Recap: House: Fat Scratch Fever

So how ’bout those election returns? I’d have finished my recap sooner, but I spent all Tuesday night glued to the set, waiting to see if any of the candidates I’d voted for won. Alas, it was another rout for the Libertarian party. We can’t even win a seat on the local school board any longer. Why is that? Personally, I blame Tabloid Baby.

Now that we can forget about politics for another two years, let’s check in on our favorite curmudgeon: me. Actually, I meant House. Although sometimes when I’m “with” myself, I think of House, so it’s an honest mistake. Especially now that I’m limited to the use of my left hand. Man-crushes on top of dislocated fingers suck. This week’s episode starts off with two firefighters carrying a big piece of wood around. I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but it does give me an excuse to write “big piece of wood.” The one firefighter (let’s call him the “unfunny” one) is trying to tell a joke. The joke isn’t really all that funny (hence the unfunny moniker), but it’s still better than 90% of what we saw on Last Comic Standing this summer. I bet if Josh Blue had told it, though, people would have laughed. Because everyone loves laughing at cripples. And by everyone, of course, I mean me.

Anyway, right as the unfunny one delivers the punch line, another giant piece of wood falls from the sky and almost lands on him. Two chances to write “giant piece of wood” in the first few minutes? I can already tell this is going to be a good episode. The camera pans to another group of firefighters standing a few stories up, looking through a giant hole they just cut in the wall of the building.

Upstairs, the firefighters gather around a ginormous fat dead guy. That explains the hole they just cut in the wall. Although it doesn’t explain how they plan on getting him down. Hell, it doesn’t even explain how they plan on getting him out of the bed. When they try to lift him, someone in the room lets a loud fart. Each of them does the “he who smelt it dealt it” blame game, when it finally occurs to them that maybe it was the dead guy. But corpses don’t fart, do they? Because according to Corpse Bride, they only queef.

One of the firefighters tells the others it must’ve been the dead guy who farted. After all, dead bodies are full of all kinds of gases. Another firefighter points out that a dead body can’t have a tight sphincter, though. And you need a tight sphincter to fart. So it couldn’t have been the dead guy. The first firefighter insists that a loose sphincter is necessary to fart. Jebus, what kind of porn are these guys watching?

Finally, the guy in charge sticks his hand in the fat guy’s pants and tells everyone he’s still alive. I don’t even want to know what he’s basing that on. Still, once they find out the patient is alive, they stop picking on him for being fat and start picking on him for his gassy ass.

At the hospital, Cuddy and the Outhouses and trying to figure out what’s wrong with the patient. Cuddy? Where’s House? That’s just what Cuddy wants to know too. He’s late, and it’s not like him to be late. Especially since she just implemented a new “No Late” policy. Because House is all about obeying the rules.

Even though the hospital scale only goes up to 350 pounds, Cuddy takes a guess that the guy is over 600 pounds, based in part on his seven foot waist. Chase says the guy is obviously diabetic and must have blood thicker than pancake batter, so there’s nothing they can do for him. Except tap him for syrup in the fall. But Cuddy says all his tests are normal. His cholesterol’s even lower than hers. Even more perplexing, however, is that it’s almost eleven and House still isn’t in.

So just where is he?

In jail. It’s the morning after House’s arrest for speeding, possession and driving under the influence. Although the cop (DMo) was really just getting back at House for leaving a rectal thermometer in his pooper for a couple of hours. House is stuck in a cell with a guy who keeps sings “She’s Having My Baby” over and over again. This is just how I imagine sg-dub’s bachelor party ended. I know DMo is trying to teach House a lesson, but couldn’t he have just waterboarded him instead? This is just inhumane.

House starts yelling for Gomer Pyle to come let him out. Instead, it’s DMo who answers the call. He comes in to talk with House, who is still unrepentant for his sphincteral indiscretions. House tells DMo to either arraign him or let him go. Or, at the very least, could he let House put a rectal thermometer in his cellmate?

Wilson pays House’s $15,000 bail and asks what happened. When House won’t tell Wilson what’s going on, Wilson recites the list of charges. Guess he wanted to see where his money was going after all. House blows the whole thing off as DMo’s vendetta. And immediately starts taking more pills. I know he’s in pain and needs the drugs, but considering a maniac cop is out to get him, you’d think he’d at least wait until they got out of the police parking lot before he starts up with the Vicodin. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh could last longer than that. Actually, I heard Rush just had someone give him an Oxycontin suppository in his cell.

