House Told Cuddy to Bend Over, and Then Some Other Things Happened

OK, so he didn’t technically tell her to bend over, but it’s what he meant and what I choose to remember. Fantastic episode of House happening here, so I’ll just get on with it.

In an airplane, DB Sweeney and a teenage girl are listening to jazz. Remember when he was so hot in The Cutting Edge? It turns out that she’s his daughter but neither one knew it until a few days ago. And she’s a Katrina victim. And she’s having nutty, awful hallucinations – here, she thinks the plane is getting flooded from the cockpit. And it seems to have something to do with misfiring currents in her chest. Yikes, as if flying weren’t already nerve-wracking.
On land in New Jersey, House is pacing his apartment in his pajamas, obviously in more pain the usual. He reaches a breaking point and climbs up the top of a bookshelf, unearthing a box of morphine. He prepares to shoot up, but luckily Cuddy calls and leaves a message that distracts him from the morphine – the girl is now House’s patient. So what’s the lesson here? For House, boredom is painful?

House arrives at the hospital and Cuddy hands him some other files to look at later, but more importantly, House actually knows DB Sweeney. Only here he’s called Crandall. They knew each other way back when, and just so we know what’s what, House pretends not to remember Crandall just so he can make a point about how gullible he is. Crandall writes books about jazz musicians, and Leona’s grandfather was one of his subjects. And House emphatically does not believe that she’s Crandall’s daughter. He agrees to take the case. Ah, TV land, where issues like adequate health insurance can and will be blissfully ignored.

The doctors go over Leona’s file and figure that Katrina has something to do with her illness, what with all the fungus and bacteria floating around there not long ago. House thinks she just has an irregular heartbeat. There’s a weird bit where Cameron has to audition to land the role of getting Crandall’s consent for procedures, and she doesn’t land it (yeah, I dunno), so House talks to him about it. Crandall seems like a pretty bright guy on some level, as he worries about what could happen with too much electricity in her system. “Oh, who’s been watching Bill Nye the Science Guy?” snarks House, which I love, because I was a regular on that show when I was a kid, and my favorite episode was the electricity one, where they used two cans of hair spray to make my hair stand up for a fun and zany static segment. Sigh. Climb on to Auntie Kat’s lap and listen to her old war stories.

House tells Crandall that the test is totally safe, then gets annoyed that Crandall believed him and tells him it’s incredibly dangerous. He demands a DNA test too, for good measure. Crandall won’t do it, but does sign off on the electricity test. The test is all very science-y with wires and computers and stuff. She has a brief heart attack, and even after that House demands they keep testing. They find the bad muscle and freeze it, and House feels confident that her hallucinations went with it and everyone can skip off into the sunset now. But not before he tortures Cuddy a little first.

OK, first of all, Cuddy looks really hot. The files she gave him earlier were potential sperm donors, her top two choices, in fact. And you know what? House can give her a hard time all he wants (heh), but he obviously studied these quite closely for any hereditary health problems. However, he doesn’t think she should go with someone she doesn’t even know. She throws the entire stack at him and stalks out.

In Leona’s room, a fellow patient is asking for some water. She gets up groggily and pulls aside the curtain, where a water-logged corpse is oozing all over the place. Oh, and it’s Leona’s mom, specifically. It’s all a bit upsetting, as you can imagine. Since she’s still hallucinating, whatever they did before was obviously a failure. When they gather to discuss, House is still pacing. The Outhouses are all supposed to be excellent doctors, but Cameron is the only one who realizes that House’s leg is hurting more than normal. Women’s intuition, I guess. Or just moony-eyed Cameron; you make the call, because I’m too bored of her to care.

House posits that Leona’s hallucinations are caused by pain, due to an autoimmune disease. House straps her in for a PET scan, telling her it won’t hurt. Because it won’t. The PET scan, anyway. But then House starts sticking her with a pin, and then fucking BREAKS HER FINGER. Yeah, a teenage girl. She’s crying, Crandall’s upset, and House is haranguing her about scamming Crandall. The good news, I guess, is that she sees House’s face melting off his skull, so at least his diagnosis was correct. This show is less realistic than Angel, y’all. House wouldn’t lost his license before he even got it.

House puts in the CD of Leona’s grandpa in the recording studio that accompanies Crandall’s book. A few bars in, the musician has a freak out and yells about something or other. Hmm, wonder if that’ll become relevant later? Crandall bursts in, pissed that Leona’s on the bone marrow registry, since as her supposed father, he should be a match. He still won’t consent to a paternity test, though. Speaking of paternity tests, kind of, House’s clinic patient is a little moppet with glasses and a deadly case of ADORABLE. House is very good with him, and I even think there’s an unscripted moment when the kid sneezes all over Hugh Laurie and he’s all “bless you,” like it ain’t no thang. Anyway, Cuddy comes in and demands House immediately, and if this season doesn’t end with House and Cuddy making babies, I’ll eat my hat. As long as it has barbeque sauce on it.

