house-clinic

Hooray for technology!

2008-03-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

Greetings, House fans. When new episodes start up again, this blog is going to have a shiny new feature -- clips, courtesy www.hulu.com. If you haven't checked out that site yet, you should. It's run by the NBC and Fox folk and serves up full episodes of shows on and off the air (now's a good time to see what you missed when you didn't watch "Arrested Development"). Anywho, one of the features is that you can embed clips in blogs and such. Hence my exciting news. I added a clip to the "It's a Wonderful Lie" posting, just to test it out. Looks good.

Good times ahead, friends and neighbors. Good times ahead.

Hot mamma -- Episode 108, "Poison"

2008-02-29T11:08:00.001-08:00

Clinic patient:
Georgia, an 82-year-old woman with syphilis -- and an annoying son.

The connection:
The main case is another mother-son team, but with the son in the hospital instead of the mom. Aside from that, I got nothin'.

Even so, Georgia is one of my favorite clinic patients -- and House's. For a man who doesn't really like anyone, especially patients, I think he likes her. And why not? She's cute and spunky, has a little crush on Ashton Kutcher, and brushes off her son like the grown-up baby that he is. Even the reason for her sudden good mood, syphilis, earns House's admiration. "Impressive," he says when he first sees her test results. I'd say he's even more impressed when she tells him she'd gotten it in her promiscuous youth, before meeting her husband. (Son: "You said Dad was your first love." Mom: "He was. We're talking about sex.")

House gives her penicillin, but she comes back later, wanting no part of it even though the disease could kill her.

Georgia: Well, you gotta go sometime. And I really don’t want to play canasta for the rest of my life. I … I like feeling sexy again. And making a fool out of myself with handsome young doctors.
House: Do you think I would have given you this if it would stop you from flirting with me?
Georgia: But if I’m cured?
House: The spirochetes will die off. But the little pieces of your cerebral cortex that have been destroyed won’t grow back. You’re brain damaged. Doomed to feeling good for the rest of your life.

The good doctor is just playing to her flirtatious side to get her to take the needed meds -- part of his fix-at-any-cost persona -- but you can tell he's enjoying himself.

I leave you with her love poem:
“The healer with his magic powers,
I could rub his gentle brow for hours.
His manly chest, his stubble jaw,
Everything about him leaves me raw
with joy. Oh House, your very name
will never leave this girl the same.”

Shades of grey -- Episode 410, "It's a Wonderful Lie"

2008-02-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

Clinic patient:
Woman who may or may not be a prostitute.

The connection:
Everybody lies. It's a concept all us "House" fans have been familiar with from the get-go, a philosophy so good they put it on a t-shirt. Now, in the fourth season, we get an episode that's a sort of liar's handbook -- a handy dandy little field guide with definitions (courtesy of an early chat with the main patient's daughter), a conversion chart for the ratio of big lies to small truths (just how honest can you be without telling your daughter she's not your daughter?) and a close-up look at that whole fuzzy area called the absence of truth (our clinic patient).

There's a lot to lying. As the opening credits are still rolling, House has a little sit-down with the main patient's daughter to try to figure out what her mom's not telling them. In the process, he gives her a little lesson in lying and all its various forms: evasions instead of answers; white lies -- "Lies we tell to make other people feel better"; rationalizations -- "Lies we tell to make ourselves feel better."

The clinic patient's lie takes a more complicated form, and House actually helps it along through assumption. The patient comes in complaining of soar throat, stomach and glands. As House is checking her over, he notices her necklace.

House: "St. Nicholas?"
CP: "Patron saint of children."
H: "Also seamen, merchants, archers, prostitutes and prisoners."

He tells her she has strep and that she should take it easy -- not to worry, he'll write her pimp a note.

CP: "Pimp?"
H: "You don't have the skin of a seaman, the fingers of an archer, the clothes of a merchant, or the attitude of an ex-con. That just leaves one left."
CP: "Two, actually. But I'm not a child, am I?"

So House, in his deductive reasoning kind of way, figures she's a prostitute. She's not denying. When she comes in again, this time with a nasty pustule-filled breakout around her neck, the whole conversation is based on the idea that she's a prostitute. His immediate guess -- the clap. ("Clap on, clap off.") After closer examination:

H: "Do you do a donkey show? I'm not curious. It matters."
CP: "It's a donkey or a mule. I can never remember."

Is there contact? Yup. Diagnosis: contact ecthyma. House is thinking beastiality. Her creepy smile turns into an amused one, and she offers to give him an explanation, but he won't have it, thoroughly convinced she's a prostitute and wanting to avoid the scary details. She leaves him a flier for the show, and at the end we see it's a live nativitiy scene at a church, and she's riding a donkey.

It could go either way whether she's a hooker or not. The whole church thing would seem to rule that out, but she could just be a religious prostitute. I say she's not. She called St. Nicholas the patron saint of children -- if she's active in the church, of course she's working with kids. Her frequent HIV testing could be simply a precaution for some sort of needle exchange program. Checking herself for gonorrhea? Well, not all religious people are pure.

So if she's not a prostitute, then she's just playing House's game, letting him believe that she is. Is that the same as a lie? Well, it's not the truth. The same can be said of the main patient. She tells her daughter everything, except that she's not her daughter. It's not an active lie. It's a lie of omission.

Power play -- Episode 405, "Mirror Mirror"

2007-11-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

With House's fellowship version of "Survivor" raging on (thankfully, only one more episode!), it's no surprise that there's been little room for clinic patients. And frankly, I'm glad the writers haven't tried. It's been hard enough squeezing in Chase and Cameron, let alone subplot z.

