Just when you thought sex was fun and harmless and marriage vows were sacred, House comes along to destroy your illusions! Howard Hesseman -- best known for his roles on WKRP In Cincinnati and Head Of The Class, depending on which decade you were born in -- comes to PPTH after having a seizure that quickly progresses into heart failure, due to eating some unpasteurized cheese, so distracted was he at the sight of his cheatin' ex-wife. His only chance for survival is a new heart, but the evil transplant committee doesn't want to waste one on a guy in his sixties. So House decides to go for the Organ Transplant Bargain Basement and take the heart from the rejected donor list. He finds Laura, who was feeling under the weather before she drove her car off the road. Her sickness was what got her rejected from the list, so House and his team have to cure her before they can give her heart to Mr. Moore. They also need to convince her grieving husband to get over his well-earned hatred of House and agree to give them his wife's heart. One good knee to the balls does it! Eventually, they figure out that the lab's completely useless positive tests results for hepatitis C were wrong and Laura just had gonorrhea, which they all assume she got from cheating on her husband. But, shocker! The husband was the one who cheated, and gave his wife the STD that ended up making her sick and getting her in that deadly car accident. And just when you think the adultery shockers were over with, we find out that Wilson wasn't cheating on his wife after all -- SHE was cheating on HIM! He looks to House for a shoulder to cry on and gets one, albeit it a cold one. And Mr. Moore gets his heart, albeit it a gonorrhea-filled one.
A bunch of old people play cards, as old people are wont to do. Joining them is Keri Lynn Pratt, who I know best as BabyAunt from my 7th Heaven recapping days. This show is smart enough not to cast her young-looking and -sounding self as a teenager's aunt, but as the daughter of one of the card players, who is played by none other than Howard "Dr. Johnny Fever" or "Mr. Moore" (depending on whether you were a fan of WKRP In Cincinnati or Head Of The Class) Hesseman. While some of the ladies at the table try to fix Johnny Fever up with an available lady, his daughter seems to be having a fever of her own; her vision's blurry and ominous sound effects are playing. She excuses herself from the table, saying that she's feeling nauseated, and her dad leads her away. While we're waiting for her to barf bright green or her legs to fall off or whatever other crazy symptom this show likes to start things off with, her father suddenly freezes in mid-sentence. The Magic School Bus Cam zooms into his brain, where various neurons are misfiring. Just when I thought the pre-credits illness sequence had given up on trying to fool me, it does it again, that tricky little devil! Henry's eye bulge as his daughter's whiny voice asks what's wrong and begs him to let go of her arm. The other card players stand up and take notice, which is how you know this situation is dire: it takes a lot to distract an old person from his bridge game. Henry snaps out of it and continues his sentence, unaware that anything happened until he sees the horrified look on his daughter's face. Between her nausea and his brain problems, I think it's safe to say that they won't be winning that bridge tournament tonight.
Foreman does his neurologistly duty and tends to Henry. He explains that Henry had an absence seizure, which means that the Patient Of The Week's Requisite Seizure is already out of the way. Henry says that he's never had anything like this happen to him before, and his daughter backs him up, saying that her father is perfectly healthy except for some acid reflux problems. And now that Henry has to tell his doctor the entire truth, he makes up a terrible excuse -- about how he heard the coffee in the cafeteria was awesome and she should go try it -- to get his daughter out of the room. But what about her nausea? I guess it just came from being in a room full of Ben-Gay vapors and is no longer a concern.
Foreman informs the crew that Henry's little confession is that his right testicle is twice the size of his left one. And he never thought to have this checked out before? Was he waiting for the smaller one to catch up to achieve symmetry? House listens to this while playing with his giant tennis ball, which is twice the size of a normal tennis ball. Chase is quick to diagnose Henry with testicular cancer, but House dismisses this, figuring that Foreman already jumped to that conclusion, tested Henry for it, and came up with nothing. Let's hope those tests were done with more care and attention than the last person PPTH tested for cancer. House notices a "microabscess" in Henry's brain MRIs, which Foreman simply dismisses as a shadow because he's not a very good doctor. Brain problems plus enlarged testiscles equal STDs to House, and he orders the Cottages to treat Henry for every STD they can. Never mind the fact that Henry has already tested negative for STDs. House figures that if it's not an STD, the only other choice is lymphoma, in which case Henry will die anyway. And his insurance company will be thrilled to cover those charges for unnecessary STD drugs, I'm sure. Not to mention the fact that every time House thinks he's got the disease possibilities narrowed down, there's always one thing he hasn't thought of yet.
