House: Paging Dr. Buffer

I decided to take a little break from recapping over the summer, and now I’m back and better than ever. Well, probably not better than ever. Probably not better at all. Actually, most likely much worse. But things are different for me now, I’m living in a new city, I’ve got a new job, and my life is still a mess. Two out of three isn’t bad I guess. But, wait, you didn’t come here to read about my life? Fine, I didn’t come here to read about yours either.

So where did we leave House last Spring? I don’t know, I drank most of those memories away. However, from reading old recaps, I discovered that House lost all of the LittleHouses either to firing or quitting. And the previews to this season tell me that House is going to be hiring new people to come in and not piss him off. Maybe. But oh how I’ll miss Cameron. Well, allow me to take off my regular pants and slide my recapping pants (no pants?) back on and let’s see what happens this year.

This season begins with a woman in an office talking on her phone to some dude who seems a little effeminate, so it’s probably her boyfriend. Apparently she’s had some sort of a cold that won’t go away, and the boyfriend wants to take her to some Star Wars thing. An effeminate nerd. She sure can pick ‘em. Maybe she should work on company time instead of just making plans to blow off said boyfriend. And I say this as most of you (myself included) will be reading this while at work. As it turns out, she doesn’t even like Star Wars, and she’s only pretended to like it for her boyfriend, whose name I believe is “Babe” because she says it like a thousand times. Ok, three. Close. So maybe he doesn’t know her as well as he thinks he does. But he probably knows her in the Biblical sense! Does anybody even say that anymore?

Sorry, Babe. I was only pretending to like fem dudes, too. Butch it up.

Sidenote, after this woman hands a piece of paper to a co-worker woman, I begin to notice that the camera-work is bizarre. It’s got all kinds of zooms and shifts, like it’s now being shot documentary-style, a la The Office or Arrested Development. Funny thing, I don’t think this is supposed to be documentary style. (Also, in this woman’s office setting, it seems a little to Office-y.) I just wondered if anybody else noticed this.

Anyways, as the woman is still getting out of a date with her boyfriend, he hangs up pissed off. He calls back to apologize, and suddenly she feels the building shaking. She asks if there’s an earthquake, and the boyfriend, outside her building feels nothing. She’s on some crazy hallucinogens because the building is shaking. Or maybe she isn’t, because the building then collapses completely. An interesting development, but not really any sort of medical mystery to begin the new season. (Also, I like how the cars in the back of the parking lot, like two rows away from this dude’s car, are not covered in dust, but his car definitely is.)

The Little Prius That Could

So, watching the credits, I noticed that Jennifer Morrison’s name was still there (along with the other cast members from last season). What’s the deal House? Well, when we see House, he’s rocking out on a Gibson flying V. Cuddy comes in and tells him about the girl. Apparently the gas line exploded under the building, which caused it to collapse. She’s got some fractured bones, which House believes just might have been caused by the building falling on her, but she’s also got a crazy high fever, and she’s the only victim with such a fever. House says he can’t take the case because he doesn’t have a team. Well, you’re in luck House, because Cuddy’s got resumes! House refuses to hire a team based on an interview because he doesn’t know if he’ll like having sex with them. I just paraphrased that to say what I wanted it to, that’s not exactly what he said. But it’s slightly more interesting. House is playing some Van Halen riffs, but as I’m not averse in most of the stylings of Van Halen, I’ll save myself the embarrassment of trying to look like I know what I’m talking about. Well, in this case at least. Cuddy goes to unplug House’s amp. What the fuck House? A Gibson with a Fender amp? There’s no way he should be using anything but a Marshall. /guitar rant

Cuddy says that House has been doing nothing for two weeks and she needs him to actually do something. And I’m going to agree with House that playing guitar is something. And I’m sure it doesn’t say in his contract that he shouldn’t play guitar. Regardless, House makes a deal with Cuddy. If he diagnoses sick girl by the end of the day by himself, Cuddy goes away for a week. Cuddy takes the deal, but Wilson doesn’t like it (he’s now in Cuddy’s office). Wilson thinks that Cuddy is enabling House, and despite her confidence that House will not solve the case, Wilson sees no chance of House changing his mind that he’ll need a team. And that was just a useless scene.