But the clinic itself is still there and, in this episode, at House's disposal. His goal is to get back at Cuddy for rehiring Foreman. So he announces to a crowded hospital cafeteria that the mayonnaise is bad, then directs them all to the clinic and tells them to ask for Dr. Cuddy. But she's played House's games enough to know how to even the score -- she pilfers House's Duckling wannabes to help with "The Great Mayonnaise Panic of 2007." (Of course, it would have been sweeter had she roped House into clinic duty, but we all know that wouldn't happen.) House gets his differential diagnosis anyway -- Kutner and Bitch chime in from exam rooms, while Taub and the guy who stood around a lot throw in their two cents from the waiting room -- then offers expensive tests for all uninsured patients. "Fight the power."

This most recent power play between Cuddy and House is not the first to be played out in the clinic (see "Occam's Razor" from season 1 and "Lines in the Sand" from season 3). But House might care a little bit more about this outcome. The main patient suffers from mirror syndrome, in which he mimics the dominant person in the room. Unfortunately for House, just a few scenes before, that dominant person was Wilson. House may not be consciously aware of it at the time he pops into the clinic, but he's got something to prove.

Cheating -- Episode 107, "Fidelity"

2007-10-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Woman with breast implants complaining of shortness of breath; or, as Cuddy calls her, "the preschool teacher with the heart of silicon."

The connection:
"They were a present for my husband's 40th. I figured he'd enjoy them more than a sweater."

The patient's basic story is this: She got implants, she claims, for her husband. The breasts are the cause of her shortness of breath. But as it turns out, her husband also had been mixing his blood pressure medication into her oatmeal so her sex drive would be diminished -- an unfortunate side effect of the drug. (Says House: "I’m guessing he figured if you're both frigid, no harm no foul.")

Here's how it plays out: We see her twice in the clinic. The first time is setup for House's main patient revelation; the second time is the revelation.

First time: House is being surprisingly professional, asking all of his doctorly questions without sarcasm or sass. But then she lowers her gown, House gets a gander at her breasts ("Good, Lord. Are those real?") and he calls Wilson in on a "consult."

After the consult -- and already armed with a diagnosis for the shortness of breath -- House starts in, as he often does, on motive.

House: She did not do that for her husband. She did that for herself. She thinks if she looks different, she'll be different.
Wilson: No. She thinks if she looks different she'll be more attractive, which I have to say --
House: Not to her husband. Cosmetic surgery is so everyone else will look at us differently.

Cuddy eventually shows up to call them on the needless consult, and House orders tests to, as Cuddy puts it, cover his lechery.

It would seem that's the end of it. Oh, but no. A couple days later, Cuddy walks into House's office with clinic lady's test results. (Both he and Wilson forgot about it, and because it's quite a bit later in the episode, perhaps we did, too.) House notices something interesting in her EKG ("I was right"), which leads us to ...

Second time: House asks her about her husband's blood pressure medication, she confirms, he tells her about the oatmeal. Then she asks what she should do. House basically tells her that she should look elsewhere for sex: "Well, if you care about your husband at all, I'd do the responsible thing: Buy yourself some condoms, go to a bar, find ..." He trails off, gets that look in his eye, mutters "huh" and in the next scene comes to his team with the possibility that the main patient cheated on her husband. Which she did, contracting African Sleeping Sickness. Clinic patient saves the day again.

But her role in the episode doesn't stop with the main patient (although there was a brief moment shortly after the consult when the team is tossing about possible diagnoses, and Wilson asks, "Did you check her breasts?"). She also provides the impetus for subplot C -- Wilson's possibly cheating ways. The conversation in orange up there segues into House accusing Wilson of cheating on his wife because he's wearing a snazzy new green tie, probably to impress some young lady in the hospital (turns out to be a nurse). This storyline is threaded throughout the episode, and might even be the first mention on the show of Wilson's womanizing and marital track record (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). In fact, House and Wilson were talking about the nurse when Cuddy came in with the test results.

The episode got a lot of mileage out of this clinic patient.

Afterlife -- Episode 403, "97 Seconds"

2007-10-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Car accident victim who sticks his knife into a wall socket in an attempt to recapture his near-death experience.

The connection:
In a nutshell, the clinic patient and the main patient (with a little bit of Wilson thrown in) lead House to zap himself as part of his own personal experiment to test the theory of an afterlife.

It starts with House trying to figure out why clinic guy stuck the knife in the socket. Clinic guy explains what happened after the crash: "I saw these headlights. And I saw ... Paramedics said I was technically dead for 97 seconds. It was the best 97 seconds of my life." House dismisses the visions as chemical reactions in the brain, but clinic guy dismisses that, saying he's done every kind of hallucinogenic drug, and it wasn't the same. "This is way bigger than that," he says. "There's something out there. Something more." And House's interest is piqued.

Now it's the main patient's turn. After being confined to a wheelchair for most of his life, he's just learned that he has cancer and will have to spend his remaining months in a hospital bed, puking and in pain. He chooses to die instead:

Main patient: "I've been trapped in this useless body long enough. It'd be nice to finally get out."
House: "Get out and go where? You think you're gonna sprout wings and fly around with the other angels? There is no after. There's just this."

Afterward, Wilson berates House for squashing the beliefs of a dying man. House is stubborn as always:

House: "He shouldn't be making a decision based on a lie. Misery is better than nothing."
Wilson: "You don't know there's nothing. You haven't been there."
House: "Oh, God, I am tired of that argument. I don't have to go to Detroit to know that it smells."
Wilson: "Yes. Detroit, the afterlife. Same thing."

So House decides to go there. He zaps himself by sticking the clinic guy's knife into a wall socket in his office. When he comes to, he's eager to talk to clinic guy, who unfortunately died just an hour before. Wilson wants to know why House needs to talk to him: Did he see something?

We get our answer in the last line of the episode. House, all alone with the body of the main patient, looks down at him and says, "I'm sorry to say, I told you so."

It seems pretty cut and dried, but I found myself asking this question: Would House, without anyone to overhear him, lie to a dead guy?

