House: That’s Me In The Corner, That’s Me In The Spotlight

First off, what’s up with those new Fox promos? You know the ones I mean: “SO MYSTERIOUS!” “SO PROVOCATIVE!” “SO MEATY!” OK, that last one’s from The Soup, but anyway. Fox is tacky enough already without giving every show the GoDaddy treatment. (Speaking of which, if any two things do NOT belong together, it’s domain name registration and cleavage.)

A man in all black is cleaning up a community-type room after a community-type event. A homeless guy shows up asking for a coat and being somewhat picky about it. The man in black shoos him off, takes off his jacket and we see by his collar that he’s a priest. Or maybe a writer, judging by the crappy apartment, the booze and cigarettes, and the painful grimace. He gets up to answer the door and it’s Jesus knocking. Well, the Jesus from the REM video anyway. This guy has never been east of Philly by the looks of him (what you can see under the digital shadow on his face).

Is anyone else bothered that the 1.0 Houseguests are still featured in the opening credits? It’s like the show can’t commit to the new kids. Surely they have the money to reshoot six people walking down a hall with lab coats blowing in the fresh hospital breeze.

House and Cuddy are arriving at work. She invites him to the Jewish naming ceremony for baby Rachel, and if I wasn’t so lazy I’d look up the name of said ceremony. House says he has a prior commitment to a pair of hookers and sixteen crates of Jell-O, and besides, since when did Cuddy care that much about being Jewish? Cuddy begs briefly but drops it. House, looking to take out some religious angst, digs through Cameron’s ER cases until he finds the priest’s file. Cameron (who seems to be the only doctor working the ER anymore, every other actor having moved to the actual show ER) assumes the Jesus hallucination was alcohol-induced, but House knows it’s time for the semiannual House vs. God episode and bogarts the case.

Name That Disease, In Which I Should Really Be Pulling Down Some Residuals

After dispatching Loumar to look for tumors and toxins and boring first-round stuff, House tells “Foreteen” to hang back. I can’t be the first person to come up with that name, but I’m still going to have a TVgasm every time they use it. You can’t take that away from me. House says their relationship is affecting their performance on the team and he’s not going to take a “real” case until they fix it. Oh, and they have to either break up or quit before the priest’s case is solved. That baby thing must have really gotten his knickers in a wad. (If I start calling the baby Buddy–Baby Cuddy–you think they’ll pick that one up too?)

Loumar and the POW are discussing matters of faith and whether the wacky headgear they’ve put on him matches his priestly outfit. They want to know why he’s been moving around a lot. First of all, I’m not Catholic, but don’t priests tend to do that? Second of all, you know House writers love their stereotypes, so this guy was accused of doing something naughty that 99% of priests on TV and in the movies do. Oh come on. He says the kid was lying confused, and nothing ever came of it, but he was moved around to keep things quiet. Louie, who never met a stereotype he didn’t like, is ready to fry him on the spot. Anyway, the POW says he’s pretty much lost his faith after that whole kerfuffle, so surely seeing the Messiah knocking at his door was a hallucination. And if you saw Henry Poole Is Here, you’re having a spot of deja vu right about now.

Foreman and 13 talk about House’s latest stunt. Foreman isn’t interested in looking for a new job. 13 says he’s just scared to step out from under House’s shadow. He says House is just messing with them, and they should refuse to play the game. I’m pretty sure at least one person is about to get fired and un-fired. Maybe more than once. Louie and Kumar tell House they found nothing physically wrong with the POW, chalk up Jesus to too much booze, and should really send him home. Case closed. Bad news for Foreteen. They tell House they aren’t leaving or quitting, so he asks Foreman to hand over his badge. His badge? I didn’t know doctors had badges like cops. I mean yeah, they wear name badges at the hospital, but really. Good thing House didn’t just send Foreman home, because then he wouldn’t have a chance to do something heroic and get re-hired in half an hour.

Kumar and Louie are about to discharge the POW when he happens to mention that his foot is numb. Kumar looks under the sheet and finds–a runaway toe! Or so he says.

OK, I have to ask: don’t they usually amputate your whole foot (or leg) when toes start rotting off? If his toe looks that bad, what does the rest of his foot look like? But I could ponder these minor medical nitpicks until I scratched right through my skull, so moving on. The boys run to tell House about this new development and gripe about Foreman getting canned. “But they’re good doctors.” “Separately they’re great doctors–better than you,” says House, and he has a point–”but together, they’re morons.” Speaking of the morons, they’re talking about what to do for the next 20 minutes before House hires them back. Foreman thinks the relationship has indeed affected their job performance, and he’s going to go job hunting. All he needs is a recommendation from Cuddy and… hmm, maybe not the best strategy, chief. 13 is paged before she can point out the small flaw in this foolproof plan.

