By Sara M
House has recovered from last season's gunshot wounds, leaving only a scar, a pool of dry blood on the carpet that no one seems to be able to replace or clean, a working leg, and a new lease on life. A new lease that involves jogging, skateboarding, and trying to make patients and their families feel good. He tests this on two patients. The first is Karen, a woman who snapped her neck during yoga class and is paralyzed even though her spine seems to be fine. House sets her feet on fire, delights in her screams of pain, and pronounces her insane. And then blood starts pouring into her heart and he has to change his diagnosis to scurvy. Way to not eat oranges, Karen. Stupid. The second patient is more complicated: Richard's been a vegetable since having surgery for brain cancer eight years ago. He steers his wheelchair into a pool in what everyone thinks is a suicide attempt. House wants to make the guy more comfortable with surgery on his atrophied tendons and plenty of morphine, then decides that helping people is not its own reward and starts trying to cure the guy despite everyone around him warning not to and his efforts only leading Richard closer and closer to death. A life-affirming dip in the fountain makes House realize what's really wrong with Richard and how to cure him (something about Addison's disease? I'm still not clear on it), but Cuddy takes a stand and says no to letting House move forward on his hunches. But Cuddy's not stupid, so while House sulks in his office, she tests his hunch on the side on the sly and whaddaya know? Richard is cured. Too bad House won't know about it, since Wilson advises Cuddy to keep this quiet so it doesn't go to House's head. Also because it doesn't make Wilson look like such a great oncologist when his brain cancer patients are needlessly paralyzed for eight years. While Wilson is figuring out ways to keep House down, House is breaking into his office, stealing his prescription pad, and forging his signature on Vicodin prescriptions. New leg, same old asshole. Hooray!
Welcome to happy crazy fun pool party time! Everyone's having a blast, except for the wheelchair-bound guy who can't move and seems to have some kind of vision problem that makes him see everything like it's an episode of C.S.I. with all the light flashes and changing speeds and high contrast. While his wife cooks him a hamburger, he decides to go for a swim, which I'm going to guess isn't recommended for someone in his condition.
It's morning in New Jersey, and House jogs (!) to the beat of the Gorillaz' hit single from last year, "Feel Good, Inc." I think that song now comes standard issue with iPods, so it makes sense that House is listening to it here. But onto more important things, namely: HOUSE IS JOGGING. He stops to check his pulse against his telltale neck scar and smiles. And why shouldn't he? It's always nice when the laws of physics forget that one cannot jog when missing sizable chunks of thigh muscle.
Back at PPTH, Cuddy and Wilson are arguing over which case to give House for his first day back. Meanwhile, an actor named Edward Edwards flashes onto the screen. Who names their kids like that? Parents are such assholes sometimes. House enters the room, oozing of sweat and bile, and amazes everyone with his ability to run the eight miles from his home to work. Cuddy realizes that when House told her that he needed eight weeks off for rehab after being shot twice, he was obviously taking more time than necessary. She is annoyed at this, as if it wasn't her hospital's crappy security that made him need the time off to heal in the first place, then is excited that House is still pain-free two months after the ketamine thing. What ketamine thing? Well, as House helpfully expositions to Cuddy, "Thank you, Dr. Cuddy. Not just for removing the bullet, but thank you for putting me in a ketamine-induced coma and changing my life. Happy? I am." Sure, he's happy, but cane manufacturers all over America weep. Cuddy Downer warns House that the ketamine coma effects can wear off, and I'm guessing that also applies to the magical thigh muscle regrowth that has made House's limp disappear and given him back full use of his leg.
Wilson serves up his idea of a good first case for House: a guy with hair transplants and aphasia. Boring! We've seen that before. ! House instantly solves the case and calls Wilson an idiot for not knowing it himself even though Wilson is an oncologist (uh...I guess) and not a diagnostician. House has no sympathy for people who get hairplugs when there are so many convincing hairpieces that can be worn instead. Cuddy smiles to herself as House responded exactly as she predicted. House turns his attention to Cuddy's case, a hot young woman. No wonder Wilson didn't want House to take that case -- he's jealous. Cuddy tells House that the patient snapped her neck doing yoga and is now paralyzed. Dude, really? Can that happen? I was thinking of trying a few yoga classes, but fuck that. The curious thing about the case is, the girl's X-rays show no evidence of a spinal injury. "And she's cute," Cuddy says. "Well played, sir!" House says, accepting the file and the case. How can you call Cuddy "sir" when she's wearing one of her hot red numbers?
