Poker Is Kind of Played Out

The one episode where I could say “poke ‘er? I hardly knew ‘er!” and the episode isn’t even about the evils of sex. Sigh. This week on House they take a break from condemning the pleasure of the flesh to cure a six-year-old who wasn’t even abused!

Wow, this is a dang cool science museum! A class of kids walks through a huge model of a heart (foreshadowing, hm?) and gets their learn on. A child asks his teacher if he can go to the bathroom and ask a question, there is unlikely banter, we are instantly in love! What a moppet!
The teacher, who is rather pregnant, starts having pains and begs the kid to go get help. Sigh…why do shows even try to do misdirects? Everyone’s already seen the previews. As the teacher crouches down, she notices blood on the kid’s pants. He turns around and there is a ton of blood coming out his backside. I should feel sorry for him but they just had the kid utter one of the most ridiculous precocious-child lines ever: “Is the baby coming…I don’t know how to do this.” Do what, deliver the baby?

At the hospital, some sort of benefit event involving poker is in full swing. Wilson, Cuddy, and House are playing a game, but mostly House is giving Wilson a hard time about testicles and gorillas and the nature of cheating. House wags his cigar in Wilson’s face. Subtle.

A doctor approaches Cuddy and tells her a young patient is in. Cuddy apparently knows the boy (why, though?) and diagnoses him with gastroenteritis. House listens to the symptoms and decides he needs to “get some air.” He insults Cuddy’s breasts on his way out for good measure. Wilson checks House’s cards and sees a pair of aces, so House must be quite concerned about this boy.

House comes into the boy’s room, still in his tuxedo. He does some simple tests, and the boy’s eyes can’t move in a smooth line, nor can he grab House’s cane. When the parents ask if he’ll be all right, House replies “I don’t know.” That seems somewhat cruel. Just a bit. House heads back to the parent to get the Outhouses, and completely wrecks Chase’s flow as he’s trying to obtain some sweet lovin’.

The Outhouses arrive and start listing similarities between the health issues of old people and kids. There are a lot, based on weak immune systems. When House finally turns away from the whiteboard he gasps and ogles Cameron, who is looking quite adorable in her red dress. I don’t believe for one minute that he hadn’t already seen her at the party, though. He’s just messing with her again.

House is all worked up about this patient because 12 years ago he had an elderly patient with the same initial symptoms, and he thinks the kid will continue along the same path, which ends rather rudely in death. By the way, Mackenzie Astin is playing the boy’s father. The Outhouses do tests and poke and prod and looks at bits of child under the microscope. House orders more tests. Everything is negative, but when they go to his room, the boy’s urine is brown, which means his kidneys are shutting down.

Back at the whiteboard, everyone’s throwing out more ideas and, I’m sure, skanking up their fancy clothes by this point. They aren’t coming up with much and House is terrified that Cuddy will come up and ruin all his diagnostic fun. He calls Wilson and asks if Cuddy is still playing poker. “The chicken is still in Piccadilly Square,” replies Wilson. Eat it up, because that’s the last time this sequence is going to be funny. House is telling Wilson how to play to keep Cuddy’s head in the game and not on her patient. And they have to use code, of course, so Wilson can tell House his hand. Rather extended metaphor, no? Betting on the House, etc.

Upstairs, Cameron, in her socially inept way, reports to the parents that a previous patient with the same symptoms “died within 24 hours” of coming to the hospital. Not sure all the details were necessary, bucko. The kid can’t sit still in the MRI tube, so his mom talks to him over the intercom. Very, very emotional. Supposed to be, anyway. Cameron looks at the upset parents all “does not compute!”

The Outhouses detect a mass at the base of the kid’s brain. Looking at the white board, I have to say that Hugh Laurie has awesome handwriting. He’s an artist with the dry erase marker. House breaks into a lab, to show us his frustration. He calls Wilson again and proves yet again to be a master of human nature, even when he can’t see it in action. Wilson relays all of Cuddy’s actions to him, And House is able to win at poker over the phone. He and Wilson are being witty as usual, but it just feels too contrived.

The kids goes into respiratory distress, which was one of the last symptoms the other patient displayed. House sad! House break thing! Actually, there is a lot of pretty sophisticated doctor talk going on in this episode. Back at the game, House tells Wilson to go all in or he’ll tell everyone that Wilson wears toenail polish. Apparently Wilson wears toenail polish!

Wilson is up helping out now, trying to figure out if the kid has cancer. Much discussion of something called Kawasaki’s disease. I bet one of you knows what that is. Wilson warns House about how dangerous obsession is, as he’s even trying to use the old lady’s X-rays to diagnose the kid. House goes to do some diagnostics himself. He inserts a wire into the kid’s heart, which unfortunately causes cardiac arrest. He’s resuscitated with the paddles, and House dives in again. I recently read in the New Yorker that Americans have a huge misunderstanding of resuscitation results because it succeeds something like 90% of the time on out doctor shows, but only 15% in real life.

Ruh-roh, Cuddy’s here! She throws House off the case and takes over. House still has a tiny piece of the kid’s tumor stowed away in the fridge, and Cameron says with a piece that size she can run maybe three tests. So, they have to decide which diseases to test for. The first test comes back negative, which in this situation is not what they’re looking for, since they’ll have to run another test with another tiny piece of tumor. Second test is much fancier, with a computer instead of a stupid old microscope! But still, they come up with nothing. House goes into the kid’s room just to stare at him. That would be creepy in real life. Cuddy comes in and is obviously at a loss as well, since she asks House if he’s come up with anything.

House goes outside at dawn to brood, but Wilson comes out to share his excitement over winning the poker tournament. He had pocket aces. Upon hearing that, House stares off into space, and viola, he’s figured out the kid’s illness! That’s becoming a bit formulaic. Tests, tests, tests, no results, someone makes some offhand remark in the last five minutes, House has it solved! House wants to run the last test on a disease the Outhouses think they’ve already ruled out. House is right. Duh. He’s rather relieved, because now the ghost of Esther can’t haunt him anymore. The show closes out with Wilson and House playing cards and discussing barnacle penises.

What did you think? Was the extended metaphor too tortured, or did you like seeing Wilson and House banter and flirt manfully?