Kumar and Louie are ransacking the POW’s apartment looking for carbon monoxide or who knows what. Today’s moral debate is about Foreman. Should he have quit or shouldn’t he? Also, there’s some light banter about bisexuals, treasure and knowing how to use a shovel. Keep working on those metaphors, guys, you’ll get there one of these days.

In the elevator (thank you, Grey’s Anatomy, for giving us the elevator as sexual tension device), House tweaks Cuddy about the hypocrisy of having this thing for the baby when she doesn’t even keep kosher. He thinks she only invited him so he wouldn’t come, so of course he’ll be there. Cuddy runs to Wilson and chews him out for giving away her secret.

Meanwhile, the boys are asking 13 what Foreman’s going to do now. The POW is lying in a glass coffin looking thing, which I think is a hyperbaric chamber. You know, where they can turn up the air pressure so no other body parts fall off. I’m not sure how that all works, but I read a Tom Clancy book once where someone used one of these things as a torture device. It was spectacular. If one of those things were to malfunction sometime on this show… I’m just sayin, we already know the writers are reading this, right?

The POW starts banging on the walls of his coffin. He seems to be having a heart attack. Or maybe he’s trying to tell us that right now, at this very moment, Foreman is asking Cuddy for a recommendation so he can go job hunting. I mentioned there was a flaw in this plan, what could it be? Oh yeah. Cuddy’s never going to cross House. Especially after that whole mess with the drug trial. So sorry, Foreman, but no recommendation for you. I hear there’s an opening at Seattle Grace, though.

Back at HQ, we find out that the POW didn’t have a heart attack after all. So what was it? A blood clot, maybe? This is House’s cue to go taunt the POW. They have a big talk about free will and virginity. Kumar tries to chime in, but he’s way over his head. House likes this guy because he knows what he’s talking about and he’s heard all the lame anti-God arguments before. Well, of course he has, he’s a PRIEST. Best I can tell, he just thinks God has left him to go through this whole molestation thing alone. Speaking of inappropriate contact, Kumar does something to him that is supposed to hurt, but doesn’t. New symptom!

Wilson, under orders from Cuddy, now tries to talk House OUT of going to the ceremony. House says Wilson’s completed his obligation to her, but no thanks, he’s going. 13 asks Cameron for an ER job. If she switches jobs, then Foreman can go back to work for House. I didn’t know Cameron was in charge of the ER. Now the episode where she had Cuddy’s job for a day makes more sense. A bit more sense, anyway. Chase, who’s been reduced to arm candy this season, says that office romances never work out and they should break up, which earns him a slap on the wrist from his sugar mama. Cameron says she’ll pull some strings, use her vast network of MySpace friends professional connections to get 13 a job somewhere. Meanwhile, the POW has just gone blind in one eye.

Name That Disease: Return of the Silly Analogy

House begins a long and magnificent spiel about fans at a Duran Duran concert. 13 doesnt follow–”sorry, I don’t speak hair band.” “They weren’t a hair band, they were New Romantics,” says Kumar. Wow. He just earned his paycheck this week. “Why do I bother with these great metaphors?” House asks. Good question. Long story short: go check his spleen, boys. Yeah, I didn’t really follow either. I was still laughing at the New Romantics line. 13 stays behind to offer a new deal to House: she’ll quit if he hires Foreman back. House agrees, way too easily. Why would he give up all the lame bisexual jokes? Maybe because NO ONE’S EVER GETTING FIRED?! Sigh.

House has thought up some more material to heckle the POW with, so he heads back over there and accuses the priest of hanging on to one last shred of faith: if he’s cured, it’s a miracle and God still loves him. Father Obvious says it seems like House is the one looking for faith. House, foiled again, limps back out to watch The Golden Compass and come up with some more talking points. Or maybe he’s just going to take out his frustration on Cuddy, who is at this very moment emerging from… the Lucas Wing.

Cuddy disinvites House to the ceremony (or is it disinvites from? I’m confused), since he’s just going to wreak havoc. Especially after losing a religious argument to a guy who’s lost his religion. Doh. House says fine then, he won’t come. “Gosh, I feel so grown up!” He then proceeds to pull Cuddy’s hair and call her a cootie-head.

The remaining Houseguests hang out in the lab and debate whether Foreteen’s relationship will last, and is it worth sacrificing a career over? New Romantic Kumar says if you really love the person, you should hang on tight and blah blah sentimentibabble. Louie says it’s funny how the only person in the room who believes long-term relationships are hard is in a long-term relationship. Nice comeback, Louie, you get better every week!

House is asking the POW why people always seem to find religion when they have kids. Ha, this guy is the perfect priest for House to confess to. They should keep him around for a few more episodes. Maybe name a hospital wing after him. He notices House has a thing for Cuddy. They talk relationships. Everyone’s talking relationships!