The Outhouses are forging ahead on their own, but without House they’re kind of floundering around. Doesn’t stop them from picking on each other as if they were House though. Foreman says the way the big guy’s been popping pills lately, he wouldn’t be surprised to find out House was in a coma himself. And just then House hobbles in. So much for the coma idea.

He won’t tell the Housemates what happened, but he says he knows about the case because he could hear them talking through the wall in Wilson’s office. Which means they need to stop talking about how pathetic Wilson is. Or at least start talking more softly. House orders them to start treating Jabba for Pickwickian syndrome, which we all know is the combination of severe obesity and obstructive sleep apnea, which causes hypoxia and hypercapnia and results in marked daytime somnolence. Or, as House says, “his 96 double ZZs are putting pressure on his chest and suffocating him.” Foreman says his CO2 and oxygen levels are normal, however. “For you and me,” House says. “But what’s normal for a hippopotamus?”

House wants a medical history from the patient. Cameron asks who they should get it from: he was brought in alone. And Chase doubts a guy who weighs 600 pounds ever bothered with annual physicals. Let alone searching under his folds for stray bits of ham. “Talk to the neighbors, search the house,” House tells them. “Let’s see what else Shamu has been up to besides eating.” And then he says the conversation is over because he’s officially run out of clever things to call the guy.

Chase and Foreman are having trouble hooking the patient up to the various monitors House wants him hooked to. Chase starts getting all uppity about how people shouldn’t be allowed get so fat and still expect to be treated. Finally, Foreman asks if Chase got beat up by a gang of fat kids in grade school. Or maybe he just had to sit through Divine’s appearance on Inside the Actor’s Studio one too many times.

Cameron, meanwhile, is searching the patient’s apartment. She’s let in by a neighbor, who tells Cameron the only thing she really knows about George (the patient) is that he doesn’t seem to have any friends, and he loves to cook. Four-course gourmet meals almost every night, and sometimes for lunch. But what about breakfast? It is the most important meal of the day. Oh, and he also has a string of girls coming in on a regular basis. “Young, attractive, never the same one twice, if you know what I mean,” she says. “There can’t be many women who’d want to be with a guy like him.” That’s right, our gourmand has a taste for the whore. Or sorority girls. Same dif.

Back at the clinic, House is listening to some idiot talk about his arm pain. Seems it hurts when he sleeps on it. First House recommends not sleeping on it, but when the patient balks at that, House suggests amputation. At that, the patient calls House crazy and runs out of the room. And just who is standing outside the room? DMo.

But why exactly is DMo there? He was just bringing Cuddy up to speed. It’s fun watching House and DMo glower at each other as each ingests their drug of choice. House says the way DMo’s going at his nicotine gum, it’s obviously not having the desired effect. DMo’s an addict. And he’ll be back at the butts within a month. Think House was talking about cigarettes or rectal thermometers? Doesn’t matter, as DMo isn’t intimidated by House in the least: “I think working around a bunch of nurses has given you a false sense of your ability to intimidate,” he says. “Not to mention your ability to pee standing up.”

Cameron and Foreman show up just as DMo is leaving. Curious, they ask who he is. “Apparently, Cuddy has widened her sperm donor search to include Neanderthals,” House answers, inadvertently letting it slip that Cuddy is trying to get pregnant without the benefit of copulation. He tries covers it up, though, saying it was a joke, and quickly changes the subject, asking what they’ve learned about George. Foreman says all the tests were negative, but Isiah Washington called him a bitch. Cameron thinks that George and House have the same tastes in home furnishings and women. “Danish modern and Russian gymnasts?” asks House. “No, American Furniture Warehouse and whores,” is Cameron’s response. Not really. Everyone knows there aren’t any American Furniture Warehouses on the East Coast. Although what they lack in cheap furniture they certainly make up for in cheap whores.

House tells them to give George an MRI. Can’t. The table only holds 450 pounds. Then how about a CT? Nope, that table only holds 350 pounds. Since they can’t treat George if they don’t know what’s wrong with him, Cameron decides to give George the MRI anyway. Of course, she has to lie to the other staff members about his weight. Seems they don’t believe he only weighs 440 pounds. Cameron’s response? “He’s lying down.” So that’s why boobies always look different when girls lie on their backs.