Faith is probably House's biggest nemesis. It's an annoyance because it's the opposite of reason and because he's frequently confronted by it. But as convinced as he is in his atheism, it seems that every time faith rears its ugly head, there's always room for doubt. There was a moment in "House vs. God" when it was possible the young faith healer's touch shrank Wilson's cancer patient's tumor. When his patient in "Human Error" miraculously came back from the brink of death, House looked up in futility. At the end of "One Day, One Room," he seemed swayed by the main patient's case for eternity.

House eventually found the medical explanations for the anomalies in "House vs. God" and "Human Error," but in order to disprove God as a factor, he had to acknowledge the possibility of his existence. It's the same in "97 Seconds." If he didn't think there was the chance of an afterlife, he wouldn't have had to test it.

In House's hospital room, Wilson mentioned that House had already had two near-death experiences. The first, when House's heart stopped in "Three Stories," was accompanied by visions. (Then, as now, "They're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.") Same with the second, when he was shot in season 2's finale, "No Reason," although those visions were described more as hallucinations. Was there really nothing the third time around?

My point is this: There's really no reason House would lie to a dead man -- unless he's lying to himself to keep faith from winning.

Mind and Body -- Episode 312, "One Day, One Room"

2007-08-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

When this episode first aired, I got all jazzed because it was so different and yet fundamentally the same as the rest of the series. I put it right up there with "Three Stories" from Season 1. But my fellow "House" maven burst my bubble the next day with a disappointing and well-reasoned lack of enthusiasm. Fast-forward however many months to the lovely if extras-deficient DVD, and I'm all excited again. Hooray for creativity!

"One Day, One Room" puts House in two places he hates to be: in the clinic and in a situation where he has to get personal. Worse, his main patient -- a young woman who's been raped -- is not someone he's supposed to cure physically, but psychologically.

But the writers have it covered, and they spell out their point in a little exchange between House and Cuddy, when Cuddy tries to persuade House to actually treat his clinic patients instead of give them $50 to go away:

Cuddy: "I'll pay you $10 for every patient you diagnose without touching. You pay me $10 for every one you have to touch."
House: "You're making this a game for me. From which I can conclude this isn't a game for you."
Cuddy: "No."
House: "Why? You think if I deal with enough people I'll find some humanity?"
Cuddy: "Yes."

So without further ado, here are the clinic patients, with select commentary:

Clinic patients:
(Deep breath)
1. Guy who thinks he has an STD.
2. Young woman who thinks she has an STD.
We don't know it right away, but this one's our main patient. I said above that this episode is fundamentally the same as all the others, and it's true. There's a big mystery that needs solving: not a freakishly rare disease, but why, what with all his obvious compassion and charm, is House the one she chooses to talk to? For problems that pop up along the way, he goes to the Ducklings: Do we need to talk about what happened to her? What does she really want to hear about my sucky life? The various treatments are not medications, but soul-searching conversations about abortion, God, reason and rationality. When House first figures out the woman has been raped, he tells Cuddy to assign someone else, asking, "You think I'm the right doctor for her?" As it turns out, yes.
3. Old woman who thinks she has an STD.
4. Guy who runs around the clinic's waiting room, screaming bloody murder and clasping a hand to his ear.
Ah, the red herring. House has gone through three clinic patients and is trying to shoo the others away when this guy starts going berserk. And it's at the end of the teaser, so we naturally assume this is our guy for the episode. But he's dispensed with even before the opening credits are done. House has already figured out it's just a cockroach in the guy's ear, but he has the Ducklings run a series of tests just to buy him some time away from the clinic.
5. Cameron's patient with lung cancer.
Same day, different room. While sad, it's just another in a series of poor souls Cameron has to watch die.
6. Guy with athlete's foot in his nose.
7. Guy holding his own tongue depressor.
8. Woman feeling her own rash.
9. Guy trying to take his own pulse.
10. Hot chick.
House to Cuddy: "I owe you $10." Best line of the episode.
11. Guy who says he has hiccups, when all he really wants is a good time.
12. Father and son who took a $50 bribe from House to leave the clinic, but came back because the kid swallowed a magnet.
House's ingenuity is again on display, as he presses a scalpel to the kid's belly to prove the magnet is safely in the intestines.

Etc.
House + coat + scarf = totally hot

Sometimes it's cute -- Episode 323, "The Jerk"

2007-06-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
A dad, his son and some sun. Dad fell asleep on a boat and woke up all toasty and covered in white spots.

Connection
The white spots are the result of the son having a little fun -- $1.41 worth of fun. He put coins all over his dad's chest while he was sleeping. It's cute and funny, probably because he's a youngin. If he were, say, the age of chess-prodigy-jerk-face-main-patient boy, harsher adjectives might come to mind. But somehow it's also cute and funny when House squirts dad in the face with water. Maybe you can only be a jerk within a certain 30-year period.

As a side note, in a much earlier scene, we come upon House scrounging around on the floor behind the admit desk looking for loose change. Foreshadowing? I hope not. Kind of a waste of foreshadowing. Maybe the writers just wanted us to know where House's sudden coin prowess is coming from. Or maybe the clinic patient was originally supposed to come before that scene, and the coins were really the kid's. Or maybe I should stop thinking so much.

Etc.
How cute is House with kids? He trades his syringe for the son's coins, then gets it back by claiming one of the quarters is "Canadian." Of course he's just joking around -- even House knows kids shouldn't play with syringes. Plus he's having fun, with the water and all, picking up where the kid left off. Anyway, it kind of reminded me of that little girl from "Need to Know" in season 2, the one with the mom who's taking her ADD meds. The way he took the girl's hand to walk her back to her mom's room. Aww. There's actually a lot of those sweet moments. There's a blog subject for ya.

