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House Rundown: Episode 24, "Both Sides Now"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:30:30 -0700

After last week's episode of House, I wondered how House would cope in a world where he was no longer on drugs. I was also curious to see what would happen to the sexual tension between House and Cuddy now that they've apparently done the deed. How did it all go down in Monday's season finale? If you're ready to talk about it, just read more.

Well, that explains a lot. A few things about last week's resolution seemed too good to be true: Do you really detox from Vicodin in less than 12 hours? And would Cuddy really choose to make out and even have sex with a man she'd been watching sweat and vomit all night? It turns out those things were too good to be true. Instead of coming home with him, Cuddy walked out after House insulted her. Instead of detoxing, House kept right on taking pills. Instead of twirling Cuddy's lipstick all day, House has been playing with a pill bottle. It was all - as the visions of Amber and Kutner tell House - the story he made up about himself. "Too bad it isn't true," Kutner adds. So while the rest of PPH is celebrating Chase and Cameron's wedding, Wilson's driving House to a mental hospital.

I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about this bait-and-switch. I'm not one of the Huddy worshipers who's sad the two of them didn't actually have sex; I figure that'll happen in due time. But I do have some questions about why the House writers used this twist - questions I'll have to wait till at least next season to have answered. These hallucinations are different than the others; why doesn't House just keep seeing Amber? (Is it because he was taking oxycodone instead of Vicodin? That's what I thought, but Fox's official recap says otherwise.) And what does it mean that in House's little fantasy, he is the good guy who detoxes and woos the woman he loves? By being in a mental hospital, it seems like House is serious about getting help and getting clean, and that leaves me wondering the same thing I asked last week: will House without pills still be the same crotchety, brilliant doctor we've come to love?

Meanwhile, Chase and Cameron start out this episode virtually broken up; Chase wants her to destroy her ex's sperm, and she can't do it. I like that it's House who finally convinces her just to take the leap - and that Chase tells her not to. He realizes now that she's not insecure about their relationship; she just can't get rid of the last part of someone she loves. Luckily, Cameron hadn't canceled the wedding plans, and now the two of them are actually (and finally) married. Which probably would have been a lot sweeter if I could have turned off the part of my brain that was thinking about the pair's real-life canceled wedding, but oh well.

Some other thoughts:

Some of my favorite moments in this episode were basically wordless: the patient's wayward hand stroking his girlfriend's cheek; House looking bedraggled and a little bewildered when Cuddy leads him to Wilson's office; Cameron and Chase mouthing "I do." The director of this episode has done some of the coolest House moments (this season's "Locked In" and last year's "House's Head," among others), and I really like his style.
Speaking of the patient, I loved that case. What a fascinating and creepy idea that part of your body could just disobey the rest of it! Not only did it work well as a parallel to House's story, it also included a few great medical moments, including that test with the words popping up on the screens.
Carl Reiner! Man. He's amusing as a pest who won't leave House alone because of his squawking problem (funny that we never actually hear him squawk) and then so, so sad when House realizes he probably has a tumor.
Is that a naked pirate House uses to torment Cuddy?

So: what a rollercoaster! Was this a suitable finale? Are you intrigued to see where the show goes next?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 23, "Under My Skin"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:30:49 -0700

This week's House finds House still struggling with his hallucinations of Amber and wanting to get them out of his head for good. That sends him to his friends for help - with intriguing consequences. Meanwhile, Cameron asks Chase a potentially relationship-changing favor, and House's team works on a case alone. To chat about it, just read more.

The big thing about "Under My Skin," of course, is the House/Cuddy kiss, the kiss that - according to the promos and the show's cast itself - apparently turns into something more. But it's the culmination of a million smaller moments in the episode that find House truly taking comfort in his friends. He knows he can't go on without help, with Amber's voice in his head. It's throwing him off, making his medical decisions worse. So he confesses everything to Wilson - whose reaction to the hallucination being Amber is pretty mild, I think, all things considered - and starts an episode-long quest to figure out his affliction.

House really only sees two options, so kindly spelled out for him by Amber: one, he's crazy, which means no more medical practice; two, he's hallucinating from Vicodin, which means detox, which means pain, which means no more medical practice. Either way, the biggest thing haunting House (besides Amber, of course) is the thought that when he comes out on the other side of this, he won't have his identity as a doctor anymore. But he thinks he might be losing that anyway; on the phone with Foreman, he realizes he's made a lucky - not brilliant - call in diagnosing the dancer. So what else is there to do? Wilson offers to take him to a clinic, but House wants to be with people who know him. Specifically, he wants to be with Cuddy.