Cuddy wakes up House from a nap in his office. Seems she’s taken the liberty of contacting a lawyer for him. Housie don’t need no lawyer, though. He’s not a pain doctor, he’s a pain patient. So as soon as Cuddy leaves, he wads up the name and tosses it at the trash. And he misses. Evidently this white man can’t jump or shoot.

Downstairs, the Outhouses are trying to give George his MRI before the table breaks. So far, everything is looking normal. They try to think of other tests to run, but everything they suggest, Chase says they can’t do on someone George’s size. Man, he really does hate fat people. Midway through the test, though, George wakes up and totally freaks out. Foreman and Cameron try to pull him out of the machine, but the table ends up collapsing. Who didn’t see that coming?

House and the ‘Mates are back discussing why George came out of his coma. Not to mention why he was in a coma in the first place. And Chase still keeps complaining about not wanting to treat a fat guy. Since George is no longer in a coma, he must be better. Cuddy comes in and starts yelling at House about the broken MRI table. In the middle of her tirade, Cameron covers for House, saying the test was her idea. Man, she really has a thing for this fat guy. When Cuddy backs off because Cameron says it was her idea, House says it looks like Cameron is going to be having a lot more ideas in the future: “Who knew that being bloated and bitchy could be so handy?” Besides Rosie.

House gets back to the hospital and the Housemates start in on a bunch of ideas of what could be wrong with the fat guy. Except for Chase, who still doesn’t want to treat him. House orders Foreman to check his belly, Cameron to check his nuts and Chase to continue sitting on his ass. And that’s the last we see of Chase this episode.

Now that the patient is awake, Foreman and Cameron try to get a history from him. He says there’s nothing wrong with his hormones: as long as he’s got the cash, they got the moans. (Rimshot!) He says since he’s out of the coma, he must be fit to go home. Fit being a relative term of course. Next he starts rattling off a bunch of statistics that make me never want to go to a hospital again. Bottom line? He’ll come back in for the tests, but he wants to go home. Now.

House and Wilson are talking about why Cameron has such a case of fat scratch fever. Was she fat? Was someone in her family fat? Is she overcompensating for her beauty by being super nice to ugly people? Wilson says the patient reminds Cameron of House, which really doesn’t explain a thing. Then he tells House to call the lawyer. The Outhouses show up and tell House that in addition to George’s tests all coming back negative, he’s insisting he wants to leave. So now it’s up to House to turn on his considerable bedside manner to convince him otherwise. This can’t go well.

And it doesn’t. House tries to berate George into staying: either he’s crazy or he already knows what he has. George says if he knew what was wrong, he’d tell House. He’s not an imbecile, and he’s not miserable, he’s just overweight. Yeah, that explains everything.

In the middle of their argument, House gets a phone call and rushes home. Seems DMo got a search warrant to go through House’s house and found over 600 Vicodins. 600? Damb. I know I drink a lot of beer, but aside from Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, July 4th and Arbor Day, you’d be hard-pressed to find 600 beers in my house at any one time.

Later, back at the hospital, Cameron is trying to talk House into keeping George. But House wants to send him home. She thinks it’s because he’s so wrapped up in his own problems that he doesn’t care about George. House? Self-absorbed? Say it isn’t so…

House eventually finds Wilson and starts yelling at him for talking to DMo. Seems House thinks it’s Wilson’s fault that his apartment was searched. He must have said something to the cops. After all, House certainly didn’t talk to the cops. Yeah, but Wilson isn’t the one who left a thermometer in a cop’s ass either. Jeez you two, just get a room.

While those two are busy fighting, Cameron is trying hard to dissuade George from leaving. Unfortunately, he can’t smell what the Cam is cooking, so she agrees to let him go. On the way out, George keeps saying he wants to walk on his own, but Cameron keeps trying to talk him into staying in the chair. Undeterred, he gets up and tries to walk out. A few steps later, though, and Georgie isn’t feeling too well and grabs Cameron before falling backward through a plate-glass window. Puss. He must’ve had his ankle replaced with a vagina just like Dr. Jeff from The Biggest Loser last season.