House is writing symptoms on his board, says go, and turns around to an empty office. But oh! A janitor! The janitor sits down and gives House a different perspective on why things (metaphorically, a floor buffer) may not be working. Based on preliminary medical (or perhaps floor buffer metaphor) expertise from the janitor, House is thinking sick girl has an infection, and he needs medical history. Let’s talk to the family.

Apparently sick girl’s mother, who just looks weird, doesn’t really talk to sick girl much. So the boyfriend, Babe (or Ben), is probably the one who knows most about the girl. He says there’s been no travel recently. so no bizarre avion-flu infections are likely. The janitor, cleverly named Dr. Buffer, is also in the room wearing an awfully tight-fitting white coat. House then asks about the girl being sick before the building collapses, and Babe asks if House thinks it’s related. “Her being sick and her being sick? Often is.” Babe says he just wants to know the girl will be ok, and House says he’s not even sure he’ll be ok. Dr. Buffer then chimes in that they’ll make her all better. And that’s enough out of the peanut gallery.

She just needs a little wax and polish and she’ll be good as new.

House says it’s now time to go check the sick girl’s house for parasites and fungi, but he refuses to go ask for keys. Dr. Buffer, ne janitor, says he’s not going to break into anyone’s house because “I’ve got principles.” House says he’s got some loose change that says Dr. Buffer doesn’t, in fact, have principles. Dr. Buffer wants $50. House thinks about it, and then we see he and Wilson in House’s car (House has a car?).

That sly House told Wilson they were going to lunch, but they’re going to break in. House can’t jimmy the lock, so he uses his cane to break a window. This has to be one of the things that makes House realize he needs a team, right? I’d hate to do my own grunt work. I mean, I hate doing grunt work as it is. But if I could easily not have to do it, I totally would not. As I say this, House manages to get Wilson to do all of the swabbing in the bathroom and under the sink and House plays “Injured cripple” and Wilson pities him. I guess it says something for Wilson that House didn’t make Wilson break into the house. Anyways, while Wilson is swabbing away, House lies down on sick girl’s bed and finds her diary. I wonder who she had a crush on in 7th grade! And no lock on it! Score! Let’s get to the juicy details!

House walks back downstairs, and Wilson is cutting out what he says are coupons of magazines. House volunteers to give Wilson back some of the money he owes him, but I think that was more just House trying to be polite. House then gets into the diary. It was a parade of sad banalities, but then three months ago, it turned into happy banalities. What makes a person less depressed? Anti-depressants. Mix those with demerol, and House says you get a nasty combo. He says this as he picks up a box of Cheez-I crackers. Not to be confused with the ones in a similar box that wonders in commercials how they get all of that cheese onto a tiny cracker. Wilson wants to see House get punched for suggesting to sick girl’s boyfriend that she’s seeing a secret doctor and she’s secretly depressed and he knows nothing about it. Well, Babe didn’t know about her dislike of Star Wars. House says he doesn’t have to convince him of the anti-depressants, just the mother. Actually, he says, he doesn’t have to convince anyone.

Midgets and unicorns? Have this thing copied.

Again, sidenote: at the beginning of the car scene we were back to jumpy, documentary-style camera. At the hospital it seems to be in the normal, regular-style shooting that we’ve come to expect from House. Even at the end of the scene at the House it was normal. Just during the car and break-in parts. I don’t think I like this change. But, I hate change in general. Especially changing clothes.

Back at the hospital, Babe is saying it’s impossible that this girl was on AD’s. Dr. Buffer wants the mother to sign a release for dialysis, but the mother doesn’t understand either. They ask Dr. Buffer what is going on. Cut to Cuddy’s office, and Babe says “He’s a janitor?” House says he’s also a blabber-mouth. Cuddy says House’s behavior is unforgivable, unless of course he’s right. Babe is insistent that she wasn’t depressed. House brings out the old diary, which says “I’m miserable around Ben” in it, and says either she was depressed, or she doesn’t like Ben. House goes on a semi-rant about Ben doesn’t know sick girl well enough to make the call, and since they’re not married, the mother has to sign off on the blood-filtering.

