Acute? Adorable!

It has come to my attention that many people may not have disliked last week’s episode of House as much as I did. However, I still stand my ground in saying that too much relationship discussion bores me to tears, and I would much rather have tons of medical intrigue and House Snark. I thought this week made a strong comeback after last week’s episode, and its levels of House Snark, medical intrigue and relationshippy talk were much more to my liking. There was however one of my favorite staples of an awesome House episode missing: Projectile vomit. There was a pretty shocking twist at the end, so I fully approve of this episode. Keep reading to find out the twist.We begin this week’s episode seeing a mother and her son in the hospital putting on proper attire to go see their sick son/brother. The mother says to her son that she’s so proud of him, but you know she’s totally lying. He couldn’t be more of a disappointment. They get sterilized and walk in to see Nick, who has leukemia. His younger brother, Matt (the disappointment), asks if Nick will be able to play out back when this is over, and Nick says something along the lines of yes. I think that was a lie too. Wilson walks in and tells Matt to let Nick rest while they remove Matt’s marrow. Wilson is explaining the procedure and that they want to make sure Matt is fine, because if anything is wrong with his marrow, it could kill Nick. Of course, Wilson couldn’t finish his explanation, because Matt sneezed. Oh shit…

At House’s place, he’s being woken up by a dog. I assume this is Hector, the dog of Wilson and ex-Mrs. Wilson #2, a.k.a. the ugly chick. House wakes up and looks around his room to see a bunch of his stuff has been torn up by the restless dog. It was also chewing on the handle of his cane. And drooling on it. House is not impressed.

He gets to work and everyone (Wilson, House, LittleHouses minus Foreman) is discussing the sneeze. Can’t be an allergy, and even if it’s a just a cold, it could still kill Nick. Nick only has 5 days to get a marrow transplant or he’s a goner. And because he’s African American, it makes it virtually impossible to find another donor. House knows how hard it can be though. House can’t even find the one he’s got working for him. So where exactly is Foreman?

Why, he’s in the hospital chapel! Apparently killing someone makes you religious or something. Or more religious. At least for a day or two. Anyways, Foreman says to start the kid on a broad spectrum antibiotics. House says that will take too long, and then he slaps Foreman for missing work. House’s plan is to make Matt sicker, flood his system, break the immune system and then they’ll know the problem so they can treat it. Foreman, still being a bitch about killing someone, doesn’t like that idea, and he asks why they don’t just do what they usually do, like check the house? House tells him it isn’t the house causing the problem, but he lets Foreman do it anyways.

While the others check the house, House and Wilson are talking to the parents about their plan for Matt. Once he’s infected, they can pump white blood cells back in to cure him. It’s not guaranteed, though, and House says there are no recalls, no rebates. They’re not GM. However, GM is laying a lot of people off nowadays. Death could be like a layoff, right? The parents ask what the doctors think they should do, and Wilson refuses to pick a side, although House definitely gives his opinion.

House thinks Wilson is a pussy. He doesn’t say that of course, and the parents still agreed to it, but House says Wilson needs to feel good about the parents saying yes. Wilson wants his patients to trust him, but House says that’s only useful if you manipulate them. I totally should have been a doctor. I love manipulating people. House ends it by saying that Wilson needs to let patients know they’re making a bad choice, regardless of whose choice it is.

At the family’s house, Chase tells Foreman the kitchen and the bathrooms were immaculate. Foreman, meanwhile, is checking the swing-set that hasn’t been used in 4 years. They talk about the dead girl from last week, and Foreman is starting to feel all guilty that he’s forgetting what she looked like. He’s not guilty about killing her. Seriously, it can’t be the first time he’s killed someone, and he wasn’t the only one who killed her. He needs to deal with it. Anyways, while back there, they see the pitching mound the boys used and they find an old water pump that spouts brown water when pumped. Brown, delicious. water.

Chase and Foreman return to the hospital, where Matt is starting to get pretty sick. He says he drank the water last summer, so I think that rules out that being the cause of infection. The kid says he’s experiencing soreness, but they tell him that shouldn’t be a side effect of the infection they’re giving him. Is he having any other problems? He looks at his mom. I think that’s a yes.

He’s got acute scrotum, Foreman tells House. “Adorable. Please I thought you were dignified,” responds House. It’s just testicular swelling and/or pain, I don’t know how cute it necessarily is. Also, third week recapping House, and I’ve had a 6 year old girl’s bajingo and now a 10 year old boy’s nuts to talk about. Fantastic. Foreman says he wants to search for another donor, just in case House is wrong, and House decides to let him. House is basically letting Foreman do whatever he wants apparently. Including kill patients.

