House TV Show - That's Cold - House Photos & Videos, House Reviews & House Recaps | TWoP

Aired 02-02-2008

After lackluster episode last week, House recaptures its magic by going to the South Pole, where Kate, the station's only doctor is barfing and has pain in the kidney area. Thanks to modern technology, House gets to diagnose her from New Jersey, and distance makes his heart grow fonder. Or, considering it's House, makes it exist. Not only does he know her name, he calls her by it! He comes up with a few diagnoses, but she won't treat herself for them and waste limited supplies of medicine unless she has proof he's right. He can't provide that proof because he's wrong. And then Kate goes into a coma that the station generator repairman has drink Kate's pee and drill a hole into her skull to relieve, showing House that he has a rival for Kate's affections. Meanwhile, House sends the Cottages sans Foreman off to the ER to ruin Cameron's life until she convinces the budget committee she's on to pay for House's cable. Two days later, the Cottages revolt, only to find out that that's what House wanted them to do all along -- challenge him. That's when Kumar actually comes up with the correct diagnosis -- Kate broke her toe, but the cold Antarctic weather kept her foot numb and she always wears her socks so she never knew. Meanwhile, bone marrow was leaking out of the broken toe bone, causing all of Kate's problems. The station generator repairman sets Kate's toe and breaks House's heart. Wilson's heart is doing just fine, though, since he is DATING CUTTHROAT BITCH YES YES YESSSS!!!!! YESSSSSS!!!!

I don't understand the wisdom of blowing one of the last two new episodes of House by putting it after the Superbowl, but I guess it's February sweeps and this episode got monster ratings. Unfortunately, any of the momentum the huge viewership might have given the show will come to a crashing halt in two days when the last episode of the season airs. We open on a vast, snow-covered terrain, empty except for a building surrounded by several loud windmills. It's Antarctica! A man covered in snow gear fixes and starts up one of the windmills, then steps back to admire his handiwork, which is creaking in a most ominous way. Then one of the propellers comes flying off of the pole, and the guy backs away from it slowly as if he can sneak his way out of this. He can't, and the propeller spins towards him, hitting him in the leg and knocking him off his feet. Blood spurts out of his leg. He cries for help, and it isn't long before a woman comes running towards him through the wind and snow. She applies pressure to his wound, which has stopped bleeding because the air is freezing it. That's the only reason why he's still alive, as the windmill cut his femoral artery. The woman helps the man into a tunnel and out of the wind and snow and proceeds to cut his pant leg open and glue (yes, glue. Why not?) the wound shut. While he tears off pieces of duct tape to use as a bandage, she checks his foot and finds the blood circulation to be good. "I thought I was done," he says. "Yeah, like I'd let anything happen to you," the woman says; "you're the only one who could fix the generators." Uh oh. That guy is kind of a walking disaster so far. I hope they don't need electricity too much at the South Pole.

Now that she's issued the standard levity-bringing quip, it looks like everything's awesome and will work out great for everyone involved. Oh, no, wait -- the woman, Cate, suddenly screams in pain and clutches her right side. Then she barfs some gross yellow liquid. Looks like pickings were slim at the South Pole cafeteria. Maybe the only person who can cook hit himself on the head with a soup ladle. "I need help," she says. "Who am I supposed to get?!" the repairman panics, most reassuringly.

It's always a good sign when Coma Guy is in an episode, so I'm pleased to see him here after a long absence. Maybe there's hope that Evil Nurse Brenda will come back, too. House has taken over Coma Guy's television, figuring Coma Guy doesn't need it and it, unlike the television in House's office, has cable. Or at least, it did. Cuddy informs House that the budget committee decided to charge patients for cable in their rooms, which is a bitch move on their part. Isn't it bad enough that these people are in a hospital? Now they have to pay for cable, too? Lame, PPTH. Cuddy is deaf to House's complaints, though, as she has a case for him, for which he was personally requested by the psych department. This makes me thinks that the psych department is about as good at their specialty as the oncology department is at theirs. Anyway, it's not a psych case -- the patient is an adjunct faculty member. Right now she's trapped at the South Pole, a fact that piques House's interest enough for Cuddy to shove the file into his hands and run away.