House comes into his office, turns on his amp. He goes to pick up his guitar, but, uh, it’s not there. The cord is leading to a kidnapping note on his wall, and he gets a phone call. House answers it “Wilson you idiot.” Someone on the other line is talking with a voice-modifier or something. House puts down the phone and walks into Wilson’s office and catches Wilson on the phone. Then Wilson picks up the paper to read, with holes cut out of it. All Wilson wants is for House to interview a team and he’ll get his guitar back. Well, not Wilson, the “kidnapper.” House then says he did solve the case though.

And guess who’s conscious! Sick girl! Cuddy is talking to her through blinking, because she has a tube down her throat. Cuddy says she’s been in a terrible accident, but it looks like she’ll have no permanent injuries. Except, uh, her eye is sewn shut. Can you just un-sew an eye? Or is that not what she’s really referring to? Anyways, sick girl looks around the room at the people gathered, and does her one good eye widen? Maybe that’s just me. Regardless, she answers yes that she’s been seeing a psychiatrist and she’s been on anti-depressants. Babe says it’s ok, he still loves her, and she crashes. Maybe it’s not the depression that makes her miserable around Ben…

The next day House comes in and Cuddy is in her office. Nobody won the bet because he was right but she’s not cured. Meanwhile, House gets a picture of his guitar from the “kidnapper” so he knows it’s still safe. House asks Cuddy what could be causing the symptoms, and she suggests a couple things. He tells her to keep going as he leaves his office. And he walks into Wilson’s office. He says he’s done playing this game, so he wants the resumes. He won’t get the guitar back until he interviews though. So House takes the resumes, goes back to his office, and Cuddy has written nothing down.

I’m having some serious focus issues with Cuddy looking pretty hot and sitting on the table like that. Judge me all you want. Anyways, the two are throwing around a lot of medical jargon. Crush syndrome this. Reperfuse that. They end the jargon-session with the conclusion that the girl has a baggy heart, which I’ve just learned simply means dilated. And apparently a baggy heart could cause crush syndrome to be delayed, which is why it didn’t show up until two days after the actual crushing. Like I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.

Sorry for the double. I just really like this guy.

House is now testing sick girl for crush syndrome, and Babe asks if that’s bad. Well, it doesn’t sound good does it? House echoes my sentiments. Or maybe I echoed his. Babe then asks if it could be anything else, and House says no. Mom asks why House is testing her. Maybe they should let him do his job. Or maybe he should do it better. Because sick girl’s heart is fine. And, uh-oh, her fever is back. And House says he can’t say. Babe asks incredulously “You don’t know?” House says he knows, but he can’t say because he’ll get punched. So he leaves with the Mom to go talk in front of witnesses.

“The DT’s?” the mom asks as everyone is in Cuddy’s office. Ah yes, alcohol withdrawals. I know them too well. I mean no I don’t. Here’s a surprise: Babe doesn’t think she’s an alcoholic. House says he’d do some liver test to confirm it, but Cuddy says that test would be high regardless. House thanks her for telling the people in the room who don’t know that won’t prove anything. The treatment? “The hair of the dog.” God that’s awesome. They would taper it off after a few days, basically to ween her off the alcohol. Plus 1 for using ween in a recap. Mom tells them to just do it. Babe says mom barely knows sick girl, and mom says to Ben “Apparently neither did you.” Yikes. That kind of treatment would lead me to drink or depression.

That night, House is sitting in his office, and he calls a Trevor Kaufman to tell him to come in to interview the next day. Trev, obviously young, is excited. And he tells his friend before even hanging up the phone. And then the two proceed to act like 14 year old boys. And they both appear to be speaking into the phone, like one of them is holding the phone equidistant from both of their mouths. But, uh, I digress.

