By Sara M
It's House's 100th episode! Let's celebrate with yet another Hadley Health Crisis! Yes, it turns out that one of the side effects of the Huntington's drug is sudden brain tumors, as Hadley discovers when she gets a headache and then goes blind. Foreman is forced to come clean with her about switching the placebo with the real drug, and she decides that he is way too into her after just two weeks of dating and dumps him. She also decides, with some convincing from House, that Foreman shouldn't tell the drug company what he did and throw his career away. Instead, Foreman and House give Hadley some secret radiation and then she's fine and back together with the man who gave her a brain tumor. She also manages to miss pretty much the entire case of the week, a former cancer researcher who quit her job when she was on the brink of curing retinoblastoma because she'd rather learn how to cook than save potentially millions of lives. Karma gets her back but good, as a bunch of endometrial cells were released into her bloodstream during surgery in her uterus eight months ago, only to land in various parts of her body and multiply and form little mini-uteruses that swell and bleed just like the real thing during a certain time of the month. That's right -- House is marking 100 episodes with yet another case that shows us how being a woman is deadly dangerous. She'll be fine, and her message of doing what makes you happy instead of clinging onto the same rut and routine gets through to both Wilson and Taub. Now Wilson is free to wash Amber's old dishes and Taub has come down with a Cuddy case of baby fever. Speaking of Cuddy, she decides to get back at House for indirectly forcing her to come back to work and away from her baby by pulling various childish pranks on him, including stealing his cane and putting a tripwire in front of his office door. Then she feels bad and apologizes, and House reminds that she sucks at her job. As for Cameron and Chase, they celebrate 100 episodes by being invisible. Same old story.
Hey everybody! It's the 100th episode of House! Fox wants you to think this is a big deal, but I remember another show that reached 200 episodes before it finally left our airwaves, and it was called 7th Heaven. Not to rain on the House team's parade too much, but I hope they bear in mind that quality is more important than quantity. Anyway, House does its own version of Hell's Kitchen by starting this week's episode off in a cooking class. A snarky teacher orders his snarky aide to chop some onions, and when she does it too slowly, asks if she's planning on giving them a Thai massage. "I guess a happy ending is out of the question," she fires back, much to the delight of the observing crowd who all look like dorks. When the teacher goes on to talk about reconstituting porcini mushrooms, the aide starts feeling sick. She manages to diagnose herself with a spontaneous pneumothorax and say she's a doctor before collapsing.
And if you thought the new Cottages would get a space in the opening credits for the 100th episode, you thought wrong.
Foreman and Hadley couldn't care less about the doctor chef aide's problems this morning, as they're in bed together just in case you forgot they're a couple. Although I don't know how you could forget, what with all that chemistry that explodes across the screen whenever they're in a scene together. Foreman watches Hadley sleep. When she wakes up, he informs her that she drools. What a jerk.
Wilson spends his morning washing dishes 'cause he's a nerd like that. There's a mug left on the counter, but he apparently decides to leave it there.
House arrives at PPTH only to discover horrible news: both elevators are out of service for "scheduled maintenance." Hey, those elevators have worked hard these last 100 episodes. They deserve this. On the other hand, that's the worst maintenance scheduling I've ever seen. It's a hospital. Full of sick people who need to use the elevator. Schedule maintenance on one elevator, and then, when it's working again, do the other. Don't do them both at the same time. Dicks.
House is forced to climb the stairs. He finally arrives at the meeting room to find the Cottages (except for Kumar) waiting for him. Taub makes a crack at the fact that House is out of breath, meaning he must have walked all the way to work since gas is so expensive. Oh, suck. Gas is cheap again! Taub's joke is already dated. Hadley gives House all of three seconds to recover before thrusting a new patient file in his face. Cancer researcher Dana Miller correctly diagnosed herself with a spontaneous pneumothorax. Unfortunately for her, she's been admitted to PPTH. House doesn't want to take the case until a bunch of other doctors have come up short, but Hadley thinks Dana should get special House treatment because she's about five or ten years away from curing retinoblastoma. If I'm ever admitted to a hospital, I now know that the way to preferential treatment from the facility's best and brightest is to claim that I'm a hot-shot cancer-curing doctor. Good to know. House accuses Hadley of being partial to this patient because she's about to cure something incurable and Hadley herself has an incurable disease. Yeah, but it's not retinoblastoma. As we all know by now, it's Huntington's. And I don't have an incurable terminal illness, but I'd be just as eager as Hadley because it's about freaking time doctors cured something. It's been a long time since the polio vaccine. Of course, Foreman agrees with Hadley that they should take the case and tries to make it attractive to House by saying that Dana has no reason for lung trouble. No smoking, no scuba diving, nothing. House randomly takes his pulse as Kumar arrives late. His lack of heavy breathing indicates to House that he didn't take the stairs. Kumar says that's correct -- he took the elevators. Apparently, maintenance time is over. With that, House sends the Cottages off to test for Hadley's theory of late-onset asthma with a CT scan and shoot Dana full of steroids before they get the results.