The Houseguests figure out that the POW is suffering from some usually harmless bacteria found in holy water. So that means his immune system is out of whack–”Father Nietzche has AIDS.” The POW refuses an AIDS test, because if it came back false positive, it’d be the end of his priestly career. Even though he doesn’t believe in it anymore, the church is all he knows, so he wants to keep his job. Louie wants to go warn the kid that accused the POW of molesting him so he can get tested too. Kumar points out that that would violate doctor/patient confidentiality, and besides, surely the kid was tested back when the alleged incident allegedly took place.

On the home front, 13 tells Foreman she’ll quit so he can have his job back. Cameron already has something lined up for her. MySpace really came through, huh? Foreman is kinda pissed because 13 didn’t think he could get his own self a job. “House knew you’d be like this,” says 13. “Wow, I guess House knows me better than you do. Too bad I don’t go both ways.” 13 stomps out. Jeez, now Foreman with the bi jokes too? These people act like they’ve never seen an episode of The Real World.

Wilson and House are talking more hypocrisy over a nice cafeteria dinner. “Everyone’s a hypocrite,” is Wilson’s observation. Can I get an amen, brother James? I am so tired of all these hypocrites calling everyone else out on being a hypocrite. Everyone IS a hypocrite. Me included. Now who’s with me?

*crickets*

OK, moving on. Louie is in some cheap diner asking for someone who works there. It’s the POW’s accuser. “Hi, I’m Dr. Chris Taub.” His name is Chris? I’m fine with him not being a Louie, but Chris? He’s definitely more of a Louie than a Chris. Knowing that would have made the Chris the Lawyer scene from a couple weeks ago funnier. A little. Chris, Louie, whatever his name is, he’s risking his career to be here. He tells the kid that they think the POW has AIDS. The kid looks less than concerned and tells Louie it’s none of his biz. I knew he was lying. Take that, Chris.

Foreman goes to House and asks for his job back. 13 barges in and demands to know why he went to House without clearing it first with her. Well, except for that time last night they talked about it. Before you know it they’re having a tiff in front of House and he’s eating it up. 13 storms back out and House rehires Foreman. Too easy. Almost like they planned it that way, ya think?

The POW is getting treated for AIDS, which he insists won’t work because he can’t have AIDS. RIght on cue, he breaks out in hives. I think. I’ve never seen a hive, but it’s just like a bad rash, right? The Houseguests have their weekly “we don’t have a clue” meeting and start grasping at straws. Foreman and 13 disagree on everything, almost like they really broke up. House loves it.

Now the kid is coming to visit the POW and apologize for being a lying liar. Kumar all but does a fist pump. Moral Officer Chris has sad horns. The POW gets all teary-eyed. Meanwhile, House sits at his whiteboard, looking thoughtfully at it in that way that says he has two minutes to kill before the lightbulb. Who’s going to deliver the final clue this week? It’s Wilson, attempting to rationalize to House how Cuddy can have her ceremony and not be a hypocrite, so House can go to it and not be an ass. “Even if an absolute truth exists, we can’t know ALL of it,” he says. Boom boom, on go the lights. House covers up one symptom at a time on the whiteboard. When he covers up the hallucination (you know, the symptom that brought the POW in in the first place), he’s got the answer.

The POW does not have AIDS. He has some other syndrome that I didn’t catch the name of. The important thing is that it fits all the symptoms EXCEPT the hallucination of Jesus, so either Jesus was real or brought on by too much booze. And if it was booze, it was still a super lucky coincidence that A) brought the POW into the hospital, where he could be cured, and B) brought the kid to him to apologize for screwing up his life. And a coincidence is as good as a miracle. Bingo, the priest’s faith is restored. God 8, House 0. I don’t know the exact number of House vs. God episodes we’ve had, but God is undefeated so far. Go God!

Afterward, Cuddy complains to Cameron that House pulled another miracle cure out of his butt. Cameron says she should tell House that she really wants him to come to her thing. So she walks out with him, all nice-nice, but can’t bring herself to take Cameron’s advice, so off she goes to her ceremony without him. Camerase and Wilson are there, but Foreman is sitting at home as 13 comes in and takes a bow, and they snug. Sure enough, they were playing House all along. Playing House! Get it? House celebrates the party he’s not at by getting hammered and playing something Jewish on the piano–and then something sentimental and familiar that I can’t quite place. Anyone?

So I kinda like House vs. God episodes. Remember the one where they were operating on the unborn baby and it reached out and grabbed House’s hand? This one would have been a lot better if God didn’t have to split screen time with all the Huddy and Foreteen nonsense. But anyway. I’m liking the way the writers are making fun of themselves and the usual procedural-drama stuff (like the Silly Metaphors). I feel like the Huddy arc has just been killing time lately though. Put out or shut up already! Peace.