Now that he's written his patient off as either dying or suffering from STDs conveniently undetected by the hospital lab, House has some free time. He finds Wilson at the hospital gift shop buying expensive chocolates for his wife. House immediately suspects that Wilson is feeling guilty about something and he wants to know what it is. He suspects Wilson is having an affair. "It's not all about sex, House," Wilson says. "Really? When did that change?" House asks. Not in this episode, that's for sure.
House reports to Clinic duty. His patient is the guy who played Warren on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although I have to admit that I never watched that show so I didn't get all giddy seeing him here. I was pleased to note that actors from The Mystery Files Of Shelby Woo were getting work, though. Anyway, Warren wants a high dose of Depo-Provera to "calm [him] down." As in "chemically castrate" him, which is what high doses of that contraceptive apparently do to men. House sighs and says that he knows how this is going to go: he'll get up to leave, only to be called back when he reaches the doorway so that Warrren can tell him the real embarrassing thing that has brought him to the Clinic today. Is that a meta-statement on the show's formulaic tendencies or what? House doesn't want to bother with the whole process today because his leg hurts (I guess he ran out of fake morphine), so he'd appreciate it if Warren would just cut to the chase now. "I love cows," says Warren. House takes a few Vicodins before asking questions he knows he doesn't want to hear the answers to. Anyway, Warren really, really loves cows. He thinks they're really hot and doesn't understand why people would eat or make leather out of them. I can only answer for myself, but, if faced with the choice between a good burger and bestiality, I'll take the burger any day of the week. In fact, I'll probably make one on my George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine when I'm done with this recap. Warren wants the Depo so that he can curb his urges before he's forced to act upon them. House decides that this is all a fraternity prank and doesn't give Warren his Depo-Provera. I'd like to give frats the benefit of the doubt here and say that they wouldn't bother with a prank as stupid as this. A call into Loveline about wanting to fuck a cow, maybe. Paying to see a doctor and doing all that research about Depo-Provera? I doubt it.
Foreman breaks the news to Henry that he may have an STD. Henry says that is not possible, and his daughter agrees, especially after hearing that the STD tests were all negative. Silly people! They actually think that test results mean something on this show. Henry denies having had sex since his divorce, and Amy stays in the room to listen and agree, whereas as soon as the doctor even mentioned the possibility of my dad's having an STD, I would have been out of there, screaming "TMI! TMI! TMI!" all the way down the hall.
Out in the hall, Foreman tells House that Henry denied the possibility of having an STD; therefore, he wants to start treating Henry for lymphoma (even though they have absolutely no proof that he has that, either), hoping that they can cure him with some really aggressive treatment. House still thinks Henry has an STD, and uses Wilson to prove it, which has the bonus of causing Wilson great personal embarassment. He yells across the lobby to Wilson, interrupting his conversation with a cute young blonde, to ask how long he can go without sex. "I'm not having an affair!" Wilson responds, annoyed. Foreman informs House that people have a thing called "impulse control," which allows them to curb their urges to have sex and be completely inappropriate in the workplace. Foreman has to explain this to House because House is obviously lacking it himself. But what he lacks in tact he makes for in intuition, telling Foreman to wait until Amy goes to lunch and Henry pages Foreman back to his room so he can tell the truth about his sex life without his daughter's hearing. Sure enough, Foreman's pager goes off, and he rolls his eyes. It's exasperating when someone you don't like is right all the time, isn't it, Foreman?