Depression -- Episode 322, "Resignation"

2007-06-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Guy with floating poop and his 26-year-old nutritionist girlfriend, Honey, who has "the wisdom of a much younger woman."

Connection
As with the 17-year-old stalker from "Informed Consent" and "Lines in the Sand," who was in the clinic with her sick dad, Honey is the real focus here. House is barely through the door before he starts flirting with her. And though the boyfriend is right there, she flirts back. So you can't really blame House for going for it when she flips out about her "vegan" boyfriend cheating on her -- not with another woman, but with another food group (seems meat fat is to blame for his floaters). Anyway, House gets a resume out of the deal, and ultimately a date.

That date at the end of the episode is a big deal, especially after episode-long (and, really, season-long) talk about depression, talk that always winds its way back to House. The big theme this season has been House changing, House becoming slightly more human. To go on a date -- and not, say, hire a hooker -- is a big step for him. In fact, his entering the bar feels like a follow-through on whatever episode it was that ended with a will-he-or-won't-he moment, when he's debating, hand on doorhandle, whether to join the team in a restaurant for a drink.

Depression pops up in three storylines in this episode: Honey; House and Wilson drugging each other; and the main patient, a 19-year-old girl who's coughing up blood.

Let's start with House and Wilson. House is trying to figure out why Wilson yawned for no good reason. He polls his team, comes up with anti-depressants as a possibility, and decides to dose Wilson's coffee with amphetamines to test the theory. A jumpy Wilson eventually figures it out and heads over to House's house to confront him. House accuses Wilson -- who's always telling House how to fix his life -- of hiding his use of anti-depressants, but as usual, Wilson turns the tables:

"You wouldn't take them! You'd rather OD on Vicodin or stick electrodes in your head because you could say you did it to get high. The only reason to take anti-depressants is because you're depressed. You have to admit that you're depressed."

Fast-forward to House telling the main patient, Addie, that she's going to die. She doesn't want to hear why. House, who can't comprehend why she wouldn't want to know what's killing her, pesters her about it, a smile on his face. Addie accuses him of being happy about her dying. He denies it, then -- mental click -- runs off to Wilson's office to berate him for putting anti-depressants in his coffee. Wilson points out that they've been working -- House has been happy. House, not one to admit anything, insists that they've made him hazy, not happy. Then, wondering why a dying girl would see "happiness," House has another mental click: Addie's depressed and tried to kill herself.

And now Honey. House meets her in the bar -- remember, a big step -- tells her that Wilson's been putting anti-depressants in his coffee (which makes him hazy) because he thinks House is miserable, then rattles off a series of "deep character flaws." Honey latches on to the anti-depressants: "How miserable can you be, saving lives, sleeping around and doing drugs?"

True enough.

Etc.
House, the last line of the episode: "And I hate tea." Love it! How's that for tongue-in-cheek humor from an Englishman?

Subtext -- Episode 319, "Act Your Age"

2007-04-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Guy who says he's peeing a lot

This one's not so much about the patient as the clinic. And Cuddy. And motives.

This is a big House-Cuddy episode, although most of it is through House-Wilson exchanges. The storyline gets its kick-start in the clinic, when House offers Wilson theater tickets from a patient whose life he saved. Wilson takes Cuddy, and House spends the episode joking around with it even though he's adorably jealous. ("Seriously?")

But for some subtle lovin', consider what happens before House makes the ticket offer, when he and Wilson first enter the exam room:

Wilson: "I didn't know you were seeing a patient."
House: "It's an exam room. What did you think I was doing?"
Wilson: "What you're usually doing. Hiding from Cuddy."

Yes ... curious, isn't it? How many times have we seen House use those exam rooms for kicking back with a magazine or a video game or "General Hospital"? And where's the protest that usually accompanies clinic duty?

Later, after Cameron did the vaginal exam on the little girl-main patient and got confounding results, the Ducklings are discussing more theories on their way to House's office -- his empty office, as it turns out. Chase's curiosity -- "Where is he?" -- is but a blip in the conversation as Foreman rolls right over it with another theory for the main case.

But in the next scene, we see where House is -- the clinic, again. With the fake urinator, again. This time, Cuddy interrupts to pull House out and talk about the little girl. Think about that. She's pulling him from the clinic to tell him to do something with the main case. A little backward, no? This is also when House realizes that Wilson took Cuddy to the play. Later, House makes a third foray into the clinic (after a giddy Wilson boasts about his flowers), and he walks right past Cuddy to do so.

Where am I going with this? Well, I have a theory: House, in his own subtle way, is making an effort to impress Cuddy. What do they most bump heads about? Clinic duty. What's House doing a curious amount of this episode? Clinic duty.

Big episode.

Personal note
Sorry for the three-month blog-posting hiatus, friends and neighbors. If you've been checking back, thanks for sticking around. If you're newbies, welcome. Thankfully, I don't think I skipped out on much, what with those annoying three-week American Idol breaks. And it's possible I have notes on "One Day, One Room" (yes, notes -- I am that dorky), so if next week's episode is clinic patient-free, I might yet have something to write about.

The Tritter Saga: Vogler Redux? (Episodes 305-310)

2007-01-24T12:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry this is belated. Life got in the way. You know how it is.

Anyway, Tritter is dead. Well, Tritter the idea. Mr. Revenge, Mr. Sourpuss, cuff 'im and spread 'em. A lot went down on his watch: House took one hell of a downward spiral, jobs were lost, relationships broken, loyalties tested. You know, happy stuff. Thing is, the show's (mostly) been there before -- with Vogler, House's guest nemesis from season 1. The big difference? Tritter brought his A game. A comparison of storylines:

This time, it's personal
Actually, it was pretty personal the first time around. Vogler came in with grand plans of taking over the hospital, but House -- with his yo-yo and his no lab coat -- quickly became his pet project (Vogler's threat in a nutshell: House goes, or I go). But in the end, Vogler was just looking out for Vogler. He had an image of control and power that he needed to maintain, and House's naturally insubordinate ways threatened that. Tritter's motives were more personal because what House did to him was more personal. Wouldn't you want House to suffer after he abandons you in the clinic with a rectal thermometer firmly in place?