It's interesting that the two of them can only really connect when one or the other is incredibly vulnerable. They've kissed twice now this season, and both times, one has been helping the other through crushing pain. She's good to him in the detox scenes; she brings him ginger tea and flushes his one last pill down the toilet before he can take it. I loved watching Amber slowly realize that House isn't kidding around this time; when he confesses the locations of all his secret stashes, she responds with an indignant "I don't even know who you are anymore!" And when he starts to come out of withdrawal, Amber's gone.

Some other thoughts:

I hope that, were Anne Dudek to somehow read this, she'd take it as a compliment: she does creepy better than any other actress I can think of.
House may have solved the case, but the team manages to pull out a way to save the patient's life even after he quits. Good for Taub, especially.
What do you make of Cameron and Chase? I understand where she's coming from, but I also understand why Chase is hesitant. It seems like "Oh, I have my dead ex's sperm, and by the way, I want yours, too" is a conversation they should have had pre-engagement.
So Cuddy and House's story goes back even a little further than we thought: Cuddy audited the class where they met purely because she thought House was "an interesting lunatic."

We've asked this question before: can House still be House without Vicodin? This time, he seems a little more committed to finding out the answer, and I'm curious to see what happens next week. Are you?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 22, "House Divided"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:15:00 -0700

Back when Amber was competing for a job as one of House's fellows, I sometimes thought of her as House's perfect counterpart - his mirror image. Well, I didn't mean it literally! But in this week's House, Amber is essentially haunting our cranky doctor, showing up as a hallucination and speaking his thoughts. What does it all mean? Help me figure it out when you read more.

Everywhere House turns these days, Amber is there. He assumes it's just an effect of insomnia: he hasn't been sleeping much since Kutner died. But as we see at the end of the episode, even a well-rested House still sees Amber. She's in his brain, in his thoughts. And for all her wry smiles and clever banter, she's kind of an evil little friend, isn't she?

Had this been anyone but Amber, I probably would have rolled my eyes and assumed that Grey's Anatomy had forever ruined any plotline involving the return of a dead character. But I absolutely love watching Anne Dudek and Hugh Laurie play off each other. It's this great mix of flirting and fighting, and it kept me laughing even as House sets up Chase to go into allergic shock at the bachelor party. Whatever part of House's brain Amber's inhabiting is clearly the part that enjoys scheming; House even looks a little shocked when he realizes he knew about Chase's strawberry allergy. I loved the way Amber calls out House's thoughts in Wilson's office, urging him to knock over a pencil cup so he could get a clean shot at the file they were reading. Is this what it's like inside House's head all the time?

Between Amber's appearance and the story of the deaf teenager, this could have easily been a very serious episode. (And speaking of the teenager, his story is one of the few medical stories in House recently that's truly held my attention. Everything about it seemed to work well, from the mom's conflicted reaction about the cochlear implant to the sweet interactions between the boy and his girlfriend.) But I was surprised at how many times I laughed. I loved House striding down the hall with his ridiculous old boom box and Kanye shades; I loved the idea of throwing the bachelor party at Wilson's place so he couldn't escape it. (Might I suggest to Wilson that if he wants to get away from House's over-the-top bachelor parties, he marry a woman he won't divorce?) I especially loved Taub awkwardly grinding with a couple of the "dancers" at the party.

But what happens now? Amber's still there, and House knows she can do bad things - or that his brain wants him to do bad things, though I imagine Amber makes them even more enticing. Whatever comes next, I feel more invested in House than I have since the last time Amber showed up. What about you?

Some other thoughts:

Foreman's never been my favorite, but it's still nice to see him solve a case.
That's not the only great Foreman moment: He and Thirteen get some of the best stuff in this episode. I love their stripper research - and it doesn't surprise me that Foreman would pay $50 to watch his bisexual girlfriend do a body shot.
Even at his worst, would House really try to kill Chase just to prevent someone else's happiness?
I'm also not convinced that Chase would really give a patient a cochlear implant on only House's orders with no paperwork to support it. You know how much he lies!
Love Cuddy trying to sober up all the fellows so they can go solve their case (and sending them off with breath mints, to boot).

So, what's Amber doing in House's brain? And what will it take to get her out?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 21, "Saviors"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:30:42 -0700

This episode of House picks up the aftermath of last week's shocking death, and if you were wondering how Cameron and Chase would react, this is your episode: for the first time in a long, long time, the two of them are the focus. Meanwhile, House appears to be completely unchanged by the death - until a big, fun twist in the final minute. Ready to talk about it? Just read more.

