Maggots and dead flesh. Good times!

Ai yai yai, graphic content. And I know it’s not gonna be the sexy kind. You guys, I do not deal well with people being burned, so if this House recap isn’t joyful and light, that’s why.

So two guys are riding around in a….dune…dirt…bike buggy? I don’t really know what those are called, but it’s for riding around on back roads. ATV, I think. They come to a stop and it’s quickly established that this is a father-son duo, with the dad driving and not letting his son have any fun. But, like most dads, he wants to be a cool guy, so he eventually lets his son drive, as long as he promises to stay below 15 mph. Obviously this isn’t going to end well.
They’re driving along just fine, when we see the kid have some sort of facial spasm, and his hand squeezes the accelerator, too. His dad starts screaming at him, to no avail, and falls/jumps off the bike. I couldn’t tell which it was, but if he jumped off he should have pulled his son, too. The kid drives off the end of the trail and crashes into a pile of those huge cement pipes you see at construction sites. Everything goes all flamey, and not in the fun, men’s figure skating-Johnny Weir kind of way.

There! I made a joke. That’s probably it, though. Next, the kid is being wheeled in from a helicopter and he’s got some sort of metallic blanket covering him. Cut to House, hiding and translating a medical journal from Hindi. I think just for fun. He’s heard about the burn victim, but wants nothing to do with it, UNTIL he sees that the kid’s heart appears to be all messed up as well. They all head over to the burn unit to observe the kid. Oh no, this is really awful. The kid is a total mess. It’s quite sad. House is all business, though, suggesting an antiquated device that I think is meant to check the kid’s heart, but I’m a little unclear. I’m totally distracted by the awful sight of the nurses scrubbing the patient while he’s still unconscious.

In Cuddy’s office, a doctor is asking for AV equipment for a presentation that Cuddy approved. Cuddy has no recollection of this, which of course means House has been forging signatures and whatnot. There’s some back and forth about Cuddy’s assistant, or lack thereof. Remember the male assistant? Well, now they refer to this person as a “her,” and she’s quit without Cuddy’s knowledge. I think we’re supposed to get that Cuddy is just as hard to work for as House, but in her own special way.

House is fiddling around with an old, unconscious man’s brain. Cuddy comes barging in and notices that this coma patient has a migraine, which seems a bit unusual. And it is. House induced it to test the efficacy of a new migraine drug. Um, is that supposed to be one of his wacky hijinks? That’s pretty horrible. Cuddy thinks so too, enough that she doesn’t seem all that mad about him forging her signature anymore. House says, with a raised eyebrow, that they can talk later about “appropriate discipline.” You know, he says it like he’s joking, but I bet Cuddy has spanked the hell out of him before. More than once.

Back to the burn victim, where Cameron is explaining the procedure to his parents. The guy playing the dad is awesome; I totally buy his grief. The doctors are trying to determine if the patient’s heart problems have anything to do with the burns, and the machine is old-timey and weird, which freaks out the parents. The kid’s hands and feet are in bowls of water and he’s got all kinds of wires attached to him. He starts to shake, even after they unplug the machine, and it looks like he’s being electrocuted.

Turns out it was a seizure, and the Outhouses are doing the usual, thinking up weird’n’zany diagnoses. The big problem here is that they can’t move him into another room or perform any high-powered tests, which rules out MRIs and CT scans. Basically, they can’t subject him to modern medicine. Well, modern-ish. House figures out that they can do a sonogram on the kid’s brain. Yep, that’s what he was using on the coma patient earlier. Well that worked out nicely.

Cuddy is introducing Dr. Weber, the guy House secretly requested for a lecture. Since she had no notice, Cuddy doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. House is in the back, wearing a cap and sunglasses. Which would only make him stand out more in a lecture hall. Ridiculous. The guy playing Weber was on Frasier, as the guy who would always sexually harass Roz. But he’s gay in real life. You know, I couldn’t tell you the plot of even one of Shakespeare’s plays. But I know such important things about sitcom actors!

Wilson sits down next to House and figures something must be up, since House never goes to lectures. House tries to deny it, but Weber’s resume matches up almost exactly to House’s. Wilson knows this because he is in love with House and knows every little thing about him. Well, this is new to me, but apparently House was kicked out of school at one point for cheating. I wonder what he did to get back in?

Weber was the one who turned House in, so House has always referred to him as Von Lieberman since it sounds more evil. “So what’s the plan? Are you gonna wait till he bends over, then make a fart sound?” asks Wilson. Ha! That’s the first time Wilson’s made me laugh out loud. I want to go get a beer with him. Seriously, though, who knows what House’s crazy plan is going to be.

Well, we’re next treated to a close-up of the patient’s eyeball. The doctors are propping his eyelids back with bits of metal that look like the holders you use for dying Easter eggs. You know? Easter is forever ruined for me now. The kid’s parents are worried that this will wake him up, at which point he’d probably just die of shock. Chase and Foreman are showing him pictures to see how fast his brain responds. Y’all, this is by far the most technical show yet this season. The doctors find something worrying, but before it’s explained we go back to the lecture hall, where Wilson is still ragging on House. House works his best annoyed student voice as he says “I’m trying to learn.”

Wilson is worried that House is going to embarrass Dr. Weber by calling him on an inaccuracy, since House seems convinced that this guy is basically a sham doctor. Wilson suggests bowling as a more appropriate hobby than routinely humiliating people, but House doesn’t want to hear it. At this point Foreman comes in to explain the problem with the patient, and the three doctors cause enough of a ruckus to get Weber’s attention. House starts babbling at him in Hindi, leaving everyone, especially Wilson, fairly dumbstruck.