House goes to Henry's room in one of those rare moments when House meets one of his patients without being forced to. Henry tells him that he doesn't want Amy to know this, but that he had sex with her mom. "She probably knows that's happened already," House says. Hee hee hee. Henry explains that his evil ex-wife cheated on him a bunch of times before he finally got fed up and divorced her, and that his daughter would think he was an idiot to go back to her after everything she did to him. As House injects a "cocktail" of STD drugs into what appears to be Henry's ass, Henry tells him how he ran into his ex at some cheese-tasting thing and they had a one-night stand. He knows it was stupid, but figures that great things can happen if you're willing to look stupid. House stares at him and wonders how many times he missed out on a great thing because he didn't want to look stupid. He'd better not be putting Stacy in the "great thing" category. Amy walks in and asks what's going on. Henry hastily pulls the back of his robe closed -- like, try knocking before you enter, Amy -- and admits that there's a possibility he has an STD after all. But before he can give any details, House tells her that Henry "met a woman in church." Aw, I think House might have done his patient a solid by covering for him there! That's one of the only nice things he's ever done for his patients, aside from saving their lives! Amy smiles and asks if this woman could be Henry's bridge partner. Henry loves the joke. In fact, he laughs so hard that his lungs fall out! House calls for a crash cart as nurses run into the room and shove Amy aside. House springs into doctor action, which I always love to see, and intubates Henry, whose lungs are all foamy. Amy interrupts the people trying to save her father's life to ask what kind of STD does this. I know you're worried and all, Amy, but you might want to save the Q&A session until AFTER your father's been stabilized. Nevertheless, House looks up to answer her that this isn't an STD. Whoops! Looks like House got the diagnosis wrong again!
When we come back from commercial, Chase is telling the team that once they got all of the fluid out of Henry's lungs, they found out that the problem was not there, but in an obstructed mitral valve. This symptom rules out both STDs and the lymphoma, leaving them with a mystery disease that attacks the brain, heart, and testicles, what many men would consider to be the three organs they can't live without. The Cottages don't have any good theories, but House has one, or, at very least, a good proverb: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
House uses his cane to dramatically fling the Henry's privacy curtain open. He tells father and daughter that Henry's heart was causing his latest problems, and asks Henry about his cheese-tasting party. For most of the following conversation, I thought they were actually talking about Henry's ex-wife and using "cheese" as a cover word to keep Amy out of the loop, so you can imagine how shocked I was when House started asking Henry to describe how the cheese tasted and smelled. It turns out they actually are talking about cheese, specifically whether the cheese was unpasteurized sheep cheese that is chock full of bacteria. Bacteria like Brucella. Guess what? It was. So Henry's got himself some brucellosis. Henry wonders why he was the only person who got sick from the cheese that everyone ate, to which House answers that most people have enough acid in their stomachs to kill the bacteria. Henry, however, was taking antacids for his acid reflux disease, making him especially susceptible. TUMS's stock plummets.
Later, Wilson and House spend some time together playing foosball. Of course, House keeps needling Wilson about his problems with his wife, pointing out that Wilson's socks don't match today, which must mean that he got dressed in the dark as he tried to leave for work in the morning without waking up his wife and having to talk to her. Or maybe he just ran out of clean socks and was left with two sock orphans to make into a pair. Wilson changes the subject to House's patient, and House says that either he's wrong about the brucellosis and Henry keeps dying (and since there is a chance of that, you'd think House would be spending his time trying to think of what else Henry could have instead of wasting it playing foosball), or he's right, and they either caught it in time to cure him, or they didn't and Henry's heart will give out.
Cut to Henry's heart giving out. Chase defibrillates the hell out of him, zapping him, like, six times. Can you blame him, though? This is the first time in quite a few episodes that Chase has had anything to do. Might as well make the most of it.
House and Wilson continue to play foosball. House continues to ask Wilson about having an affair. Wilson continues to deny it. House tells him not to admit anything to his wife, or else Wilson will end up sleeping on House's "lumpy" couch. I'll bet it is lumpy, too; he's probably got his Vicodin stash hidden in one of the cushions.
Chase managed to get Henry's heart beating again, but there's been too much damage. Henry has a week to live unless he gets a transplant.