Dana is impressed to be getting a CT scan so quickly, saying that PPTH must be more high-tech than her hospital. Ooooh, which hospital is that? Could it be ... St. Sebastian's, a.k.a. Bizarro PPTH? Hadley says that being House's patient means CT scans whenever you want them, albeit CT scans performed by a plastic surgeon and a Chick With Issues as opposed to trained radiographers and radiologists. Taub non-sarcastically says that Dana is a "gift to society," so they want her back up and running and curing stuff ASAP. Dana picks this time to say that she actually quit her job eight months ago. It would have been really funny if the Cottages had backed out of the room and stuck Dana in the "regular people" patient pool, never to darken House's doorstep again at this point, but no. They just listen as she tells them that she had a benign uterine myoma that ruptured, causing her to need emergency surgery and take stock of her life thus far. Do you think that when they told her the news she said "my oh my oh myoma?" Anyway, the whole experience made Dana realize that she could have died without ever having been happy. Hadley suggests buying an overpriced sports car and having an affair. Taub looks uncomfortable because he did that in the wrong order. Dana says she's now focused on doing what she wants, when she wants to. Right now, that's learning how to cook and run a kitchen. That doesn't sound like fun to me, but to each her own. Being a doctor was what she was "supposed" to do. Cooking is what she wants to do. At least she got a chance to do it, unlike all those kids who die from retinoblastoma.
Cuddy is back at work with a giant Macbook Pro. Too bad they came out with a new design only a few days after Cuddy dropped over two grand on a now-outdated model! House comes in the office, and Cuddy calls him to the other side of the desk to check out the live baby cam she's hooked up because she has apparently lost her mind. Does she really think that House wants to see baby videos? House complains about the elevators being out of order every time he tries to use them, because that's an issue to bring to the Dean of Medicine. Cuddy just sighs that elevators are "capricious" and sometimes it seems like they're out to get you. Meanwhile, Cuddy's annoyed that Rachel keeps playing with her blanket. "Why would she do that?" she wonders disgustedly. Maybe she's trying to smother herself to get away from her shitty mother? As for the elevators, "maybe they wanted to take time off to spend with their little dumbwaiter. But then they had to leave it at home with an elevator-sitter because you drove the replacement elevator to quitting because you're incapable of listening to anybody but me," Cuddy guesses. I don't think so, Cuddy. You see, those elevators come in twos, so they could easily switch off staying home and going to work without having to hire an elevator-sitter or feel sad about missing precious time with their little dumbwaiter. Also, those elevators would have thought long and hard about the sacrifices they'd have to make in order to properly care for a dumbwaiter and done what was in the dumbwaiter's best interest as opposed to getting dumbwaiter fever and deciding they wouldn't be happy without one, even though their demanding jobs meant that the dumbwaiter would spend most of its time with an elevator-sitter. And if they didn't do that, they probably wouldn't turn around and blame the problems they created for themselves and their dumbwaiter on someone else. But that's just a guess.
House says that's wrong, since he doesn't listen to Cuddy, either. "Either do your job or go home. Leave me out of it," he says. Cuddy says she will do her job, albeit full of spite and anger and taking frequent coffee breaks to exact her revenge on House in the most childish ways possible. "Congratulations. You have officially dragged me down to your level," she says. Yeah, like that's the first time that's ever happened. Please. "Okay," House says, not looking too scared or concerned. With that, he heads for the nearest elevator with an out of order sign, removes the sign, pushes the button, and gets on the working elevator. He pauses only to say hello to Blue the Janitor, who is apparently on out of service sign duty because he hates House now. I'm just glad he's made a return appearance so I can correct my mistake from the first time he appeared and I thought his name was Lou. Blue folds his arms, outsmarted again. Also, the fact that he's working the day shift means he's not the Weird Night Janitor Who Wears His Pants Backwards after all.
