House: Still Up to His Old Tricks

This week on House we get to the good stuff of weeding out more doctors. After last week’s episode and all of the vague names I had to give everyone, I for one cannot wait to get rid of most of these people. However, it still leaves me wondering what is going to happen with the former House team, though. I mean, they’re still in the episodes and they’re still listed in the credits. Will they quit their new jobs and come back to work for House? The whole job interview thing seems like it could just be a waste of time.

Also, is this a Cousin Oliver situation? Why would the House creators feel the need to give House a new team but still keep his old team on the cast unless the ratings were down and they felt a shakeup would get people’s interest back in the show? I’m a little skeptical about the whole thing, but how about instead of listening to me ramble on like an idiot, we just get to the show?

We see a man in a wheelchair (with his dog) get out of a minivan. The man tells his dog it’s cold, so she goes to get him a blanket. Then he tells her about a new girl working in the ice cream shop who doesn’t like to button her top button. Two things: don’t most people who work in ice cream shops, like, go to high school still? And, uh, this guy’s dog is awesome, he should be taking more advantage of it with the ladies. They come to a crosswalk, and the dog jumps up to push the walk button so they can cross. But as they’re crossing the street, the guy passes out in the middle of the crosswalk. The dog starts barking but there’s no one around. However, there is an SUV bearing down on the intersection. And guess what: the woman driver’s not paying attention to the road! There’s a surprise. At least she isn’t putting on makeup; she’s scanning for a good song on the radio. Luckily she finds one though. Phew, I was worried she wouldn’t. Oh, also, she looks up just in time to slam on the brakes and not hit the guy or his dog. Then everyone runs up to make sure the guy is ok. Not a particularly interesting intro, but at least it was quick and not drawn out.

If this dog had died, I would have blamed Neil Diamond.

So we’re back in the classroom, and the doctors are all just sitting around waiting for House to come in. Much to my dismay, the dumb identical twins are still around this week, but hopefully they’ll be kicked off soon. And our boy Kal Penn is still around, probably still chasing the ever-elusive American tang. Nobody knows where House is, and they wonder if he’s testing them by coming in late. Well weird-looking blond doctor, who we’ll now just call blond doctor, is sick of waiting. She gets up to leave because she doesn’t think he’ll be coming in, and that’s the moment that House walks in. He tells them about the new patient, and when they ask why House is late, he says he was going to fire whoever stuck around. But since they all stuck around, he’s screwed out of doing that.

After looking through the symptoms, cute woman doctor says this is no mystery, and House tells her she’s just given ammo to the enemy. In order to weed out more doctors, and because it’s a new patient, House makes new rules for this one. There will be two teams with the losing team getting fired, and House teaches me a few things about how to give someone a general nickname. He calls the identical twin who talks all the time fat twin, and Kal is called overly excited former foster kid to which Kal just makes a confused face. They decide to divide up into men vs. women, and I see no possible way in which the losing team will get fired. “If your sex organs dangle, you’re a confederate, and if your sex organs are aesthetically pleasing, you’re the yanks.” Blond doctor sees my point about having all of one sex on House’s actual team, so she wants to be on the men’s team, and House calls her cut-throat bitch. Damn he’s good. House will allow if it the men will have her; however, the danglers don’t want her. Sorry cut-throat bitch.

Come back when you’ve lost the boobage.

The women are in House’s office, and the cute woman says they need to get into House’s head, because he wouldn’t do this if he didn’t already know the answer. Meanwhile, in House’s conference room or whatever, Kal says they need to gangbang this sucker. He thinks they can just run all the tests because there are 5 of them and they don’t need a theory. This will not end well for our boy Kal, but isn’t it amazing how he’s kind of type-cast as a sort of party guy on this? Turns out my Van Wilder references weren’t so crazy or dumb after all. Or perhaps they still were.

Fat twin wonders if the dog could have done it, and ethnic woman doctor says there’s no way, because House knows she was a vet. Immediately following, black doctor wonders if it’s the dog. But the obscure doctor who had no part last week writes “low sodium” on the white-board so the women won’t cheat off them. Oh, he’s brilliant. He’s definitely getting fired this week. But they’re watching the women, and cute woman leaves the room.