Wilson walks into the hospital in sweats and looking groggy (great acting Wilson) and says he’s been paged. The male nurse says “Oh no you haven’t girlfriend.” Ok, he didn’t say that, but he did disagree with Wilson. Wilson brings out his pager for proof. The nurse says the hospital didn’t page him. So Wilson calls his apartment. And who should answer it, but House. Basically the entire exchange was about how the two are going to play hardball now. So House starts it by throwing Wilson’s phone out the window.

What do you mean you still don’t carry Cheezy Dots? DAMN YOU, DOMINO’S!!

Back with sick girl, the alcohol they’re giving her (I wonder what kind it is. Vodka? Captain? Beer? Everclear?) is working. Ben asks if there’s any other explanation than alcoholism, but Cuddy tells him, sorry buddy, your girlfriends an alky. Mom points out that sick girl is doing this thing with her mouth, and Babe says she’s been doing it on and off for the last couple of hours. He asks Cuddy if sick girl is trying to talk. Cuddy calls him an idiot, and then tells him to leave the medicine to her. Then Cuddy, in seemingly shocked and horrified fashion, almost like someone would say in a horror movie, says “No…I think she’s screaming…”

The next day House is there when Cuddy arrives, and he says that she was there when he was proven right that the alcohol worked. She says she was also there when he was proven wrong, and sick girl now has pancreatitis. You know what can cause that? IV alcohol. Maybe IV alcohol isn’t so great after all. We’ll say the jury is still out on that one. Cuddy then stops answering any of House’s questions, because she refuses to enable him. He needs someone to bounce ideas off of, and he needs a team. He’ll show her. He goes back to his office and asks a magic 8 ball.

What’s healthier? Jack or Stoli?

Magic 8 ball says House is right, but Cuddy comes in and says he’s wrong. She doesn’t want sick girl to die just because House is stubborn. Cuddy doesn’t want to believe that Babe doesn’t know her at all, so she thinks there has to be some other explanation. While she’s going on, House opens a box and finds a piece of his guitar. He barges into Wilson’s office, and Wilson tries to make House angry? Or maybe tries to scare him into thinking worse will happen to his guitar if House doesn’t hire a team. It seems like House is kind of done with this shit, but Wilson is at least trying something.

So now it’s MRI time. Wilson joins House as he’s doing that, and tries to figure out why House doesn’t want to play his games. So, it’s good to see that the “have everyone psychoanalyze House” portion of the show remains intact. Wilson thinks House doesn’t want to hire a team because he’ll get attached to them and it will hurt when they move on. Meanwhile, there’s no abnormalities in the pancreas. House pulls the girl out of the MRI machine, and utters a great line: “Now if you’ll excuse me, my patient is about to start bleeding out of her mouth and anus.” You know what House? Go ahead and take care of this one.

All you, buddy.

Now the girl is in surgery and they’re trying to stop the internal bleeding. House says to Cuddy, it’s not internal anymore, “It’s all over the place.” House says the girl could have started bleeding 4 days ago, and Cuddy says it’s bleeding from 5 different sites. I didn’t even know there were that many sites you could bleed from. Oh. Ohhhhhh. Grooossss. Wish I hadn’t thought about that.

Cuddy again reiterates that House needs a team. He says if he had a team, the woman would die because the team would be watching surgery instead of him, and they wouldn’t notice the woman’s enlarged uterus. How many conversations can you have where uterus is the last word you leave a room on? With that, House walks in to surgery and looks at this woman’s uterus with a camera. Guess who just had an abortion. That girl. In addition to that, she started using the pill. And House is right again.

House walks into a hallway and there is Ben with another guy whose girlfriend was working in the same building, and she’d just died that morning. House asks why he’s still there if she’s dead. Tact is the name of the game. House says he doesn’t need to tell Babe anything since they’re not legally related. House tells him about the abortion and about the pill, and see if you can guess who doesn’t believe it. House says they already confirmed it, and it’s good news because it’s treatable. Babe still disagrees. You know what? I think he’s right. He obviously has the medical background to know what’s true and what isn’t. Seriously though, it sucks to be Ben. He walks out of the hospital and says to tell sick girl he’s glad she’s treatable. Meaning he’s leaving her for a chorus boy from Cats.

