. He thinks he can help her. House walks away from group and looks out window. He sees Nolan leaving with a younger, very sexy lady. And he formulates a new diabolical plan. Beasley comes over and asks why he doesn’t just conform and play nice.
House tells her she should have given her nice speech two minutes ago because it’s too late now. He’s got a new plan. And he’s committed to it…. Get it….
House finds Alvie on the basketball court and asks him if he has 3rd floor privileges. He does and House asks him to find out who Nolan had scheduled in his calendar for that morning. Alvie is all for this new commando plan but gets distracted and gives a dissertation about sour cream chips and the dwindling away of actually dipping the chips in today’s society. House asks him to focus and Alvie, totally up for the plan, heads off to complete his top secret assignment. Holding his pretend finger gun in front of him. I love this guy.
In Ward Six rec room House sits at the piano waiting for Alvie to return. He notices that Annie’s sister-in-law left the piano unlocked and plucks out da-da-da-dum before the orderly comes and locks it back up. He moves and waits for Alvie, who is soon carried in by the orderlies. Alvie is hollering that he just wanted some Ritz Bitz and didn’t know the machine was moved, but he looks over at House and gives him a big dramatic wink. House smiles. He smells freedom.
Alvie comes back to his room to find House waiting for him. He’s been in isolation and House is anxious for info. Alvie quickly apologizes. There was no name just a big red x through the whole morning. House is at first bummed but recovers. He’s got a license plate and a friend on the outside to look up the name and he’ll soon have enough info to blackmail Nolan into signing the medical board letter. House needs a phone. Alvie says you need level 5 for that one. Hal has level five thanks to Alvie and his love of mashed potatoes, but Alvie says House will need something bigger to barter for Hal’s phone card privileges. House asks Alvie how good he is at cheeking a pill. Alvie says he can’t do it at all. “That’s bad for you. Good for me.”
House and Alvie are sitting on the couch in the rec room wondering how to start it. Neither know. Start what? Finally, Alvie says, “Just do it. Make it good. Make it real.” House looks at him and then smashes his right fist into Alvie’s nose. Whoa. I’m surprised, not because of the punch but because I totally thought House would have no problem starting a fight and actually would be excited about it. Maybe the transformation is happening. House proceeds to pummel the heck out of poor Alvie, making the fight very convincing. Especially if your name is Alvie. The orderlies drag House off of Alvie and Beasley yells for them to shove haldol in his mouth. They carry a limp House into a room and lay him out on the bed. He looks passed out. Seconds later Alvie bounces into the room. His face is TRASHED. Ouch. He’s holding an ice pack to his cheek and tells House “Dude, that was awesome!” House wakes up and smiles. He opens his mouth and spits out the two pills that were resting on his tongue. He asks Alvie if he thinks Hal will mind if his bribery dose of haldol is a little wet…tee-hee.
House is in a darkened hallway on the phone and he’s talking to WILSON! Yeah! House tries to get him to help blackmail Nolan, but Wilson has been warned. Nolan called him and told Wilson to turn in his enabler’s badge. House is stunned when Wilson not only turns him down, AND agrees with Nolan, BUT ALSO hangs up on House. Man, Wilson. If you only knew what House had to do to get that phone card….
House returns to his only friend, Alvie, and admits to a change in plans…again. House is now going to pretend to cooperate and swallow the pills. Yeah, that’ll work. So much effort just to not conform. Sigh.
We then get a video montage set to James Hunter’s “Smoke Without Fire” of House NOT cooperating by pretending to cooperate. In doing so he jumps up in levels pretty quick. He talks in group, he shoots hoops, he gets to go outside, he makes nice. He fakes taking his meds and Alvie acknowledges his craftiness with the iconic nose rub from “The Sting.”
On another day, House once again visits Lydia while she plays piano for Annie. He tells her that he is humming to Annie and she sways. It could mean something. She calls him on his hypocrisy and reveals that Annie was an accomplished celloist.
House has to visit another doctor, Medina, and doesn’t like how distrustful he is of House’s recovery efforts. Medina tells him to give him a urine sample and he’ll trust him. House hobbles into a stall in the bathroom while the doctor waits. Inside the stall is Hal, who provides the necessary urine sample full of haldol. It’s a funny scene, especially when House has to sing in order for Hal to produce.
We see the patient board and House is being bumped up a level, obviously he passed his urine test. What a clever boy, that Dr. House. Medina comes over and apologizes to House. House and Alvie tag knuckles as Medina walks away. Medina then calls over Freedom Master and asks him to move the piano for him. Medina wants to prove that either (a) Freedom Master does have super strength and get him help physically or (b) prove to Freedom Master that he does NOT have super strength and get him help mentally. Yeah, don’t know what school of psychology Medina went to but I’m pretty sure his diploma is not printed in English. House takes exception to Medina’s theory and tries to break up the experiment. Freedom Master gets distracted by trying to help Annie retrieve her voice box. We learn sadly that Freedom Master’s wife was killed and Freedom Master loses it and is carried off by the orderlies.
House and Alvie are in the yard and discuss what happened. House is appalled that he just let Medina bully Freedom Master and Alvie reminds him that soon House will be gone and back in the real world and won’t have to worry about any of this. House briefly looks like that’s not such a great idea and then they are all called in for a goodbye celebration. Everyone is gathered to say goodbye to Susan. House notices Freedom Master is not there and goes to find him. Freedom Master is drugged into non-responsiveness and House is pissed. The big man, Dr. Nolan, arrives and takes House away. House insists that he’s coping just fine. He reveals that he hasn’t been taking the meds and is still moving up in levels, but Nolan reveals that House has been taking placebos and is merely manipulating the system, which will not get him his medical license back. Yes, some interesting and great dialog revealed it better but we’re already at 6 pages and I’ve got another hour…. House returns to his room and Alvie wants to know the next plan, but House is done. He says there is no plan, lays down and rolls over, ignoring a startled Alvie.
This time when Lydia arrives House is waiting for her. He offers to have Freedom Master bring her cello in. House thinks helping someone with a feat of strength will brighten Freedom Master up. In the process, House “steals” Lydia’s car and takes Freedom Master to an amusement park to fly. They both go on that ride with the big fan that floats you up in the air and Freedom Master…and House are ecstatic. Freedom Master is still excited as the two come back to the car garage. House is delighted his theory worked. He has fixed Freedom Master by acknowledging his differences and enforcing them, even if they’re all based in delusions. After all, it worked so well for House. Didn’t it. Well, it works about as well here because Freedom Master decides to take flight for real and launches himself off the parking garage wall. House looks on horrified, unable to stop it.
