Episode Report Card Sara M: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Awkward
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.30.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A hot young interracial married couple fight off attackers during a diner robbery before the wife, Tracy, collapses and her throat closes up. She's admitted to PPTH, where her doctor cares more about whether or not his best friend is dating the new nurse than he does about curing her. Then the husband, Jeremy, gets sick with the same symptoms. House, meanwhile, mixes things up with a Clinic patient who literally has a stick up his ass. The patient demands that House apologize for being rude to him, but, of course, House won't do it. When the couple's condition worsens, House thinks a biopsy of comatose Tracy's brainstem is the only thing that will tell them what's wrong, but Jeremy refuses to consent to it, because it will probably cause brain damage, and he doesn't want that to happen to Tracy. He tells them to biopsy his brain instead, but he doesn't have the same lesions that she does and they don't have time to wait for him to develop them. Meanwhile, his intestines disintegrate. Things look grim until Foreman tells the group that Jeremy's father was a pill-popping alcoholic racist who attacked Jeremy when he found out about his relationship with the black next-door neighbor. That's when House realizes that Jeremy's dad may not be a racist after all -- in fact, he's such a fan of interracial relationships that he had one himself. With Tracy's mother. And then Tracy was born nine months later. The good news is, this enables the team to figure out that Jeremy and Tracy have the same hereditary genetic disease that caused Jeremy's father to pop all those pills. The bad news is, it means that Jeremy and Tracy are half-siblings. Ew. Ew. Ew. Foreman shows us his Cameron side and consoles Jeremy instead of spending the night with his newest girlfriend -- the new nurse who House thought Wilson was dating. House spends his night in jail after being pulled over and arrested for possession by a familiar cop with a stick up his ass. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Sitting in your typical grungy diner, a sick-looking guy coughs to fake us out. Then, with his partner's clever "time to make the donuts" throwback to Dunkin' Donuts commercials circa 1988, the two hold the place up, even though there is a considerable number of patrons and employees there. I would have waited until the wee morning hours when the place was a bit emptier, but that's me. Anyway, my newly favorite patron mutters a surprised "oh!" at this, which I love because it's probably the same reaction I'd have, and everyone is ordered to remove their wallets and jewelry and then sent to the back room -- except for the guy's pretty female dining partner, who is told she can stay to presumably get raped. The guy I liked, named Jeremy, has much more of a reaction to this than he did to the robbery itself, stepping forward to try to stop the robbers, who point their weapons at him, while the girl, his wife, begs Jeremy not to interfere. He agrees not to, but when the fakeout sick guys starts coughing again, he uses the distraction to go all A History of Violence on the robbers, nailing one guy on the head with a napkin holder and then tackling the coughing guy and slamming his head on the floor. The short-order cook stops Jeremy and points to the girl, Tracy, who is having some sort of asthma attack. The Magic Schoolbus Cam zooms down her throat until it closes in our face.
After the credits, House scoffs at the fact that his new patient is married at the tender age of twenty. He's even more upset to see Wilson flirting with Wendy, the new pediatric nurse, out in the hallway, and leaves the meeting room to butt into Wilson and Wendy's conversation. He's quick to tell Wendy that Wilson once sawed his cane in half just to make Wilson look like an asshole, and Wendy says that House is "everything [she] heard." Whoever told Wendy about House gave her a very accurate impression indeed, as she gets out of there as fast as she can. House tells Wilson that he's headed for another bad relationship with a "naughty nurse," who didn't seem all that naughty to me, but Wilson says that he isn't interested in a relationship with Wendy. "You're lying to me. That's interesting," House says. Eh, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
House heads back to the meeting room and talks about Wilson and Wendy some more until Cameron insists on actually talking about their case, which is quite a change for her. Maybe she's jealous that House is jealous. Her co-workers don't have her same zest for work, though, and Foreman says House should just trust that Wilson isn't with Wendy. House says that Wendy has been hanging around their hallway recently and being in a relationship with Wilson is the only explanation. Well, she certainly wouldn't be hanging out in the cancer ward, since Wilson is never there because he never does his job. House says Wilson must be "hitting that," but Cameron says no. "I'm hitting that, and it's totally hot," she deadpans. This gets some wonderful surprised/interested looks from all the guys and I have to say, whoever wants me to like Cameron is certainly doing a good job of it.