Then House catches a glimpse of another file: the man we saw in the pre-opening credits who House kindly calls "Stephen Hawking." Wilson the Oncologist of Suck says that's a dead-end case: the guy had brain cancer, and was given surgery to remove it that left him in his present condition. Way to remove that cancer and make life better for your patient, there, Wilson! I'm sure the last eight years of communicating solely through blinking and almost complete paralysis have been a real blast. Despite Wilson's protests, House takes his case as well.
Wilson follows House into the Clinic to ask him whether he's second-guessing Wilson's mad cancer doctor skills. Meanwhile, my nemesis, director Deran Sarafian's name pops up on the screen, which means we can all look forward to people falling out of frame while speaking and shots of the backs of people's heads during important moments and other poorly-chosen conspicuous directorial decisions. Sure enough, as House and Wilson walk down the hall, the camera tilts slightly and Wilson hovers around the very edge of the frame. I guess ketamine comas don't work for directors. House says he isn't doubting that the guy had cancer, but he does find his suicide attempt odd. Wilson doesn't; he calls the guy a "lump" and a lost cause, so why wouldn't he want to die? House says that he's changed since being shot twice and wants to help the guy by operating on his atrophied muscles and alleviating some of his pain. Then he runs up the stairs and away from Wilson. Because he can.
After a shower, a rather nattily-dressed House enters the Meeting Room to brief the Cottages on their newest case. Cameron, of course, wants to exchange pleasantries like "welcome back" and "you look..." which Foreman finishes with a "healthy." Will Foreman never stop ripping poor Cameron off? For his part, Chase gives House the most awkward pat on the arm/back area ever. Thanks for your silent contributions, Chase! I see we can look forward to yet another season of non-existence from you. House tries to get back to business, but Cameron wants to grill him on the particulars of the criminal investigation against the guy who shot House, who, it seems has never been caught. UNBELIEVABLE. Chase and Foreman get the hint and start diagnosing the yoga patient, but Cameron's got some new bangs and hot Capri pants and she will not be stopped! While House gets a good look at the bloodstain PPTH's inept cleaning crew failed to remove in the two months since it got there, she asks House about his new pain-free and completely functional leg. PPTH's cleaning crew is still one million times better at their jobs than the security team, by the way. Or, for that matter, the New Jersey police. How does someone walk into a crowded public area, open fire, and not get caught?!
Cameron says that she asked Cuddy to replace the carpet in the room as if this is some excuse for why they left a freaking bloodstain in the room when the guy it came from is trying to have a stress-free first day back. You can have new carpeting installed in a day if those stupid commercials are to be believed! Why does it take two months?! And why don't we get any follow-up on why that guy shot House or what the last two months were like for him?! I feel so unsatisfied. House asks Cameron what she's been up to over the summer, and she gullibly starts to answer, all thrilled that he's asking her. Before she can get a second word out, House totally turns his back on her and starts talking to the other Cottages who know their place. They start to disperse to go about their weekly grind of almost killing their patient to save him when House tells them to hold up and check out the file on their second patient. He wants to order tendon surgery on their patient to make him and his atrophied muscles more "comfortable." No one knows what to make of this new House who wants his patients to feel good and stuff, so they leave.
Stephen Hawking (real name Richard) gets operated on while his son, wife, and House watch from the balcony seats. Wife Arlene thanks House for being there with them, and we all gape afresh at the new House. He's not that new, though, as he immediately antagonizes the family by telling the son -- who refuses to believe his dad would try to kill himself -- that his father is a drooling mess who hasn't even been able to speak to his son in over six years. But wait! New House adds that if Richard did try to kill himself, that means his brain still has enough function in it for him to recognize that he didn't want to live anymore. Which is a good thing, I guess. Anyway, this news makes Arlene and Son feel good and smiley, which is the opposite of how most people usually feel after having a conversation with House. Cameron enters the room to call House away as Arlene whispers a "thank you" to her husband's kind and understanding doctor. Cameron says nothing, but her facial expression is a definite "say WHAT?"
