House: I Kissed A Girl

This week on House: tricks, treats, 13, lots of needles, a spider, a hooker–and oh yeah, B1 H0TT13Z D01N 1T 4U !!! Looks like Halloween and Christmas are both coming to Princeton early this year. Ho ho ho, off we go!

13 is getting some action. I could give you details, but there are plenty of websites for that kind of thing. Besides, it’s exactly what they’re expecting me to do. You just know the producers have been sitting on this bit of storyline and waiting to pull it out when they need a ratings boost. And it’s not even sweeps yet! What kind of sucker do they take me for… hey wait, there are B1 H0TT13Z on my TV! What was I saying again?

Bubbles gets up to rinse out her mouth or something. The other woman demands that she come back to bed, and 13 makes a face like she’s gone from Afterglow to Morning After in record time. The other woman falls out of bed and has a seizure. Now 13 has to take her one-night-stand to the hospital and introduce her to all her cow-orkers. Awkward. What’s more, she doesn’t know the other woman’s name.

Got that not-so-fresh feeling?

Cameron, who was working in the ER at 3 AM when the Patient of the Week came in, is giving House all the boring details of the case and saving the only interesting one for last. Either she’s doing that on purpose to tease House, or she has even less of a sense of humor than I thought. Either way, she plays it straight. Straight? See what I did there? Oh, this is going to be fun. “According to Dr. Hadley, who was with her last night…” and House is off and drooling.

Name That Disease: the Uncomfortable Silence Round

13 is on the hot seat (so to speak) as the Houseguests discuss whether the problem is drugs, blood clots, history of weird medical conditions (a bleeding eyeball? Gross!) or something else. House is letting the insinuendoes fly and Bubbles doing a pretty good job of keeping her cool. I’m not sure I buy it though. Five seasons of medical stress and no Houseguest has ever just up and lost it when House gets in their grill. Cameron used to burst into tears at the drop of a hat, but that’s Cameron for you. 13 is supposed to be all damaged, and there’s the small matter of a death sentence on her head, but she doesn’t bat an eye. BTW, I love it that everyone on the show (except Cuddy) calls her 13 now. House has her go collect a bone marrow sample from the Patient of the Week and follows her in so he can watch. So giant needles turn House on. Mmmkay then.

13 does her usual sarcastic introduction as House asks the 6 to her 9 all the usual medical questions. You know, stuff like how good Bubbles was in bed. The POW gives as good as she gets–to House, get your mind out of the gutter–and is happy to give it up. The deets, I mean! Shame on you, House, now you’ve got me doing it too. I’m skeptical, and so is 13. She figures out that the POW wasn’t fazed by House’s routine because she knew his reputation already. She must have slept with 13 to get to House. Color her James Bond, and color 13 pissed. The POW replies that she didn’t have to try very hard. Ouch.

What’s 13 – 6?

Meanwhile, Wilson’s back, and House is giddy about it. He listens at Wilson’s office door until he hears a thump, then goes in. House’s idea of a practical joke was to remove one of the wheels from Wilson’s chair so he’d fall over when he sat in it. I have a four-year-old boy who thinks along the same lines. He also put a donut and a carton of milk on the floor to cushion the blow. Wilson keeps his cool and scarfs the donut–which tells House that he is lying about going to breakfast before work. So House runs to his OTHER sidekick (yes, Lucas is back this episode) and tells Jimmy Olsen to spy on Robin. Jimmy says that people change, friendships change, and House should just drop it.

Name That Disease: the Breaking and Entering Round

Whatever they ruled out from the last round of tests leaves drugs as a possibility. Bubbles figures out that this gives House and Foreman an excuse to ransack her apartment. She won’t give them her key though, so House uses the one that Lucas made for him. Yep, he has keys to all the Houseguests’ places. Except Foreman’s. House says Foreman is too boring to investigate, and come to think of it, he’s right. Foreman has been pretty boring except for that time he got bloody eyes and almost died. Cue the start of a multi-episode Foreman subplot.

House returns from his fishing expedition empty-handed except for a brown recluse spider and… (DUN DUN DUN) an asthma inhaler. So 13 has asthma. House wants to know why she’s so secretive about the boring details of her life. Um, maybe if you were a bit discreet with the not-so-boring ones? Just a guess. He has her go do a full-body search on the POW to check for spider bites. Which in this hospital involves standing naked in front of a window while a doctor runs her hands over your entire body. The POW is still interested in Bubbles, who makes it clear that she wants to wash her hands of this chick just as soon as she finishes doing the strip search. Well, until the POW puts some hollow-eyed sick person moves on her. Who couldn’t resist that? Anyway, no spider bites, so 13 runs back to House to find out what to do next. He says to check for kidney calcifications. Aren’t those what normal people call kidney stones?