And thankfully Cameron gets her first appearance this week. Blond doctor is harassing her for some reason, and with each appearance cut-throat bitch makes, I get more and more nervous about her actually being on House’s team. Anyways, she wondered why there’s a D-cell battery in a urine specimen container, and Cameron says it was pulled from someone’s intestine. Blond doctor assumes it was swallowed; I assume it was not. She also assumes it was a man; I’m 50/50 on that one. Regardless, cut-throat is kissing some serious Cameron-ass, and Cameron wonders why she’s doing it. Cut-throat tells her that House has made the diagnosis into a game, and the patient could die. God she’s a bitch. And if she really wanted to make someone care, she should be going to talk to Cuddy. But apparently she’s a stupid cut-throat bitch.

House walks into an exam room. Is he still on clinic duty? I guess I’ll assume he is. Anyways, a dude is in there with a bruised face and a neckbrace, and he pretty much looks awful. As House walks in, the guy pulls out a knife and jams it into an outlet. Didn’t he have any pennies in his pocket? The guy just lies on the floor, sort of twitching, passed out, and no one appears to be in any real rush to help him. Certainly not House.

Cute woman doctor is talking to this week’s sick guy, and she tells him that when you pass out and fall over, that corrects the problem of blood getting to your brain. But if he passes out again in his wheelchair, he may not wake up again. He tries to flirt with her, or at least be sincere, whatever that word means, and she tells him that she thinks he picked up a threadworm when he was in Thailand. She gives him two pills, and as she gets him some water, in walk Kal and obscure doctor. They’re trying to pry and figure out what cute woman is doing, and the patient is having none of that. House already told him what was going on. Nice try Taj; stick to chasing American tail. So the two doctors need blood, stool and hair samples. Kal explains how to get a stool sample, and sick guy tells him to explain it to his dog. “Fuck you,” said the dog. I wouldn’t want to mess with his stool sample either.

Aw, hell to the no!

But the dog is in luck, because she doesn’t actually have to do anything. Kal and obscure carry sick guy into the bathroom so he can do his business. Meanwhile House walks into Cuddy’s office, sits down and doesn’t say anything. Then he tells her he can’t use her office because the teams are in there. Cuddy yells at him a little bit, and says if House knows what’s wrong, he’s obligated to treat the man. So House says he doesn’t know. Cuddy then asks what if she shuts the whole game down, and House says he’ll just fire everyone and bring in 40 new applicants. As House leaves, Cuddy is not sure if House knows what’s wrong with sick guy or not.

Let’s go to New York, where Foreman is looking over some paperwork or something. Oh, I get it, Foreman has become House. He’s got a team of three doctors trying to diagnose, and he’s sitting there listening to all of it. Then once he figures out what’s wrong, he guides his team to it. As they walk out, he tells them great job. Then he dumps Gatorade on them. They diagnosed a sick girl, which is their job; they don’t need constant positive reinforcement.

Great work today guys, you are all worthy individuals. Peace.

That guy who jammed the knife into the outlet? House is still confused about it. And he’s looking at the guy’s knife, pondering what possessed him to do that to Wilson. Wilson says he loves the team thing House is doing, but House is still thinking about that guy. I think there have only been one or two conversations between House and Wilson where they’ve both been talking about the same topic. Wilson tells House to go ask the guy if he’s trying to figure it out, and he gets up to leave. And I have absolutely no idea what the point of that exchange was at all.

Cut-throat walks into the lab where the danglers are all running tests. She’ll give them a test directly from Cameron’s recommendation and they can go back to House with it, in exchange for joining their team. They say thanks but fuck you and want her out of there. She says she wants to join their team because they’re all idiots. And if she can get the women out of the competition, then she’s automatically in (because of House’s history of hiring a woman), and so are two of the men. Well that was all they needed to hear. She’s on the team.