House and Cameron take the stairs, because House can do this now. Cameron has some news about the yoga patient, but won't tell it to House until he tells her what Arlene was thanking him for. House says that the wife thought Cameron was a "fourteen year old boy" and he told her the truth so she thanked him, which Cameron takes no offense to since she absolutely does not look like a fourteen-year-old boy. Unless it's one of those boys with the undescended testes that are always trying to trick you. New House's insults aren't as cutting as the old one's. Disappointing. House decides to sprint off and find out what's wrong with yoga girl rather than tell Cameron anything. She laughs.
House does a Breakfast Club hallway slide into Karen the Yoga Girl's room. Chase and Foreman are there, and they tell House that their patient's leg moved when they inserted a conduction pin for some test that doesn't sound like any fun at all. House makes fun of Karen for the hypocrisy of smoking (which is bad for you) and doing yoga (which is good for you, until you get paralyzed) and uses that information to take a lighter out of her bag, which he then uses to set her foot on fire. Karen the Formerly Paralyzed Victim screams and pulls her leg back. Whoops! Karen insists that she isn't faking, but House calls her a lunatic and he is done with her. Torturing a patient and then insulting her! It's almost like the old House is back.
What's this? House watches the lobby from a heretofore second floor balcony. I guess we get a new balcony with every new season. Can't wait for Season 12! Wilson strolls up to ask House about a little rumor he heard that House was watching surgery with and talking to a patient's family. Cameron may have gotten a new haircut, but her big mouth remains the same. Wilson thinks that this has something to do with House's "hallucination" (was it a hallucination? Seemed more like a dream to me) and wanting to find "meaning" in his life by making people feel better, even if it means not solving some mysterious deadly illness. I think Wilson is just bitter that House didn't take his hair transplant patient. I also think that House should not have told Wilson about his "hallucination," because now Wilson has even more ammo with which to psychoanalyze House and bore the crap out of me. House responds that when Arlene thanked him, he didn't know what he was even supposed to feel. He certainly didn't feel the satisfaction he was apparently looking for. Wilson says that maybe House's empathy muscle, like his leg, is atrophied and will return to normal the more he uses it. Yeah, right. Cameron runs up and tells House that Karen, who the Cottages apparently took the sweet time discharging, is now having breathing difficulties. Cameron thinks Karen actually has something wrong with her this time. House thinks that Karen is "holding her breath like a four-year-old."
That's definitely not the case, as Karen is taking deep dramatic breaths of air when House comes in to check her out. He tells Karen that if she isn't faking her breathing difficulties, then he'll have to stab her with a big scary needle to drain the fluid that must be around her lungs -- without giving her the local anesthetic that Clueless Cameron suggests. Karen won't admit to faking it, so he's about to call her bluff when he notices something in her neck. I can't tell you what, though, as her hair is in the way. But the music tells us that this is significant and scary as House orders the Cottages to lie her down so he can take the needle formerly used for lung fluid removal and slam it into her chest, withdrawing a syringe full of blood. "Problem's in her heart," Cameron tells us. "Can't fake that," House says. Good thing he took her seriously when she first came in, then.
After the commercial, Chase tells the crew that he's had to remove blood around Karen's heart three times. The Cottages do some differential diagnosing, with Cameron chiming in with vasculitis for old time's sake. House throws it out, also for old time's sake, since it doesn't explain Karen's paralysis that he assumed she was faking but is now having second thoughts about. Cameron doesn't get it; since Karen moved, she wasn't paralyzed. It's just a total unrelated coincidence that Karen was faking paralysis at the same time as the area around her heart was filling with blood. Thank you, Cameron. House thinks that Karen's mystery disease made her sincerely believe she was paralyzed, which makes his casual dismissal of her as being a lunatic and hotfoot prank seem kind of cruel now. He tells the kids to open Karen's spine up and look for tumors. Like a treasure hunt, except with fatal consequences.
House tends to his favorite patient, Richard, and notes that his heart rate is high, meaning he's in pain, so House ups his morphine. House is nothing if not sensitive to other people's pain medication needs. "You've been so nice to us," Arlene says. While every other doctor (*ahem* Wilson *ahem*) just tried to fix Richard's cancer, House is the first doctor to actually care about his quality of life.