We jump to House holding Freedom Master’s bloody windbreaker. He’s obviously in shock and it doesn’t help when Nolan comes in and rips him a new one. Nolan is disgusted that House would do all this just to prove Nolan wrong and tells House he’s going to have to find a new place to work things out. House begs him to let him stay at Mayfield. House has hit a low even lower than when he realized he and Cuddy had not had sex. This time someone almost got killed because of his arrogance and obsession with getting the upper hand. House thought a quick “high of happiness” would solve the problem. I guess House didn’t learn anything from season 5. Oh, Dr. House.
This is the turning point for House. Freedom Master got banged up, but it did make House realize he needed to stop driving down his own private road of destruction and figure out how to take another route. Come to think of it House actually needs to attend driving school ‘cause that man does not have the skills he needs to be successful. I’m just saying.
House is in his first therapy session with Nolan. He’s afraid if he takes the meds he won’t be himself, like what happened in “The Softer Side.” Nolan reminds him that he won’t be out being anybody if he doesn’t take meds. He’ll continue to mess things up and self-implode. House sees the wisdom and, trusting Nolan, takes his first dose.
Alvie is very upset when he discovers that House has given in. House grumps at him to find another hero. I think House is upset with himself at this point too. That evening Nolan brings House a suit and tells him he has an assignment for House. They attend a fundraiser at the hospital. Nolan wants House to interact with people and let them know who he is. This proves to be too much for House. He can’t quite open up to people with the truth BUT he at least interacts and chats…even if he’s telling them he’s gay, he’s a porn star or he’s making Lydia, who’s also at the party, pretend to be his wife and bust him with another woman (Hi, Zack & Cody’s mom!) By the way, I really wanted to see the scene where House confesses he’s a porn star. Now that would have been funny. He does open up a bit to Lydia, who in return shares thoughts with him. At the end of the evening, Nolan congratulates him and points out that no one breached his trust with his “secrets.” Lydia gives him the real reward, however, by kissing him when she says goodnight. House is surprised and …smitten. He returns to his room and almost happily tells Alvie that he had fun. Wow. That’s what that feels like.
A session with Nolan the next day revolves around the kiss House shared with Lydia and it’s repercussions. House relapses and begins to deflect. He comments on Nolan’s own lack of personal relationships but Nolan is better at deflecting then House is. Nolan throws out some scenarios with Lydia and House’s relationship record and asks House, “What’s the ending to the story?” “I don’t know,” House answers honestly. Nolan is lucky the scene ends because the last time someone asked him a question that he didn’t know the answer to she got kissed. And kissed well, I might add.
House is waiting for Lydia on the piano bench. She sits by him and he asks her why she kissed him. She smiles and says, “I like you. It felt like a nice way to show you.” Direct question. Direct answer. And that, my friends, is how two adults with adult-level interpersonal skills relate to each other. None of this “Are you messing with me?”or “I need to make her mad” kind of nonsense. Hey, could we get Cuddy to Mayfield for a bit. I think they offer outpatient therapy for their “Adult Communication in Relationships” program.
House is happy with her response and turns around to play piano for her. He plays the same song she was playing when they first met. He is a romantic. He keeps turning and catching her eye while playing. House…is….flirting. Then the anvil falls when a nurse wheels in Freedom Master with his multiple casts and bruises. Happy feeling gone.
During his session with Nolan, House confesses that he was happy for about five minutes and that’s how life is. Nolan chastises him for valuing failures more than successes. House counters that success lasts only until someone screws them up. Failures are forever. (Not the best Bond film, in my opinion.) Nolan tells House to acknowledge failure then move on! House is in perpetual self-demeaning mood thanks to a horrible father who told him he should be. He can’t move on because he doesn’t want to be under the next shoe when it drops. House is instructed to apologize to Freedom Master, make amends and move on.
House tries to do as instructed before the next group therapy session, but backs out, leaving Freedom Master silent again in the wheelchair. Beasley cheerily announces a talent show for the ward. Frustrated by the inane chattering, House tries to again help Freedom Master bounce back by retrieving the “voice box” for Annie. The “voice box” is actually a music box being stored in the nurses’ station. He gives the box to Freedom Master, but receives no response. He’s just as out of it as he was before. House yells at him to talk. Nolan intervenes and tells House to stop trying to fix the problem instead of moving on. House is left alone in the rec room completely beaten. He has no faith in himself to do anything besides what he has done for years, which is withdraw.
The next day Lydia brings him sheet music for four hands. She’s excited to share this experience with him, but he rains on her parade. He wants to know what’s going on. She says she is just enjoying the here and now and doesn’t know. House needs to know, that’s a huge chunk of his persona. He’s too scared to venture out if he doesn’t know what’s out there. So he does what he knows to do. He breaks up the relationship and walks away. Yes, he’s an expert at that. House takes HUGE steps backwards and my hopes for a brighter season are dashed upon the rocks of reality.
Later, during group therapy, House receives a day pass from Nolan. Nolan has also requested that House meet him. House meets Nolan at another hospital. Nolan is beside the hospital bed of an older man hooked up to all sorts of machines. A quick glance at the older man’s wrist tag reveals him to be Nolan’s father. Nolan has been crying. He tells House that the cleaning lady found his dad on the floor. The doctors are telling him to pull the plug, but he wanted a second opinion. House received the day pass for a consult. House looks at the charts and confirms that Nolan’s dad is gone. There’s no hope. House begins to berate Nolan about the true reason Nolan wanted House to come, but Nolan tearfully pleads with him to stop. Surprisingly, House not only stops, but his features soften as he takes off his coat and pulls up a stool. He sits across from Nolan bedside and does a very grown-up thing: he lends empathetic, quiet support. Our Little Greggy is growing up. Sniff.