The test is some bug test, and if these bugs they put on him bite, then he’s sick or whatever. Normally they attack feces, but he’s apparently got a lid on his crapper. He’s been chugging milk of magnesia for a while, and there’s no action. They begin to put the bugs on him, but just before they do he starts coughing. A lot. Creepy doctor tells cut-throat to get the bugs off, and she says the test isn’t done. So sick guy is crashing, coughing, the dog is barking, and she wants to see if the bugs will bite. I loathe her. She eventually gives in and gets out of the way so creepy can jam a tube in this guy’s throat, and I can only assume that sick guy died because they cut to commercial.

Smells like death.

Well I was wrong, sick guy is still alive. But now there is another problem to explain: his throats thinks his lungs are his stomach. House calls obscure “Grumpy” and says he’s first in listing possible illnesses. Grumpy was in doctors without borders for 8 years, and House goes on to accuse him of not wanting this job necessarily, but just wanting a job in this zip code. And he’s right. Cute woman doctor says this problem is nothing new, and House asks what’s wrong with him then. He also can’t think of a nickname for her. Remember last week when she wouldn’t engage in a discussion about her personal life? House calls her ‘daughter of an alcoholic’ and she says he’s wrong again. Thin twin says if they run some test it will show they’re right, so they go to run it. House sees 6 danglers (we can’t be sure cut-throat isn’t a dangler) and says one will have to join the women. Then he points out that one of them isn’t a real doctor so they’ll keep it as is. But now the men want to know who isn’t a real doctor. House won’t tell them, but he will penalize them. They just ran blind tests which wastes a patient’s time, so now he’s wasting theirs. I think they should all have a discussion about their feelings while they wait.

Let’s check back in with Foreman, for some reason. Apparently his diagnosis before wasn’t dead on because now his sick girl has yellow gums. Perhaps he should have saved the Gatorade shower until the woman was healthy. He snapped at his team, then he apologized for it, because he’s a 12-year old girl, and now he wants more suggestions for possible problems. If you can’t tell, I still hate how uppity Foreman is and thinking he’s better than House.

House is now sitting with the guy from the exam room who electrocuted himself. Just as he’s coming to, House starts asking questions. He says he wasn’t trying to kill himself. House hassles him for an explanation. So the guy gives a discourse about getting hit by a drunk driver a week ago, and he was legally dead for 97 seconds, which were the best 97 seconds of his life. But he wasn’t alive, so how is that possible? So House explains to him what actually happened as far as bodily function and hormones. The guy is adamant that it was not chemical-induced though, and says there’s something out there. House just walks out, and he’s keeping the guy’s knife. It’s not like this is the first time House has dealt with people talking about/seeing something “more” and it likely won’t be the last if the writers lack creativity.

The danglers (including Cut-throat) are all in the penalty box, or House’s office. He said they’re not allowed to talk about the case, and creepy wants to find out who isn’t a real doctor. Old dude, not a real doctor, doesn’t care, and cut-throat also seems fidgety, and she wants to talk about the case. Old dude gives what could be the cure, but they need a scan to prove it. That’s when Kal notices the camera on House’s computer and wonders if there’s a microphone in it. So cut-throat slinks against the wall, goes to the ground and crawls out of House’s office so she can’t be seen. I seriously doubt House was watching them, but it was still kind of strange to see, and she looked like an idiot (and nice ass) so I’m ok with it. She finds her way into WIlson’s office, where he’s with a patient, and then leaves out the front door.

Who wants to go outside? Good girl!

The aesthetically-pleasings are running some crazy test (a tilt-table test) on sick guy, and they think that it shows he’s cured. Cut-throat comes in and says they’re not stressing the system hard enough. She jams on it, but sick guy is just loving the ride. So I guess the women take this round, and I especially hope cut-throat gets the can.

Cute woman is telling House the results, and he says that the fact that she won’t answer his questions tells him more than if she would answer them. After a lengthy exchange about whether or not answers or non-answers tell more about a person and whether or not she has something to hide, House says he’ll see her in an hour or so because he has to set some things up. Then he disappears into what I can only assume is the classroom.

