Howdy y'all! I swear Fox has been toying with us the last few weeks. House is on, then off, then on again. On means Silly Metaphors and House Bingo. Off means I get to sleep, but my dreams are dark and depressing visions of House being canceled and me getting put on Rock of Love duty. Also, I'm stalking the entire House staff on Twitter and they're more entertaining during non-hiatus weeks. So I guess it's a wash. Anyway. This week we're on, and Mos Def is guest starring as the POW, so let's roll!
Open on a blurry patient's-eye view of a hospital ceiling. This is Mos Def not Princeton Plainsboro, because there are no water features in sight. A doctor says the patient is brain dead and is a good heart donor candidate. We hear the POW thinking "But I need my heart! I'm here! I'm right here!" He's still alive in there, but nobody knows. It's all like some bad dream! Then he hears a familiar gravelly voice in the next bed. It's House, and the dream has just become a full-blown nightmare. Except it's not a dream, and House knows the guy is not brain dead. How does he know that? Well, he's getting treated for what looks like a scraped elbow after a motorcycle accident in another town. So he's probably in even more pain than usual, which means his Superpowers of Observation are juiced today. Just think what House could do if he was, say, getting bamboo stuck under his fingernails, or having his jewels zapped with 1.21 gigawatts. He might even figure out the economy for us. Paging Dr. Bauer! The country needs you, stat! House and the Other Doctor argue until House gets the patient to blink his eyes. He has something called Locked In Syndrome.
And if there's anyone you don't want to be locked in with...
We're still inside Def's head (excuse me sir, do you prefer Mos or Def? And when you and Mr. T get restaurant reservations together, what name do you use?), getting his point of view and his thoughts. This is an awesome idea and would have been even awesomer if that lame Hayden Christensen movie hadn't done it first. He flashes back to a bike accident. The POW's real doctor thinks the bike accident caused the, um, locking in, and House thinks the locking in caused the accident. After a little nap, POW Def gets a visit from his wife. She says God will heal him. Really guys, I think God is getting sick of proving Himself to House, let's let him sit out an episode or two, k?
House is still in the next bed, sneaking a look at Def's CT scans as the Houseguests ("hot, dark, and darker", which means no Louie) come to visit and bring him food. He claims he was there to buy a '57 Les Paul Goldtop, and if you know anything about guitars, you've just had a Guitargasm. You probably also know that it's tough to carry a guitar case on a motorcycle, so I bet we haven't heard the whole story. They do a little Name That Disease session while Def drools over House's fries. Kumar wants to get the Other Doctor to order an MRI but House says he's "too busy teaching him to blink out 'Kill Me' in Morse code." (Remember that creepy Metallica video? I hear the movie it came from was good but I've never seen it.) House forges an MRI order form, they put these fancy virtual reality goggles on him, and he starts daydreaming. Let's call them Convenient Plot Device Goggles, because they let him have some scenes with House. He sits on a beach, with House, with his kids playing in the sand. Meanwhile, the MRI rules out a tumor, and House monologues to the POW about what else could be wrong and why he's interested in the case. "So many questions... but if you could answer any of them, then you wouldn't be fascinating." "You're a little nuts, aren't you," thinks Def. "A little?" we all think. The POW fades out again because the meds Dr. Idiot (first Bingo square!) had him on almost killed him, which is exactly what House hoped would happen. When Def comes back to, he eye-blinks that he wants to ditch Dr. Idiot and have House treat him instead. So, road trip back to Princeton.
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Comments (3)
This episode would have been much better without the POV cam. It got really annoying, really quickly!
1 of 3 | Posted by lesleymoon | Posted on April 3, 2009 1:32 PM
this was a really good episode and i would have LOVED the POW cam had i not been trying to get over a migraine. at the end, when they switched to HOUSE cam, i thought my migraine was coming back. it was totally messing with me.
oh, and more kumar, less taub and foreteen please. thanks.
2 of 3 | Posted by mones | Posted on April 3, 2009 4:21 PM
@lesleymoon: I guess the POW Cam was a matter of taste. I thought it was a great way to mix things up and I enjoyed seeing all the usual episode elements (Name That Disease, Moral Debates, Huddy, House vs. Wilson, etc) through a different lens (literally).
The beach scenes were contrived, but I guess if you're paying Mos Def to show up, you want more for your money than a voiceover.
3 of 3 | Posted by Anonymous | Posted on April 6, 2009 8:19 AM