House and Jimmy Olsen are on stakeout outside Wilson’s place. He’s playing Grand Theft Auto, and stopping at all the red lights. That’s so Wilson. What’s not Wilson is the hooker that shows up at his door. House is flummoxed. “But Wilson doesn’t buy his… pizza.” “Things change,” Lucas shrugs.

Does the 30-minute guarantee still apply?

The Houseguests are surgically removing kidney stones from the POW. I don’t think you get to have surgery for kidney stones, do you? Everyone I’ve known who had them said they had to go through hell and back waiting for them to pass. If I never get one, I’ll call it a successful life. As 13 watches from the press box, Foreman enters and gives her the thing from her apartment that she hoped House wouldn’t find: a test result that says her disease gives her even less time to live than she thought. He tells her to quit partying and take care of herself. She calls him judgmental and walks. Down on the field, they’re wrapping up the surgery when the POW quits breathing. “We need to intubate!” hollers Louie.

Medical reality check sidenote: In case you’ve never watched ER or that lame movie where Hayden Christensen doesn’t go to sleep during surgery, intubation is when they stick a tube down your windpipe into your lungs so a machine can breathe for you. General anesthesia makes you paralyzed, so you couldn’t breathe unless they did it. So if she’s not breathing, it’s probably because they should have intubated her *before* the operation. That explanation brought to you courtesy of Ms. Copyhacker, the medical consultant for this column and the person who fixes my spelling of big medical words. But enough boring facts. How could we have a Tense Operation this week if we bothered with facts?

Name That Disease, Random Analogy Round

The boys discuss the latest developments. House wants to know where 13 is and Foreman covers for her. Kumar takes a stab at the week’s Random Analogy, which is really lame. Something about a distribution plant and deliveries, just to say that maybe her airway collapsed. (Sidenote part 2: if her airway collapsed, then intubation would have been impossible or at least ineffective. Came up with that one on my own! Hah!) I’m going to start coming up with silly analogies for everything. If the driver keeps taking detours, he’s never going to get the kids to Disney on time. So maybe I should get back to the recapping. House has the boys put “13′s carpet cleaner” on a treadmill to test her lung function. “And someone find the carpet,” he barks. Hey, my carpet needs cleaning, come to think of it. I’ll probably have to get down on my knees and do it myself. (No, my *real* carpet. In my office upstairs. What did you think I meant? Perverts.)

Foreman confronts House and says his brother told him that Lucas did a background check on him after all. House says he didn’t find anything interesting. Foreman gloats, but he’s forgotten House’s power to twist any argument around so he wins no matter what. He sneers at Foreman for being boring. Foreman shuts up.

Meanwhile, Cuddy happens to walk in on the aforementioned carpet. The carpet hiding in an empty room and giving herself an IV. Not drugs, just fluids. Apparently the carpet has been out partying all night again, and I can’t stretch the joke any farther, so moving on. Cuddy wants 13 to take a drug test. “You can’t make me do that,” says 13. Really? Can’t employers require drug tests? If not, I’ve filled up a lot of little cups for nothing. House tells Cuddy (his boss, in case you forgot) to back off, and because she has no backbone whatsoever, she stands there with her mouth hanging open as they leave. Out of earshot, House fires Bubbles because her lifestyle is getting in the way of her job. Bubbles stands there with her mouth hanging open as House leaves. Jerkwad 2, Spineless Chicks 0.

House celebrates his victory over the opposite sex by plopping down on Wilson’s couch. “I haven’t sat on this couch for four months. It remembers my cheeks.” Do I even have to touch that one? While House’s cheeks and Wilson’s… couch… have a good time getting reacquainted, House asks Wilson what he’s been up to lately. Wilson hems and haws and finally tells House he’s seeing a woman who used to be a prostitute, but she has a heart of gold and he’s going to put her through law school and blah blah Wilson-touchy-feely-I’m-going-to-save-her babble. “If you’re happy, I’m…” House breaks off and dashes out. Was that a lightbulb? I’m confused.

“So who else has sat on your couch since I’ve been gone?”

13 is going over the POW’s X-rays hoping to find something that will get her un-fired. Foreman comes in to apologize for being judgmental. They find something that makes them think the POW has cysts in her lungs and the treadmill test is going to make her lungs explode, which sounds really awesome. Has that poor woman been on the treadmill this whole time? No wonder her lungs are exploding. 13 charges in on the test to find the POW on the floor with a collapsed lung, just in time to perform Shocking Medical Procedure #23: slam a big needle into the patient’s chest to un-collapse it. This doesn’t get her un-fired, of course. The other Houseguests stand up for her, but Dad calls their bluff and sends them all packing.