A tangent about the clinic: Why start the Tritter storyline there? The practical answer is convenience and believability. House may be an ass outside of work, but he's not likely to invoke the kind of spiteful response he got out of Tritter. The creative answer is that the writers have set up the clinic as a place House truly loathes, so he tends to be more biting and demeaning than he would be with a main patient, thus making him more likely to ruffle some feathers.

Means to an end:
Tritter really struck at the core to get what he wanted out of House by slowly taking away his vicodin. It was like watching extended versions of "Detox." Vogler just dangled House's team in front of him, saying fire one of them or else. While it was sweet of House not to cave, it lacks the punch of near-annihilation. But Tritter still included the Ducklings in his plans, freezing their bank accounts, interrogating them, getting them to try to persuade House to give in. (I won't hold this part to the Vogler-Tritter similarity test, just because the structure of the show kind of requires the team to be a part of things.)

But Chase. Poor Chase. He makes a deal with Vogler, keeping tabs on House in exchange for job security, and it comes back around with Tritter. As part of Tritter's manipulation, he leaves Chase's bank account untouched and constructs what looks to be an informant-friendly meeting in a public place. Once a rat, always a rat. Without Vogler, this wouldn't have worked.

Wilson
Season 1: Wilson defends House till the end; is forced out of his job when he's voted off the board, leaving, in his mind, no choice but to resign; questions his relationship with House ("I’ve only got two things that work for me: this job and this stupid, screwed-up friendship, and neither mattered enough to you to give one lousy speech."); gets over it.

Season 3: Wilson defends House at the beginning and the end, with a slight gap there in the middle where he confessed to the forged prescription pads; is forced out of his job when he can't write prescriptions any more; questions his relationship with House ("Despite all your smart-ass remarks, I knew you gave a damn. This time, you were either gonna help me through this or you weren't. I got my answer."); gets over it.

Cuddy
Saves the day.
Season 1: In the end, she stands up to Vogler and his millions and millions of dollars to protect House; uses it as leverage.
Season 3: In the end, she perjures herself in a court of law to protect House; using it as leverage.

Checking in -- Episode 310, "Merry Little Christmas"

2006-12-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

Clinic patient:
Young dwarf on a follow-up.

Connection:
Young Abigail is in the clinic with a host of problems, recovering from a collapsed lung. House knows there's more to it, so he takes the case. Thus, clinic patient becomes main patient. Nothing new, really. What is new is that Cuddy was the doctor in the clinic. We've seen her there before, but never with a patient who ends up on the big stage. She joins Cameron ("Acceptance") and Chase ("The Mistake") on that one.

Significantly, House steals Cuddy's patient on the heels of his attack on her in the previous episode, "Finding Judas," in which he tells her she sucks at being a doctor (and a mom, but doctor better suits my purposes). In that episode, Cuddy thought House was being mean just to be mean. But now House is telling her again that she's missed something big. She's insecure enough in her doctor-hood as it is, so now he's just adding insult to injury.

Etc.
This post is pretty late, but I wasn't going to do it at all, just because of the simplicity of things. (And as it turns out, I had more to say than I thought I would.) Mostly I'm just checking in, letting y'all know that I'm still here. I've been waiting around for the Tritter saga to wrap, but it looks like they're going to drag it out at least one more episode. Sigh. I'm a little over it.

Stiff arm -- Episode 306, "Que Sera Sera"

2006-11-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

Clinic patient:
Guy whose arm hurts only after sleeping on it

Connection:
Ok, so House is an ass. We get that. It's part of his charm. But sometimes we have to be reminded that there are people who deserve to be on the receiving end. To use House's beloved phrase, the patient is an idiot. So much so that House has to state the obvious: Don't sleep on your arm. But when the patient scoffs, what else is there to offer but a cure that matches the ridiculousness of the complaint? Lop the arm off. Problem solved.

Maybe somewhere along the line the patient will get the point. But as it is, he storms out of the clinic and right past Tritter (David Morse) -- and here, my friends, is the connection. Not with the main patient, the A story, but with the former clinic patient out for revenge, the recurring B story. Tritter sees the irate clinic patient, sees House emerge, whistling, moments later, and then immediately sees a connection to the way he was treated. "I see spending a night in jail hasn't humbled you a bit," he says.

Tritter, of course, doesn't see as much as we do. We understand the assiness, we embrace the assiness. This episode's clinic patient is so simple that even we laymans know there's no other explanation for sleeping-induced arm pain. There's no danger in House's flippancy. But what about Tritter's complaint, when he was in the clinic? What do we know about "crotch rot"? It can be any number of things. So just as there are some patients who clearly deserve to be on the receiving end of House's barbs, Tritter is showing us that there are some patients who don't.

Etc.
I have to throw in a little Cameron moment, partly because it relates and partly because I have no idea what she's up to. In the scene before the clinic, Cameron is scoping out the main patient's apartment with the neighbor and is reminded of House, "someone who is unkind." After the neighbor gets done talking about the prostitutes, she says: "There can't be too many women who'd want to be with a guy like that." Focus on Cameron thinking in a double-meaning kind of way about House. And cut to the clinic, where House is being unkind. Someone's beating us over the head with relationship innuendos, but Cameron's demeanor and actions in the rest of the episode make me a little suspicious that something else is brewing. What's going on?!

Quick note

2006-11-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

David Morse in the clinic -- what a glorious way to come back from the World Series. Obviously I'm gonna have to/get to write about him, but I'll wait to see the storyline play itself out first. I'm very excited.