Back to Dana, the CT scan has ruled out asthma. Good thing they gave her all of those steroids for no reason! Taub mentions the uterine myoma, saying Dana's lung problems could be the result of complications during her surgery eight months ago. Kumar, meanwhile, is annoyed that Dana quit, mentioning a four year old with retinoblastoma he once saw during an oncology rotation. The cancer ate her eye and went into her brain. Yeah, Kumar is so concerned with retinoblastoma that he didn't even know that the most promising cure researcher quit over half a year ago. Please. Foreman says that just because horrible diseases exist doesn't mean that people should feel compelled to try to cure them at the expense of hobbies and recreational activities. Haven't we seen this argument in, like, every superhero movie in the last twenty years? Do we really need it here, too? Hadley, of course, disagrees, since she'd hate to think that the person behind a cure for Huntington's is sitting on a beach somewhere making sandcastles and not working. Foreman says you can't live your life looking at the big picture -- "you've got to look out for yourself and the people you care about." That's why it's perfectly fine to sabotage a promising Huntington's drug trial in order to give your girlfriend a drug that might not even work. House has had enough of the lover's quarrel and ends it, saying that everyone does what makes him happy. The Cottages are here because they're happy to be here. Kumar is here because it makes him happy to help people. Hadley is a here because she wants her life to matter before it's prematurely over, and Taub and Foreman are here because they have no other choice. Taub asks House if he's happy to be here, but before he can answer, Kumar notices some increased interstitial markings on the CT scan. Foreman says that could be a sign of pulmonary fibrosis, and House sends the kids off to do a biopsy.
House tells Foreman to stay behind and repeats Foreman's words about it being more important to look out for the people you care about than a bunch of sick strangers. He's figured out that Foreman is talking about how he fucked over everyone with Huntington's by dicking around with the clinical trial to give Hadley the real drugs. Foreman denies it, but House just asks if Hadley knows. Foreman says she won't. Which means that she will. And probably take up lots of screen time doing it.
And just in case you thought the 100th episode of House wouldn't heavily feature Hadley like almost every other episode since she joined the cast, here we go. She's down in Clinical Trials land with Foreman when she mentions that she has a headache. Foreman is concerned that it's a side effect, and offers to get her an MRI. Well, that's one way to dump someone. Stick them in the MRI of DOOOM!! and let 'er rip. Of course, Hadley doesn't think the headache could be a side effect since to the best of her knowledge, she's been on the trial drug for weeks and any side effects would have shown themselves long before now. OOPS!
Taub goes to tell Dana the good news about her lung biopsy, but she already knows what's up and doesn't want to do it, since a surgery like that would put her out of cooking school and book club commission for weeks. Whereas death from a mystery illness would put her out of commission forever, so I don't see why she's arguing. Taub, of course, takes that opportunity to say that Dana's many hobbies and classes might make her happy, but they don't fulfill her as a person. His job, of course, does. But he won't say it makes him happy. Being a plastic surgeon made him happy. Being a Cottage makes him feel like he's doing something worthwhile, and that's apparently more important to him. It's not more important to Dana, though. She admits that she misses feeling fulfilled, but it wasn't enough anymore. With that, she notes that her abdomen doesn't feel right. Taub checks it out and grabs a syringe. He jams it into Dana's stomach and withdraws. Blood fills the tube. Well, at least it managed to stay inside Dana, unlike most other patients.
House makes a joke about his penis before careening into his office, thanks to a tripwire someone set up in his doorway. Hilariously, the Cottages immediately list off alibis to prove their innocence, but House doesn't seem too concerned as to the identity of the culprit because he knows who she is. Instead, he goes right to work, asking for differentials on a lung and liver problem. Taub reports that Dana's liver is free of tumors while something about the way Hadley checks out the MRI film of Dana's liver catches House's eye. She manages to come up with a new diagnosis of blastomycosis, saying that the steroids they gave Dana unnecessarily only made it more powerful and now it's attacking her liver. House sends the Cottages off to test a piece of Dana's lung for that, but tells Foreman to stay behind. Amazingly, all three Cottages manage to remember about the presence of the tripwire on their way out the door and step over it. I totally would've tripped.
House tells Foreman that he has a problem: Hadley appears to be losing her peripheral vision based on the way she had to turn her head to look at the MRI. Foreman is stupid and doesn't think anything of that even after working for House for five years and watching him get stuff like this right all the time. In fact, Foreman is so not rattled that he also manages to remember and step over the tripwire.