Then we see Chase and Cameron in the lab. It’s Tuesday, so that means it’s time for Chase to ask Cameron out, and it’s time for her to reject him. They’re also talking medicine though, and infections are the only things that can cause swollen testicles. Well, Chase wonders if something didn’t cause the thing that cause the testicles to swell. Aside from Cameron (rimshot). She says that it could be cardiac injury. Well, it’s possible that this infection they gave him went straight to his heart. They take a look at the monitor, and he’s got a growth on one of his heart valves. It would take a month to clear completely, but the brother only has 4 days to live. Dun dun dunnnnn…

Everyone thinks this rules out the brother as a donor, but House actually thinks it’s perfect. If they can remove the valve, they can find the infection and destroy it. Then, after the surgery, harvest the marrow, remove the infection and transplant it. Wilson thinks it will work, but Foreman wants to clear it with Cuddy first. What a snitch. House thinks they should all go talk to Cuddy.

Foreman says it’s a conflict of interest, and Wilson says he’s wrong. Cuddy asks House what he thinks, and all he says is that Wilson is right, Foreman is wrong. Cuddy tells them to ask the parents, and don’t let House bully them. Then she asks House why he let Foreman come in, and House said he was trying to let him work through the yips. Foreman lost his confidence, now he’s sucking. He’s got 4 days till he’s fired, because you can’t get rid of the yips. Sidenote: how much would it suck to be the athletes listed in House’s explanation? (If you forgot or didn’t watch: David Duval, Scott Norwood, Steve Blass.)

So they go explain to the parents that this procedure is the only way both of their sons are going to live. This time they ask Wilson what to do, and he grows a pair and takes a stance. He says the parents should let the doctors do it. After they walk away, House is happy that Wilson finally did what he was told to do, but Wilson felt guilty about it. Wilson must have caught a case of the Foremans or something.

They prep Matt for surgery, and he tells Nick that Nick would do the same for him. Then Matt asks his parents if he’ll be able to play baseball soon, and they tell him to worry about it next year. So apparently they didn’t tell him that removing the valve would mean he can’t play contact sports. Cameron overheard, and she says they did the right thing. She could tell that little prick was a disappointment from the moment she saw him. I mean, if the parents were struggling with the decision, why would they expect to let a 10 year old decide? Especially one so disappointing.

They get Matt into surgery, his chest is opened up, and then House, in his apartment, gets a phone call. Wilson didn’t do the surgery because he’s lazy. And because they did a biopsy and the growth was fibrous, not infectious. House heads back to the hospital to dish out some knowledge.

Now they’ve got less than 4 days, and Matt has fibrous tissue, englarged spleen and a fever. Maybe the problem isn’t an infection and it’s actually auto-immune. If that’s the case, they can still transplant the marrow because it’s not a problem, and it’s also really easy to test for, so Wilson wants them to confirm it so they can save the sicko. Foreman isn’t so sure though. He checked the registry and he found a 4 out of 6 donor.

Cameron goes to test for auto-immune diseases, and Nick, with leukemia, has started bruising. He’s not going to last much longer. Meanwhile, House and Wilson are walking out when all of a sudden House’s cane breaks and he falls to the floor. House tells Wilson his cane broke because of the dog, and House wants to kill Hector. Cameron and Chase walk up, ask why House is on the floor, and he responds “I tripped over Wilson’s self-righteousness.” They explained the situation House and Wilson, and it was discovered that the problem isn’t auto-immune. But guess where Foreman was through this. Disobeying orders, yet again, and he told the parents about the 4 of 6 donor. Either Foreman has brass balls, or he is purposely trying to be a dick.

Wilson tells the parents about the dangers of partial match donors, and House really wants to explain graft vs. host to them explicitly. I learned how bad it could be thanks to Arrested Development. If only Tobias had removed that new hair sooner. Anyways, the parents, regardless of any convincing these two may try to do, want the donor’s marrow.

Now House is more pissed at Wilson than he is at Foreman. At least Foreman was doing what he thought was right, even though he’s a little bitch about risks suddenly. Like killing that girl had anything to do with it. House thinks that Wilson is a coward because he didn’t do anything but accept the parents’ decision. So I guess now we’re at Wilson 2, House 1 for decisions this week. Or maybe it’s House 1, notHouse 2, since Wilson isn’t really deciding anything.

Then we see a pretty cool graphic of bone marrow removal. House gets home and sees he left his door open. Unfortunately for him, the dog is still there, but his stereo is gone. So it’s been either eaten or stolen. House then walks back to his room and slams the door, and he didn’t realize Hector was following him until he heard the yelp. Once he heard it though, he looked very pleased with himself. Animal cruelty: always good for a smile.