Twofer -- Episode 221, "Euphoria, Part 2"

2006-10-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Young girl who has been "seizing" every time she gets in the car seat. Mom thinks it's epilepsy; House knows it's something far better.

The connection:
House: "You mix rocking, grunting, sweating and dystonia with concerned parents, and you get an amateur diagnosis of epilepsy. In actuality, all your little girl is doing is saying 'yoo-hoo to the hoo-hoo.' "
Mom: "She's what?"
House: "Marching the penguin. Ya-ya-ing the sisterhood. Finding Nemo."
Girl: (giggling) "That was funny."
House: "It's called gratification disorder. Sort of a misnomer. If one was unable to gratify oneself, that would be a disorder."

The name of this episode is Euphoria, and from what the mom says, the girl does seem to be enjoying herself. (I say good for her.) And because the first symptom of the cop and Foreman's disease was euphoria, there's our connection.

But really, the thematic link is just a bonus -- it's only important that there was some sort of clinic patient. This is the second episode of a two-parter: Things are getting dicey, the stakes are higher, time is running out. As House says later in the episode, "Only thing I can do is think. You can pretty much do that anywhere."

How do we know he's thinking? In the scene leading up to the clinic, Wilson walks in on House watching Steve McQueen through a web cam. "So this is your plan?" he says. "Just sit here and watch your rat all day?" Well, yes. The clinic scene opens with the web cam image of Steve, himself euphorically playing on his water bottle, and House watching for any signs that will help him cure Foreman. Even in the next scene, when Cuddy berates House for ignoring Foreman, we get the sense that House is doing anything but.

Cuddy: "One afternoon and you're on pace to set the record for most patients seen in a month."
House: "You're upset that I'm doing clinic hours? Wow, that is so like rain on your wedding day."
Cuddy: "For the past three hours, I have been on the phone with the CDC while you are --"
House: "How's that going, by the way?"
Cuddy: "They promised to expedite --"
House: "Tough to do an autopsy when they haven't even picked up the body."
Cuddy: "It's tough to treat your patient when you're not even on the same floor. Go. Clinic is covered."
House: "I go watch the meds drip into his IV, you think that'll make the treatment work faster?"
Cuddy: "Go to your office, play with your ball, write on your white board and insult your team. Do whatever it is that you do to figure things out."
House: Feeling guilty? It's not too late to change your mind. Go call the CDC. Tell them you were just joshing."
Cuddy: "Keep avoiding Foreman's case until he dies. Then I'll drown in guilt."

House's point is that Cuddy, who is arguably focusing all her efforts on Foreman's case, has gotten just as close to figuring things out as House, who by all appearances is focusing on other things. But he's not: History has taught us that clinic patients are easily fixable, no-brainers. And because House was keeping track of Steve, we know that he's thinking about Foreman while being productive elsewhere. In fact, that might be why he's in the clinic in the first place -- to feel productive. He's not getting anywhere with Foreman, but it's important to note that the clinic patient comes at the beginning of the episode. House shouldn't be getting anywhere with Foreman anyway.

Poor Darwin -- Episode 209, "Deception"

2006-10-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

With the World Series cutting into our quality House time and my life finally at a resting point, I'm going to try to wrap up season 2's loose ends. First up is this episode, which I missed in summer reruns. Still to come: "Euphoria, Part 2" for sure, "Who's Your Daddy?" and "No Reason" possibly (depending on relevance). So without further ado ...

Clinic patient:
Girl using jelly-jelly for birth control jelly

The connection:
By now I think it's safe to say that House has a problem with authority. And with Foreman now in charge, it's meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Which is why I saw flashes of season 1's "Occam's Razor" -- when House continually called Cuddy into the clinic for consults to get back at her for giving him more clinic hours. His philosophy: You make me miserable, I'll make you miserable. This time it's Foreman who gets the short end of the stick. House walks into the clinic, sees whatever nastiness results from using strawberry jelly for birth control, and immediately reaches for the phone.

The game, however, is short-lived. Foreman does drop by, but he brushes off House's attempt to annoy with a joke ("I'll make sure to put a gold star by your name") and tells him the main patient's biopsy came back negative. Really, House seems to have lost the power play struggle. Not only was his diagnosis about pancreatic cancer wrong, he was also in the clinic to begin with -- in the previous scene, Cuddy told Foreman that everything was running smoothly with him in charge.

If there's a connection between the clinic patient and the main case -- a woman who makes herself sick for attention (Munchausen's disease) -- it's tenuous. The girl could be seen as another example of what people do to themselves, but there's a big difference between stupidity and craziness.

Letdown -- Episode 304, "Lines in the Sand"

2006-09-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

Clinic patients:
Woman with weird poop
Man with no back pain
Horny teenage girl, part 2

The connection:
There's no connection to the main case, but these patients do have their purpose. House is hanging out in the clinic as part of his power play with Cuddy over the carpet in his office, and the first two patients show what lengths he's going through to win. With shots of the patients from his viewpoint -- front and center and a little overwhelming -- interspersed with his looks of boredom and disgust, we get a pretty good idea.

They also set up the return of the teen daughter from the last episode, who's in the clinic with her own "rhino thing" -- and to flirt with House some more. She pops up throughout the episode, whether she's on screen or not, and it becomes clear to Cuddy that she's turning into quite the stalker. House, flattered by the attention and a little flirtatious himself, doesn't want to admit it's so.

Well, it turns out she is a stalker -- though it's not her fault. Sent into Cuddy's office to put an end to the situation, House tries to let the girl down with a little "Casablanca," which is funny because she doesn't get it. She starts to cry, and as House gets to "Here's looking at you, kid," he pauses with the look he gets when he hits on a medical revelation. He even throws in a "damn" for good measure. I was all ready for a cut to the autistic kid and some sort of magic diagnosis, but the writers decided to get sneaky, and they made House's "damn" about the girl and her milky tears. Along with the blocked sinuses -- and "a loss of inhibitions and judgment" -- they're a result of spores she inhaled after an earthquake in Fresno. Poor House.