13 continues to not have a first name, so I'll give her one. Today's name will be Mildred. Mildred's brilliant idea is to try to evacuate Cate from the South Pole, a solution I'd think had already been considered and rejected before the case made it to House's desk. Kumar and Mildred suggest various stones, but House discounts the standard garden variety ones since they're too boring. Taub makes things spicy by suggesting a type of kidney stone that could be caused by having lots of sex, causing UTIs and then a struvite kidney stone. "Antarctic drilling: bad for the environment AND the ladies!" House says. What a jerk. I'm sure there are gay men down there, too. He dumps a cardboard box onto the table and says its contents are all of the medications the South Pole has at their disposal. There's nothing that will break up a kidney stone, but Kumar has an idea. So does House, although his is completely unrelated to the patient.

He seeks out Cameron, and how nice of Liz Friedman to write something for her to do when no one else will. It turns out that Cameron's been spending her post-House time getting appointed to the PPTH budget committee, and is therefore in a position to convince its head to restore free cable to the patient rooms. Cameron says pay cable will give the hospital thirteen thousand dollars a month, showing that for all her attempts to appear disinterested, she really has her finger on the pulse of hospital budgets. House vows to do thirteen thousand dollars' worth of damage to PPTH each day. This should be easy enough; just step on a couple aspirin and you're there, if discharge bills are to be believed. Instead, House goes for the tongue depressors, dumping a box of them out on the floor. Cameron, her patient, and a nurse just stare at House. The patient, no doubt, is starting to rethink coming to a place where doctors behave like children. He'll be at St. Sebastian's within the hour. When House goes for the rubber gloves, Cameron takes the box away from him and says he'll have to make do with the broadcast networks alone. "I'll be fine on Tuesdays," House metas, which, by the way, he won't after week unless he's an American Idol fan.

Back at the office, Kumar is putting his wacky plan into action. Cate is communicating with them via her computer camera, showing that Skype truly can do anything. She's putting the finishing touches on something called a "flaw detector," which Kumar explains will let off sound waves that should be able to break up Cate's stone. They've set it up with an egg first, saying if it can break that, it'll break up the stone. I don't know how that works other than sound waves are magical. Unless they're the ones coming from my new neighbors' wall, in which case they are evil. House enters the room just in time for the test. "Test? Did Ford test the Edsel? Did Coke test New Coke?" House asks. Poor New Coke. It's been like twenty-five years and it's still getting made fun of. You'd think all those episodes of Night Court would have covered all possible jokes at New Coke's expense. "Is that House?" Cate asks, and House is suddenly aware that his patient is in the room. "Can she see me?" he asks, unaware of how technology works. Cate answers that she can, and House takes a seat and tells the Cottages to go to the ER and spy on Cameron. He's hoping she'll make a mistake he can blackmail her with to get Coma Guy cable. The Cottages sigh and leave the room except for Foreman, who somehow knows he's not included in that group. With that, Cate starts up the flaw detector. Things look promising as it gently breaks the egg. But then it shatters the glass jar the egg was in and Cate decides she's not going to let that happen to her body. How silly of her; it's not like her body is made out of glass. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Cate sits in front of the monitor and tells House that his kidney stone theory is kind of flawed, as it hinges on her having sex. "Let me guess -- you're as pure as the driven snow," House snorts. "Only if the snow likes to be on top," Cate fires back. I believe House's eyes turn into little hearts as Cate continues that she's doing a psychological research project down there and would never get intimately involved with her subjects. I doubt that'll be an option after they find out what she did to the last egg on the entire station. What a waste. House starts making fun of Cate for not being a "real" doctor, to which she says she's got control over her body and he doesn't, so he'd better cooperate. Um, yeah, but if you want to not die, Cate, it would behoove you to cooperate with House in return. Foreman steps in and tells Cate to run a panel of tests on her blood so they can rule out kidney stones. House orders Cate to start herself on some medicine for the kidney stone he's sure she has while she's waiting for the test results. Cate agrees to do the blood draw but says nothing about the medicine.