Outside, House tells Jimmy Olsen the news about Robin, and asks him to find some dirt on Wilson’s hooker girlfriend so he can chase her away. That shouldn’t be hard. Louie gives House the POW’s latest test results. House goes back inside and tracks down 13 in the women’s locker room so he can tell her his new theory: “Why not men?” Well, doc, maybe it’s because you’ve done such a great job representing. He thinks Bubbles isn’t being self-destructive because men would be more likely to beat up on her. Instead, she’s going after women like herself because the whole dying-young thing has given her control issues. Speaking of dying young, the test results say that the patient has a lung disease that will kill her in ten years. He wants 13 to break the news, since she’s into the control thing. 13 agrees, saying no one should have to hear that kind of news from House. That’s Doctor Sees Self In Patient again, for those of you playing along at home. We really should come up with a House drinking game. Closeup of House making his “I hate it when they get the last word” face.

Does this jacket make me look butch?

13 breaks the news and they do surgery to take the cysts out, but they’ll come back eventually. 13 bonds with her erstwhile one-night-stand by revealing that they’re in the same boat. You know what? I feel sorry for all these innocent patients who come down with mystery diseases just so the doctors can learn about themselves. The really good episodes are when they skip the middleman and the doctors are the ones getting sick. I’d say we’re due for another one of those when sweeps roll around next month. Who’s it going to be this time? My money’s on Cuddy, because what else has she got to do? 13 asks if she can come back later. Warm fuzzy time is interrupted by more bleeding by the POW. Hey, didn’t the same thing happen last week? Well, they haven’t even upgraded the Houseguests to v2.0 in the opening credits. Reduce, reuse, recycle, I guess.

Unfortunately not. How about my hair?

Name That Disease: The Kitchen Sink Round

Bubbles wants to keep playing, even though she’s still fired. “So you like her now that she’s dying,” scoffs House. “What happens if she stops dying?” House sends the boys to test her for everything they can think of, and tells 13 to get out. He’s being really cold to her, which means he thinks he’s teaching her a valuable lesson. Like, if your boss is a misanthropic bastard, GTFO already. I think I’d have learned that lesson by now. Foreman goes ask Chase if he’s really as boring as House says. “Yes, you’re boring. That speech was boring,” says the pot to the kettle. Well, only one of them is black, so um, bad analogy, never mind. They should really have more interaction between Foreman and the other 1.0 Houseguests. They have tons more chemistry than the newbies. Why do we have newbies again? Oh, that’s right, B1 H0TT13Z, and I still can’t think of a good reason to keep Taub around.

Meanwhile, 13 is having a snuggle with the Bride of Frankenstein and trying not to get tangled in tubes and wires. How sweet. House comes in and tells 13 that the POW needs a bone marrow transplant, and she needs to get her consent. Next stop, his office, where Lucas is doing one of House’s favorite things: bouncing a ball against the wall. He shows House some syringes he found in Wilson’s trash. House figures out that Wilson knew he was spying and played him for a sucker. It’s great seeing House get fooled. House is still suspicious about where Wilson was the other morning, but Wilson won’t tell.

13 tells House that she’s out of control and about to hit bottom. But he hires her back anyway. Shocking, I know. About that lesson he was trying to teach her. He fired her so she’d spend more time with the Bride of Frankenstein and make a meaningful connection. 13 is angry until House notices her lips are dry. I’ll let you make up your own punchline for that one. He asks if 13 ever saw the POW cry tears. After a very scientific experiment involving an onion (“it was either this or put on Brian’s Song, and I didn’t have time to stop by Wilson’s”), House confirms that the POW has some disease that gives her a dry mouth, which gave her a candida infection which she then passed on to Bubbles. House gives his prescription for the Miracle Cure and hits the road. “Another life saved by girl-on-girl action.”

Foreman talks to 13 in the locker room. She feels alone again now that her sweetie isn’t dying. She’s tired and is going home. Prediction: that Foreman story arc I mentioned will involve a piece of Bubbles. Any takers? Meanwhile, House tracks Wilson to a baby furniture store, and finds Cuddy buying baby stuff on the DL. She’s adopting a baby. House looks less than thrilled to find that he’ll have to go through a rugrat to get to Cuddy. Well, that was kind of a letdown. Wilson dating the hooker (or Cuddy) would have been more interesting.

In the last scene we find 13 at home, but evidently not too tired to, um, do some carpet cleaning. On a brand-new carpet she picked up somewhere.

But does it match the drapes?

So not as strong as last week, but not a bad episode. Some random predictions for sweeps: House and Lucas fight over Cuddy. Lucas has the edge since I can’t see House playing pattycake. Both of them are jealous of Cuddy’s GBF Wilson. Foreman and 13 hook up. Some doctor gets sick. Someone is probably about due to be killed off. Does David Shore have the stones for it? Hide and watch!