Wilson finds House bandaging his scraped knee in a clinic exam room. Wilson somewhat eagerly anticipates House's revenge on Cuddy to take many innocent casualties with it, but House claims that he isn't interested in getting back at her. He says Cuddy wants her revenge, and since he wants her to leave him alone, he's happy to let her do whatever she wants until she thinks she's gotten it. If he tries to get back at her, that will only prolong the process. "The only way to win this war is to lose it," he says. Oh, House. In war, there are no winners. Certainly not the viewers, who have seen this kind of thing happen over and over and over again on this show in various incarnations. Wilson says that's one way to look at House's inaction. The other is that House actually feels guilty for making Cuddy come back to work. For this, Wilson will have his lunch stolen from him, as House invites him to the cafeteria. He accidentally leaves his patient file behind, and Wilson picks it up and notes the name on it: Dana Miller, who he immediately identifies as the cancer researcher. This makes sense, since it's not like "Dana" and "Miller" are common names or anything like that. I think I went to school with five Dana Millers, but whatever. House says Dana is an ex-cancer researcher, and Wilson is shocked. Dude, she quit eight months ago. Way to keep up on the latest oncology news.
Wilson stops by Dana's room. She recognizes him from a past conference immediately, and he's impressed, although I'm not sure if he's impressed with her memory or his apparent memorableness. They make polite conversation about a persistent itch on the side of Dana's head being one of the symptoms of her liver failure, and then Wilson asks her why she quit. Dana is getting a little sick of every single doctor she encounters asking her this question and judging her response. Wilson doesn't care, though, because he has four kids about to die from retinoblastoma and it's all Dana's fault. Dana says someone else will find the cure. Wilson doesn't understand how Dana could have the chance to be that person and throw it away. He says it makes him want to give up, too. Dana says she's heard this all before, and when she quit her job, a lot of people were angry with her. She thinks it's because they're just as unhappy in their jobs and lives as she was, and envy her for being able to change what they cannot. She assumes the same is true of Wilson, and asks him what his rut is. The scene ends before we hear him answer "CUTE LITTLE KIDS DYING OF POTENTIALLY CURABLE EYE CANCER, BITCH!"
Taub made it back into his wife's bed. Good for him. Also, unlike some couples (FOREMANHADLEY), the Taubs hang out in bed with their clothes on because they have nothing to prove. Taub brings up the subject of having children. I guess Cuddy's baby fever is contagious. Mrs. Taub hasn't caught it yet, though, as she apparently made her feelings about not wanting kids well known years ago (on their third date? Way to move way too quickly, Mrs. Taub) and Taub said he was okay with that at the time. He says he only said that because he wanted to get in her pants. Mrs. Taub says she's thought long and hard about the subject, and she doesn't want to have kids. She wonders what it would be like, but not enough to want to actually have them. Therefore, Mrs. Taub is a better parent than Cuddy. She says she likes their life just like it is. Yeah, it's awesome being married to a guy who cheats on you. What fun.
Apparently, Foreman woke up and realized that House is always right, as he charges into the lab and tests Hadley's peripheral vision. She fails, and worries that the fact that she knows she has a real side effect and therefore is on the drug means that the drug company will remove her from the trial. Not so much, Foreman says. He admits that she was on the placebo until just a few days ago, when he switched her to the real drug in the hopes that it would give her the same positive results it gave some of the other patients. Hadley says she'll just stop taking the real drug, then, and that Dana is negative for blastomycosis. She looks pretty spooked, but Foreman wants to talk. Dumb move, Foreman: Hadley says that Foreman just risked his career for her and they've only been dating for two weeks. Two weeks? That's it?? "I don't think I'm ready for that," she says. For real. Foreman came on way too strong. He should have just brought her some flowers. Women hate feeling smothered. Then again, he'd be a perfect match for Taub's wife.
Foreman goes to give Dana the news that she doesn't have blastomycosis. She's asleep, and when she wakes up Foreman notices a wound on her temple. Apparently, she was scratching it in her sleep and somehow managed to scratch through her skull and expose brain matter. Self-trepanning has never been easier or so painfree! Or so unbelievable! And yes, I know this kind of thing has happened in real life at least once, but in that case the woman who scratched a hole through her skull did so over time and in an area of her head that was left numb from a case of shingles, which is how she was able to do it in her sleep without waking up from the pain.