House leaves the room without knowing what else to say, only to find Cameron waiting for him outside. "What a touching moment!" she says. Oh, Cameron, you little Harriet the Spy, you! She starts making fun of House and his warm heart, but he stops her with an invitation to drinks and even dinner, if Cameron eats, which it wouldn't appear that she does very often. Cameron waits for the other shoe to drop, but House's invitation seems sincere. So she rejects him. HA! But the joke's on poor Cameron again, as House smiles and says that this just shows that Cameron was only interested in him when he was damaged. Now that he's totally healed, she doesn't want him. "You are not healthy," Cameron and her bangs reply icily. They add that Cuddy is looking for him.
Cuddy informs House that he will not be "playing hide-and-seek" in Karen's spine today. She also wants him to lower the morphine on Richard. Man, Cuddy doesn't miss a trick, does she? Except when getting dressed for work, as this is the second day in a row that she has elected to wear a sweater-type-tank over a blouse. I don't like it. House wants to compromise: he'll lower the morphine if Cuddy lets him do the surgery. Cuddy ain't having that, less-than-gently reminding House that she's his boss and he will do what she says. He looks shocked and has no response to this. Oh, looks like someone spent the last two month reading books about how to boss around difficult employees! I'm sure her new authoritativeness over House will last all of two episodes.
House takes advantage of the new second-floor balcony to throw grapes at a janitor. This seems mean of him until you realize that this is probably the same janitor who couldn't clean his bloodstain off the carpet. I mean, come on! It's called OxiClean, guys. It's available in finder retails stores nationwide. But with a new balcony comes a new balcony mate, and so Wilson comes up to get all pissy at House for his attempt to barter with Cuddy, as if House has never done something outrageous like this before. Shut up, Wilson. House says that he ran some more tests and they came back negative, so he'll get his spinal surgery after all, because it is the only option left for Karen. And then House "accidentally" hits the janitor on the head with a grape and immediately runs away, leaving Wilson there to get the full blast of the janitor's glare. Ha! Enjoy having your office floored cleaning with a mixture of water, cleaning product, and urine for the six months, Wilson.
Wilson won't leave House alone, though, and follows him all over the hospital telling him about why he thinks House took the case and what his feelings are. Ugh. House continues to ignore Wilson in the operating room balcony, where he notices something on Karen's toenail (apparently, ketamine makes one's eyesight amazing!) as she's being prepped for the unnecessary spine surgery. He runs downstairs (because he can) to stop the surgery, pointing out to the annoyed surgeon that Karen's big toenail is all brown and gross.
Cut to Karen being forcefed OJ by Foreman, who tells her that she has scurvy, just like a proper English sailor. Scurvy ruins hair and toenails, makes it hard to move, and causes blood to build up around the heart. "But I'm on this great diet," Karen protests. What the hell? Unless that diet came out of the eighteenth century Royal Navy handbook, I don't think so. These days, one has to actively TRY to get scurvy. There are people who eat McDonald's for every meal who don't get scurvy! And I'm pretty sure that before one's heart starts to hemorrhage, indicating the onset of death, there are many other symptoms that would force one to seek medical attention. Like all your teeth falling out and your gums bleeding. Little things like that. Idiot.
House isn't sticking around the pretty girls with bleeding gums, though, as he's got a Stephen Hawking to make feel better. Arlene finishes packing him up to leave and thanks House for making her husband's pain go away, even if he couldn't do anything to make Richard any better. House suggests that Arlene lock Richard away in a "facility," preferably one without a pool, as the rent at those places is probably cheaper and there's less of a chance for suicide attempts. Arlene says she won't do that to her husband and the father of her child. She'll stick with Richard, she says, for the same reason that House helped them. "Because some guy shot you and you hallucinated?" House asks. "I have a responsibility," Arlene says, completely ignoring what House just said. I mean, I would have had some kind of reaction to that. At least asked a follow-up question or two. Not Arlene, though. House demands to know why Arlene is wasting her life and her energy on her lump of a husband. "What's the meaning you take from this?" he asks. So many mentions of the word "meaning" and so little of House actually being mean. Sigh. I know I've said that I don't like it when House is an asshole, but House in self-discovery nice mode is just boring. And his cases suck! Brain cancer that was diagnosed and treated eight years ago and a throwback to 1752. House and Arlene figure out that while taking care of Richard doesn't make her happy, not taking care of him would make her miserable. House struggles to understand this thing called a "conscience," while Richard just lies there probably wishing there was a way for him to tell everyone that he can hear everything they're saying and he'd prefer it if they talked about him outside. That's just rude.