I'm torn about this episode's focus on Chase and Cameron. On the one hand, I'm glad they're getting screen time not just as PPH's only ER doctor and surgeon. And, yes, it was frustrating to see them break up - and very, very sweet to see them get back together, with Chase getting down on one knee right there in the locker room. But on the other hand, it's hard to be as invested in their relationship as I used to be when we were seeing them every week and Chase was describing their hookups as convenience food and the like. Even the debate about whether Cameron is in love with House seems to come out of nowhere, just because it's been absent for so long. Not that bringing it up is unfair - she does cancel a weekend away with her boyfriend to spend time with House and his patient. But that seems like a relatively normal panic that could arise from finding the ring your boyfriend plans to use to propose, right? I did, though, get a kick out of everyone turning the question of being in love with House right back on Cuddy, especially Cameron asserting that Cuddy was just trying to mark her territory. (True? I'd believe it.)

Meanwhile, House is desperately trying to find meaning in Wilson's sudden decision to eat healthier - wheat toast, no bacon, a container full of kale. He even confronts Wilson at home, which leads to a very funny exchange about Wilson's food (Wilson points to containers of junk; House says that showing off food he's not eating isn't proof; Wilson says for that, House needs to check the first door on the right). House is convinced Kutner's death is behind Wilson's change; mortality is mortality, and when a doctor goes down, other doctors get scared. Wilson points out that that's ridiculous, House fears this is another sign he's losing his mojo ("I have no idea why you're eating carrots!"), and then finally he puts his finger on it: Wilson's eating healthier so House won't take his food. And everything is as it should be . . .

Except for that pesky ghost that House is apparently seeing. Amber! I cheered the second I recognized her voice. She's leaning on the piano while House plays "Georgia on My Mind" (on piano and harmonica, kudos Hugh Laurie). From the looks of the promos, she's doing a pretty large amount of lurking. It's interesting that she's become kind of a symbol for mental instability on House. Can you imagine how different the show would have been if House had picked her for his team in the first place? Though honestly, maybe she wouldn't have had the power as a regular than she does as an occasional antagonist. Either way, hooray!

Some other thoughts:

Love House addressing the patient's wife as "Mrs. Environmental Nutbag. Or did you keep your maiden name?"
Has total body irradiation ever worked out well on House? I always cringe when it gets suggested
Is it weird that Thirteen, Foreman, and Taub didn't really talk about Kutner?
For a second, I worried that Chase would actually say no to Cameron's "I'm proposing that you propose to me" line. Whew.

Anyone else doing a happy dance at the return of Amber? Or was this one all about Chase and Cameron for you?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 17, "The Social Contract"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:30:32 -0700

On this week's episode of House, House once again finds himself treating a patient whose issue seems to be striking a little close to home: The man has developed a condition that makes him say whatever he's thinking, even when those things are horrible. House does that, too, of course, but he kind of lacks that nice medical excuse. That's a nice backdrop for a solid House/Wilson story, though, as House struggles to figure out why, exactly, Wilson is keeping secrets from him. To chat about it, just read more.

We've seen time and again how jealous House gets when he thinks someone is trying to steal Wilson away from him, and that's a driving force in this episode. When House discovers that Wilson has blocked off some time on his calendar (and prevented House from dragging him to a monster truck rally!) without saying why. House thinks he has a right to know what Wilson's doing because Wilson always shares that kind of stuff eventually, but Wilson seems particularly determined to keep this one a secret. It's actually a relief to see Wilson get mad; it doesn't happen much on this show, but when it does, it's proof that House has crossed a major line.

But Wilson eventually apologizes and explains: His mentally ill brother ran away years ago, and Wilson has always blamed himself. Now he's been found, and they're going to meet, but Wilson's wary of telling House because House won't lie to him. House doesn't quite get it at first ("I am fully capable of lying to you. I have, plenty of times!"), but Wilson points out that House doesn't do the "everything will be fine" sort of lies that keep the world turning. And yet, House tries, for a while - but he ends up having his Wilson-induced revelation and calling his team right when Wilson needs a pep talk. Wilson seems to forgive him, though; he and House may not have a normal social contract, but at least House tried.