House returns to the hospital to find Lydia crying in the dark in the Ward 6 rec room. Hey, I know she’s a regular but really? Would she be allowed there so late? Hmmmm. Okay, I’m over it. It’s a bit contrived but it makes for a great scene. So House approaches her hesitantly because he thinks she’s crying over him. The ego never goes away. She laughs and says he is not the cause of her tears. She had had the dream of bringing the cello for Annie and snapping her out of her daze, but it didn’t happen. Lydia calls herself pathetic. House comforts her by saying everyone is pathetic and that makes life interesting. Lydia is sick of life being interesting. Lydia is defeated. And nothing is more desirable to House than a woman defeated. Seriously. Check out his track record. He coaxes Lydia into a slow dance without music which soon evolves into a slow dance without clothes. Uh-huh. Again…Ward Six needs to review its rules and regulations when a patient and a visitor are able to have sex in a locked office in the middle of the night. The scene however is wonderfully shot and beautiful and House finally connects with someone in a way that hasn’t happened since Stacy version 1.0 over a decade ago. There is definitely something healing and cathartic about physical human contact between two people who are more concerned with giving comfort than receiving comfort. True selfless behavior…although they both do get a little something something out of it in the end. Wow. House is so touched by the experience and amazed at the depth of the connection that his eyes glisten with unshed tears as they fade to commercial. If it were up to me, I’d give you every acting award in the world, Mr. Laurie.
We are finally at the talent show and we see Beasley and Diane dancing to the Macarena. Then Jay, Booger and Hal perform the saddest version of “You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You” I have ever witnessed. It’s then Alvie’s turn to take the stage. House is leaning on the wall in the background. He’s there, but not really involved. Alvie begins to rap but just as he gets to the last line of a verse he can’t come up with the rhyme. He freezes and there is uncomfortably long pause until House saves Alvie by piping up with a rhyming line. Alvie is grateful and continues, but it happens again. And again House finishes the rap. Alvie then just calls a reluctant House on stage where he helps Alvie finish his performance and actually enjoys himself. He finally makes eye contact with Lydia, who smiles approvingly at him from the audience.
House is in another session with Nolan. Kindly, House actually asks Nolan how he is doing following his father’s death. Nolan thanks him for the concern. When asked the same question, House states somewhat unbelievingly, “Things are actually…good.” What passes as a smile creases House’s mouth.
We return to the rec room of Ward 6 and House approaches Freedom Master, who is still clutching the music box. He sits next to him and softly apologizes for everything. Nothing dramatic happens, but House doesn’t expect it to. He is just moving on. He stands to wheel Freedom Master to get his meds. As they pass by Annie, Freedom Master barely lifts his hand in a gesture to give Annie her box. House sees this and backs up, allowing Annie to see the box and accept it. She opens it and listens to it before turning back to Freedom Master and saying, “Thank you.” Freedom Master softly responds, “You’re welcome.” The occupants of the ward stand by in awe watching the scene unfold. Now, I’m as jaded as the next viewer when it comes to prefab-by-the-numbers-make-you-cry moments, but I did get misty-eyed and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I guess my heart grew just a few more sizes that day. House is waiting at the elevator for Lydia and grabs hold of her hand to lead her into the rec room. “I have a surprise,” he says. He opens the door for her and we hear the beautiful notes of a cello being played by Annie. Annie is completely caught up in playing and Lydia immediately begins to cry in happiness. House watches her, happy because she is so happy. Another lesson learned, I think. Everyone watches Annie come back to life as she plays.
We are at another goodbye party and House is shocked to find out it’s for Annie. He storms into Nolan’s office and demands to know why someone who hasn’t spoken for over 10 years is suddenly going home. Nolan gently tells him that Annie is being transferred to another facility…in Arizona. Her family is going with her. All the wind goes out of House’s sails. Nolan tells him he just found out. Rather than go ballistic, House calmly asks for an overnight pass. Nolan tries to talk him out of it, but House is insistent…although not belligerent. In fact, he even throws in a “please” at the end and Nolan gives him a pass.
A taxi pulls up to a house later that night. House steps out of the taxi and approaches the door. His knock is answered by a young boy. House asks if his mom is at home and the boy wants to know who wants to know. Lydia comes to the door and sends her son back into the house. She steps out and closes the door, but not completely. House asks her why she didn’t say anything to him about leaving. He doesn’t want her to go. He doesn’t want things to change. House does not do well with change. Lydia affirms that she doesn’t want to leave either, but she can’t break up her family. They’ve always talked about moving to Arizona, where her husband’s work is based, but couldn’t until now. Poor House, his good deed just ruined his chance with a relationship with Lydia. He can’t win! She apologizes for not saying goodbye, but admits that she thought it ended “kinda perfect.” She caresses his face and then goes back into the house, leaving him standing there on the porch.
Nolan walks into the parking lot back at Mayfield and finds House sitting on the retaining wall by his car. Nolan doesn’t admire House’s use of an overnight pass. House has nothing to say except, “She’s gone. And…I’m lost.” He is trying not to cry and I just want to hug my television set in the hopes it will somehow make him feel better. Nolan sits down next to House. “I’m gonna write your letter,” he states. “I’m going to recommend that you get your medical license back.” House says he doesn’t want a lollipop to make him feel better. Nolan shakes his head. He tells House that he’s ready. House connected enough with someone that it hurts him to lose that connection. House also experienced pain and failure but didn’t escape the problem through vicodin AND House came back to Mayfield to TALK with a man whom he trusts. House has just pulled a hat trick in the game of his recovery. The realization dawns on House as well. He has succeeded and he will enjoy it and not look for a way to ruin it.
We see the Ward Six gang gathered in the rec room for another goodbye party and this time it’s for House. Even Dr. Nolan has arrived and indeed is leading the celebration. House seems happy and genuine smiles cross his face frequently. They say the mantra and he blows out the candle of the big Re-Birthday cake. He gives Beasley a hug and I’m glad my vision of House ruining her never materialized. After initially rejecting a hug from Alvie, “Back off. Everyone here already thinks we’re gay,” House does give his roomie a big bear hug and pinches Alvie’s butt in the process. So much for squashing that rumor. Everyone claps for House and his accomplishment and House feels and accepts their support. Then, in an act that I totally think was unscripted, House faceplants into the center of the cake. The room erupts in laughter and in replaying the scene many extras are completely caught off-guard and begin to laugh hysterically. It’s funny. House takes a bow and we cut away to the outside of Mayfield. Now cake-free, House is packed up and ready to leave. He looks out at the road that Wilson drove him on to bring him to Mayfield three longs months ago and smiles. An honest-to-goodness smile. Yup. I hum the Rocky music to myself as he walks down the steps and to the bus station. Hey, how come Wilson can’t pick him up, too? Maybe the writers were extending the “He’s-doing-this-alone” metaphor some more. Whatever. I would have liked to see Wilson see the happy, drug-free House on his triumphant walk out of the mental hospital.
Alvie is watching from the rec room and makes his own decision. He walks over to the nurses’ station and asks for his meds. So he can get better. Dr. Beasley smiles and gets him his meds.