When Arlene sits Richard up, he groans. House asks her to put him down and asks Richard to groan again. He does. I've translated groan into English for you: "Quit telling my wife to put me in a home, you fucker." House does not have a groan-to-English dictionary, but he insists that Richard just spoke to him.
House brings the Richard's files into the Meeting Room on a skateboard for no reason and tells them to start diagnosing. The Cottages are confused, thinking that he's talking about yoga girl, who Chase says walked out of PPTH not two hours ago, totally healthy. Except for those raging case of beriberi and rickets she'll be returning to PPTH with at various times during the upcoming season. Hope that goiter doesn't make it too difficult to do a downward dog! Anyway, when the Cottages realize that they're dealing with the other patient, Cameron's got a diagnosis ready to go: "He had brain cancer. They removed it -- eight years ago. His condition's been the same ever since." Wait, House says. It's gotten better. Richard is now speaking. Sort of. The Cottages are none-too-thrilled to be sifting through eight years of a complicated medical history to find out why a guy is grunting. House doesn't care; he tells them to find him when they're done. He'll be outside trying to skateboard.
Wilson's there, too, unfortunately. He psychoanalyzes that House is trying to find a problem in Richard that doesn't exist because House is bored. And he's giving Richard's family false hope and torturing them. Grunting is not talking, Wilson says. House then executes a stationary frontside 90 ollie off a bench, Hugh Laurie's stunt double ably managing to spin himself away from the camera. Hugh comes back in a close up and announces that he "stuck that primo!" He was not, however, saying that he did a primo, as that is a trick where you stand on side of the skateboard and do other crazy things. Despite his misuse of skateboard terminology, House stills believes himself to be quite rad. Cowabunga.
House skateboards past a group of college girls, who check him out and giggle to themselves. He probably thinks they're giggling flirtatiously, but I'd guess it's more like "look at that old guy who thinks he's cool." House's parade is soon rained upon when his bad leg seizes up on him. He picks up his skateboard and walks the rest of the way. No X-Games for you, House.
Meanwhile, the Cottages are mulling over Richard's medical records for a differential. Dry eyes, Foreman says, could indicate something that I'm sure Richard doesn't have so I'm not going to bother looking it up. Chase and Cameron moan and groan about how pointless this exercise is, but Foreman says that he's happier solving medical mysteries than making a guy's tendon feel better. "I took this fellowship to learn from House," Foreman says, taking a second to check his head and make sure it hasn't exploded from all the self-satisfaction that's up there.
The morning, the Whiteboard O'Symptoms has made up for its summer of disuse by being covered in symptoms and differential diagnoses, all written in the neat penmanship of -- I'm guessing -- appointed secretary Cameron. Some idiot wrote "anorexia" on the board, because we all know that brain-damaged quadriplegics really have a say in what they eat and when. "Diarea" is also listed as a symptom. Nice spelling, Prop Guy. Actually, there are quite a few misspellings on that board. I guess they weren't expecting to be critiqued by an angry girl with too much time on her hands and a firm grip on the pause button on her remote. After checking out the board, House diagnoses Richard with pancreatic cysts, which Cameron snorts would include the one symptom Richard doesn't have -- abdominal pain. House points out that Richard can't exactly tell anyone whether he has abdominal pain or not, which Cameron probably could have figured out herself if she hadn't just been up all night long looking up symptoms but not how to spell them. House orders an endoscopic ultrasound to find the cysts, which Foreman dismisses, saying Richard's neck muscles are too weak and will collapse. House disagrees; as long as the guy can hold his neck straight, keep from drooling, and not choke on his food, his neck muscles should be fine.
Chase and Foreman scoff their way through the endoscopic ultrasound, so pointless and needlessly dangerous this exercise is. The pancreas looks fine, and then Richard's throat collapses, as predicted. The tube is stuck in Richard's throat, and they have to do a tracheotomy to keep him breathing.