Meanwhile, the Cottages have revolted against House in the most passive-aggressive way possible: by going straight to Cameron and telling her they're supposed to spy on her for House and while they don't want to do it, "if our choice is between pissing House off or pissing you off, that's not much of a choice," Taub says, trying to look tough to a woman who towers over him. Cameron shrugs and tells them to do whatever they have to do. Taub wonders aloud if they shouldn't just pay for House's cable themselves and tell him Cameron folded. "No," Cameron says suddenly. Uh oh -- looks like she's cooked up a wacky scheme.

The blood test results are back and they don't prove anything either way, so what was the point of doing them? To show that both Cate and House are stubborn, as neither accepts the blood test results. Moreover, House notices that Cate is faking the IV line of medication into her arm. She explains that they have a limited supply of medicine down there and she won't give any to herself unless she has a diagnosis, especially since the generator repairman needs that same drug for his windmill wound. Meanwhile, she's starting to have shortness of breath, which House notices before she does. She figures she's just pissed off, since she's one of those people who lose lung function when angry, but House figures out her lung is collapsing. Worse yet, there's no one else around, so Cate gets to reinflate the lung herself by sticking a plunger-less syringe in it to let the bad air out. She does and the lung reinflates. House says this proves that she should always listen to his diagnoses, but Cate says the collapsed lung just proves that her problem is not a simple kidney stone. Um...congrats? You win?

House goes over Cate's symptoms again, and Foreman suggests they talk about it out of Cate's earshot, but House refuses, saying that since the patient and the patient's doctor are the same person, she gets to sit in on the differential. Also because he'd rather look at her than Foreman, even with the needle sticking out of her ribcage. House and Cate trade barbs, Cate with the assistance of an oxygen mask and a smug smirk. I wouldn't have a smug smirk if I had to use an oxygen mask, but that's me. Foreman finally turns the sound off so he and House can talk in private, providing that Cate can't read lips. Foreman tells House he thinks Cate has cancer, and a tumor is throwing clots around, causing the lung collapse and kidney problems. He wants to figure it out amongst themselves before telling the rather upsetting news to Cate, but House obviously disagrees, as his move is to turn the sound back on and tell Cate to feel around her abdomen for a tumor, since they don't have imaging equipment or biopsy capabilities down there, not like those things ever help them diagnose cancer at PPTH. The South Pole does have an X-ray, so House tells Cate to X-ray her entire body and send him the images. Well, if she didn't have cancer before, that blast of X-ray radiation she's about to give herself should take care of that.

There's absolutely no one around in the South Pole to even hold Cate's hand as she does her own X-rays. That's cold, South Pole residents.

Meanwhile, House goes to Wilson to complain about his annoying patient who won't waste antibiotics on herself because she cares about others. Wilson thinks House doesn't like Cate because she's a psychiatrist. "Never before has a profession been so decried by someone who needed it so badly," Wilson says, as he is getting all the good lines this year. "You talk a lot of smack about tranny hookers," House points out, as he is getting all the great lines this year. And every year. Wilson finally finds something on Cate's X-rays indicating lymphoma, but there's no way to do a biopsy to confirm it. House says they'll just have to MacGyver it, making Cate do a biopsy on an abnormal node that's closer to the surface of her skin and then using a household object to stain it. Wilson calmly says that sounds good, arousing House's suspicions that something's going on. He points out that Wilson is also wearing a lavender shirt, which makes House think he's wearing it for a special someone. "The Health Department. They frown on topless oncology," Wilson retorts. Too bad; I think people with cancer could use a little cheering up in the form of a parade of hot muscular topless people.

