Episode Report Card Sara M: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT House The Magician
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.27.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Some little girl has pancreatitis and gallstones and then her skin gets all rashy and she's either allergic to everything or nothing, but who cares about that? We have a story arc to progress! Tritter goes all-out this week, ably ducking a tongue-lashing from Cuddy, freezing all the Cottages' bank accounts, and doing way too much research into their backgrounds in order to try to get someone to turn against House. When he can't accomplish that, he sets Chase up so that everyone will think he turned on House. By the way, Tritter does this all from the comfort of some random hospital room he's spending his week off hanging out in. Who let him do that? Doesn't the hospital need its random empty rooms for hospital business? Whatever. Meanwhile, Cuddy keeps House's Vicodin supply on a very short leash, doling out pills when she thinks it's appropriate. As you can guess, this contrasts with House's vision of how many pills he should get and how often, which is "a buttload" and "all the time," respectively. He starts to come unglued, sending the little girl into surgery for an unnecessary amputation of her arm and leg until Chase figures out what's really wrong with the girl, which only earns him a punch in the face from House. Fortunately, it also saves the girl's arm and leg. Unfortunately, it means she's allergic to light, so her life will still totally suck. Oh well! Chase is finally fed up. So is Wilson, who ends the episode going to Tritter, ready to turn House in. Which I'm totally in favor of, since House was really mean to Cuddy and made her cry. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We open at an amusement park. A father puts his daughter against one of those "you must be this tall to ride this" boards and proudly announces that she is, in fact, "just tall enough" for the ride. The girl isn't pleased; she was hoping not to have to go on the ride. This is in direct contrast to my childhood, where I was always just a little too short to go on all the rides I so desperately wanted to ride. The dad's kind of pushy about the ride and practically drags his daughter toward it before he gets the message that she doesn't want to go on. He says that they can go home and have fun there, looking all disappointed, so, of course, the girl changes her mind and gets on the ride. Father and daughter are seated in a little spaceship thing that goes around in a circle, and the girl starts screaming. She continues screaming even after the ride has stopped. Way to go, Dad.
At PPTH, Mother and Father bicker while the girl, Alice, lies in bed. Cameron is stuck in between the parents trying to get Alice's medical history. "You're alone with her for eight hours; she ends up in a hospital," Mother notes bitterly. Cameron asks the woman if they can stick to answering the medical questions and stop getting into personal stuff, calling the woman "Mrs. Hartman." "I'm not Mrs. Hartman. We're divorced," she replies. "I suspected," Cameron says, ably refraining from saying "no fucking shit."
Meanwhile, Cuddy is trying to convince some rich people to donate half a million dollars to PPTH. She does not mention that the money will be used for multiple MRI repairs and legal bills to fend off the police investigations of the heads of their Diagnostic and Oncology departments. Suddenly, a red light appears on Cuddy's forehead. When it moves down to Cuddy's boobs, she knows who's responsible and excuses herself. Unfortunately, by standing, Cuddy exposes her crotch to the red light, and the uptight rich woman responds with an "oh!" Oh, get over yourself, rich woman. People with money have private areas, too.
Cuddy marches outside and says she would rather the red light had come from a sniper than the immature employee who somehow got his hands on a laser pointer even though I'm sure the hospital store and all stores in the vicinity of PPTH have been given strict instructions not to sell them to House. Indeed, House says that he got the laser pointer when he pulled it out of a patient's ass, winning second prize in the Clinic's weekly "Weirdest Thing Pulled Out Of Orifice" contest. First prize went to a zucchini, which doesn't seem very weird to me. Unless the orifice it was pulled out of was, like, an ear. Or maybe Evil Nurse Brenda was determined not to let House win and stacked the votes. Cuddy gets a cup full of Vicodins from the pharmacist and hands them to House so that she can go back to her work. He protests; he wants a prescription, not a cup full of pills like he lives in a nursing home. Cuddy says that she will be doling out "reasonable doses at reasonable times" from now on, covering her ass just like every other doctor is covering his ass now that PPTH has become Princeton PD's Public Enemy #1. House says that he is in an unreasonable amount of pain. Cuddy tells him to dip into his "secret stash" of Vicodins, then. House says that Shitter took it. Cuddy says that House can use his "secret secret stash." Nope, House says; he ran out. "Then move on to your secret secret secret stash!" says Cuddy. She's got him there. Although, you know, if she knew that House had a secret secret secret stash of pills, you'd think she'd also realize that that he might have just a little bit of a problem.