It's interesting to see that story contrasted with the patient's. House's friends and colleagues expect that he'll be a jerk, but it's a surprise to the patient's family to suddenly be hearing his innermost thoughts. Even if he goes back to having some kind of filter - which, of course, he does at the end - he may never be able to repair things with his wife and daughter. From now on, every time he says something positive, they'll be wondering what he's really thinking but not saying; no matter how he acts, he's not the same person they thought he was.

Some other thoughts:

I'm so used to all of Wilson's pain being Amber related that it was strange at first to think he might have other hard things in his life, too.
Given the larger revelations to come later, it's funny that this episode starts off with a little, tiny something Wilson's always hidden from House: Monster trucks really aren't his thing.
Oh, poor racquetball-inept Taub. He thought it would be useful for Wilson to owe him a favor, but now he knows the House torture isn't worth it. Also, it's funny to see how quickly Taub switched from working for Wilson to working for House.
Love that they've kept "MMMbop" as House's team ringtone.

Was it good to see House attempt to act like a normal, human friend? Nice to have an episode focusing squarely on the House/Wilson bromance? A relief to have just a smidgen of Foreteen? Talk back below.

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 16, "The Softer Side"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:30:23 -0800

Only when you're dealing with someone as crotchety as Dr. Gregory House could a good mood be a sign of major trouble. But that's exactly what happens on this week's House, when House's heart suddenly grows a couple of sizes and he starts being . . . well, I wouldn't go so far as "nice," but maybe "less mean." Finding out why House is acting civilized becomes a major focus of the team, which is otherwise working on a medical case that's reminiscent of last week's Private Practice. Ready to chat about it? Just read more.

It's interesting to see the way a small change in House's behavior affects his relationships with his colleagues. Kutner is the first to spot it after House appeases his patient's parents; he tells Wilson, who thinks House must have had sex with Cuddy; when the answer to that is no, he realizes that House must be keeping something from both of them. Each person tries to come up with a rational reason House is acting polite - "Maybe he had a great cup of coffee. Or a tremendous bowel movement." - but when House stops breathing at work, they know there's a real problem. So, of course, they make the logical leap to House being on heroin. Heh. At least they got the drug part right: House has switched to methadone, which makes his pain go away so completely that he tosses his cane into a dumpster in a particularly amusing "Tiny Tim can walk!" scene. It's so good that when Cuddy tells him it's the drug or the job, he chooses the job. Of course, she'd rather have him ("if he buys a new pair of shoes, should we let him smoke crack?"), so she draws up a list of rules - but it doesn't matter. In the end, House realizes he needs his bad mood to be an effective doctor.

About the case: Take last week's Private Practice, age the kid a few years, and you have this week's House patient, born part male and part female. His mom's been pushing him to be all boy, and the kid has been kept in the dark - until Thirteen finds a suicidal-sounding poem and tells him he should ask his parents what his "vitamins" really are. Yeah, turns out that poem was part of an assignment to write like Sylvia Plath (which cannot possibly exist, or every parent in that school would think their kids were suicidal), and Thirteen has just destroyed the kid's relationship with his parents unnecessarily. It's interesting to watch her with this kid: She sees connections to the way her father handled the possibility of her having Huntington's, and she clearly thinks she's doing the right thing by intervening.

Meanwhile, Thirteen and Foreman's attempts to keep their relationship a secret aren't going so well, but I confess: I'm bored again.Kutner and Taub badmouthing one of them to the other made me chuckle, though, with Taub doing his robotic Foreman face face and Kutner telling Foreman at least he won't be dumped for a girl.

Some other thoughts:

Signs that House is happy: He shaves, he wears a tie (he owns a tie!), he doesn't make a patient in pain be more in pain.
House to Cuddy after Foreman's nipple-twist shocks House's heart back to normal: "I think my penis stopped breathing. Do you know CPR?"
I cracked up at Wilson trying to have a phone call about House while House was right there: "Well, that would certainly explain the inappropriate responses."

So: Do you prefer mean Vicodin House or slightly less mean methadone House? Are you still on board with, er, Foreteen? Sound off below.

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 14, "The Greater Good"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:30:00 -0800

House episode No. 100 is all about happiness: who has it, who wants it, who will probably never find it. It starts with a patient of the week who's had some controversial revelations about what makes life worth living and ends with Wilson finding a way to let go of his pain. In the middle, there's a lot of drama with Foreman and Thirteen, so to chat about the hundredth House, just read more.