While Foreman and Wilson are stuck in the lab trying to figure out what Cate can use as a stain, House goes home to chat with Cate and watch her feel around her body for a biopsy-able node. He's even dimmed the lights, lit a fire, and poured himself a drink to complete the romantic-only-to-a-doctor-with-intimacy-issues setting. Cate initially refuses to undress for House in such an unclinical setting, but finally decides on a quid-pro-quo deal. If House brings the camera around his apartment and reveals some of his private life to her, she'll expose herself in return. House shows her his living room, and the psychiatrist notes that his shelves are filled with medical textbooks, showing that he doesn't appreciate fiction because he doesn't like to laugh. House whisks the camera away from his bookshelves and past the coffee table, where Cate notes the bottle of liquor and chalks it up to insomnia rather than alcoholism. House starts to realize that putting the camera in his living room rather than his office was a mistake, but it's too late now. Cate notices a lack of pictures and asks him why family and friends aren't important to him. I'm thinking it's because he doesn't have any. House turns this back on Cate, pointing out that she's sick on the South Pole and has only had one visitor. Cate says she isn't antisocial; she hasn't told anyone else so as not to worry them. Meanwhile, she's been holed up in her office for days now; I think they're starting to suspect something's up. Frustrated, House says he might as well get naked, but Cate says she knows that won't happen. "You'd rather show me your soul than your leg," she says. House asks her if she's going to fix him now that she's got him all figured out, And Cate truly wins House's heart when she replies, "I never said you needed fixing."

By Sara M

There's absolutely no one around in the South Pole to even hold Cate's hand as she does her own X-rays. That's cold, South Pole residents.

The two head into an elevator so Wilson can make fun of House for caring about his patient. Wilson says House has never asked anyone if they were okay before, not even when Wilson got drunk and fell down a flight of stairs. In fact, I'd wager, House probably stuck his cane out and tripped Wilson in the first place and laughed while Wilson went flying down the stairs. Wilson turns green with envy and says House has shared some kind of intimacy with Cate. Then he notices that House is following him out to lunch. House admits to it, saying he wants to see the person Wilson's meeting. Wilson knows how to escape House, however -- he turns and sprints out of PPTH, bumping into various people in his haste to outrun the crippled man.

Before House can jump on his Segway and commence pursuit, Cameron walks up behind him and demands that House stop using his Cottages to make Cameron give him cable. She's sick of them hanging around the ER, interrogating Cameron's patients. She shows him a piece of paper to serve as proof that she resigned her seat on the budget committee. "I now have zero influence over the hospital's cable policy," she says, and walks away. But there's a triumphant smile on her face as she does so that makes me think she doesn't know House very well at all. What a disappointing wacky scheme that was.

There may not be any cable in the patient rooms, but they're still letting staff make unlimited copies on the Xerox, as House limps up to the Cottages with a stack of brightly-colored papers advertising free Rottweiler puppies. Just call Cameron's number any time between 11 PM and 5 AM! House has already figured out that Cameron never intended to stay resigned from the budget committee, and tells the Cottages to force her into making a mistake that he can then use to blackmail her with. House tells them to make sure the mistake she makes is fixable. Wow -- looks like Cate's really rubbing off on House after all. He's never cared about patient care like this before!

Wilson gets some one-on-one time with Cate, as she studies her cells under a microscope with the help of a red wine stain. She says she's been asking her PPTH friends about Wilson (I guess she has nothing better to do while dying mysteriously in Antarctica than gossip with people in New Jersey) and wonders why someone thought to be so responsible, nice, and human would be House's best friend. She's thinking Wilson must be secretly meaner than he seems, because House sure isn't secretly nicer. "Indiscriminate niceness is overrated," Cate says. "No wonder he likes you," Wilson mumbles. And there's even more good news for Cate: "Based on this slide, you do not have cancer," Wilson tells her, and her relief is so incredible that I don't have the heart to point out that most of the time Wilson says someone doesn't have cancer, he's wrong. Poor Cate probably has cancer in the testicles she didn't know she had. Cate doesn't get much time to celebrate, however, as she gets a sudden pain, this time in her left side. That's both of her kidneys failing now. "I'm screwed," Cate says, and we immediately go to commercial. That was kind of great.