Back out in front the bus arrives. As it pulls in front of House a big sign that reads “Prepare to Succeed” on the side of the bus fills the screen. Those writers are very clever or beating a dead horse, you decide for yourself which one it is… House boards the bus and goes to the back. It reminds me of the final bus scene in Wilson’s Heart. A-ha! Maybe they’re using the bus to make the connection that when House got off that bus in his dream and back into life he didn’t REALLY get back into life, but NOW he will soon be getting off the bus to start a new life with the skills he needs to be successful. Or then again….it’s just a bus. See. This is why it’s taking me so long to finish this recap. I keep over-cleverfying the writers. Whew. The camera pulls back to reveal House is now wearing Alvie’s smiley-face tshirt from the beginning of the episode and House smiles serenely, yet with a gleam of mischief in his eyes, into the camera. Fade to black.
Hooray! House is happy. And although I know it won’t be constant it’s not supposed to be. See, House has learned that being happy is good and although happiness is fleeting the attempts at happiness shouldn’t be. I don’t expect a kinder, gentler House. That would be boring, but I do expect a more 1st season, less-bitter House. The one I fell in love with long ago. Some will argue that much of the episode was OOC, BUT that’s the point. House needed to get out of character because his character wasn’t working. It’ll also be interesting to see how all the other broken people around House now interact and deal with someone not broken. House, as a rule, surrounded himself with damaged people so he wouldn’t feel so alone. Now, he has the skills and knowledge to defeat that behavior. Hmmmm. Should be interesting. I am looking forward to it. Yes, indeed. Thanks to everyone who made it all the way to the end. I hope you liked it. Talk to you next week when another new episode of House airs. That sounds so good it almost makes me cry….
BROKEN 601
We open on a shot of Hugh Laurie’s beautiful blue eyes, made even bluer by the stark, almost black and white filming of the scene. House is in detox and having a crappy time of it. The opening scene is without words just the soft angsty music of Radiohead’s “No Surprises.” It appears as though it covers 3-4 days, with each day getting worse and worse. It’s beautifully filmed and Mr. Laurie does an amazing job (stupid Emmy people must have been paid off…again!). House is in a tiny room with a metal bed and mattress and vomit basin. At first he’s in early withdrawal where there’s pain and nausea. At one point he’s curled up in the fetal position on a metal framed bed. At the nurses’ station, he gets his first new pain dosage, a tiny little pill, and takes it because there’s nothing else. The second day is tougher. He’s in massive pain. He’s barfed on himself and he’s getting an IV. His second dose of pain killers mocks him from his shaking palm. The next day is hell. He’s struggling for life. He pounds on the door for help. The next scene shows him restrained to the bed. He’s a huge tense ball of muscles. He’s sweating so much that there’s an outline of his body in sweat on his bed. Then, thankfully, his body relaxes. The last of the addiction is gone and he’s free. He sleeps calmly…finally. Wow. Remind me never to get hooked on Vicodin. I’ve only had to detox from carbs and caffeine and that experience was bad enough. Whew. I can’t imagine.
House wakes up to a world now filled with color and limps to window. He looks proud that he has succeeded in his detox. But now he’s done. He packs his bag and heads to the floor nurses’ station to check out. “Dry heaves are gone and so am I,” he says to the floor nurse. She politely tells him that he will need to see Dr. Nolan before he can do that. House refutes that saying he checked in voluntarily, he can leave voluntarily. But no, Dr. Nolan has flagged House’s chart and so House must wait for freedom.
House interrupts Dr. Nolan (an amazing Andre Braugher,) who is talking to a cute, blond lady in a doctor’s coat. House, being House, knows his conversation is more important than whatever conversation they are having and demands to talk to Dr. Nolan. House tells Nolan that he can’t keep him there. Nolan agrees but thinks House’s problems were from something more than Vicodin abuse. He tells House he was always narcissistic and arrogant but, “Your issues run deeper than Vicodin.” “Well, that’s not going to cheer me up now is it?” House retorts. But Nolan pulls out an ace and tells House he won’t give sign the go-ahead for House to get his medical license reinstated unless House sticks around and figures out those deeper issues. Wow…can you stay in a mental institution for 500 years ‘cause that’s just about how long it would take House to figure out his deeper issues, I would think. House has to comply because his ability to practice medicine and fix other people’s problems is about all House values about himself.
House is shown to “Ward SIX.” If he had been committed last season it would have been “Ward Five,” I’m thinking. There is your basic cliché-ridden group of mental hospital misfits. More about them later. He sits down with Mrs…..Dr. Beasley, the pretty blond doctor from Dr. Nolan’s office. I immediately cringe and feel sorry for her. I have a vision of her crying and running from the office as House cackles in the background. And then House tells her to basically expect major chaos and no compliance from him and my vision then includes her tearing her hair out as she cries and runs from the office.
House is unpacking in his room at the end of the hallway. In walks his new roomie, Juan Alveraz, aka JA, aka Alvie, manic depressive. He’s wearing an ironic happy face t-shirt and played by the wonderful Lin Manuel Miranda, who is the big bright broadway star du jour. I haven’t actually seen “In the Heights” but I saw a documentary about its production and opening night and I loved that. Can’t imagine how good the actual musical is… Alvie asks House his name finally after a rambling diatribe on the faults of anti-depression medication. House responds, “Just call me House.” To which Alvie pauses and then bursts into song with, “’Cause he’s a brick House…” He continues to sing as House gives him a wonderful “I can’t believe this is happening to me” look.
Then we jump into the Looney Tunes cartoon with the big dog, Spike, and the little dog, Chester, bouncing around him. Remember that one. The little dog is super hyper and bouncing all around and over the big bulldog asking, “What are we gonna do today, Spike? Huh, Spike? Huh?” Well that’s Alvie bouncing around House as the walk down the hallway and into the rec room for Ward Six. The rest of this duo’s interactions remind me of that cartoon. Oh! And then Spike keeps getting beat up by the panther that escaped from the zoo and Chester is always amazed because he thinks Spike is just going up against Sylvester. Wow. That could totally parallel House and Nolan, too. Who knew David Shore was a fan of Looney Tunes?
Alvie continues to bounce around House as he explains all the people on the ward and their particular issues and what goes on in certain areas. House becomes Alvie’s hero when he hears that House refuses to take meds, too. As Alvie shows House around, House doesn’t say a word. He looks around as though he’s casing the joint while at the same time growing more unbelieving of the situation he’s in. Nolan, Beasley and another doctor look on and wonder about House and his intentions. I can tell you right now, from past experience, his intentions are rarely good.