Chase and Foreman work on trying to stop the bleeding in the kid’s brain. It’s a very brief scene, but during it Chase straight up yells at Foreman. What is this, a crack in team unity? Back in the lecture hall, House decides it’s time to get rowdy. House and Weber go back and forth while Wilson whispers insults to House under his breath. “Get a hooker, anything,” says Wilson.

Weber figures out that the heckler is none other than House, and promptly shows him up when House tries to say his drug doesn’t work, because it didn’t work on the coma patient guinea pig he used. Weber isn’t surprised; coma patients have atrophied cerebral cortexes. Whoops. In the burn unit, it looks like the kid, Adam, is waking up. His eyes are fluttering, and Cameron worries that he’s in pain. Foreman quickly determines that it’s not pain, though. Well, what on earth could it be? While we wait to find out, we cut to House in his office, shooting up. First Weber’s anti-migraine medicine, then something that causes migraines. Right as he finishes, Cameron walks in to announces “Adam had an orgasm.”

House’s migraine kicks in, and the pain delights him to no end, since it means he was right that Weber’s drug doesn’t work. Well, it proves that the medicine doesn’t work on House. A study of one person isn’t really conclusive, is it? Foreman comes in to take care of House, and actually is very sensitive and sweet here, even though he’s clearly annoyed with House. He speaks quietly the whole time and tells House to keep him updated. They have to keep working though, to find a “differential diagnosis for getting off.”

Naturally, Chase thinks that pain caused the orgasm. He may have a point, but Chase is still a big ol’ perv. Cameron buys the theory, but not the solution. Since Adam’s on so many medications, it’s almost impossible to tell which one they should take him off to keep him from…coming. So they go old fashioned. Bring on the maggots!

Ew. Ew ew ew ew. I can’t look at the TV right now; this is not the sort of thing I would choose to watch for my own enjoyment. Maggots. Dead flesh. Gross. Wilson arrives in House’s office to give him what-for. They’re letting Robert Sean Leonard have some fun with this episode! First he shouts in House’s ear, then drops a handful of cutlery into the sink, then strides out in a righteous huff.

The next day, House is still lying on the floor in agony. The Outhouses report that the maggots helped with the infection but didn’t prove anything. The only option left is a lumbar puncture, which has the unfortunately side effect of easily causing paralysis. But, since Adam might die without it, the parents sign the consent form, but not without much angst and gnashing of teeth. Which, I totally understand, but I think I’m developing a soft spot for Foreman and don’t want to see anyone being mean to him.

During the puncture, Chase is throwing another hissy and yelling at Foreman again. What’s going on with these two? Foreman’s got mad skillz, yo, so he still manages to get the fluid without paralyzing Adam. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really prove anything; it just gives them negatives. House decides to go check on Adam for himself. What happens next is pretty horrible, I have to say. He forces the anesthesiologist (?) to wake Adam up, knowing full well that the kid is going to experience pure agony. This scene is terrible to watch. Adam is screaming, but does manage to tell House that he peed his pants before he passed out. House looks upset at what he’s done. As well he should. This information will ultimately hold the key to figuring out Adam’s brain problem. Does that make what House did okay?

House goes to take a shower (symbolic much?) and starts hallucinating while he’s at it. Cameron checks in on him and House tells her that he’s seeing music. She’s concerned for about two seconds until she figures out that he took drugs. She’s just a little peeved. In the office, Cameron tells on House, but when he comes in, he’s completely cured and ready to talk about Adam. House thinks he’s depressed, but the Outhouses disagree so much that House decides to go talk to Adam again. He stops in with the parents first to berate them, as is his custom. The parents are convinced that Adam tells them everything, but House is on his “everybody lies” theme and doesn’t completely buy it.

House is being really evil here. He goes back into Adam’s room, to the pure horror of Adam’s parents. Foreman comes running in and tries to physically take the syringe from House. He almost does, but House stops of his own volition. There’s a tiny round burn on Adam’s inner wrist, that I can immediately see is a cigarette burn, but I guess they needed a few seconds of filler because Foreman tries to argue that it’s not obviously from a cigarette. Adam also has yellow fingers. Nasty cigarette smoker! Shame!

House figures that Adam’s trying to quit smoking, because anti-smoking medication has anti-depressants in it that can mess adolescents up, especially if they’re cheap Internet meds. Problem solved! End of Adam’s story.

Cuddy asks House if he dropped acid. He doesn’t say he did, but he does remind her that LSD can cure migraines. She posits that LSD lasts a long time, so if he’s sober now then he must not have taken any. He comes back with another reminder: big doses of anti-depressants can stop the effects of LSD. Oooh, I do believe we’ve learned some new tricks, kiddos!

House is sitting in his apartment, drinking alone, when there’s a knock on his door. He gets up to answer it and…uh oh. I do believe he took Wilson’s advice from earlier, because what’s a nice young lady like her doing showing up in the middle of the night? Yup, he got himself a hooker. Luckily, this Paula looks like a college student with a lot of debt, so I guess we can be glad House still has some kind of standards? Maybe?

House basically tells the girl to shut the hell up, then invites her in. There you have it. House finally did it with a hooker. How do we feel about that, class? Will House continue his downward spiral, our is his redemption coming soon?