After the commercial, House is back at home, telling Cate he'd rather work from home than his office because at home he doesn't have to wear pants. Hey now -- if he stands up, Cate might see his leg! How daring. House says he's thinking Cate has an autoimmune disease. There's two good possibilities, and the treatment for them is the same. He tells Cate to start shooting up with prednisone, but once again she refuses any treatment unless House has proof. "You practice medicine like it's a fire sale!" she says. And while PPTH might have unlimited medicine (if not unlimited cable), the South Pole does not.

Back at PPTH, Foreman has an idea: "We should send her outside." "Right. Tell her to head North until she runs into a hospital," House says. She'd probably hit the Penguin Memorial Hospital first, and they don't treat humans. Foreman says the cold weather will make Cate feel better if she has an autoimmune disorder that's causing inflammation in her kidneys. This doesn't sound like a great idea to me. Too bad they don't have an immunologist to help out with this. House doesn't want to do it, saying it's way too cold and Cate is way too sick. Foreman thinks House is only refusing to do this because he actually cares about Cate. Meanwhile, Wilson wants to know why House went through his wallet, left the cash, and took all the receipts. Duh -- House is spying on Wilson's lunch costs to see how far into his new relationship he is.

House thinks they can test Cate for an autoimmune disease without freezing her to death. He's right -- with the help of some old-fashioned medicine and paperclips. Cate puts the paperclip into a test tube with her blood and shakes it. The paperclip will destroy some of the blood cells. If she has an autoimmune disease, her immune system will eat the damaged cells, getting nice and fat and visible under a microscope. Well, at least it's safer than running around the coldest place on Earth. House asks Cate how she's doing. "No change," she reports. House says she can wait a few hours for the results or just take the drugs now, pointing out that in her field of medicine, patients routinely take medicine without any diagnostic tests so it's hypocritical of her to take a stand like this now. Cate shrugs that she must be a decent enough psychiatrist to have figured House out based on his living room. House doesn't think her assumptions were all that impressive. "Everyone is miserable," he says; "you don't change that because people don't change." Cate says House only wants to think that because then he doesn't have to make an effort to change. House tells her to stop being Wilson. Cate says House must dig that, since Wilson is his best friend and he's spent more time with her than any other patient. "Sorry about that," House says, and rectifies it by turning the screen off.

With no Wilson around to have lunch with, House is stuck with Foreman, who's apparently dieting as he chooses a wimpy salad. Cuddy strolls up to get a few more seconds of airtime and asks House about his patient. He answers her glibly, and Cuddy tells him the real reason why she's there: "I had to fire Cameron." Three years ago, this would have been a happy time for me. Now, though, who cares? We'd probably see her more if she was fired. Foreman is shocked and asks for details. I smell an I Love Lucy-style deception coming up, and I think it's adorable that these people still think they can trick House. Cuddy says Cameron gave a patient Demerol when he was on an MAOI. Fortunately, Taub caught the error and the patient will live. ["Interesting, given that this turns out to be a tall tale, that it's Taub who's selected to have 'saved the day.'" -- Sars] Meanwhile, Cameron refused to admit that she did anything wrong, so Cuddy had to fire her ass. House responds to this by examining the snack cookie offerings and saying he's waiting to hear from Cate, so he won't be bothering to say goodbye to Cameron. "That's it?" Cuddy asks. "She screwed up. She's got no one to blame but herself," House shrugs. Cuddy sighs and leaves. Foreman says he needs to see Cameron, and House tells him to wise up: Cuddy wouldn't fire Cameron for one screw-up, and if she did, she certainly wouldn't go running to House tell him so. It's an obvious ploy to make House realize that cable isn't as important as people, and since this is not true, he will respond accordingly. With that, they approach the register, and House puts his hand out for Foreman to lend him some money.

