So there’s a kid’s talent show in progress, and I’m in panic mode because I can’t handle the sick kids stories, especially when I’ve got PMS. Two adorable but kind of bratty girls are getting helped into their dresses by their mom and complaining about homemade outfits and rich kids who make fun of them. The mom says she’ll just key the mean girl’s dad’s car, so now I know that it’s her that’s sick. Because I’m in love with her now. Sure enough, while the girls are performing she starts screaming in agony, and the Medic-Cam goes into her stomach and shows a vessel getting redder and bigger. Thank god we didn’t actually see it pop; I’d have to take to my bed for the next year.

Back at the hospital Cuddy accosts Stacy about some disciplinary hearing that Chase and House have to go to. I have no idea what it’s in reference to, but later we see they’re doing this episode in reverse. We know from the last episode that Stacy wants nothing to do with House ever again, but Cuddy isn’t in the loop on that yet. Stacy explains that they had a fight and that Cuddy needs to find a different lawyer for House. Cuddy’s response is the apt “40 percent of our lawsuits last year were about House. If you can’t work with him you can’t work here.” I find Cuddy most appealing when she’s being vaguely threatening. It makes me uneasy, but in a hot kind of way.

More back and forth between House and Wilson about the ethics of House reading Stacy’s file. It could be boring since they essentially keep having this discussion, but this is why this show is so good: the guys have set up a field goal made out of paper clips and are concentrating just as hard on the game as on the discussion. I think this series will end with Wilson and House walking off into the sunset with each other.

Stacy interrupts playtime to throw some legal documents in House’s face. She makes him sign them and says there’s nothing he has to know about them. In the next scene, she’s carefully and hilariously going over the same documents with Chase. She genuinely wants to help him, but he’s got that rich boy arrogance in full effect, so she basically goes over a script with him that outlines everything he should say to the committee. And here we have this episode’s main conceit.

Foreman initially saw the patient first, in the clinic while her brother paced and said insulting things while Foreman tried to do his job. He noticed that her eye was inflamed, which is a very bad sign indicating potential blindness. However, since inflamed eye plus stomach and leg pain is weird, House was on it. This is, allegedly, a good thing.