We have our first therapy session. It’s quite amusing as the individuals rattle off concerns and issues and House keeps asking for something to write it all down with so he can use the info later. The other members of Ward Six are: Yeah! It’s Booger, who’s paranoid (the character’s real name is Richter, but he’ll always be Booger to me); Gabby (who’s real name is Annie,) who ironically doesn’t talk; Hal, who’s addicted to Haldol and is an anorexic; Jay, a clausterphobic; Stomp, a guy who pounds on himself and doesn’t talk; Susan, a lady who just tried to commit suicide; and Diane, a girl with big glasses, who I think is just a bit slow. She’s Maybe she was put there by a family who didn’t want to deal with her. Anyway, just about every mental stereotype is present and accounted for. House has to make mental notes about each one but doesn’t say anything until he sees Susan’s wrists and makes a comment. Beasley reminds him of protocol. House fakes embarrassment. “Is suicide taboo,” he says mock horrified. “Gosh, if I’ve broken a rule on the first day I will KILL myself.” “Group’s over,” Beasley says. For his anti-social behavior, Dr. Beasley sends House to the Uncooperative Patient Club’s clubhouse, also know as the padded-wall isolation room. House gets locked in. He thinks he’s well on his way to early parole.
The scene moves to the basketball in the courtyard. House joins his group. Beasley asks if House is ready to play nice. She tries some psychiatry stuff on him and he rejects, deflects, and negates everything….he’s House. Beasley earnestly tells him, “Try to work with people. Try to deal with people.” And then House manages to work an entire episode of patient insults into 45 seconds as he joins his new friends on the baskeball court.
To Alvie: “Shut Up. No one likes you.”
To Jay as he closes in on him: “Oh no it’s closing in.” And he takes the ball!
To Booger about his green sweatshirt: “The CIA satellites aren’t watching me, they’re watching you ‘cause you’re wearing green.”
To Hal: “Yes, those pants make you look fat.”
To Susan: “How upset were you when you woke up in the ER alive and still a failure?”
House then shoots the ball for two points and walks back over to Beasley. “You’re right. It is rewarding to reach out.” House leaves against rules…again.
At this point I am feeling bummed, because here is House being a jerk again. Now, I know he’s naturally not a nice person, but in the first seasons although he was annoyed and easily perturbed, he was rarely spiteful and mean. As the show progressed he became meaner and meaner (especially in season 3) and at parts during the 5th season I stopped liking the character and wondered why I still watched the show. Okay…I still watched because Mr. Laurie was still playing Dr. House. Mr. Shore is lucky he kept that man around, I tell ya’. So now, I’m sad because I was hoping for more of a return to first season House or even part of second season House. Hmmmmm. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
House hears music coming from rec room and walks in to find Annie’s sister-in-law playing the piano. House is obviously attracted to her, after all, she’s an anomaly, something to figure out. Why would a German sister-in-law who plays piano wonderfully be visiting so regularly? Hmmmmm. And House manages to charm her by immediately stomping on her hope by saying Annie’s not responding to music but to her own pulse. Oh, the charmer. How does he stay single? The orderlies make their appearance to take House away to the clubhouse again and House tells her to leave the piano unlocked when she leaves.
A cool cover of “Love Vigilantes” plays as we see House in the isolation room. Eventually, Dr. Beasley enters asks how much longer House is going to be a jerk…ah forever. She suggests coming up with another strategy. He seems to come up with one pretty much on the spot.
Back in Ward Six, Alvie and Hal are playing ping pong without paddles or a net. They just bat a ball to each other. House comes in and does an Attica routine for paddles and a net. This time his efforts are much more effective. He riles up the entire ward, making Beasley nervous. I think the vision I had earlier of her might happen any moment. House is not using his powers for good. Then it all stops as Nolan comes in and gives them paddles. The ward is happy and move on. House is miffed. He asks Nolan if he’s going to continue to give others what they want but deny House everything. Nolan asks House if he thinks he’s not every bit as stubborn as House. House realizes quite quickly that he has met his match. Just a side note of a personal matter: the makeup people need to lay off the yellow cover-up for Hugh’s dark circles. My new high def television and cable box make him look like he has end-stage liver failure. Nolan walks off and House formulates a new plan.
We go back to Spike’s and Chester’s room. They are lying on their beds, starring up at the ceiling. Alvie can’t help rap incessantly about House’s situation. Fed up House finally speaks. “It’s easier to come up with a plan in silence.” House says almost politely. “Right. Cool,” responds Alvie. Pause. Pause. “Can I hum?” House chucks a book at him. It looked like it was a small paperback so no harm done with Mr. Laurie’s good aim.
We’re back at Mayfield in group therapy and we have a new patient..Steve. Well, Freedom Master, actually. Steve is just his secret identity. Alvie thinks this is cool. “We have more Jesus’ than superheros.” Steve thinks he can fly, much to Alvie’s delight. Steve wonders what is wrong with Annie. He thinks he can help her. House walks away from group and looks out window. He sees Nolan leaving with a younger, very sexy lady. And he formulates a new diabolical plan. Beasley comes over and asks why he doesn’t just conform and play nice.
House tells her she should have given her nice speech two minutes ago because it’s too late now. He’s got a new plan. And he’s committed to it…. Get it….
House finds Alvie on the basketball court and asks him if he has 3rd floor privileges. He does and House asks him to find out who Nolan had scheduled in his calendar for that morning. Alvie is all for this new commando plan but gets distracted and gives a dissertation about sour cream chips and the dwindling away of actually dipping the chips in today’s society. House asks him to focus and Alvie, totally up for the plan, heads off to complete his top secret assignment. Holding his pretend finger gun in front of him. I love this guy.
In Ward Six rec room House sits at the piano waiting for Alvie to return. He notices that Annie’s sister-in-law left the piano unlocked and plucks out da-da-da-dum before the orderly comes and locks it back up. He moves and waits for Alvie, who is soon carried in by the orderlies. Alvie is hollering that he just wanted some Ritz Bitz and didn’t know the machine was moved, but he looks over at House and gives him a big dramatic wink. House smiles. He smells freedom.
Alvie comes back to his room to find House waiting for him. He’s been in isolation and House is anxious for info. Alvie quickly apologizes. There was no name just a big red x through the whole morning. House is at first bummed but recovers. He’s got a license plate and a friend on the outside to look up the name and he’ll soon have enough info to blackmail Nolan into signing the medical board letter. House needs a phone. Alvie says you need level 5 for that one. Hal has level five thanks to Alvie and his love of mashed potatoes, but Alvie says House will need something bigger to barter for Hal’s phone card privileges. House asks Alvie how good he is at cheeking a pill. Alvie says he can’t do it at all. “That’s bad for you. Good for me.”