Chase informs House what a horrible plan this all was as the crew lounge outside and watch House do more skateboard tricks. More diagnostic tricks, too, as House thinks that the throat seizing up when it was supposed to be sedated means that there's something wrong with whatever part of Richard's brain is supposed to tell his body to relax when under sedation. And that, House thinks, means cancer. Cameron hates cancer, and jumps up to dramatically put her hand in front of House and stop his skateboarding because she has a Point To Make: House is enjoying what amounts to torturing a patient for no reason. House won't be stopped, though, and wants to look at Richard's brain lining for tumors in a process that is probably extremely dangerous and painful for the poor guy. Cameron tells House that if he's so set on doing this, then he can go get permission from the Arlene for the procedure.
And Cameron will be standing by while House does so in order to make sure that he doesn't tell Arlene any white lies to get permission, such as that he doesn't think Richard has cancer again. At Cameron's prodding, House admits that he does think Richard has cancer. But it's a new cancer. Lucky Richard. It would also mean more radiation and chemo for Richard, which Arlene narrows her eyes at until House leads her to believe that Richard could get some of his brain function back when all is said and done. Arlene is all about signing the consent, basing her decision on the fact that House told her Richard spoke to him. Cameron is once again forced to interfere and inform Arlene that the test could kill her husband. "He's already dead," Wife says, leaving Cameron standing there trying to decide if she should tell Arlene about that awesome Cancer Widows Support Group she goes to.
And so they do the test, which involves injecting a bunch of contrast material into the guy's spine and then putting him in the MRI of DOOOM to see what his brain looks like. Everything looks fine up there until they roll Richard out of the tube and notices that he's bleeding out of his ear. Whoops!
After the commercial, the Cottages inform House that they were able to fix the hemorrhage caused by House's little test and so Richard will live on despite House's best efforts. They want House to drop this case, but, of course, he won't. In fact, he has all of the guy's brain scans up on the wall in chronological order and he's going to look at all of them to figure out what he's missing. He orders the Cottages to redo all of the guy's blood tests and rescan his head. At this, Cameron puts her foot down and refuses. So House assigns the job to Foreman, who also refuses. Mutiny! House turns to Chase, who doesn't know how to defy authority figures. Chase pauses for a second and then, sure enough, asks House what tests he wants him to do and when. House shoots Foreman and Cameron a triumphant look while they glare at Chase. When they throw House off the ship and into the lifeboat so they can go back to Tahiti, they're throwing Chase in there with him.
Apparently, someone (ten dollars says it was Cameron) went to Cuddy to report House's action, because he is now in front of her defending his actions. She accuses him of doing all this to Richard for fun rather than to actually help him. "Twenty-four times a year (or twenty-two, depending on which season you're watching) you come storming into my office spouting that you can help someone. Only you never say those words," Cuddy says. Now that he actually is saying that he wants to help someone, Cuddy is suspicious. "You come here with medicine, not with platitudes," Cuddy says, adding that PPTH doesn't exist to indulge House's whims, even though it totally does. I mean, it certainly doesn't exist to provide a safe and secure environment for any of its employees. She's sending Richard home tomorrow morning. No more tests.
House heads for Wilson's office, but even his newfound leg abilities don't get him there fast enough, as Wilson immediately says that Cuddy already called him and told him to expect House to use him to get tests for Richard. House has more serious and personal issues to discuss, however: he tells Wilson that his leg was hurting earlier. Wilson responds with a smile, which House takes offense to. Wilson says that it's not unusual for a forty-something man's muscles to cramp after a day of eight-mile runs and skateboarding. House wants a Vicodin prescription. Wilson tells him to deal with the pains of middle age with an ice pack just like everyone else has to. He accuses House of "playing" him either for drugs or to get Wilson to convince Cuddy to do the tests on Richard or both. "Either way, you get the high you think you need," Wilson says. House leaves the office, looking sad and dejected, so Wilson remembers that he's supposed to be House's friend and assures him that the surgery worked and not to worry about his leg pain.
House goes for a night run. He stops for a drink of water, then walks in a nearby fountain and hangs out in there for a while, splashing dirty Princeton student water all over himself. It looks like the opening credits of Friends, but much higher contrast and less Lisa Kudrow. All the better to make a successful diagnosis with.
