Back in the room they borrowed from CTU, 13 is not amused by coming in sloppy seconds to Cuddy. Foreman tries to cheer her up by saying her pistons are better than Cuddy's pistons and oh, stop it. Dumbest anatomical metaphor ever. A mini moral debate breaks out over the meaning of attractive. Like hawt attractive, or total-package attractive? Or the one I usually get, great-personality attractive? They scan the POW's brain for clues while he rambles about how he doesn't vote, and they find... well, whatever they find, it makes them think sarcoidosis. Oh sarcoidosis, how I've missed you. You're my favorite red herring of all. Cancer meant nothing to me, I swear.
Down in the cafeteria, Louie asks Kumar if his nose is really too big. There's more highbrow discussion about a social contract (EPISODE TITLE ALERT!!), which basically means we tell each other white lies so civilization doesn't come crashing down around our ears. Wouldn'tcha know it, House and Wilson are talking about the same thing across the room. Maybe the cafeteria has a blackboard with "TODAY'S CONVERSATION TOPIC" right under "TODAY'S SPECIAL". Anyway, Wilson is still ticked about House's "you're all persona" jab. Wilson points out that he's not always nice to House. Ah, but that's because you know I think nice is boring, so it still counts as nice, says House. He peeked at Wilson's appointment book (people still use those?) and Wilson is booked during the monster truck rally. Wilson says he's playing racquetball with Louie, and he lied to House to be nice, since House's gimpy leg keeps him from playing. So he blocked off the time in his book but didn't write down what he was doing? Convenient, that.
While everyone was off eating and having conversations about personas and such, the POW was upstairs crashing, and poor Foreman had to do all the work by himself. They have to put the guy on dialysis. More importantly, House wants to know about Louie's racquetball play date with Wilson. He makes a crack about Jewish people and sports, and in case you didn't notice, House always saves the really disgusting comments for when he's feeling hurt. Louie points out Sandy Koufax, Hall of Fame pitcher, and bursts into the Hanukkah Song. House eyerolls. "Koufax is all you Jews go on about. Sandy Koufax and the Holocaust. It gets old." Godwin's Law is about to cut this episode short right here. House thinks whatever the POW has is genetic, so they should run some tests on the POW's daughter. Oh, and Louie, the POW might have diabetes, so why don't you stay up all night and draw blood every 2 hours to test for that, you lying liar.
Kumar runs the test on the daughter while the POW's wife admits that she's scared of what might come out of her husband's mouth next. The daughter screams because whatever they're doing to her is burning. Good thing they hurt that innocent little kid. I was this close to disengaging. Luckily, kids and pain are like peas and carrots on this show.
Are you not emotionally invested?
Louie is doing the diabetes test and the POW says to please keep 13 away from him so he doesn't stick his foot in his mouth again. That's her cue to disappear for the rest of the episode. Also getting a bye: Cameron and that Australian guy whose face I can barely remember. Louie and the POW discuss Today's Conversation Topic, which is in danger of getting its own acronym. The POW figures out all by himself that Louie had an affair. Guest characters always have Housian powers of observation. You know what would be awesome? An All-Star episode where the best POWs come back and get to be Houseguests for a week. They'd do a better job of it. House pages Louie to the morgue, hands him a racquet and makes him show off his racquetball skillz. Louie is kind of a klutz. He's also using a squash racquet.
FAIL.
The POW is mad at Team Gryffindor for doing the test that hurt his daughter. He also thinks she doesn't have an "auditory processing condition", that's just a euphemism for slow. No, not slow, just below average. Then he realizes he's saying this in front of the girl, tries to apologize and botches it. She runs away in shame. He also has a bad fever, if you're interested. What could be causing the fever? A bunch of things ending in 'osis' is all I can tell. House is still cranky about the Louie/Wilson Conspiracy.
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