So House has to go before one of his many nemeses, the transplant committee. He tells them that Henry is an excellent transplant candidate, in great health except for the dying heart. "He's sixty-six years old," Cuddy the Ageist says. "He told me he was sixty-five. Liar! I'm outta here," House says in what might have been my favorite line of the episode. Great line, great delivery. The Evil Head of the Committee points out that the older the candidate, the less likely the transplant is to succeed. House says that Henry hasn't been hospitalized since he broke his leg when he was twenty-three years old, although House can't trust him on the age thing anymore. Everybody LIES when it comes to their age, House. Evil Head of the Committee doesn't want to give a heart to someone who doesn't have very much time left to live, even if he is in good health. House bristles at this, saying that, by that logic, they should be giving organs to women over men, since they live longer, and just passing black people over entirely, since their average life span is shorter than white people's. It's a good point, but probably not the right way to make it. It's good to see that House can use his over-attentiveness to race for good instead of evil sometimes, though. Evil Head of the Committee says he won't be won over by being accused of racism. "You can either be a racist or a hypocrite," says House. Evil Head of the Committee is going to go with hypocrite, saying that Henry "already had a life", and that Evil Head of the Committee would rather give organs to people who haven't gotten that chance yet. House asks the Evil Head of the Committee how old he is, at which point Cuddy wisely calls an end to the meeting. House doesn't have much hope that they'll decide in his favor.
Foreman tells Henry and Amy that the committee voted against giving him a new heart. Dude, seriously? Is this really how it works? Some committee of random assholes gets to pick who gets a vital organ and who dies? And if so, can someone tell me how the hell Larry "Drunk and Old" Hagman got a new liver? Of course, Henry and Amy are very sad. If I were Amy, I'd be out tracking down those committee members and stealing their hearts to give to my dad.
House sulks in his office. Proactive Cameron marches in with her letter of appeal, hoping that the argument that the Committee's personal dislike of House clouded their medical judgment will be a valid one. Sometimes Cameron actually has a good point to make. "They made the right call," says House. But he'll sign the letter of appeal anyway, because it's in the best interest of his patient. Then he takes off for Clinic duty, asking Cameron to get him the files on everyone who died at PPTH today. Judging by PPTH's poor standards of medical care, Cameron has a lot of work ahead of her.
Warren is back in the Clinic. This time, he's got a broken ankle from, he claims, being kicked by the hoof of a protesting cow. Even cows have standards when it comes to their sex partners, I guess. Warren continuously refers to the cow in general terms, calling it an "it" instead of a "she," and lacking the sort of affection that one would expect from someone who's in love with the animal. (I guess; I tend to not expect anything at all from people who want to have sex with animals. House, however, has apparently studied this and therefore knows what to expect from Warren.) Not only that, but the hoof wound has a wooden splinter in it that indicates it wasn't made by a cow after all, unless it's a cow with a peg leg. Which, by the way, would be very cool. House isn't in the mood for this, apparently still believing it to be the most intricate and involved fraternity prank of all time, but Warren begs for his help: "I'm sick!" House says that if Warren's really serious about this, then he'll submit to the "painful" and "humiliating" tests House will have to run. Warren agrees to this. I really don't care about Warren's mysterious sexual problem.
Cameron goes over the latest PPTH deaths with her boss. None of them have viable hearts except for one woman who was in a bad car accident. She's still alive, but her prognosis isn't good. House is hoping that there's something wrong with her that will put her organs off the transplant list. He asks if she's fat. "She's...on the hefty side," Cameron says with adorable diplomacy. House is very pleased at this, saying that fat people's donor organs get rejected all the time. So not only are the Transplant Committee people ageist, but they're fattist as well? House figures that Henry would rather have a fat lady heart than no heart at all.
Our Woman on the Hefty Side is being tended to by the ER docs. Her husband, played by Greg Grunberg (Agent Weiss), observes the carnage from behind the all-glass walls of the trauma room. House -- who has put his white coat on for the occasion to look especially official and doctor-like -- pulls Agent Weiss aside to ask him some questions about his wife's general health. Agent Weiss says that she had a fever today, but went to work anyway because she "hasn't missed a day of teaching in years." This is much to the chagrin of her students, I'd say, who probably wouldn't mind having a substitute every once in a while. Agent Weiss is guilt-stricken at not insisting that his wife stay home, but House doesn't have the time or the desire to console him and just keeps asking if his wife had any other symptoms. At this point, a woman walks up and introduces herself as the "organ procurement coordinator for Southern New Jersey." Uh oh. "I just want to assure you that we will treat her organs with care and dignity," she says. And that's how poor Agent Weiss finds out that this wife is dead. Organ Procurement Coordinator looks horrified as she realizes that she is now living out her second worst job-related nightmare -- her first, of course, being the one where she's chased by giant human livers all the way down the shore.