After the break, plastic surgeon Taub has managed to close the wound up and, hopefully, outfitted Dana with one of those big cone collars they give to animals after head surgery to prevent scratching, because she says it still itches. House notes that one's brain can't actually be itchy, which means Dana only thinks she's itchy. "So the problem's in her brain," Taub says. "Thank god we have you here to interpret that for us," says the suddenly bitchy Hadley. Everyone stares, and she immediately apologizes, saying her headache is making her crabby. House pops a few sympathy Vicodins and orders the Cottages off to do an MRI on Dana's head. It won't be an MRI of DOOOM!! however, since things really can't get any worse than scratching a hole through one's skull. They leave, and House reaches for his cane, only to find it gone. I went back and looked, and it appears to have disappeared around the time that Kumar was talking about the importance of finding a balance between work and play.
Foreman chases down Hadley and says they should talk about her headaches, since they're getting worse even though she's off the drug. Foreman wants her to get an MRI. Hadley just wants some more headache-fighting painkillers. In fact, she's now taking twice the recommended amount of codeine. Great. Maybe she'll get addicted to them and be more like House than ever and we won't even need him on the show anymore. It'll just be all Hadley, all the time! Hadley thinks Foreman's concern is more about being dumped than her headaches. Foreman reminds her that when it comes to health problems, she's always in a ridiculous amount of denial.
House has fashioned a cane out of the janitor's mop handle and wheely bucket. He creaks into Cuddy's office and gives her a recent copy of a parenting magazine with an article that says working mothers are more attentive to their children than stay-at-home mothers. Cuddy grabs it and says she's sure that the article was written by working moms so they could feel better about wanting to work and be away from their kids. Cuddy, on the other hand, does not want to be away from her kid. Also, it's not a parenting magazine, but "Nurses Quarterly," which House probably swiped from the nurse's station. If he thinks Cuddy's revenge sucks, just want until he sees what the nurses cook up for him. You don't steal from nurses. Cuddy tells House to go ahead and dump dirty mop water on her carpet already so she can get back to work. Instead, House turns out and wheels out of there, the mop water still in the bucket.
Hadley gets an MRI. It's not an MRI of DOOOM!! so much as an MRI of BOREDOM!! as Foreman takes advantage of being in the booth and Hadley being a captive guest to apologize to her over the PA. He says he was just trying to help her. Hadley says right now is probably not the best time for a conversation, since she's not supposed to move. With that, Foreman sees something on the MRI that renders him nearly speechless except for a whispered "oh god."
Dana's MRI, on the other hand, came out just fine, as Taub tells House when he limps into the meeting room with a crappy substitute cane he probably stole from some old lady in the Clinic. At least it isn't the one with the four little legs, though. Kumar's there, too, but not Foreman or Hadley. Foreman finally arrives, but only to grab his jacket and leave. House tells his two remaining Cottages to test Dana's nerves by shocking them and leave to chase Foreman down.
He finds Foreman still in the hall and knows immediately that something is very wrong with Hadley. I could have told you that, though, even without seeing a second of this episode. For you see, something is very wrong with Hadley every other episode. It's a given at this point. Foreman says Hadley has a tumor in her optic chiasm. This would make me happy, except that there's no way it'll kill her so this just means more screentime for Hadley. Therefore, booo. Foreman's on his way to the drug company to come clean and look for patient files and see if random brain tumors were side effects for anyone else and how those tumors were treated. House says he can just tell her that without looking at any patient files. He lied to her before, right? The elevator door starts to close. House opens it and tells Foreman to wait before throwing his medical career away. The Huntington's drug inhibits cell death. All they have to do is be patient and it'll clear out of Hadley's system and the tumor will shrink on its own. And if it doesn't, Hadley will need Foreman to still have his medical license.
Foreman arrives back at the apartment, where Hadley's leg is bleeding because she tripped over a table because she can't see. Hey, does anyone remember Dana? The patient? Anyone?
Wilson arrives at work to find that House spent the night on his couch. Turns out Cuddy somehow managed to turn the heat and power off in House's apartment and House is too cheap to spring for a hotel room. Meanwhile, House has seventeen messages on his phone.
House enters the meeting room to find Kumar and Taub, who have been trying to call him all night. Taub says Dana felt shocks before they turned the nerve shocking machine on. That's a new symptom! "Shocks without shock, an itch that won't stop. She needs Dr. Seuss," House says. I'll bet she wouldn't mind having Drs. Foreman and Hadley on the team, but they're too busy with their own self-interests to help save Dana's life. Which is kind of ironic. Kumar throws out Behçet's Disease and B12 deficiency as possible diagnoses, but House rejects them both and tells them to look lower than the brain. Taub comes up with an aggressive spinal hemangioma. I hope for Dana's sake that it isn't a hemangioma. Any condition that starts with "He-man" can't be good. House sends Kumar and Taub off to go hunting for it. Off-camera, of course.