I'll get to Foreman and Thirteen in a second, because the story I liked most is that of Wilson and the patient of the week, a cancer researcher who was seemingly one experiment away from a cure when she had a health scare and decided to leave the profession in favor of activities that made her feel free and happy. Many of the doctors can't understand this (Kutner suggests that not helping people when you have the skills to do so is selfish), but Wilson has the hardest time of all. That's partially because, as an oncologist, he treats people this cure could help - but mostly because he's stuck. He's unfulfilled without Amber. He's living among her things, with books still open to the last page she read and coffee cups stained with her lipstick. So yeah, I'm a sap, but I'll admit it: Watching him wash off that mug is moving, darnit.

Meanwhile, the saga of Foreman and Thirteen reaches its fever pitch when Thirteen starts to suffer side effects from the switch to the new drug - serious ones, like a brain tumor that causes her to lose her sight. Foreman's torn: Does he admit he messed with the trial to get advice on how to treat Thirteen, or does he stay quiet and let the woman he may (or may not) love suffer? House actually covers for Foreman a lot, which is interesting to see; they've had their differences, but House doesn't want to see one of his ducklings go astray. Ultimately, the situation resolves itself: Thirteen gets her sight back, and Foreman doesn't lose his medical license. I am a little surprised that Thirteen takes Foreman back; she seems genuinely freaked out when she realizes a man she'd been dating for two weeks would risk his career for her. But I guess near-death experiences cause all sorts of revelations.

This episode also shows us Cuddy at her most malicious. She's out to physically hurt House, making him climb stairs and walk cane-free (or, rather, using the janitor's bucket). She blames him for taking her away from her daughter right when she was starting to feel a connection - but in the end, he points out that she's making a choice to work with him. She could leave and let a new boss take over. But for whatever reason, she won't go.

Some other thoughts:

I wonder if Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer cared that Cameron and Chase were nowhere to be found.
It's oddly fitting that an off-color comment about Cuddy's "Aunt Flo" leads House to a diagnosis.
I find interludes with Taub and his wife a little distracting, because it's been so long since I last had to care about his personal life.
My favorite line of the night is what Cuddy says to House when he comes in with the janitor's bucket: "I don't remember demoting you."
My second-favorite: "It involves House, Foreman, and Thirteen, which means it's either dumb, dangerous, or tragic."
House calls his cane "little Little Greg."

Were you satisfied with this as episode No. 100? And if you were House's boss, would you have quit by now?

Photos courtesy of Fox

TV Tonight: House Turns 100

BuzzSugar — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:15:37 -0800

At TCA last month, House creator/executive producer David Shore wasn't interested in making any fuss over his show filming its 100th episode. "It just annoyed me that everybody was getting excited about the 100th episode," he said, adding that it seemed like kind of an arbitrary time to care. "If we had nine fingers, would episode 81 be the big one?"

So we shouldn't expect House to blow out a bunch of birthday candles tonight; the show isn't going out of its way to make a Very Special Episode for No. 100. But that's not saying it won't be good: Last week's episode set up some interesting stuff, especially with Foreman and Thirteen, and a lot of that should be coming to a head tonight.

In the episode, called "The Greater Good," the case of a woman who gave up a high-powered career to pursue personal satisfaction makes House's team question their own happiness and life choices. Thirteen starts to suffer some side effects from Foreman's clinical trial switcharoo, and Cuddy decides to torture House even more than usual.

To check out a couple of clips from tonight's 100th episode, just read more.

Photo courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode 13, "Big Baby"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:30:00 -0800

Hey, it's Cameron! Fresh off her job offer last week, the long-neglected Allison Cameron gets some time in the spotlight on this week's episode of House, filling in for Cuddy while she stays home to be a mother to Rachel - a process that's not going all that well, as it happens. Meanwhile, Foreman considers stepping over a major ethical line and switching Thirteen's medicine in the clinical trial. To chat about it, just read more.

As good as it was to see Cameron back - as the boss of House, no less - it was a situation that seemed doomed from the start. She knows House too well, and House knows her too well; the temptation to play games with each other, asking for and approving inappropriate things, is just too high when lives are at stake. Cameron realizes this in the end and tells Cuddy she won't be going back to the job, but in some ways, that's a shame: Cameron's instincts actually are right in this episode, and House manages to only perform procedures that help him get to a diagnosis. (Sure, one of them meant lopping off the patient's skull for a few particularly gruesome moments - but who's counting?) In the end, though, Cuddy's a better gatekeeper, and so it's back to babysitting House for her.