Agent Weiss explodes in grief as Organ Procurement Coordinator tries to stammer out an apology, not like there's anything she can really say to make this better. So she tries to shift the blame, saying that when she saw House talking to Agent Weiss, she figured he was giving him the bad news, although she didn't bother to ascertain that fact before she started talking. "I didn't know," House coldly says, leaving out the fact that he totally suspected. "You should never make assumptions." Organ Procurement Coordinator looks like she needs a heart transplant of her own, since her real heart has dropped down into her stomach somewhere. Too bad she's too fat and black to be given one by the All-Powerful Evil Transplant Committee Overlords. Agent Weiss stops grieving for long enough to ask House why he was asking him about his wife. "I'm sorry for your loss," House says, totally insincerely, "but I need your wife's heart." And scenes like this are why a lot of people are hesitant to become organ donors. You want to save people's lives and all, but you don't particularly relish the thought of doctors and organ procurement coordinators circling over your still-living body like vultures as they hope you'll die so your organs can be given to people they deem more deserving, either. ["Eh, I have to say I don't get why that bothers people. You're dead -- it's not like this will be playing out in front of you." -- Wing Chun]
After the commercial, Foreman the Stalker informs House that the Organ Procurement Coordinator just left PPTH empty-handed. Hopefully, she'll be fired as soon as she sets foot inside her office. House says this probably means that Agent Weiss's wife's heart is free for them to use as they see fit, and starts hacking into her file to get the necessary information. We never see anyone get the info on things like whether or not her organs are even compatible with Henry's body, but I'm happy enough to assume that this happened off-camera. Cameron lodges her obligatory protest to hacking into the hospital's files, then readily tells House how to spell the dead woman's last name. Her file pops up, and sure enough, her organs were declared "not viable." "Time to go dumpster-diving!" House declares happily. Foreman takes the time to actually read the reason why the organs were rejected, and isn't pleased.
Foreman chases after House in the hallway (which doesn't take much effort to do) and informs him that their organ donor has tested positive for hepatitis C. House doesn't care about things like tests and conclusive proof. Laura the Dead Fat Wife's symptoms didn't fit with hep C, so he's thinking she has something else.
Agent Weiss says goodbye to his battered wife's body. He holds her hand as a nurse turns the machines off. Then House busts in and turns them all back on. "We need to talk," he says.
House and Agent Weiss will talk in Cuddy's office, where House callously says that he can "use" Laura's organs, so he wants her back on life support. Agent Weiss protests that his wife wouldn't want to be kept alive artificially, while House tries to get a surgical team together to perform a transplant that two committees have refused. Apparently, if they classify the transplant as "experimental," they can do it. I'm pretty sure the writers fudged medical accuracy here, but if I wanted to see a medical show that was 100% realistic, I'd watch the Discovery Channel. House goes beyond tactless and tells the guy that his recently dead wife's body is just "meat" now. At that point, Cuddy starts to stand up so that she can be in a better position to break up the fight that is sure to ensue. "This is my wife," Agent Weiss says, managing to control himself a lot better than I would have. "Not anymore," House says. You see, he only gives living people respect and dignity. Hey, everybody LIES, right? Agent Weiss says that he's still alive, and that House hasn't given him any respect or dignity so far, pretending to be Laura's doctor and giving him hope that she would survive. He's taking his wife off of life support. "Nicely played," Cuddy says, sounding more pissed off at House than usual. House won't concede defeat.