House stops by Hadley's apartment, where the ceilings are like thirty feet high. He lets himself in when Hadley doesn't answer the door. House says he's looking for Foreman, and soon notices that Hadley isn't looking at him and figures out that she's blind. She says Foreman is on his way to the drug company. House tells her to call him and make him come back; coming clean to the drug company won't help Hadley or her tumor. She needs radiation, he says, not ritual sacrifice. Why not both? It's not working on Hadley, so House sighs and takes a seat to her and says he told Foreman to switch the drugs only if he loved Hadley. "He only thinks he loves me," Hadley says. "It's the same thing," House says. Foreman may be an idiot, but House doesn't think Hadley should let him ruin his own career over this if she feels something for Foreman, too. With that, he hands her the phone. She calls Foreman. Great, now House knows she has feelings for Foreman. He's never going to let this one go during differentials.
Wilson goes to see Cuddy. He informs her that her little pranks are physically harming House. Aw, Wilson can't bear to see House's knees all scuffed up. Cuddy says that's the point, and it's what House deserves. Wilson asks her what she's trying to accomplish. Meanwhile, the nurses at the nearby nurse's station must be hearing all of this and wondering if these people ever do their fucking jobs. What the non-cast PPTH staff must talk about when they're off-camera! Why couldn't the 100th episode focus on that? Cuddy says that House makes people miserable and he should pay for that. Wilson doesn't think Cuddy is all that miserable. If she was, she'd fire House and then be able to go home and be with her baby. Cuddy says she likes what House does for PPTH. "What he does is who he is," Wilson says, pointing out that the same could be said for Cuddy. He leaves her to do the Sad Realization blink-and-sigh.
House and Foreman do some secret brain radiation on Hadley. Good thing Cuddy is so busy exacting petty revenge on House that she isn't noticing all the extra MRIs and cancer treatments going on under her nose. Not to mention that Haley is unconscious for the procedure, which is supposed to require the skills of an experienced anesthesiologist or at the very least, Chase. But no, Chase and Cameron will spend the 100th episode of the show they spent three seasons being a big part of totally off-camera so that we may have more time for Hadley. Foreman admits to House that he feels terrible. House says he should have realized that this was one of the possible outcomes of switching the drugs. Foreman says he was willing to take the risk to his own career; it never occurred to him that Hadley would be affected instead. Everyone else who was on the drug was just fine. Um, except for Janice and her nausea, but I guess Foreman forgot about that. Insensitive prick. House finds it ironic that Foreman did this because he loves Hadley, but he never took her health into consideration. With that, they get ready to do some radiating.
Kumar and Taub, meanwhile, are sending Dana in for her umpteenth MRI. They're really pushing things now. The MRI has been dormant for so long; soon it will strike, and strike hard. Also, I see that they've put little gloves on Dana's hands, presumably to stop her from boring holes in her own skull. Good call, and probably less embarrassingly obvious than the dog cone collar I suggested. Kumar wants to know why he and Taub are the only people doing their job today. Taub says that whatever's going on involves House, Foreman, and Hadley, meaning it's either "dumb, dangerous, or tragic or a combination." He's happy to be left out of it. Taub speaks the truth! I wish I was left out of it, too. Kumar finds the He-mangioma and says House was right. Maybe not: Taub sees another mass in Dana's spine, and then several more masses all over her body. Whatever that means, judging by the look on Taub and Kumar's faces, it isn't good.
Guess who has mesothelioma? Besides all those people who worked with asbestos that I keep seeing class action lawsuit ads for, it's Dana! House enjoys pointing out that if only cancer researchers didn't quit their jobs to take up cooking, there could be a cure for Dana. Ah, the irony! Then again, since there are still about twenty minutes left in the show, it's probably not mesothelioma anyway. Kumar just wants to know what's going on with Hadley and Foreman, completely missing the fact that the masses have grown in Dana's body ridiculously fast for mesothelioma. House tells the two to get Wilson to do a biopsy, but Kumar says he won't do a thing until he finds out what's going on with Hadley and Foreman. He says they're entitled to know since Hadley and Foreman are their colleagues. Taub isn't quite so willing to take a stand. He goes off to get Wilson. That's right, Taub! Kumar thinks that inserting himself into Hadley and Foreman's storyline will get him extra camera time, but you know the truth: ain't no one getting extra camera time except Hadley, so there's no point in trying. Kumar stays behind and asks House if Hadley's headache is more than a headache.