At least her time at home seems to have paid off: Stressed and sullen for much of the episode, she's not feeling like much of a mother to Rachel. In fact, she's not feeling much of anything at all; she feels lost without work and with this new, little person who can't communicate with her. House's words of comfort are typically, well, House-ian: He suggests that since she hasn't formally adopted the baby yet, she just return it, like an unwanted video game. Wilson, on the other hand, tries to push Cuddy to recognize her mothering instincts, even making up a long story about how he took a photo of Rachel to one of those digital aging places to see what she'd look like when she was 18. (I was pretty relieved to find out he'd actually just brought over the same picture that came with the frame.) In the end, in the midst of a particularly difficult moment of balancing work and family, Cuddy and Rachel finally connect - just in time for her to puke all over House, a move that I'm sure made her mother very proud.

Foreman, meanwhile, is ready to go off the ethical deep end, contemplating switching Thirteen from the placebo to the active drug in the clinical trial. Everyone thinks he's nuts, of course, from Chase to House himself, who actually gives a surprisingly well-reasoned explanation for why it's the wrong move. Until, that is, House adds a caveat: If Foreman loves Thirteen, he'll do stupid things. So I guess he loves her - fatal disease, sudden desire for children, and all - because we see him switching the drugs. I can't imagine he won't be found out almost immediately, so here's the question: Is there any way he's not insane?

Some other thoughts:

For some reason it's weird for me to hear Foreman call Thirteen "Thirteen." For some reason, I figured that now that they're in a relationship, he'd use her actual name. (Granted, he did call her "Remy" to House, who of course pretended to have no idea what he was talking about.)
House's response to Thirteen's suggestion that he judge their ideas on their merits: "Oh, you really don't want that."
The diagnosis in this episode is pretty fascinating: There's a way you can be physically unannoyed by annoying things?
I'm a little surprised Kutner's the one to call Cuddy. I thought Taub was supposed to be the moral center of this team.

Your thoughts? And ready for the big 100th episode next week?

Photos courtesy of Fox

House Rundown: Episode Eight, "Emancipation"

BuzzSugar — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:30:45 -0800

The people you work with can become a sort of weird, twisted family - especially if you spend as much time together as the House doctors do. It's great to have a close safety net when you need support, but it can also get a little too stifling sometimes. On this week's episode, a few of the doctors seek freedom from the PPH family, with varying results. To chat about it, just read more.

So, this was one of the House episodes with a clear parallel between patient and doctor - maybe the most obvious one this year, and a little too obvious for my taste. The main patient is an emancipated minor who first says her parents are dead (drawing the interest of fellow orphan Kutner), then says she cut them out of her life because she was raped, then admits she has no contact with them because she accidentally killed their son. The doctors know pretty early that she's lying in some way, but it takes lots of different strategies (including guilting her with the fear of dying, as Taub did by pretending to be a Huntington's patient like Thirteen) before House finally figures out how to tell her what she needs to hear: that she's hiding from her parents because she did something horrible, but if she lets herself die, she will have killed both their children.

While all of this is going on, Foreman's becoming something of an emancipated minor himself, taking on a secret case in the clinic without House's approval or backup. (And just in case we needed another family parallel, this one turns out to be about an older brother accidentally hurting his younger brother.) The best thing about that story was seeing Foreman, Chase, and Cameron together again, batting around suggestions for what was wrong with the boy - and seeing how quickly Chase in particular picked up on what Foreman was trying to do. No matter how much he wants to prove he can be free of House, Chase tells him, nothing will ever be enough. But in the end, he saves the boy and gets House to agree to let him do clinical trials. Shouldn't he have known by now that you don't ask House, you tell him?

I was disappointed that there's so little follow-up in this episode to House's utter failure to ask Cuddy out, but I suppose we need an episode off every now and then if that story's not going to get tired. All we know is that House tells Wilson he went to Cuddy's house but did not (hee) ring her bell, and he stares at her longingly as he leaves PPH. Pretty much the status quo.

Some other thoughts:

Hey, Thirteen says her own name for the first time! Remy Hadley. Sounds so weird. Did we know the Remy part?
Interesting to see how hurt Kutner was when he found out the patient had lied about being an orphan. He'd take even bad parents over no parents, it seems.
Taub pretending to be the one with Huntington's: overstepping his bounds, or an interesting way to get the patient to admit the truth (and Thirteen to confront her own issues with her family genes)? Discuss.
Cuddy's sweater at the end is very cleavage-y, no?

All in all, this seemed like sort of a placeholder episode before next week's big crisis at PPH. What did you all think?

Photos courtesy of Fox