House has his Hail Mary pass sitting outside. Amy thanks Agent Weiss for giving her father his wife's heart. Poor Agent Weiss is now the victim of yet another wrong assumption. Cuddy and House come out in time to hear this, and Cuddy disgustedly accuses House of manipulation. It's not like she's doing anything to stop it, though. Agent Weiss tells House he is an ass, too, and turns to leave. Amy makes a sad face. House calls Agent Weiss back and says that, in two weeks' time, whatever happened to Laura's heart won't matter to House at all. But it will always matter to Gail. "Amy," Amy corrects him. "Whatever," House says, with the respect and dignity he gives to living things. He urges Agent Weiss not to take his anger at House out on someone else. Amy sticks her lower lip out and looks very sad indeed. Agent Weiss thinks for a second, and then decides to do what House asked and take his anger out on the person it's meant for. He accomplishes this by kneeing House in the crotch, a move that causes House incredible pain and also ensures that the man won't be having any offspring to inflict on future generations. We also learn that there is one way to stop House from making a snarky comebacks, as he reacts to the blow with a gasp of pain that only half of the population can feel, and falls to the floor. Cuddy is shocked, but also probably just a little bit jealous of Agent Weiss for getting to do something that she's wanted to do so many times before. Amy's sad face turns into a surprised face, and then into grateful face when Agent Weiss tells her that her dad can have his wife's heart. And I'm not advocating or supporting kneeing men in the balls -- by all accounts, it's a very painful and cruel thing to do to a guy -- but if anyone should get kneed in the balls, it's House for his behavior in the past ten minutes. Honestly, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Henry hangs out and tries not to die. Braindead Laura's in the bed over, which has to be a little disconcerting. Agent Weiss stops by to see her and probably boast about how he kneed that asshole doctor in the crotch for her.
House's limp is even more pronounced than usual as he enters the meeting room. Cameron, of course, notices and is immediately concerned. House brushes her off and tells the crew that before they can give Henry the heart, they need to figure out what was causing Laura's symptoms. Foreman doesn't see the point in this; he figures that the heart was turned down for a reason, and that putting it in Henry will just kill Henry, too. Not, House says, if they cure Laura first. Chase is dubious, although it's hard to make out what he says since he's got a coffee stirrer sticking out of his mouth. What is it with him and chewing on wooden things? Is he building a dam or something? Cameron is taking a while to catch on, and asks if House is trying to "cure death." This gives House the chance to let out his best mad-scientist laugh -- which is truly glorious -- and then bring her up to speed with his plan. They'll treat Laura's infection and make her heart nice and healthy for Henry. Foreman nay-says that Laura probably had the flu as well as hep C. Man, is he stuck on that hep C thing or what? You'd think they actually had a positive test result! Oh, wait. Anyway, Foreman is told not to speak again unless it's to be helpful. On Chase's suggestion that Laura has a gallbladder infection, she gets an MRI.
Well, at least she doesn't have much to fear from the MRI of DOOOM! Agent Weiss hangs out in the booth with Chase and Foreman, probably because he's afraid to leave his wife's side and come back to find her stripped of her organs and any other valuables and propped up on some cement blocks. Wise choice.
The MRI was negative for a gallbladder infection, although they did find a cyst. This is consistent with hep C, but since House has decided that his patient doesn't have hep C, he asks the Cottages what else it could be. He goes with the illness that strips poor Laura of whatever dignity she may have had left: an amoeba infection due to sloppy wiping after pooping. Those were House's words, not mine. He orders the Cottages to pump her full of antibiotics now that they don't have to worry about restricting her dosages to keep the rest of her body healthy.
And then House heads for the Clinic to give Warren the results of his embarrassing and painful tests. Warren is perfectly healthy, and big and strong thanks to all that red meat his bloodwork says he's been eating. Cow meat. Looks like Warren was lying about his cow love. So, House wonders, what is so humiliating that Warren would rather lie about wanting to fuck cows than tell the truth? Warren produces a picture of an attractive blonde in a bikini. "Nice," says House. "It's my mom," Warren replies. House doesn't like where this is going, especially since we dealt with parent-child incest in just the last episode. House says that this is either an old photograph, or Warren hit the stepmother lottery. We never find out which one it is, but I can't imagine Warren being this ashamed if she's only his stepmother. So, ew. He says that she walks around in her bikini all the time, freely giving him massages, and that it's wreaking havoc on his hormones. He begs House to give him the medicine for three months until he can get out of his House of Temptation. House relents.