Wilson does the biopsy. He takes the opportunity to apologize to Dana for "unloading" on her, but Dana thinks he's just saying that because she's dying. Wilson says that's not why; he realizes now that Dana was right. He's been stuck in a rut ever since CTB died. He's still living in her apartment, surrounded by her things, afraid to move anything. He says he doesn't know how to get unstuck. Dana says the only wrong thing to do is to do nothing at all. With that, Wilson sticks the biopsy needle in Dana's lung. It bleeds. Dana says that isn't supposed to happen. I think Wilson knows that, Dana. Then again, maybe not.
House let Kumar in on the joke, as he's now at Hadley's bedside. Foreman is in the room, too, looking repentant. Kumar suggests talking to the drug company as if Foreman hadn't considered that option. Hadley weakly speaks up and says they should give the radiation more time to work. Kumar doesn't think they should let the tumor grow and possibly affect something in Hadley's brain that she needs. Yeah, because the character of Hadley is on this show so freaking much because of her brain. Please. Hadley doesn't think Foreman should be allowed to pay for his "sins" by destroying his career. Foreman already knows that she got that from House. "Does that make it any less true?" Hadley semi-whispers, looking off into the distance. Good lord, what happened to this show? Fortunately, Kumar speaks up and says this isn't about what Hadley wants. After all, Foreman didn't give Hadley a say in anything when he put her on the drug. The only reason why he's letting her dictate what happens now is because he'd rather not lose his medical license. Hadley says she'd feel worse if Foreman destroyed his career. Yeah, well, brain tumors don't feed off of remorse, so, again, who cares?
It turns out that Dana doesn't have mesothelioma, since mesothelioma masses don't bleed. Wilson, House, and Taub are trying to think of what does when Taub gets a page informing him that Dana's heart just stopped. He runs off to treat her while House coolly asks Wilson what that could be a symptom of.
Taub joins Kumar in Dana's room. Kumar says Dana is bleeding into the area around her heart, causing it to stop. He drains the blood around her heart, but then Dana starts bleeding out of her eyes, ears, and nose, which is super bad news.
After the break, Taub exposits that they're transfusing blood into Dana as fast as she's losing it, but they're still having trouble keeping up. Plus, her room has got to be, like, knee-deep in blood by now. Too bad Blue the Janitor can't find his mop bucket to clean it up! Kumar thinks they should remove the vascular tumors that are causing Dana to bleed out, but House says no surgeon would touch this patient right now. He knows this because PPTH's only surgeon is Chase, and Chase isn't in the episode this week. House's idea is to block off the arteries feeding blood to the tumors. Without a blood supply, they'll wither up and die. Taub points out that that'll kill healthy tissue, too. House thinks Dana will be just fine with only a quarter of her lungs.
House de-elevators and finds Cuddy sitting outside his office holding his cane. She hands it back to him and House inspects it for booby-trapping before welcoming "Little Little Greg" back. He tosses the substitute cane in a nearby mail cart and takes a seat to Cuddy. Cuddy says that House is who he is, and the fact that she can't be with her daughter isn't really his fault. She's sorry. House points out that it's not like Cuddy was any good at her job before she got the baby and that her rapid mood swings most likely mean that she's on her period. That seems like a weird thing for House to say until you realize that he has to say it in order to have his epiphany moment. He stops in mid-sentence and takes off, but Cuddy doesn't realize what's going on so she follows him down the hallway wondering why when she's a jerk, he acts like a human, but when she's human, he acts like a jerk. She thinks that's his way of accepting her apology. He denies it, saying he's just saying that she sucks at her job and will continue to do so a bit more now that she has a baby. Cuddy accuses him of playing a part, and House tells her to go hang out with Wilson and do some more psychoanalyzing while House saves Dana's life.