Etc.
In the last post, I said the writers would handle the underage-girl thing brilliantly. Well, they let me down. Attributing her attraction to a medical problem is a cop out, as if clearing her of natural feelings also clears House of his ethical obligations. (And by the way, I'm "over 10 years younger" than Hugh Laurie, but I'd be all over him.) The scene in Cuddy's office started out with House being frank, and it should have continued that way. By talking her into letting it go, he would've talked himself into letting it go, too. Yes, she was rather stalker-like, but House never told her it was wrong without still flirting with her. Talk about mixed signals.

Here's what I think would have been interesting -- exploring whether House can chew gum and solve cases at the same time. He had a lot of distractions in this episode: the clinic, the girl, the power play. It would have been natural to let the kid fall through the cracks and give House a wake-up call. Certainly more dramatic and believable.

Jail bait -- Episode 303, "Informed Consent"

2006-09-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Dad with a cold. But the real story is his seductive teenage daughter.

The connection:
Bad deeds are brewing between House and the daughter. After their initial encounter in the clinic, she meets him again later in the hall, casually drops that she'll be 18 in six months, and then walks away. As she's doing so, House gets a glimpse at her red thong, which naturally leads him to the diagnosis of Congo Red for the dying scientist. I mean, whose mind wouldn't go there?
Foreman: "How the hell did you pull that out of your --"
House: "Not out of mine. I had a muse."

The girl's crush also adds another ethical dilemma to House's plate, but it appears we'll be delving more into that next episode. Speaking of which ...

Etc.
... "House" the show is getting into some dangerous territory. Six months or no, underage is underage, and we've already forgiven House the doctor for a lot of his faults.

That said, I'm about 85 percent sure the show can get away with the storyline it's taking. For one, the writers are brilliant, and as such, they'll handle whatever situation brilliantly. Second, there's already precedent for the younger woman thing, in House's relationship with Cameron (although the daughter of course is much more extreme). It's interesting that this episode saw the three of them thrown together in the clinic.

The missing 15 percent is because this show takes chances. I guess we'll see.

He's baaack -- Episode 302, "Cane and Able"

2006-09-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Main patient from season premier.
When we last left off, Cuddy had cured him with House's diagnosis of Addison's disease, and she and Wilson were conspiring to keep it from House to teach him a little humility.

The connection:
The theory floating around this episode is that House has slipped into depression over having "failed" the last case. The depression, in a roundabout way, is causing his leg pain. Compound that with Wilson and Cuddy's lesson in humility, and House is also, as Cameron says, "dismissing symptoms, looking for easy solutions" in the main case. In other words, not being House.

The dismissiveness doesn't come right away, of course. But after House goes through his traditional montage of thinking, in which he usually works past whatever diagnostic hurdle his patients give him, he announces that they should just "send the kid home."

So Cameron -- who treated Addison's guy in the clinic, discovered the humility plan and then made a general nuisance of herself -- runs to a guilt-ridden Cuddy, who runs to House and has the following conversation:

Cuddy: "You're just giving up on this kid?"
House: "You gotta know when to stop."
Cuddy: "You don't stop. You never stop. You just keep on going until you come up with something so insane that it's usually right."
House: "Except on my last case."
Cuddy: "Don't be pathetic. Forget the last case. ..."

House rattles off some crazy ideas about chopping off limbs and such, and Cuddy basically says OK -- "I just want you to do something." House calls her out on The Plan and Cuddy confesses.

House: (speaking to Cuddy's stomach) "Oh, your mommy is in such trouble. Such a liar! That's why you don't have a daddy. That's why she had to ..."

... use in-vitro fertilization, which the kid's mom also did, which led House to the diagnosis of chimerism.

So the coverup of Addison's guy hindered the kid's chances, and the revelation helped him. The question, I suppose, is whether Cuddy's admission cleared House's head enough that he was able to stumble on the solution, or whether he would have come upon it anyway. Whatever the case, he at least returned to extremes to induce the kid's hallucinations so they could cure him. House is back.

Etc.
Addison's guy: "I want to have sex with my wife, and I was hoping maybe you could ..."
Cameron: "Viagra. You're here for Viagra?"
Addison's guy: "A bucketful would be nice."
Bless him.

-- House mentioned the "X Files," but if he watched "CSI" -- specifically the finale of Season 4, "Bloodlines" -- he would have had his diagnosis about halfway through the episode. I'm just saying.

Episode 218, "Sleeping Dogs Lie"

2006-08-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Chinese girl looking for birth control, and her sick mother

The connection:
With the girl's mom in the clinic, House faces the same sort of situation that he's in with the main patient's girlfriend: He knows something they should know, but does he tell?

Obviously the stakes with the girlfriend are much higher. If House tells her the woman she's about to save doesn't love her anymore, she might rescind on the liver transplant, thus killing his patient. On the flip side, if he tells the mom about the birth control, the girl will just be grounded for a few weeks.

Which is probably part of the reason he does tell the mom in the end. But why didn't he say anything the first time? He just gave the girl the prescription and sent her on her way. My guess is, like with the girlfriend, it was in the best interest of the patient. When the girl came back after accidentally giving her mom the birth control, House probably figured that if she's too dumb to mix up the pills, she shouldn't be having sex.

Etc.
It's refreshing to be reminded of how quick on the uptake House is. The girl just had to say one thing before he figured out her motives. Her lying attempt fits in nicely with the episode's overall theme of deception ... as does the revelation that House speaks Mandarin, which he cleverly hid by doing and saying nothing while the girl translated. At any rate, after learning in "Distractions" that House speaks Hindi (or at least is trying to), he's proving quite the linguist.

