So last week's episode was titled "House Divided". If you're a history dork, you might know the whole quote: "A House divided against itself cannot stand." I think Abe Lincoln said it, and you know, if he shaved and then grew back about a week's worth of stubble, he'd look a little bit like one Greg House. Reaching? Maybe so, but that cannot spell good things for House at the end of the season. Of course, in the last couple of season finales, he's been shot, got amnesia from a bus crash and I think he was clinically dead somewhere in there too, so I'd say the chances of him escaping Season 5 unscathed are slim. But enough about the main character. Let's go see who this week's Patient of the Week will be, so we can forget about them later. Let's go to the ballet! The main guy (what do you call the male star of a ballet? A baller?) is nervous about a scene where he lifts the ballerina up. Seems he has a bad back and is afraid of wiping out and dropping the girl on her butt. The production team clusters anxiously around a bunch of Macs to see if they'll pull off the move.

Or is that the House writing staff?

He lifts her up over his head. Yay! Something goes pop. Boo! They both crash to the ground and... the woman can't breathe. POW Fakeout, again!

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So, if you recall, a couple of weeks ago we lost a Houseguest. The show with too many cast members finally got rid of one. So pop quiz, hotshot: you're a House exec. What do you do next?

Bring one back, of course. Well, duh.

I know the economy is rough and there are a lot of starving actors out there, and I'm all for a helping hand, but seriously. Do they have to meet a quota for supporting actors on this show? I don't get it.

Cold open: a high school gym. Weren't we just here? This time it's a wrestling match instead of a basketball game. The sound cuts in and out, and this plus some conveniently-timed sign language tells us that one of the contestants is deaf. In case you still don't get it, there's his mom in the stands wearing a "Deaf Pride" T-shirt. The match starts and his coach is signing instructions to him, which has got to be a little tricky to do while wrestling. Not that he has long to worry-in a minute he starts clutching his head and screaming from the cheesy laser-blaster sound effects.

I used to love these things. Then I quit wearing Underoos.

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OK, so has everyone recovered from last week's downer yet? Ready to get back to normal, like Cuddy after that baby incident? Fox's website has already taken off its black armband, so maybe we can move on with our lives too. Let's find out how the docs are dealing, hmm?

Oops, I lied. First let's check in on a couple of protesters chained to a dump truck singing "This Land Is Your Land". There is the usual light banter between the neo-hippies (all in faux-lotus position of course) and the miners who can't get in to do their job, and then a woman protester passes out. She has no pulse. Protest over. Could it be that easy? For the miners yes, for us no. She was just dehydrated, but the guy next to her loses his balance when trying to stand up. That's right, it's another POW Fakeout! And it's on my Bingo card! Ah, he probably just got a head rush. It happens when you get up quickly after sitting in one position for a while. Especially when you're chained to one spot.

Happens to me at work all the time.

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Let's just get this out of the way first: I was totally caught off guard by this episode of House. No spoilers were out there. Not even the typical "This week, Someone Dies! Really! We Swear! SO UNEXPECTED!" It's not even sweeps! It took guts to pull that off. Now Kal Penn is dead and America has lost a stellar young talent. What a trage-what's that? Kal Penn isn't dead? Are you sure? I went and visited this page and left a note saying how much I loved him in Guantanamo Bay and everything! You say Kal just traded one House for a bigger House? Fox wouldn't milk a touchy subject like suicide for web traffic, would they? Well, now that you mention it, it does seem a little contrived sudden to kill off a main character, especially after I came out last week and said nobody was ever leaving the show and all. So what the Fox?

But more to come on that. A couple of other things happened this week too. Hey, did you notice Meat Loaf was guest starring? I didn't think you did. He's the big guy dying in the bed there:

Baby don't be sad.

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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...

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Just going by the episode title ("Here Kitty"), this week of House has potential. Whose kitty? Does it smell bad? Barf up hairballs? Scratch and bite if you rub it a certain way? SO NAUGHTY! We could speculate for at least a paragraph, but that's just what FOX is expecting us to do, and besides, I've already seen the episode summary. This episode is going to be SO FUNNY! Read on!