It’s time for tribal council. Or is it counsel? House says he can trust Big Love (black doctor), so he asks where cut-throat is. She went rogue, they don’t know where she is. House says the tilt-table test confirmed the women’s diagnosis so the men are fired. Then in walks cut-throat, with results proving they were right. House says good work, but she’s wrong. So the men (and cut-throat) are fired, and the women get to come in to work tomorrow. Old dude walks up and tells House it was the best two weeks of his life, and House says he was his favorite, and calls him Ridiculously Old Fraud. So endearing, that House.

Dr. Mandana Strikes Again

Cut-throat won’t let it go, and she wonders if House is wrong. And now she’s harassing Chase. He tells her how she can prove House wrong, but she doesn’t have lab privileges and he’s not going to help her. Then she appeals to him by saying that he could make House’s life miserable, since House is still able to continue making his miserable. Cut-throat really is a bitch, and Chase realizes this and is surprised that House fired her. So he’ll help her get the tests run.

Cut-throat goes to sick guy’s room, and he’s already found out the diagnosis. He launches into this explanation of how you get used to the disease, and then it takes something away. So she tells him there’s an outside shot it’s not just his disease getting worse, and she starts to draw blood. And as it turns out, the guy’s blood is green. So, he’s a plant? He asks what green blood means, and she says it means she isn’t fired. At least yet. And I continue to be nervous about cut-throat playing such a huge role.

So now everyone is back in the classroom, but I’m still not sure if the danglers have officially been un-fired. Creepy says the blood could mean the kidneys aren’t functioning. House awards him ten arbitrary points. Then Kal asks about the points system and what happened to the game, and House says the game is over. He thought cute woman was right, and now he has no idea what’s wrong either. He orders the women to do some tests they think is right, and he orders the danglers to do some tests that could confirm the original results cut-throat brought in to show House.

As Chase and Cameron are leaving, House says he could have Chase fired for what he’s done. He yells at Chase a little, and Chase asks why. Chase says he’ll offer his help, but just for House to vent, he’s not going to stand there and listen. They both leave and up walk cute woman and obscure: they were both wrong, now sick guy has pneumonia and House sees cancer from obscure’s results. He is so fired this week.

Back at New York Mercy (does that hospital really exist? My guess is no, but I’m too lazy to look it up) Foreman is checking results with some doctor who thinks his diagnosis may be a stretch. This doctor thinks the illness could just be infection, and Foreman thinks it’s something else. With his illness, the patient could be dead in a week without treatment. “Or you radiate her and she’s dead in a day. I hear you have some experience with that.” Ohhh, snap lady doctor! She will not let Foreman make the same mistake twice, so she tells him to treat for infection.

Score one for Lady Doctor From Another City

House has booked the OR to remove one of sick guy’s eyes. Cuddy has a problem with this. So House is rationalizing his thinking to her, and his metaphor is pretty drawn out. Luckily, she gets it pretty quickly. She tells him to do a biopsy, and House says he can, but it’s a waste of time while this patient drowns in his own fluid. I assume that while internally drowning would probably be pretty painful, it at least sounds less disgusting than drowning in your own fluid externally. Cuddy asks how advanced the pneumonia is. “It’s taking college courses.” Good for it, doing something with its life.

Wilson goes with House to see sick guy, and he explains the cancer situation to him. Sick guy is asking questions, and he’s not too excited about the answers he’s getting. He says he can’t walk, and he can’t eat, and now he’ll lose his eye and be relegated to the bed for the rest of his life (months) puking in pain. He would rather just get it over with. House is baffled and reiterates his position of no afterlife. Wilson makes him stop, and House leaves the room angrily. In the hallway, Wilson asks why he can’t just let a dying man take solace in his beliefs, and House introduces himself. Wilson says House doesn’t know there’s no afterlife because he’s never been there. House says he doesn’t need to go to Detroit to know it smells either. And Wilson thinks it’s ridiculous that House compare Detroit to the afterlife. And I do too. I don’t need to go to Detroit to know it smells, and I also don’t need to go to know it’s nowhere near what I would consider the afterlife to be like.