House enters Dana's room and looks in the garbage. He finds an empty box of maxipads and holds it aloft on his cane. Kumar asks how that's diagnostically relevant. House says Dana is bleeding out of her uterus. "Women do that. It's perfectly natural, not scary at all," Taub says. Easy for you to say, Taub. House points out that Dana's uterus and her vascular tumors are bleeding at the same time. It could be a coincidence, or it could be a case of ectopic endometriosis. It turns out that when the surgeons operated on Dana's uterus, they sent endometrial cells into Dana's bloodstream. They landed in various places in her body and multiplied for eight months to grow big and strong. Then, when Dana was getting her period, the masses swelled at the same time as her uterus, causing her various liver, spine, and lung problems. And then when she got her period and started to bleed, they bled, too. "Yes, ladies," House tells the viewing audience; "I am blaming her period. Granted, it's the worst period ever." He adds that it has a lot of competition. Sigh. Doesn't it, though? Am I right, girls? House recommends waiting until Dana's period is over and the bleeding stops and simply cutting the masses out. That sounds fine, except that a few scenes ago Taub was saying that Dana might not last the day with the rate she was bleeding. Oh, well. House just prescribes a pint of ice cream and a DVD of Beaches. Ignorant man! We eat ice cream when we've been dumped. We eat chocolate during our periods.
But it's not over yet, because we still have to deal with Foreman and Hadley. Hadley's asleep. Foreman touches her hand and says he's sorry, then grabs his coat to go end his career. Hadley wakes up just in time and says she can see again. Yet another Hadley medical crisis has been averted. Woo hoo.
Taub checks up on Dana. She's feeling a lot better. I'll say -- nothing feels better than when those nasty cramps and bloating finally goes away. Presumably she's enjoying the sensation of not bleeding out of every orifice as well. Taub asks her if almost dying this time gave her any enlightenment about her life choices. Dana says she didn't think "what if?" this time. If only she'd been thinking "what if the surgeon carelessly throws endometrial cells all over my body?" last time, she wouldn't be in this mess now. Taub admits that he worries that he'll have regrets when he's on his deathbed, and Dana says that you only spend one day on your deathbed. You should worry about all the other days of life. "Go to bed happy tonight," she says.
Oh, more Foreman. Great. He watches the Clinical Trials for a while before calling the doctor in charge and saying things aren't going very well. I'm perfectly fine with him losing his medical license and no longer being a part of this show.
House finds Foreman in the locker room. He can already tell that Foreman told the Clinical trials people about the tumor and asks if they're going to pull the drug now. Foreman says they aren't, since he broke the trial protocol by switching Hadley's drugs and that makes Hadley's results inadmissible. So now people with Huntington's can look forward to possibly getting tumors and going blind without warning if the drug makes it to the market. As if they didn't have enough problems as it is. Way to go, Foreman. You're worse than Dana. She just quit her researcher job. She didn't kick kids with eye cancer in the face, too. As for Foreman, he somehow gets to keep his license but isn't allowed to participate in any more drug trials. Well, that's good news at least, since the whole Huntington's drug trial storyline was boring as fuck. House says that's great for him, since it means Foreman will stay his Cottage forever and ever. With that, he grabs something out of a locker and starts to take off. Foreman figures out that that was someone else's locker, and House just says he's trying to help that person by teaching him a lesson about locking his stuff up so it doesn't get stolen. He may think he's got the upper hand, but the only person on the PPTH staff I can think of who's innocent and trusting enough to leave her locker unlocked in the first place is Cameron, which means all House probably managed to take was a picture of a kitten.
Mrs. Taub wakes up and finds Taub sulking in the corner of the bedroom. She asks him if he can't be happy without a child. Taub admits that he doesn't really know, but he knows he won't be happy without her. Then why did he cheat on her? It makes no sense. Mrs. Taub needs to leave him. First he cheats on her, now he's making demands of her uterus. Kick him to the curb, Mrs. Taub! Instead, she joins him on the chair. Did someone on the House writing staff have a baby recently or something? What's up with all the "children are the only way to live a fulfilling life" stuff?
Foreman is back in Hadley's bed. She tells him that he snores. Guess he didn't have any trouble sleeping last night, then. And it's good to see that Hadley recovered from her brain tumor and radiation treatments so quickly. Now let us never deal with her health problems ever again.
And Wilson does the dishes. This time, he washes the mug, too. Better wash it well, Wilson. It's been sitting on the counter growing all kinds of things for months. The camera pulls away to show two open books on a nearby table, presumably in the middle of being read by Wilson and CTB before she kicked it. That would have been an issue and a character I would much rather have spent this episode exploring, so there's yet another missed opportunity on this show.
Sara Morrison has now recapped 96 episodes of House. You can read more from her at L.A.me, which she occasionally updates when she has something to complain about. Or you can email her your congratulations on reaching such an impressive milestone at saramorrison@gmail.com.
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