More House-Wilson time! Wilson still hasn't told his wife about the affair House is sure he's having, and House is still making fun of him for it. Wilson is finally fed up, although he's too sensitive to be angry, so he just gets all tearful as he begs House to stop teasing him and start acting like a real friend. House gets a page and takes off, telling Wilson that if that's the kind of friend he wants, he should probably find another friend. He has a point there, Wilson. Just because you're always ready, willing, and able to console House whenever you think he needs it doesn't mean that House will do the same for you.
The medicine is destroying Laura's heart, which is the last thing they want to do. House figures that this is the end of the line, saying that either he was wrong and Laura really does have hep C, or the only medicine that will cure what she does have is ruining her heart anyway. Either way, they can't use her heart. He loudly says that he'll just have to find another body. He saw a Fat Guy in the ER who looked ripe for the plucking. Agent Weiss doesn't want to give up, though. He's gotten used to having his braindead wife around, and after all this, he wants her to save Henry. The Fat Guy's family breathes a sigh of relief that they won't have to deal with an asshole doctor insulting them while they try to plan their loved one's funeral.
After the commercial break, everyone's pretty pessimistic. Chase wants to do a biopsy on that cyst, but House compares Laura to a fridge with no power, saying that the more they poke around in her, the sooner everything will go bad. "No offense," he tells Agent Weiss, completely insincerely. Right analogy, wrong crowd. Cameron suggests checking Laura for toxins, to which Agent Weiss says that her tox screen was clean. Well, who died and made him an expert on his wife's health? Oh, right. Sorry, Agent Weiss. Don't knee me in the crotch, please. House says that they can try testing Laura for the "really cool toxins" the normal tests don't cover. I can't believe he's actually taking those tox-screen test results seriously. Foreman gets to run the exotic tox screens. Chase gets to keep Henry alive. Cameron gets to go Back to School and look for environmental factors. That leaves House and Agent Weiss to check out her home. Wow, has anyone actually been present for their own House house inspection before? House puts a hand on Agent Weiss's back as he leads him out of the room, which was a nice gesture that seemed really out of character for someone who's spent most of the show antagonizing the guy.
We don't get to see the ride over to Agent Weiss and Laura's home, although I can guess it consisted of the usual awkward small talk:
Agent Weiss: So, uh, are your balls feeling better?
House: No.
Agent Weiss: ...
House: ...
And there you go. We join Agent Weiss and House already inside the house. House has found some of Laura's secret hair dye and asks Agent Weiss if his wife had any other secrets from him. Well, if she did, then they wouldn't be secrets, would they?
Henry is still dying -- now more than ever. His heart has stopped pumping enough blood to his brain. He needs that new heart soon.
House finds sleeping and diet pills in Laura's secret drawer. Agent Weiss is surprised at how much his wife kept from him, although it's not like she was being all that secretive about it. I mean, they're in a kitchen drawer where anyone could find them, if anyone was a decent husband who took a turn cooking dinner once in a while. House tells Agent Weiss not to get all sulky about his wife's secrets, since they really aren't that major...yet.
House has returned to PPTH to talk over his findings with Foreman. I'd like to think he's doing this because he trusts Foreman's opinion because he knows Foreman is the only other competent doctor on staff, but that's probably not the case. Laura's secret drugs could have caused some of her symptoms, but not all of them, so the trip home wasn't much help after all. Then Cameron returns with some photos she found in Laura's locked desk drawer. How did she get in there? Does Cameron possess heretofore-unseen lock-picking skills? That would be cool. House doesn't think her find is very interesting or helpful until he gets a look at the photos -- naked teenage boys! Hello! You know Cameron took a few minutes alone with those photos before turning them over to House. It's about time she got to have some eye candy after the guys got to drool over that s/he supermodel. "Teenage boys aren't toxins," Foreman says dismissively. Not unless you're a teenage girl. This gives House an idea: "What if the cyst isn't a cyst?" he wonders. "What if it's a scar?" A gonorrhea scar, that is!
Cameron draws some blood from Dead Laura. Agent Weiss is asks what she's being tested for now. "Just some more infections," Cameron mumbles. Man, she didn't even TRY to lie that time.