Cut to Cuddy sleeping. She manages to look strict and hardcore even with her eyes closed. And she's wearing full makeup. That woman is amazing. A noise outside her window wakes her up and she looks, expecting to see handymen raining down outside. But no, it's just House skulking around outside her window. Her breasts push the curtains aside as she opens the window for him and what should be the moment some of us have been waiting for. But no, House isn't here for sweaty post-workout sex. He spits out a bunch of medical terms that basically say that Richard did not try to commit suicide -- he has hypothalamic dysregulation and was really hot so he jumped in the pool to cool down. House can cure him and restore brain function, saying that scarring on the hypothalamus is pushing on Richard's pituitary gland, shutting down the adrenal glands and giving Richard Addison's disease, a.k.a. that thing that JFK had that no one talked about at the time (besides Marilyn Monroe. And probably herpes). Cuddy hands him a small hand towel but refuses to have sex with him and starts shouting at him (and probably pissing off all her neighbors) that he's making a wild guess and she won't support it. House wants to inject Richard with cortisol and magically cure him. Richard will be able to have sex with his wife and hug his son, House says. Speaking of having sex...but no. House just makes a wisecrack about hoping that the guy doesn't hug his wife and have sex with his son and no one has sex at all. "You're high!" Cuddy accuses. But not on Vicodin this time -- on wild guesses about patient's lives that have absolutely no proof. I think Cuddy's been talking to Wilson. House says that if he's right, Richard will be cured. If he's wrong, it won't make a difference. But this is Cuddy's time to make a stand and be a real boss. She tells House that he needs to learn what the word "no" means. And then she shuts the window in his face. Aw, say no to his diagnosis, but don't say no to the sex! Come on! Damn.
House and his new wardrobe sulk in his office. Wilson stops by and tells him that Richard is on his way out and Wilson's waiting for House to run after him with a syringe full of cure-all cortisol. But House says Cuddy was right to say no. He did all this because he just wanted to solve a puzzle after all.
Cuddy watches Arlene, the son, and a cortisol-free Richard go. They get all the way to the elevators before Cuddy tells them to hold up. She says that she forgot something, whips out a syringe, and injects Richard with cortisol. "It's to fight infection," she lies. She flashes a light into Richard's eyes. There's no response. The group starts to leave again, with Cuddy turning around and looking very sad, indeed. House has finally been wrong about something. It's like watching Santa Claus die. After having sex with one of his elves. While on crack. Very disillusioning, is what I'm saying.
But wait! It turns out that the only thing House was wrong about was being wrong! Suddenly, Richard springs to life. He moves his hand and unfastens the seatbelt his chair has been fitted with, all the better to strip away his dignity, and stands up in his chair. Sort of. I mean, it's not easy when you haven't actually moved in eight years and just had tendon surgery. In fact, some would say it's impossible. Maybe Cuddy mixed some ketamine in with that cortisol. But nevermind. Richard soon has the support of his wife, who runs up to embrace him and be very happy. His son just stares. Richard smiles. Tears spring to Cuddy's eyes. The son walks up and his dad hugs him. It's so sappy and doesn't really make sense and it might have been a more fitting ending if House actually was wrong this one time. And yet, you'd be made of stone not to pull a Cuddy and weep silently during it. Arlene thanks the hell out of Cuddy, who manages to look both thrilled for the family and kinda pissed that House outsmarted her again.
While House paces miserably in his office, Cuddy tells Wilson what happened with Richard and then starts to go tell House. But, shockingly, Wilson tells her not to -- House got lucky here, that's all. If I were Wilson, I wouldn't want people knowing about how one of my cancer patients has been unnecessarily unable to move or speak for eight years because I wrote him off as a brain-damaged lump either. I think Wilson's an even crappier doctor than he is a friend. "Telling him 'no' is a good thing," Wilson says. House isn't a dog, Wilson. Shut up, Wilson. "Just because he was right doesn't mean he wasn't wrong," Wilson says. Except that House is always right and he's been doing this kind of thing for years and this is the first time Wilson has had a problem with it. Again, it's also the first time House's diagnosis has made Wilson look like a really shitty doctor. But I'm sure that's a coincidence.