It’s time for some shenanigans. House looks in on a patient and asks how he is. “I’ve got cancer.” House says, well you’re in a cancer ward, you won’t get any pity here. He then proceeds to move the patient to another ward so Wilson won’t find him. Personally, I don’t really think that equals destroying a classic guitar, but then again I’m not a doctor. And I would never wear one of those damn “Trust me I’m a doctor” t-shirts to make you think I was one.

Remember how House said the girl’s condition was treatable? Her lungs and kidney function have shut down. She’s crashing again. God will this girl either die or get better?

Having no team, House goes down to the ER (I think) and just lists the symptoms out loud to anyone who will listen. One doctor, a young attractive woman, says Cuddy sent out a memo to not help him. But then later she does try to help him. ARDS (doesn’t matter what it means) explains trouble breathing, crush syndrome doesn’t explain trouble breathing. House asks if she’s a fan of symmetry “because your eyes are lopsided. And by eyes I mean breasts.” He’s basically giving her a job interview on the spot, and he likes her answer, so he tells her to send her resume to him. Good job new girl. You’re no Cameron, but you’re not bad.

Wait! Are my boobies really uneven?

Back with sick girl, Babe says he couldn’t leave because he loves her. House says that he loved someone, but not the woman who this is. Mom asks why House is being such a dick, and House says the girl is dying. Then he says nevermind. He sees a lump on the girl’s arm, so they’ll do a biopsy and find out what’s up. In some other lab, a tech is doing the biopsy House requested. When Cuddy asks her if she got the memo, the woman says she got both memos. That House. Always with the memos. Or, at least in this situation.

Apparently this girl has growths all over the place. They’re not tumors, they’re some sort of allergic reactions. Mom says the girl doesn’t have allergies. Cuddy then says the only thing the girl has had enough of is the strep medicine that, and Ben chimes in with this, she took 2 months ago for the strep throat she had. So she can’t be allergic to it. Mom goes on a small rant, which doesn’t seem to be too effective. Guess who won’t be winning any guest-star Emmy’s this year.

Wilson heads to check out his cancer patient, but, oops, male nurse is sleeping in that bed. He then goes to accuse House, and House says he’ll give Wilson’s patient back when House gets his guitar back. Wilson says who knows what happens if they give the patient the wrong medicine. And then we see the House’s realization face, and as he walks out of the room, he tells Wilson where the patient is.

House walks into sick girl’s room, and he says he’s not giving Megan (sick girl) anything, but he’s giving the girl amphetamines to wake her up. He says everything can be explained by lying until the allergic reaction, which means the chart is lying, which makes no sense. Remember the woman who died earlier? Her chart talks about the depression, the pill, the abortion, and the allergy. We see the flashback to the beginning of the show. Remember the woman sick girl handed the piece of paper to (right before I ranted about the new camera style)? Yeah, turns out, they’re the exact same build, same hair color, both unrecognizable, and House says EMT teams don’t second-guess family member identifications. Still, guess who refuses to believe House. You betcha, it’s Ben. He knows Megan. He knows her smell, her hands. House pulls the breathing tube out and covers the hole, and asks the girl her name. “Not Megan.” Ok, she said Liz, but it gets the point across. So one man gets his wife back from the dead, kind of, another loses his girlfriend. The only thing unexplained here is the anti-depressants. Didn’t they prove she was on them based on her diary?

Is it too early to start wearing a little makeup?

Cuddy tells him there are various reasons his old team would have solved this case days ago, so he needs a fucking team. House has his guitar back, and he’s talking to the potential new team members. He says this will be the longest job interview of their life, they will be tested in unfair, demeaning and illegal ways. It will be a 6 week interview. Yikes. I once had a 4 hour one and I was exhausted after the first. Good luck with that suckers.

I would say this was definitely a good episode, and I’m glad it’s back. The previews for this season look pretty good, and I’ll at least get to see Cameron again, so that’s really all I care about. What did you think about the episode? Will House really hire a new team? Will there be sexual tension between he and Cuddy at some point? Will Cameron call me if I post my phone number?