Matt is talking to Cameron about how they know what’s wrong with his brother, but he still might die, and they don’t even know what’s wrong with him. As he’s saying this, Cameron is trying to give positive reinforcement, but Matt is itching his ear a lot. Why? His ear is dripping blood. Not in a projectile manner though, so I was a little disappointed.

Wilson meets House in some store as he’s looking for a new cane. House wants Wilson to buy it, since it was his dog who caused the problem in the first place. Wilson starts walking away, and then House APOLOGIZES. He never does that! Wilson then turns around and joins House again. House calls him pathetic because he was lying, but Wilson doesn’t buy it. Then they look at a cane with a skull for a handle, a bull-penis cane, and House’s phone rings. He learns about the bloody ear, and Matt’s marrow count is low, so they’ll have to stop his meds. If the marrow doesn’t rebound, House could be wrong about which kid will die. He hangs up, and then he finds his new cane.

It’s got flames at the bottom. House asks Foreman if he’s feeling guilty, and then House says that they’re done with Nick because they can’t do anything more for him now. However, Matt’s blood will turn to water if they can’t control his infection. House is now pissed at Foreman because of going behind his back to talk to the parents, and because of that they stopped treatment on Matt. So has he added two more kids to his list of kills?

House then gets an idea. What if they infect Nick with whatever Matt has, and they can at least find out what it is to save Matt. Kill one brother to save the other. House asks Foreman, but he doesn’t see another way either. Wilson explains it to the parents. Nick isn’t responding to his medication and his pain will get worse. House says they can leave with one dead son or two, and Wilson says the parents should let them do it. The parents aren’t on board though, and they like their odds of leaving with 2 dead sons. Maybe they’d like some alone time. They tell the doctors no.

House returns and tells everybody and asks how they can get around it. Foreman wants to keep running tests for infections, even though there are thousands to test for. They start testing, and House goes to talk to Nick and his dad. Nick is in some bad pain, and he’s maxed out his medication. House writes a prescription for more painkillers, but it seems like it’s just a ploy to talk to Nick. How do you tell a 14 year old he’s going to die, and then he should hurry the process so he can save his brother? According to House, rather bluntly. Nick then asks how he can save his brother.

Wilson and Foreman are running tests, and Wilson says House is going to fire Foreman. You either care about the job or you don’t, and if you care, you fight to keep it. Foreman seems pretty ambivalent about it though. Foreman has really been all over the place this episode, but somehow it all annoys me. Anyways, Foreman brings up the water pump again, and Wilson is confused. They have a water pump in the suburbs?

Nick is getting prepped to be infected by what Matt has, and his parents don’t want to let him do it. He won’t take no for an answer. If I had feelings I might be feeling some sort of emotions at this point. As they’re about to wheel Nick off, Foreman walks in. They know what’s wrong with Matt. Apparently, the house was built on an old farm. The farm had chickens, and the chickens shit. When Matt made that pitching mound, it was apparently made with some chicken shit, and he caught a fungal infection from it.

So now can they clean Matt’s marrow and give it to Nick? Cuddy says he doesn’t have enough because the infection was attacking his marrow. While Foreman is treating Matt, he tells him that Nick was ready to risk his life to save him. Would he want to do the same? Matt says yes, and that was all Foreman needed to hear. He’s ready to kill both of these kids and will do whatever is necessary.

Foreman tells Matt that he can’t sedate him because he’s too sick. He pulls out the giant needle and jams it into Matt. Still not enough marrow, he’ll need to stab him again. The kid is screaming to please stop, but Foreman stabs back in…

Wilson walks into House’s office, and the marrow transplant took. He thinks House should have an adult conversation with Foreman to tell him he did well, but House says Foreman knows he did well. Then Wilson says he’s allowed to have pets in his place now, so he can take Hector, unless House wants to keep him. He doesn’t, and as the dog is walking with Wilson, it’s got a limp, similar to House’s. Then House gives it some of his medicine, followed by an approving nod.

House then goes and finds Foreman and tells him that he did well. Foreman says he did what House would have done. “You tortured that kid because you knew it was right.” Foreman knows, and he hates that he knows, and he hates that he has to be like House as a person to be like House as a doctor. He says he doesn’t want to turn into House, and House tells him he’s been like House since he was 8. “You’ll save more people than I will, but I’ll settle for killing less. Consider this my two weeks notice.”

Daaaamn. So Foreman is supposedly going to quit. I was on him all episode, but I thought it was great when he took the risk of saving both kids, regardless of screaming. What did you think of the episode? Want more relationship talk? More Chase/Cameron? House/Cuddy? Wilson/Cuddy? What are they going to do if they lose the only ethnic cast member? Do you miss the projectile vomit like I did?