House and Alvie are sitting on the couch in the rec room wondering how to start it. Neither know. Start what? Finally, Alvie says, “Just do it. Make it good. Make it real.” House looks at him and then smashes his right fist into Alvie’s nose. Whoa. I’m surprised, not because of the punch but because I totally thought House would have no problem starting a fight and actually would be excited about it. Maybe the transformation is happening. House proceeds to pummel the heck out of poor Alvie, making the fight very convincing. Especially if your name is Alvie. The orderlies drag House off of Alvie and Beasley yells for them to shove haldol in his mouth. They carry a limp House into a room and lay him out on the bed. He looks passed out. Seconds later Alvie bounces into the room. His face is TRASHED. Ouch. He’s holding an ice pack to his cheek and tells House “Dude, that was awesome!” House wakes up and smiles. He opens his mouth and spits out the two pills that were resting on his tongue. He asks Alvie if he thinks Hal will mind if his bribery dose of haldol is a little wet…tee-hee.
House is in a darkened hallway on the phone and he’s talking to WILSON! Yeah! House tries to get him to help blackmail Nolan, but Wilson has been warned. Nolan called him and told Wilson to turn in his enabler’s badge. House is stunned when Wilson not only turns him down, AND agrees with Nolan, BUT ALSO hangs up on House. Man, Wilson. If you only knew what House had to do to get that phone card….
House returns to his only friend, Alvie, and admits to a change in plans…again. House is now going to pretend to cooperate and swallow the pills. Yeah, that’ll work. So much effort just to not conform. Sigh.
We then get a video montage set to James Hunter’s “Smoke Without Fire” of House NOT cooperating by pretending to cooperate. In doing so he jumps up in levels pretty quick. He talks in group, he shoots hoops, he gets to go outside, he makes nice. He fakes taking his meds and Alvie acknowledges his craftiness with the iconic nose rub from “The Sting.”
On another day, House once again visits Lydia while she plays piano for Annie. He tells her that he is humming to Annie and she sways. It could mean something. She calls him on his hypocrisy and reveals that Annie was an accomplished celloist.
House has to visit another doctor, Medina, and doesn’t like how distrustful he is of House’s recovery efforts. Medina tells him to give him a urine sample and he’ll trust him. House hobbles into a stall in the bathroom while the doctor waits. Inside the stall is Hal, who provides the necessary urine sample full of haldol. It’s a funny scene, especially when House has to sing in order for Hal to produce.
We see the patient board and House is being bumped up a level, obviously he passed his urine test. What a clever boy, that Dr. House. Medina comes over and apologizes to House. House and Alvie tag knuckles as Medina walks away. Medina then calls over Freedom Master and asks him to move the piano for him. Medina wants to prove that either (a) Freedom Master does have super strength and get him help physically or (b) prove to Freedom Master that he does NOT have super strength and get him help mentally. Yeah, don’t know what school of psychology Medina went to but I’m pretty sure his diploma is not printed in English. House takes exception to Medina’s theory and tries to break up the experiment. Freedom Master gets distracted by trying to help Annie retrieve her voice box. We learn sadly that Freedom Master’s wife was killed and Freedom Master loses it and is carried off by the orderlies.
House and Alvie are in the yard and discuss what happened. House is appalled that he just let Medina bully Freedom Master and Alvie reminds him that soon House will be gone and back in the real world and won’t have to worry about any of this. House briefly looks like that’s not such a great idea and then they are all called in for a goodbye celebration. Everyone is gathered to say goodbye to Susan. House notices Freedom Master is not there and goes to find him. Freedom Master is drugged into non-responsiveness and House is pissed. The big man, Dr. Nolan, arrives and takes House away. House insists that he’s coping just fine. He reveals that he hasn’t been taking the meds and is still moving up in levels, but Nolan reveals that House has been taking placebos and is merely manipulating the system, which will not get him his medical license back. Yes, some interesting and great dialog revealed it better but we’re already at 6 pages and I’ve got another hour…. House returns to his room and Alvie wants to know the next plan, but House is done. He says there is no plan, lays down and rolls over, ignoring a startled Alvie.
This time when Lydia arrives House is waiting for her. He offers to have Freedom Master bring her cello in. House thinks helping someone with a feat of strength will brighten Freedom Master up. In the process, House “steals” Lydia’s car and takes Freedom Master to an amusement park to fly. They both go on that ride with the big fan that floats you up in the air and Freedom Master…and House are ecstatic. Freedom Master is still excited as the two come back to the car garage. House is delighted his theory worked. He has fixed Freedom Master by acknowledging his differences and enforcing them, even if they’re all based in delusions. After all, it worked so well for House. Didn’t it. Well, it works about as well here because Freedom Master decides to take flight for real and launches himself off the parking garage wall. House looks on horrified, unable to stop it.
We jump to House holding Freedom Master’s bloody windbreaker. He’s obviously in shock and it doesn’t help when Nolan comes in and rips him a new one. Nolan is disgusted that House would do all this just to prove Nolan wrong and tells House he’s going to have to find a new place to work things out. House begs him to let him stay at Mayfield. House has hit a low even lower than when he realized he and Cuddy had not had sex. This time someone almost got killed because of his arrogance and obsession with getting the upper hand. House thought a quick “high of happiness” would solve the problem. I guess House didn’t learn anything from season 5. Oh, Dr. House.
This is the turning point for House. Freedom Master got banged up, but it did make House realize he needed to stop driving down his own private road of destruction and figure out how to take another route. Come to think of it House actually needs to attend driving school ‘cause that man does not have the skills he needs to be successful. I’m just saying.
House is in his first therapy session with Nolan. He’s afraid if he takes the meds he won’t be himself, like what happened in “The Softer Side.” Nolan reminds him that he won’t be out being anybody if he doesn’t take meds. He’ll continue to mess things up and self-implode. House sees the wisdom and, trusting Nolan, takes his first dose.
