House MD Recap Season 5 Episode 4

Birthmarks

As this episode of House MD opens, a woman is in China with an interpreter. She was adopted in a closed adoption and is trying to make contact wit her biological parents. They want nothing to do with her, and tell her that they have no daughter. She goes outside and sees a Buddha, and asks the interpreter how to pray. He says make a wish and lift the Buddha. Then make the wish again and if you can't lift the Buddha, the wish will come true.

As she struggles to lift the Buddha, she keels over and spits up blood.

House is informed that his father has died. They think the patient has SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, and are taking all sorts of precautions, because the pandemic of Sars has killed hundreds of people worldwide. Doesn't something need to kill more than a few hundred people to create mass hysteria? Apparently not. According to the World Health Organization, Sars has affected a whopping 27 people in the USA and has killed them at an alarming rate of NONE. It's just that contagious.

House is to give a eulogy at his father's funeral. The patient, who I think I will call China Girl in honor of David Bowie, goes into V-Tac and simultaneously House collapses. When House wakes up, he is in the car with Wilson. Wilson says he isn't driving House out of the goodness of his heart. I wonder if House is dreaming this, or if Wilson really is driving him to the funeral. I suspect it is a vision.

They say that China girl is in liver failure. Once again, cancer is suspected of being the problem. House did not have a good relationship with his father. Now House reveals to Wilson that his father is not his biological father. Wilson says House is full of crap. House replies by jamming his cane onto the gas pedal, forcing the car around a police cruiser at a high rate of speed. It yet another of House's tactics to avoid the funeral.

The cop tells Wilson to get out of the car and Handcuffs him. House is on the phone with the team, and he is instructed to get out of the car as well. The cop informs Wilson that there is a warrant for his arrest in Louisiana. For real, or mistaken identity, or just a weird twist in House's vision? I still don't know.

Wilson's warrant is for assault. He threw a bottle through a mirror. House bailed him out. In fact, that's how they met. Wilson and House are free to go, and the cop says, "stop acting like such an ingrate and go pay your respects to your father." Did the funeral get mentioned in conversation, or is this a tip that it is not really happening? Something could have been said and I missed it, but I think this is indicating that House is unconscious and dreaming this.

The patient has brown urine. They haven't focused much on the patient at all. House is consulting with the team about a cyst. Thirteen suggests injecting the cyst with bubbles to see where the bubbles go to see if the cyst is causing her problems. House asked Thirteen if Bubbles was her new stripper name.

House arrives at the funeral. His mother is happy to see him. House asks how she could delay the funeral. Probably another indicator that it is a vision and not real. Wilson is saying something about how House replaced his father in his own head with James Bond. It must be all inside House's head. That conversation made no sense in any other context. House starts describing his father and it sounds more like he is describing himself. He punished failure, he would not admit any point of view other than his own. he treated subordinates poorly. House breaks down momentarily, stops speaking, and kisses his father on the forehead, but he took something.

Wilson and House begin arguing about Amber. He tells Wilson he is afraid of death so he pushes away the one thing that matters to him most (meaning House). Wilson throws a bottle through the stained glass window enraged by House badgering him.

House calls to ask the team how the bubble test went. They tell him they think she has an Atrial Myxoma. House then calls the interpreter to ask about China Girl's parents. The itnerpreter tells House that he doesn't think they were really her parents. The father seemed shocked, and the mother seemed confused. She was born after China imposed the one child policy. Wilson thinks maybe she was an attempted abortion that survived. Maybe they gave her something toxic.

House is back in the hospital and tells them that her parents tried to kill her. House says if Taub turns on the MRI it will kill her. She has a pin in her brain.

When China Girl lifted teh Buddha a second time, a high power magnet turns on. That is what makes it so you can't lift the Buddha on the second wish. That moved the pin in her brain, which is what caused the problem. The pin has been pushing on her brain's addiction center.

House shows Wilson that he has a DNA test that proves that his father was not his biological father. Wilson is astounded that at the age of 12 House figured out his father was not biologically his father. Wilson tells House that he is coming back to the hospital, and that House was right. He says that the trip was the most fun he has had since Amber died.

I guess that wasn't a vision. It really happened. Interesting.

Next week, Thirteen is doing drugs and having sex with strangers. House tells her she's fired.