Cate smugly reports that the test came back negative. She will not be taking the prednisone. House says the test was probably wrong, considering the conditions it was performed in, but Cate won't budge. Despite House's objections, Foreman says there's one more test they can try. He tells Cate to go outside and see if her kidney pain gets better. Cate's willing to do it, but House reminds her that she'll have to be outside for five minutes, and eight minutes outside in this weather would kill a healthy person. Cate's not exactly healthy. Cate says she'll take Sean the repairman with her. Or not, as she then passes out, taking the computer with her onto the floor where she lies with one eye half-open. That doesn't look good.

When we return from the break, Foreman says it took them twenty minutes to get in touch with Sean, and by then Cate was in a coma. They took advantage of it to shoot her up with prednisone, but it didn't do any good. So they're back to square one. House, Wilson, and Foreman are in an elevator on their way to find the "useful members of [House's] team." So...Chase? Good! I miss him. Wilson's only there so House can grill him on his new girlfriend. Wilson won't tell him her name, saying she doesn't have one. "Some sort of weird birth defect," he explains. So...Wilson's dating 13? I don't like it. House figures Wilson's reluctance to reveal her name means she must be someone House knows. He narrows down the list of suspects: Cuddy, one of Wilson's ex-wives, and "your momma," Wilson supplies. Ha!

On their way down the hall, House rules out Cuddy, since Wilson is straight and Cuddy is manly. You know, House, you can either talk about Cuddy's giant boobs and ass or you can say she's manly...probably not both, though. Back to Cate, they're stuck. They need to run a kidney function test on her but she's in a coma, so they can't. House thinks of a way they can get Sean involved.

"Drink her urine?" Sean says and I just realized why he looks so familiar: it's Matt from The O.C.! It's amazing I'd even remember him when he was so freaking bland on that show. He looks and acts much better here. Anyway, Sean has to drink Cate's urine and tell them if it tastes "concentrated" or watery. Sean's only question is how to get the urine out of Cate, which House finds surprising. Not me, though. I mean, what else is there to ask at this point? I'd want to do as little talking as possible and get it over with, myself. House thinks Sean must be in love with Cate to be so willing to do something so disgusting for her. Plus he'll get to see her naked, sort of. "Now I know that I can get you to do anything to save her," House says, his cold black heart breaking and scheming at the same time.

House finds the Cottages and yells at them for getting Cameron fired. All he wanted was cable. Yes, and he got a special bonus of no more Cameron. Good job, Cottages. But House is very disappointed in their performance and threatens to fire them unless they say the magic word. "Cameron wasn't fired," Mildred says. "WRONG!" House says. "We're sorry," Taub supplies. WRONG! "I love you," Kumar attempts. I don't even know why he thought that would work. Also: WRONG! Mildred finally gets fed up and says she's not going to play House's little game. Ding ding ding! House says she should have said that two days ago. "Do not play games with me," House warns them. Only he may play games, and this one wasn't about getting cable; it was about showing them that now they've been hired, they need to stop worrying that they'll be fired and start standing up to him. Of course Mildred was the one who figured that out. Of course. With that, House orders them to pay for his cable and go back to work. "NO!" Kumar says, so proud of himself for doing what he thinks House wants. But he gets shot right down as House says they are not to stand up to him when it comes to paying for his cable. Because he needs cable.

I hope Cate didn't eat asparagus before she went into a coma, because Sean is getting ready to drink a big cup of her pee. He sips it and spits it out all over the floor, which I'm sure whoever else needs to use that room will appreciate. He says it tastes watery. Foreman says that means the problem is in Cate's brain, not her kidneys. Either it's something with her hypothalamus, in which case there's nothing anyone can do, or it's intracranial pressure. To find out, Sean will have to do some tech ed work. Except instead of drilling through wood, it will be Cate's skull. If it's ICP, the fluid will drain and she'll wake up. If it's the hypothalamus, well...hopefully someone's got a kicky, hole-concealing hat to put on Cate's head for the open-casket funeral. Sean says he can't do this. If he screws up, he'll kill her. "I am not going to let you hurt her," House says soothingly. Foreman looks on with shock and horror, then looks up to the sky for the alien spaceships that must have abducted his boss and replaced him with a lookalike. "Please. This is her only chance," House says. Sean agrees. Relieved, House tries to make it look like he doesn't care with a sarcastic quip but we all know he totally does.