Guess who has gonorrhea? That's right -- Laura! I swear, no one gets away with cheating on their spouses and having unsafe sex on this show. Even after you die, you aren't safe from getting some horrible form of an STD! If it's not African Sleeping Sickness, it's a liver cyst. Cameron says that they're treating Laura for the gonorrhea now. Chase enters to announce that Henry is on his way out. They have to do the surgery right now, meaning they don't have time to wait for the gonorrhea to go away. Which means we've found yet another way that you can get an STD without having sex on this show.
I still don't understand how House was able to get this all approved by the hospital, but the transplant team rushes in to take Henry and Laura away to the OR. Agent Weiss asks what ended up being wrong with his wife, leaving House and Cameron standing around with their mouths open trying to think of a good lie. Obviously, Cameron won't be much help, so House has to fight his inner asshole demons that are telling him to torture Agent Weiss with the truth. Amazingly enough, the guy who compared Agent Weiss's wife to meat and a refrigerator without power has the tact and self-control to say that she had that amoebiasis after all, and that they found another way to cure her. Agent Weiss thanks them and walks away. Cameron is surprised and pleased that her boss was so kind. Unfortunately for her, this is yet another case of assuming too much, as House tells her that he only lied to Agent Weiss to keep him from getting angry and kneeing him in the balls again. As soon as they get Laura's heart, Cameron will have to tell Agent Weiss the truth about his wife. Cameron thinks House is kidding, but he says the guy has to be tested before he starts indulging in sympathy sex.
Laura's heart is put into Henry's body without incident. Henry will live to see another bridge game, and Laura is finally gone. Agent Weiss watches the surgery from the balcony above the operating theater and mourns her death for about two seconds before Cameron walks in to tell him the truth. But before she can, Agent Weiss starts sharing that Laura was distant in the past year, and at one point, he thought she was having an affair. But then he realized that Laura would never cheat on him. He can't say the same for himself, though! He had a one-night stand and got gonorrhea. OH! WHAT WHAT! Here I was, wrongly assuming that Laura was the cheater with those high-school students, when all along it was Agent Weiss who cheated on her! "I guess I should've said something to you," he says. Uh, yeah. But then he would have had to admit to himself that he gave Laura the gonorrhea that made her sick and caused her to get in that car accident. He's very relieved to find out that it didn't. And way to withhold crucial information, there, Agent Weiss. What if they hadn't figured out that Laura had gonorrhea before Henry died? Now you deserve a knee to the balls. Cameron doesn't have anything to say to that, although she does have a series of awesome facial expressions. First, we have disbelief, then disgusted disbelief, and then she opens her mouth to say something and just gives up, leaving us with resigned exasperation. Poor old Cameron -- everyone gets to cheat on their spouses except her!
Henry opens his gonorrhea-filled eyes to find his ex-wife and daughter standing over him. "Am I dead?" he asks. That doesn't make sense unless his ex-wife is dead, which she isn't, but I'll give him a pass on the stupid comment since he did just have a heart transplant and everything. Amy decides to test her old man's new ticker out right away by saying, "If you do Mom again, you gotta wear a condom." Wow, how did Amy manage to say the most inappropriate thing in an episode that featured House at his Housiest?
It's time for House to redeem himself and be a good friend. Wilson knocks impatiently at his apartment door, which is kind of insensitive when you consider the fact that it takes House a bit longer than the rest of us to walk to the door to open it. He finally does, and sees Wilson at his door. And he's brought luggage. "Can I stay with you for a few days?" he asks. "You idiot! You told her," House exclaims. Not so fast, Mr. Ass-u-me. As it turns out, SHE told HIM. Wilson wasn't having an affair after all (unless you count the one he has with House in his mind) -- his wife was. House is shocked. Wilson adds that he thought his marriage was falling apart because he was spending too much time at work. But really, she was having an affair (probably because she was lonely because her husband was playing foosball instead of spending time with her). And now she probably has gonorrhea and spine syphilis and herpes in her brain and sex cancer! "Wanna beer?" House offers, stepping aside to let Wilson in. That's probably as sensitive as he'll get, but it'll probably be enough.
Someone needs to tell Fox that their truly awesome previews still don't make up for the fact that we've only gotten, like, one new episode a month since Christmas break: now we have to wait a few weeks AGAIN for another new episode. See you then!