Ignorance is bliss -- Episode 215, "Clueless"

2006-08-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Mr. Lambert, who has herpes, and his wife, who is suspect

"You're pleased. You think you've proved every marriage is a mistake."

The Lamberts' story unfolds in four parts:
1) Mr. Lambert is told he has herpes. House suspects the wife and a surrogate Mr. Miyagi (may he rest in peace).
2) The wife disputes the accusation.
3) House finds out the wife has herpes.
4) House finds out the husband gave it to the wife.

During the first two, the Lamberts appear to be the opposite of "the Nymphos" (the main patient and his wife) -- The Lamberts: bad marriage; the Nymphos: good marriage. Come the third time, when the Lamberts' plot thickens and nothing is as it seems, House starts to question the greatness of the Nymphos' marriage. By the fourth, it's clear the Nymphos' marriage is just as bad -- even if they were having more sex than the Lamberts. Guess that's not such a good gauge.

The Lamberts' last two appearances (seen and unseen) are also interesting in that they are a slight variant in the clinic-patient-solving-main-case theme. Normally, clinic patients give House one revelation -- the Lamberts give him two. When he finds out Mrs. Lambert has herpes, he bats around the idea that maybe she gave it to her husband in order to switch the blame. That led House to suspect some sort of foul play with Mrs. Nympho -- he just doesn't know the specifics yet. He figures that out in the Lamberts' last scene, when he tricks Mr. Lambert into giving himself away and after Mrs. Lambert tosses her gold ring to the floor -- the ultimate symbol of marriage discarded.

That symbol was also briefly shown in the teaser, when we find out the "sexual assault" is just a role-playing game for the Nymphos. It's fitting that the ring -- like their marriage -- is not as it seems.

Moo -- Episode 214, "Sex Kills"

2006-07-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
Guy who loves "cows" (i.e. his step-mom)

Wilson: "It's not all about sex, House."
House: "Really? When did that change?"

Believe it or not, the guy lusting after his step-mom is the only one in the episode with any restraint. He knows it's not really right, and he's doing something about it -- albeit a little extreme, looking for the next best thing to chemical castration. But Wilson's wife (and Wilson too, for that matter) gave in to impulse -- killed their marriage. The husband of the woman in the car accident gave in -- killed her. Or maybe she did that to herself, when she gave in. And the main patient gave in to his ex-wife, which almost killed him.

And each in his or her own way is denying it or running away. The clinic patient says he's in love with cows. Wilson and his wife stay in a crappy marriage. The husband doesn't admit to the one night stand and gonorrhea until after the heart transplant. The wife hid pictures in her desk. The dad was tight-lipped for a while about going back to his wife, but really, he's the most forthcoming of the bunch.

So cow guy can fight lust, and the dad can eventually admit when he can't. They'd make a hell of a team.

The fluidity of gender -- Episode 213, "Skin Deep"

2006-07-31T22:40:00.000-07:00

Clinic patient:
"Pregnant" husband

In the sex vs. gender debate, if you can call it that, I side with the idea that you're born with a sex; your gender is socially constructed. This episode takes the fluidity of gender to the extreme, where the perfect man is a woman (the clinic patient/husband) and the perfect woman is a man (the main patient/model).

Each patient is the opposite of him/herself and each other -- that last in more ways than one. It's funny (and rewarding, really) to see the husband go through sympathy pregnancy, with his big belly and breasts. It's temporary for him. But when the model finds out she's genetically a boy, it's tragic -- her entire concept of herself and her life is destroyed.

We viewers get to sit with the hermaphrodite idea for a while. House has his main-case breakthrough while the husband is in sympathy labor ("He's got more estrogen coursing through his veins ..."), then we get a discovery and explanation period before we watch House tastelessly break the bad news. So it's shocking how the model reacts getting the news for the first time, suddenly popping up from the bed and baring all. Whether it would have had more effect if it were closer to the comedic situation of the husband, to have a more sudden change in tone, I don't know.

As a side note: With all this gender confusion going around, it's a little interesting that the husband would feel more comfortable with House (read: a male doctor) than with Cuddy -- especially when he's concerned about his breasts. But Cuddy's giving away House's pager number is a nice little volley in their continual game of getting under each other's skin.

Irrationality -- Episode 106, "The Socratic Method"

2006-07-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Clinic patients:
Mom looking to scare her daughter away from sugar
Guy with hiccups

Irrationality is the tie that binds: Wendy's mom trying to get House to scare her daughter skinny for purely selfish reasons; the guy with hiccups covering all the "normal medical bases" for getting rid of them -- "pulling the tongue, ice packs on the throat, hitting yourself, the groin pinch"; the extremely well-intentioned son of the main patient thinking he can take care of his mom all by himself with nothing but vodka and microwavable burgers; and finally the main patient herself, thought to be schizo for most of the episode until her one rational act -- calling Social Services on her son -- tells House otherwise.

The hiccups guy is also another one of those structurally functional clinic patients. Before House gets to him, Cuddy coyly tries to get House to fess up to his birthday (it's Wendy's too, for another link) and in the process gleans that something else must be going on with his patient. She picks up the phone for some investigative work, we cut to hiccups guy, then Cuddy butts in and we cut to the bathroom, where Cuddy confronts House about the tumor shrinkage. So what was hiccup guy's function? A sense of time gone by.

And for my day's good deed, here's how you get rid of hiccups: Control your breathing. Go sit somewhere where you won't be distracted, and breath in for 8 and out for 8 till they're gone. Works every time.

Missed it

2006-07-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, but in all the excitement of the Fourth of July (except not, because I had to work), I forgot to set the VCR. So unless someone really wants to take care of "Deception" and "Failure to Communicate" for me (come on, it could be fun ... like a guest host), we'll just have to take a rain check until the DVDs come out. In the meantime, it looks like I'll have a chance to do some more from Season 1, so stay tuned.