Later, a battered Cameron tells House and Foreman not to try and diagnose why George got dizzy and passed out. Turns out she drugged him. For some reason, Cameron really wants George to stay in the hospital. Enough so that she’s even pulling some House-worthy Chenanigans.

House thinks George might have a food-born parasite feasting on his brain, because lettuce pickers poop in the fields. But since is George is too fat to run the normal tests, Cameron has to talk him into letting them cut out a piece of his brain. While he’s awake. It’s just too bad he goes blind during the middle of the procedure. I bet that would’ve never happened had Hannibal Lecter been performing the operation. Plus George would’ve got a nice snackysnack to tide him over.

After the break, it’s time for another round of Cranium: Big-Fat Edition. But this week it’s only between Cameron, Foreman and House, since Chase is still off chubby-chasing. Even missing one Outhouse, though, it’s still too confusing for me to try and keep up with. While the two notHouses continue to throw out ideas, House walks off, telling them he’s off to buy a $400 butt plug. To paraphrase the producer clip at the end of the show (and Jaws, from whence the quote came), “that’s some butt plug, Harry.”

As he’s boarding the elevator, House orders another round of tests. And Cameron asks him one final time where he’s going: “The butt plug was my way of saying ‘mind your own business’,” he tells her. “Apparently it was too subtle.” Not to mention oddly intriguing.

Back in the room, Cameron tries to talk George into submitting to another blood sugar test. Every time Cameron tries to get him to drink the sugar water, though, he knocks the glass out of his hand. Perhaps she should have offered him a taste of her sugar walls instead. George says that just because he doesn’t agree with the brilliant doctors, suddenly they think he’s suicidal. “That doesn’t make you suicidal,” counters Cameron, “it just makes you an idiot. A big fat idiot. Did I mention you’re fat? Fatty fat fat fat.” Finally, George has had it with all the heavy diagnoses. He’s been fat his entire life, and until a few days ago, he was both fine and dandy. Even, some might say, peachy and keen. So until they come up with a test that’s not based on his weight, he’s done cooperating.

Hey, remember a few minutes ago when House said he was going to buy a butt plug? Well, substitute the words “buy a butt plug” with “pay a visit to DwayneWayne” and you’ll realize he was heading off to visit his lawyer. Who just happens to be played by the one and only Kareem Hardison, refamiliarizing America with his face just in time for the casting of Season Three of Dancing with the Stars.

After going over all the charges, DwayneWayne tells House he should plea out: “I’m inclined to think your particular charm may not be immediately appreciated by a jury.” When House refuses, DwayneWayne goes over his fee schedule, which I’m sad to say is quite a bit higher than the retainer the fine folks at TVgasm give their writers.

Back in the hospital, Cameron asks House what his lawyer said. How did she know House saw a lawyer? She looked up “butt plug” in the legal dictionary. If she’d have looked it up in the legal thesaurus, she’d have learned other sexually explicit nicknames for a lawyer include asshat, douchebag and Rick Santorum.

House goes back to George’s room to try and charm him into drinking the sugar water. Unbelievably, he has even less luck than Cameron. But while he’s pouring sugar water all over George, he notices that George has clubbed fingers. Which of course means George must have lung cancer. A few tests later and we learn that not only does George have lung cancer, it’s already spread into his lymph nodes and is inoperable. With radiation, he might have a few more months, but that’s it. Hey, looks like it’s time to eat some more hookers!

Later, House tries to find out why Cameron was so interested in this case. The only answer she’ll give is that she just likes damaged people; it explains everything she does. Except, of course, for her bangs.

Meanwhile, DMo is in Wilson’s hotel room going over House’s case. He just wants to make sure that Wilson did indeed write out all the prescriptions for House that House says he did. Wilson looks at them and says they’re all his. But what about these, Herr Doktor? DMo pulls out a few more prescriptions that are clearly forgeries. After pausing for a moment, Wilson says he wrote those too. The reason the signature looks different is because he likes to change the way he signs his name every now and then, just to mix things up. The same way he likes to switch from golden showers to scat play. DMo gives Wilson one last chance to change his story, or he’ll start investigating Wilson as well. Wilson won’t sell out House, though, and says they were all written by him. Not the smartest decision he’s ever made.

So what did you think of this week’s episode? Has House finally met his match? Or will he win out in the end? And what actually happened to Chase? I’m betting George ate him.