Alvie is very upset when he discovers that House has given in. House grumps at him to find another hero. I think House is upset with himself at this point too. That evening Nolan brings House a suit and tells him he has an assignment for House. They attend a fundraiser at the hospital. Nolan wants House to interact with people and let them know who he is. This proves to be too much for House. He can’t quite open up to people with the truth BUT he at least interacts and chats…even if he’s telling them he’s gay, he’s a porn star or he’s making Lydia, who’s also at the party, pretend to be his wife and bust him with another woman (Hi, Zack & Cody’s mom!) By the way, I really wanted to see the scene where House confesses he’s a porn star. Now that would have been funny. He does open up a bit to Lydia, who in return shares thoughts with him. At the end of the evening, Nolan congratulates him and points out that no one breached his trust with his “secrets.” Lydia gives him the real reward, however, by kissing him when she says goodnight. House is surprised and …smitten. He returns to his room and almost happily tells Alvie that he had fun. Wow. That’s what that feels like.
A session with Nolan the next day revolves around the kiss House shared with Lydia and it’s repercussions. House relapses and begins to deflect. He comments on Nolan’s own lack of personal relationships but Nolan is better at deflecting then House is. Nolan throws out some scenarios with Lydia and House’s relationship record and asks House, “What’s the ending to the story?” “I don’t know,” House answers honestly. Nolan is lucky the scene ends because the last time someone asked him a question that he didn’t know the answer to she got kissed. And kissed well, I might add.
House is waiting for Lydia on the piano bench. She sits by him and he asks her why she kissed him. She smiles and says, “I like you. It felt like a nice way to show you.” Direct question. Direct answer. And that, my friends, is how two adults with adult-level interpersonal skills relate to each other. None of this “Are you messing with me?”or “I need to make her mad” kind of nonsense. Hey, could we get Cuddy to Mayfield for a bit. I think they offer outpatient therapy for their “Adult Communication in Relationships” program.
House is happy with her response and turns around to play piano for her. He plays the same song she was playing when they first met. He is a romantic. He keeps turning and catching her eye while playing. House…is….flirting. Then the anvil falls when a nurse wheels in Freedom Master with his multiple casts and bruises. Happy feeling gone.
During his session with Nolan, House confesses that he was happy for about five minutes and that’s how life is. Nolan chastises him for valuing failures more than successes. House counters that success lasts only until someone screws them up. Failures are forever. (Not the best Bond film, in my opinion.) Nolan tells House to acknowledge failure then move on! House is in perpetual self-demeaning mood thanks to a horrible father who told him he should be. He can’t move on because he doesn’t want to be under the next shoe when it drops. House is instructed to apologize to Freedom Master, make amends and move on.
House tries to do as instructed before the next group therapy session, but backs out, leaving Freedom Master silent again in the wheelchair. Beasley cheerily announces a talent show for the ward. Frustrated by the inane chattering, House tries to again help Freedom Master bounce back by retrieving the “voice box” for Annie. The “voice box” is actually a music box being stored in the nurses’ station. He gives the box to Freedom Master, but receives no response. He’s just as out of it as he was before. House yells at him to talk. Nolan intervenes and tells House to stop trying to fix the problem instead of moving on. House is left alone in the rec room completely beaten. He has no faith in himself to do anything besides what he has done for years, which is withdraw.
The next day Lydia brings him sheet music for four hands. She’s excited to share this experience with him, but he rains on her parade. He wants to know what’s going on. She says she is just enjoying the here and now and doesn’t know. House needs to know, that’s a huge chunk of his persona. He’s too scared to venture out if he doesn’t know what’s out there. So he does what he knows to do. He breaks up the relationship and walks away. Yes, he’s an expert at that. House takes HUGE steps backwards and my hopes for a brighter season are dashed upon the rocks of reality.
Later, during group therapy, House receives a day pass from Nolan. Nolan has also requested that House meet him. House meets Nolan at another hospital. Nolan is beside the hospital bed of an older man hooked up to all sorts of machines. A quick glance at the older man’s wrist tag reveals him to be Nolan’s father. Nolan has been crying. He tells House that the cleaning lady found his dad on the floor. The doctors are telling him to pull the plug, but he wanted a second opinion. House received the day pass for a consult. House looks at the charts and confirms that Nolan’s dad is gone. There’s no hope. House begins to berate Nolan about the true reason Nolan wanted House to come, but Nolan tearfully pleads with him to stop. Surprisingly, House not only stops, but his features soften as he takes off his coat and pulls up a stool. He sits across from Nolan bedside and does a very grown-up thing: he lends empathetic, quiet support. Our Little Greggy is growing up. Sniff.
House returns to the hospital to find Lydia crying in the dark in the Ward 6 rec room. Hey, I know she’s a regular but really? Would she be allowed there so late? Hmmmm. Okay, I’m over it. It’s a bit contrived but it makes for a great scene. So House approaches her hesitantly because he thinks she’s crying over him. The ego never goes away. She laughs and says he is not the cause of her tears. She had had the dream of bringing the cello for Annie and snapping her out of her daze, but it didn’t happen. Lydia calls herself pathetic. House comforts her by saying everyone is pathetic and that makes life interesting. Lydia is sick of life being interesting. Lydia is defeated. And nothing is more desirable to House than a woman defeated. Seriously. Check out his track record. He coaxes Lydia into a slow dance without music which soon evolves into a slow dance without clothes. Uh-huh. Again…Ward Six needs to review its rules and regulations when a patient and a visitor are able to have sex in a locked office in the middle of the night. The scene however is wonderfully shot and beautiful and House finally connects with someone in a way that hasn’t happened since Stacy version 1.0 over a decade ago. There is definitely something healing and cathartic about physical human contact between two people who are more concerned with giving comfort than receiving comfort. True selfless behavior…although they both do get a little something something out of it in the end. Wow. House is so touched by the experience and amazed at the depth of the connection that his eyes glisten with unshed tears as they fade to commercial. If it were up to me, I’d give you every acting award in the world, Mr. Laurie.
We are finally at the talent show and we see Beasley and Diane dancing to the Macarena. Then Jay, Booger and Hal perform the saddest version of “You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You” I have ever witnessed. It’s then Alvie’s turn to take the stage. House is leaning on the wall in the background. He’s there, but not really involved. Alvie begins to rap but just as he gets to the last line of a verse he can’t come up with the rhyme. He freezes and there is uncomfortably long pause until House saves Alvie by piping up with a rhyming line. Alvie is grateful and continues, but it happens again. And again House finishes the rap. Alvie then just calls a reluctant House on stage where he helps Alvie finish his performance and actually enjoys himself. He finally makes eye contact with Lydia, who smiles approvingly at him from the audience.
House is in another session with Nolan. Kindly, House actually asks Nolan how he is doing following his father’s death. Nolan thanks him for the concern. When asked the same question, House states somewhat unbelievingly, “Things are actually…good.” What passes as a smile creases House’s mouth.
