House MD Season 5 Episode 3 Recap

Adverse Events

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I unfortunately missed a huge chunk of this week's episode of House MD due to picking my daughter up from Girl Scouts, and this may be a bi-weekly thing. Which is going to suck.

The episode starts with a painter that is painting a very attractive nude woman. Her husband is there too. The painter finishes and an argument ensues. The husband is demanding a refund of his money, and the painter insists his work is his best ever. The husband punches him out and says the check better be in the mail. The painter's wife or girlfriend comes down to see what is going on and looks at the portrait and asks WTF?



Finally, we get to see the picture and it looks like Salvadore Dali meets Pablo Picasso. The face is all distorted, but the painter doesn't even realize that it looks wrong, because something is wrong with him.



Meanwhile, Cuddy tells House the hospital is NOT paying for the PI he has hired. "Information saves lives and that saves money," he tells her. "No, it costs money and I'm trying to make sure some is left over."

PI tells Cuddy nice shoes. She pauses and says "Uh, thanks... I guess." He tells House it's less creepy to compliment the shoes, and House replies that it's far more gay too.

House quickly figures out that the painter has not been selling paintings so there must be some other way he is making money. He goes to tell him he has a huge tumor in his head and he's going to have to take Picasso's head off to remove the tumor. Picasso is not impressed, so House says that the lack of terror is a clear indicator that he knows what is wrong. He pries to find out that Picasso has been taking 3 different drug trials. The drugs are about out of his system and that's why it's getting better.

Of course, things get worse. And this is the chunk that I missed.

Skipping ahead, they're continuing to run tests on Picasso Dali. It's still not making sense, the drugs are out of his system, but he's reacting like they are in his system. Taub thinks it might be a toxin in the paint he has been using. Taub goes to see Picasso, and says he needs to know about the paintings he has sold, wink wink nudge nudge.

Picasso's girlfriend wonders why this needs to be a private discussion, and Picasso comes clean about not ever selling the paintings.

Ultimately, House figures out that one of the antacids Picasso was testing led to some materials forming a "hairball" in his stomach. Some pills he took got caught in it, and then got released later. So, massive amounts of drugs he has taken were suddenly flooding his system. They remove the "hairball" and everything is all better.

Tune in next week for a better recap of House MD.

House MD Season 5 Episode 2 Recap

Not Cancer

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The episode of House MD opens differently than most. We see one person after another collapses dead or dying. A tennis player, a construction worker, a kick boxer, and a tuba player. Then we see a math teacher instructing students. Thirteen busts in the classroom and declares that the lesson is over. She asks the teacher if she had a corneal transplant 5 years ago, and the teacher says yes.

Thirteen informs her that everyone who had that transplant is either dead or dying. However, each person died from a different organ failure. A pancreas, a heart, the tuba player's lungs. They all have one commonality and that is the corneal transplant, but what disease affects so many different organs?

House consults with his team, and suggests it's cancer. It's not cancer, the team tells him. Each disease the team suggests, House swats right down and continues to insist it is cancer. But cancer does not jump from one organ to another, and there are no signs of cancer, so what could it be?

Meanwhile, there is a dorky looking guy by the coffee machine. It turns out after a little back and forth that he is actually a private investigator hired by House to stalk Wilson. He also found out some information about the patients.

The team asks, does that mean that we don't have to break into people's houses anymore, to which House replies, Don't be silly. Why do you think you spent all those years in medical school? You don't think I would take that away from you, do you?

House just can't seem to put the puzzle together. Meanwhile, he's trying to find out the dirt on Wilson. He's had Cameron over, Cuddy over, Foreman over, but has never even mentioned House. The investigator says that is what happens when you either don't care about someone, or wish that you didn't. While this is happening, the PI is following an attractive woman, who keeps changing her direction on the sidewalk. She finally looks at him and says, are you following me. He fesses up, and House chastises him for his poor ability to lie. Then the PI says, "you're very pretty." And she says, "Even more uncomfortable."

House insists that the patient has cancer, and puts her on chemotherapy. Later, he walks in and she is throwing up. Foreman says that is from the chemo, and that she is getting better. House was right. It was cancer, but House replies, "I was wrong. It's not cancer." He needs to talk to Wilson to get his thinking process going.

He offers to pay Wilson $400 to consult with him. He tells Wilson he needs him to help him have an epiphany. Wilson tells him he is moving on with his life, and without House. He tells House, Next time you knock on my door, I'm not answering. House is talking with the PI again, and he says something about nothing is nothing, to which House responds that anything is anything. He finally has the answer.

He tells Cuddy that it is stem cells. Stem cells can become anything, and in one patient they became pancreas, in another, heart cells, and in the other lung cells, and in the math teacher, brain cells, but the cells in each case didn't do their job correctly. Thus they acted as obstructions, and when push came to shove, they failed.

He wants to open her brain and test it, but Cuddy says no, even placing security outside the patient's room to keep him out.He gets the PI to switch the chemo with saline, and she starts to crash. Chase is then performing brain surgery on her, and House is letting him know that the IV was swapped. Chase says they should stop the procedure, but House says, you already finished the incredibly risky portion of the procedure, put on the neural net. He tells the PI that the neural net will detect if something is blocking the brain function.

It turns out that something is wrong with her brain, and the doctors remove the bad portion of the brain. Post op House tells the patient that the world was not as ugly as she thought. Her brain didn't interpret the signals properly, but now they will. She's astonished by what she sees.

Meanwhile, House asks the PI if he can put him on retainer.

The PI is an interesting character. I like the addition to the cast. I wonder how long he will remain a part of the show.

House Season Premiere Fall 2008 Recap

Dying Changes Everything

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In the season 4 finale of House MD, Wilson's girlfriend Amber dies. She was in a bus accident, but it was actually a reaction to flu medicine that kills her, not the bus accident.

Amber's death is a strong theme in the premiere episode of season 5 of House MD. Wilson continues to grieve her loss, and he is resigning from the hospital. The relationship between Wilson and House has deteriorated. House thinks Wilson is an idiot for wanting to leave, and tries several times to persuade him to stay. He even tries to get Cuddy and some others to convince Wilson that leaving is not the right thing to do.

In fact, House goes to such an extreme to try and keep Wilson from resigning, that he actually tells Wilson that he is not going to attend to his patient until Wilson changes his mind. We see the patient this week freaking out, thinking that ants, or some sort of insect is crawling all over her body. The patient is not even the central focus of the episode that much, except to the extent she interacts with Olivia Wilde.

Thirteen debates with the patient over the role of women in the workplace. The patient is happy to play the role of subservient, and says, "the world needs lackeys. I'm okay with that." Thirteen is also struggling with accepting her Huntington's disease.

After running through the usual process of misdiagnoses, and life threatening situations, the team finally comes to the conclusion that the patient has cancer and puts her on chemotherapy. Thirteen is feeling pretty good about her ability to save a life without the help of House, only to have House walk in and tell them to stop the chemo. He diagnoses her with leprosy, and all is well, but Thirteen is a little unhappy to realize that she was wrong and House was right. And that the patient is returning to her job as a lackey.

Thirteen can't understand how she can go back to the job that almost killed her. Doesn't almost dying change anything? No. House says "Almost dying changes nothing. Dying changes everything."

House confronts Wilson one more time, and says he's sorry about Amber. He asks if he and Wilson are okay with each other, and Wilson says, no we're not okay. He tells House that he has enabled House to just stomp all over people for years, and he's not going to do it anymore. He finishes by saying that he and House are not friends anymore, and wonders if they ever really were.

Next week on House MD, House stalks Wilson.