House is in the clinic putting together a Hot Wheels racetrack out of surgical tubing, tongue depressors and tape. Cuddy pages Dr. MacGyver as Nugent's "Stranglehold" plays in the background. Not "Cat Scratch Fever", but that's the direction they want you to think in.

.

Nice try, but you jumped the shark over a year ago.

She tells him to quit avoiding patients. It seems all the files in his follow-up stack are marked Deceased. I guess House is killing patients in the clinic faster than he can save them upstairs. She introduces a nursing-home nurse. It's Judy Greer, who has the market cornered on mousy sidekicks. I loves her. No one better at playing a crazy cat lady. She says she's feeling run down, has a seizure and pees green all over her white pants.

No pinching you, huh?

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Let me set the scene for y'all: Dim lights. The soft clink of silver and china. The back of a bunch of books, featuring a pic of the tweedy author. A fancy banquet-hall dinner. The author himself, even tweedier in person, about to attempt a speech.   

What my hair looked like in high school.

He thanks his editor, who returns the thank-you by telling him "Short stories don't make money." Like I needed that little reminder. Why no, they don't, and that's why I'm giving away mine here, or here in PDF form! Plug over. Anyway, I guess this is a book of short stories. Relevant? I doubt it. The editor keeps running his mouth, just like in Liar, Liar, saying embarrassingly honest things about the author. In case you haven't pegged him as this week's POW, he has a Nosebleed Of Death!

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We're in a room with late-afternoon sort of sunlight, which is probably the director's way of saying this is a flashback. Closeup of a doctor talking to a pair of new parents, saying ominous things like "genetic mosaicism", "ambiguous genitalia" and "normal life". It seems their baby was born not just with both sets of hardware, but both operating systems as well. Which one will they choose, PC or Mac? And if they regret their decision, can they reformat the hard drive later and install Linux on that puppy? Now we're back in the present day at a basketball game. The parents are cheering on their kid, who does indeed look a little ambiguous, but it's a boys' team so you know which one they picked. In case you're still in doubt, check the school logo.

She gets the ball. Which will she choose, shoot or pass? Decisions, decisions. She passes. Wrong choice--his (let's just stick with that one) teammate missed the shot. The kid gets the ball back, decides to shoot this time, and nails a buzzer-beater before clutching his stomach and falling down on the court. Cue theme by Massive Attack.

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First off, what's up with those new Fox promos? You know the ones I mean: "SO MYSTERIOUS!" "SO PROVOCATIVE!" "SO MEATY!" OK, that last one's from The Soup, but anyway. Fox is tacky enough already without giving every show the GoDaddy treatment. (Speaking of which, if any two things do NOT belong together, it's domain name registration and cleavage.)

A man in all black is cleaning up a community-type room after a community-type event. A homeless guy shows up asking for a coat and being somewhat picky about it. The man in black shoos him off, takes off his jacket and we see by his collar that he's a priest. Or maybe a writer, judging by the crappy apartment, the booze and cigarettes, and the painful grimace. He gets up to answer the door and it's Jesus knocking. Well, the Jesus from the REM video anyway. This guy has never been east of Philly by the looks of him (what you can see under the digital shadow on his face).

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OK, Houseaholics. I'm going to be up front with y'all. February is National Stomach Bug Month, and I'm celebrating with a tall glass of Pepto, trying to take notes while lying very very still on the couch under a heat pad. So I can kinda sympathize with this week's POW. Is that anything like method acting? I just hope there's no really disgusting symptoms in tonight's episode, like blood or excrement or puke or... uh oh hang on a second... ok I'm back. Did I mention this is episode number 100? Hopefully something special and non-nauseating is in store. On to the cold open!

It's a cooking class. Like I can think about food right now. The chef has been watching a little too much Gordon Ramsay, because he's laying into his assistant. It's not long before she starts looking woozy, and I'm really afraid she's going to barf. Her lips turn blue and she starts muttering medical terms at random. She passes out instead of tossing her cookies. Whew.

Posted by Copyhacker at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)