Then we’re treated to our old friend the montage. House is pondering, he goes to stare at the knife in the outlet guy, he sits in his office deep in thought, holding onto the knife. We also see Foreman thinking about his patient, and he makes a judgment call and wheels her into what I assume is radiation treatment. At the end of the montage, cut-throat and cute woman are with sick guy. They tell him that he’s not getting enough oxygen, so they insert a tube into his chest to drain some fluid. It’s clear fluid, but if he had cancer it would be blood, so they need to call House. But, uhoh, he’s just paged cut-throat. As she’s walking to his office, we see a huge flash of light. She runs into his office and he’s lying on the ground, eyes open, having just shoved the knife into the outlet. Is this even the first near-death experience he’s had though? Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think it is. Regardless, he better have a better grasp on the afterlife now.

The doctors are all talking about why House did it, and they ask why he paged cut-throat. She says “I assume…” and Wilson walks in and cuts her off, telling her not to assume anything because it’s a trap. House’s heart stopped for about a minute, but he’s still unconscious. Wilson directs them to their current patient, and he says that it can’t be cancer, so he says it would be nice if they could come up with a new idea. If they’re not too busy I guess. Oh Wilson, you’re too polite to be a good diagnostician.

From there we go to House’s hospital room, and Wilson is staring at him. As soon as House wakes up, Wilson calls him an idiot. House asks about the patient, and Wilson tells him what they think is wrong. Then House asks if he was discharged, but he was talking about knife in the outlet guy. House wants to talk to him, but he died about an hour ago, mainly from the electrocution days after massive internal injuries. Wilson asks if House saw something, and House says nothing.

In sick guy’s room, they’ve given him the medicine and it’s supposed to start working in minutes. He’s not getting any better though, and it seems as though he’s convinced the end is near. He asks for his dog, and he flatlines. Rather than try to revive him, they just call the time of death.

Cut-throat goes into House’s room to tell him that the patient died, and House gets up to go look at the patient. Cut-throat asks why he called her, and he said that she had the most invested in getting the job, and she’d try hardest to save his life. Probably not buying it, but he leaves her with that. He goes into the patient’s room, and he asks the two doctors what happened. He asks what’s wrong with the dog, and the dog is now dead too. He then asks if cute woman saw the man take the pills for his threadworm, and she isn’t sure. But the pills are fatal if given to a dog. House searches and finds the empty pill-case on the ground with teethmarks on it. Then he tells cute woman that when he asked her if she saw, the correct answer was no, and he is not happy about it. Looks like the end of cute woman doctor.

So there were a couple deaths. She’s just adorable! Keep her!!

House is back in his room finishing getting dressed, and in walks Cuddy. She blames him for the patient’s death because he made it a game and because he was lying in the hospital bed. He then blamed cute woman for it because she’s an idiot, but Cuddy says it’s his fault because he employed her. Dun dun dunnhhhh, looks like we could have another drawn out plot line involving this case today. Shit.

Foreman’s boss-doctor-woman asks how his patient is doing, and he says that she appears to be stable. She says it was a gutsy call, and he thanks her for that. She corrects him that it wasn’t a compliment though, and if he was wrong then she would be dead. She then lectures him on why rules are in place, not making gut calls, etc. He says it won’t happen again, and she says it will because he confused saving her life with doing the right thing. I’m not really sure what kind of argument that is though. Regardless, she fires Foreman right there. Oh snap again lady doctor!

Double snap.

In the morgue, cute woman is staring at sick guy. House walks in, and she tells him that the threadworms were evident as soon as the pathologist cut into the lungs. House says he fired every member of her team even though they were right. Then he tells her that if she saw him take the pills he would be alive, his dog would be alive, every test would not have been in vain. She says enough with the lecture and to fire her; House says he wouldn’t lecture her if he was going to fire her. He tells her he’ll see her tomorrow.

And that’s where it ended. So Foreman is out of a job, cut-throat appears to be doing well, and despite almost solely being responsible for the death this week, cute woman is staying. What did you think of the episode? Do you see Foreman returning to Jersey? And how many people does he have to kill to learn his lesson? He wouldn’t want to work with House again, right? Do you think all of the danglers will be fired? Will Chase and Cameron continue to play roles in helping (or hurting) House and his doctors?