In Cuddy’s office, she’s shutting the blinds and making sure House hasn’t told anyone about her fertility treatments. She asks him to give her the twice-daily shots since she can’t do it herself. He takes hold of the instrument, looks her in the eye, and softly commands, “turn around.” Yay, I’ve always wanted to write romance novels!

Seriously though, I had to breathe into a paper bag for a little bit. He stares at her ass for a while (and actually, Lisa Edelstein is an inspiration to us all), and goes off on some rant about eugenics but I’m still thinking about my novel. Boo, now we have to go back to the stoopid doctor story. Wilson comes in to the radiation lab and asks about Crandall being the father. House says he respected Crandall’s wishes and didn’t test the paternity. “What, he has pictures of you being nice?” asks Wilson. Before they can banter further, House notices something odd and stops the radiation. If you get grossed out easily and haven’t watched the episode, skip the next sentence: Leona’s pooping out of her mouth.

House suggests Mexican takeout, because he’s weird and off-putting. So Leona’s doesn’t have anything wrong with her bone marrow. The liver is the preferred culprit now. House is still encouraging Crandall to disbelieve Leona, but Crandall thinks he’s just protecting him in case Leona dies. Later, Wilson comes into House’s office with… Mexican takeout. I think Wilson is secretly weird and off-putting, too. Wilson laughs at House’s attempt to gross him out, reminding House that he’s an oncologist. Then House talks about how, twenty years ago, he did Crandall a huge favor by letting his girlfriend give House a blowjob. House is nothing if not giving. Wilson stalks off disapprovingly, which I don’t buy given Wilson’s history with (in)fidelity.

House stops the liver biopsy and calls the Outhouses in to listen to Leona’s grandpa’s recording, specifically the part where he gets mad. He had been crazy due to excess iron, and it could be hereditary. In the MRI, I realize for the first time that the colorful wires on Leona’s head are actually serving a purpose. I thought it was one of those young people’s fashions this whole time.

On the psychological torture front, House is in Cuddy’s office faux-interviewing a rather earnest-looking fellow for an intern position. Cuddy arrives, and is surprised, and then pissed when the guy mentions liking Mozart. She realizes that House somehow found the sperm donor she was eyeing and brought him in. House has too much time on his hands.

Chase administers the drugs for ridding Leona’s system of all the excess iron. He tells Crandall it’ll be painless, but we see some cool CGI effects that would indicate otherwise. The little bits tear through her arteries and lungs, and she can’t breathe. Betcha Chase feels like a douche. The next step is testing for any fungus that is attracted to iron, or vice versa. Speaking of attraction, House has to give Cuddy her next shot. She acts like she’s mad at him for his earlier stunt. She’s so not.

Wilson walks into House’s office and whoa, for a second I thought I was watching Deadwood. Wilson did, too, but it’s actually just House getting his leg rubbed by Ingrid, a rather attractive massage therapist. Wilson says some things, but I was still laughing at his “Oh!…Ingrid. Hi.”

Leona’s newest line of treatment isn’t working. Naturally, it comes down to the assumption that she’s lying about something, like, say, where she stayed after the hurricane. Cameron comments that they can’t ask Leona, because she’s intubated, but there’s something about the way Cameron says that I think she knows what’s going to happen. Sure enough, House wakes Leona up. He tells her to blink “yes” in response to his questions. She won’t admit to lying until House berates her for a while. She finally writes down that she was at her grandpa’s recording studio. I guess this is a big deal because Crandall hated it there, so…actually, I don’t know. Anway, they finally figure out what mold she had been exposed to, and Crandall’s happy.

Cuddy comes into House’s office to thank him for the injections, and he’s a little surprised that she came up just to say thanks. I think we all already knew that’s not what she really wanted to say, and in fact, when House asks Cuddy if that’s all, she says no. But then she just turns around and leaves the office. Woe and repression!

Leona’s finally ready to leave the hospital, but first House has to quiz Crandall on why he’d be a good dad. Crandall just sort of hippies that “it feels right.” Eh, good enough. As Leona comes to, she chokes on her ventilator, which is normal, but House pretends it’s an emergency and makes Crandall leave. He tells Leona that he ran a paternity test, and she’s a big idiot because although she thought she was scamming Crandall, turns out he is in fact her father. Haw-haw!

Later at home, House looks at the paternity results. Crandall is so NOT the father, but I guess that secret remains safe with us. The show ends with a wide shot of House all alone in his empty apartment. Hmm…is someone finally ready to nest?