We return to the rec room of Ward 6 and House approaches Freedom Master, who is still clutching the music box. He sits next to him and softly apologizes for everything. Nothing dramatic happens, but House doesn’t expect it to. He is just moving on. He stands to wheel Freedom Master to get his meds. As they pass by Annie, Freedom Master barely lifts his hand in a gesture to give Annie her box. House sees this and backs up, allowing Annie to see the box and accept it. She opens it and listens to it before turning back to Freedom Master and saying, “Thank you.” Freedom Master softly responds, “You’re welcome.” The occupants of the ward stand by in awe watching the scene unfold. Now, I’m as jaded as the next viewer when it comes to prefab-by-the-numbers-make-you-cry moments, but I did get misty-eyed and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I guess my heart grew just a few more sizes that day. House is waiting at the elevator for Lydia and grabs hold of her hand to lead her into the rec room. “I have a surprise,” he says. He opens the door for her and we hear the beautiful notes of a cello being played by Annie. Annie is completely caught up in playing and Lydia immediately begins to cry in happiness. House watches her, happy because she is so happy. Another lesson learned, I think. Everyone watches Annie come back to life as she plays.
We are at another goodbye party and House is shocked to find out it’s for Annie. He storms into Nolan’s office and demands to know why someone who hasn’t spoken for over 10 years is suddenly going home. Nolan gently tells him that Annie is being transferred to another facility…in Arizona. Her family is going with her. All the wind goes out of House’s sails. Nolan tells him he just found out. Rather than go ballistic, House calmly asks for an overnight pass. Nolan tries to talk him out of it, but House is insistent…although not belligerent. In fact, he even throws in a “please” at the end and Nolan gives him a pass.
A taxi pulls up to a house later that night. House steps out of the taxi and approaches the door. His knock is answered by a young boy. House asks if his mom is at home and the boy wants to know who wants to know. Lydia comes to the door and sends her son back into the house. She steps out and closes the door, but not completely. House asks her why she didn’t say anything to him about leaving. He doesn’t want her to go. He doesn’t want things to change. House does not do well with change. Lydia affirms that she doesn’t want to leave either, but she can’t break up her family. They’ve always talked about moving to Arizona, where her husband’s work is based, but couldn’t until now. Poor House, his good deed just ruined his chance with a relationship with Lydia. He can’t win! She apologizes for not saying goodbye, but admits that she thought it ended “kinda perfect.” She caresses his face and then goes back into the house, leaving him standing there on the porch.
Nolan walks into the parking lot back at Mayfield and finds House sitting on the retaining wall by his car. Nolan doesn’t admire House’s use of an overnight pass. House has nothing to say except, “She’s gone. And…I’m lost.” He is trying not to cry and I just want to hug my television set in the hopes it will somehow make him feel better. Nolan sits down next to House. “I’m gonna write your letter,” he states. “I’m going to recommend that you get your medical license back.” House says he doesn’t want a lollipop to make him feel better. Nolan shakes his head. He tells House that he’s ready. House connected enough with someone that it hurts him to lose that connection. House also experienced pain and failure but didn’t escape the problem through vicodin AND House came back to Mayfield to TALK with a man whom he trusts. House has just pulled a hat trick in the game of his recovery. The realization dawns on House as well. He has succeeded and he will enjoy it and not look for a way to ruin it.
We see the Ward Six gang gathered in the rec room for another goodbye party and this time it’s for House. Even Dr. Nolan has arrived and indeed is leading the celebration. House seems happy and genuine smiles cross his face frequently. They say the mantra and he blows out the candle of the big Re-Birthday cake. He gives Beasley a hug and I’m glad my vision of House ruining her never materialized. After initially rejecting a hug from Alvie, “Back off. Everyone here already thinks we’re gay,” House does give his roomie a big bear hug and pinches Alvie’s butt in the process. So much for squashing that rumor. Everyone claps for House and his accomplishment and House feels and accepts their support. Then, in an act that I totally think was unscripted, House faceplants into the center of the cake. The room erupts in laughter and in replaying the scene many extras are completely caught off-guard and begin to laugh hysterically. It’s funny. House takes a bow and we cut away to the outside of Mayfield. Now cake-free, House is packed up and ready to leave. He looks out at the road that Wilson drove him on to bring him to Mayfield three longs months ago and smiles. An honest-to-goodness smile. Yup. I hum the Rocky music to myself as he walks down the steps and to the bus station. Hey, how come Wilson can’t pick him up, too? Maybe the writers were extending the “He’s-doing-this-alone” metaphor some more. Whatever. I would have liked to see Wilson see the happy, drug-free House on his triumphant walk out of the mental hospital.
Alvie is watching from the rec room and makes his own decision. He walks over to the nurses’ station and asks for his meds. So he can get better. Dr. Beasley smiles and gets him his meds.
Back out in front the bus arrives. As it pulls in front of House a big sign that reads “Prepare to Succeed” on the side of the bus fills the screen. Those writers are very clever or beating a dead horse, you decide for yourself which one it is… House boards the bus and goes to the back. It reminds me of the final bus scene in Wilson’s Heart. A-ha! Maybe they’re using the bus to make the connection that when House got off that bus in his dream and back into life he didn’t REALLY get back into life, but NOW he will soon be getting off the bus to start a new life with the skills he needs to be successful. Or then again….it’s just a bus. See. This is why it’s taking me so long to finish this recap. I keep over-cleverfying the writers. Whew. The camera pulls back to reveal House is now wearing Alvie’s smiley-face tshirt from the beginning of the episode and House smiles serenely, yet with a gleam of mischief in his eyes, into the camera. Fade to black.
Hooray! House is happy. And although I know it won’t be constant it’s not supposed to be. See, House has learned that being happy is good and although happiness is fleeting the attempts at happiness shouldn’t be. I don’t expect a kinder, gentler House. That would be boring, but I do expect a more 1st season, less-bitter House. The one I fell in love with long ago. Some will argue that much of the episode was OOC, BUT that’s the point. House needed to get out of character because his character wasn’t working. It’ll also be interesting to see how all the other broken people around House now interact and deal with someone not broken. House, as a rule, surrounded himself with damaged people so he wouldn’t feel so alone. Now, he has the skills and knowledge to defeat that behavior. Hmmmm. Should be interesting. I am looking forward to it. Yes, indeed. Thanks to everyone who made it all the way to the end. I hope you liked it. Talk to you next week when another new episode of House airs. That sounds so good it almost makes me cry….
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