Sean sets up the drill and Foreman talks him through the brain-drilling process. Wow, I would not want to do that. I can't even reliably hammer nails into walls. I'd probably kill Cate three times over. Sean has some trouble with the drill, and Foreman tells him bone is harder than wood and to force the drill harder. But not too hard! Or else she'll get an unwanted lobotomy. Sean is able to get through the skull, and House tells him to let the fluid drain. CGI blood oozes from the hole and Cate wakes up. She does not scream in pain, though, so I guess having a hole drilled through your skull feels good. Who knew? House allows himself to breath an unguarded sigh of relief.

House goes out to the hall to update the Cottages on Cate's new symptom. Kumar just wants to know why they're outside the office. House points out that the office is their patient room. Kumar may have a new backbone, but he's still dumb. Taub and Mildred throw out a couple guesses that House and Foreman shoot down. Kumar says they're assuming Cate's problems are being caused by clots. Maybe it's something else. He suggests atherosclerosis, where fatty plaques build up on artery walls. If they broke off and entered the blood stream, if could give Cate the same symptoms as clots. House rolls his eyes, saying Cate has zero risks factors for that. "Forget fat, think clots," he says. "NO!" Kumar says, then looks shocked at the words that just came out of his mouth. But he recovers and says it could be a different kind of fat, like fat emboli. House rejects this, saying that would be caused by an unrepaired broken bone and he knows Cate doesn't have any of those. After all, he's seen all of Cate's bones on her X-rays. Or maybe not all of them. "That's what I'm talking about," House says, giving Kumar a point of victory. Kumar nods humbly while inside he jumps for joy.

Back in the South Pole, Sean is instructed to take off Cate's socks. He does, and lo and behold, there's a big ol' broken toe. This is the first Cate's seen of this, since it's so cold down there and the heat inside apparently sucks so bad that her feet are always numb, so she never felt the pain of a very broken toe. Meanwhile, bits of bone marrow were leaking out of the broken bone and entering her circulatory system, where they caused havoc. Now all they have to do is close the break. It's going to suck, but Sean drank pee and drilled a hole in Cate's skull, so he's ready to do this, too. And it'll hurt Cate a lot more than it'll hurt him. Foreman tells Sean what to do while House looks away. We hear a particularly unpleasant sound and Cate screams bloody murder. But then it's over, and Cate thanks House. House tells her Sean is the person who saved her life, because to take credit for anything would mean Cate might like him and then he wouldn't get to be so miserable. Or maybe he'd be more miserable. Either way, he's going to stay with the status quo. Sean and Cate hug. House turns the screen off. "He likes her," he says.

By Sara M

But let's not end on too much of a downer note, okay? Wilson is ordering wine for his dinner while he waits for his date to show up. Instead of his mystery woman, he gets House, who takes a seat and says he's got Wilson's date narrowed down to three options. Wilson sighs that "girls are good," and House should just be happy for him instead of trying to ruin it. He points out that House solved his case because he cared about Cate. No, House says, it's actually the opposite: if House hadn't cared about Cate and ordered her to take her socks off during the examination, he would have caught her broken toe a lot sooner. Don't blame yourself, House: I think it's kind of gross that Cate would, like, never remove her socks. Her feet must smell so bad. Maybe that's why no one visits. House denies caring about Cate anyway, to which Wilson's date arrives just in time to agree.

"House doesn't care about anyone," Cutthroat Bitch says. With that, Wilson stands and they kiss. House's jaw drops. So did mine. HOORAY!! CTB IS BACK!! I think I cheered louder for that than I did during any part of the Superbowl. Then again, I'm a Patriots fan so there wasn't much to cheer about. Sigh. "Cutthroat Bitch?" House asks. "I call her Amber," Wilson smiles; "was she on your list?" House doesn't answer, but the look on his face says she definitely wasn't.

What ails the staff at PPTH? We've got the diagnoses.

House TV Show - That&#39;s Cold - House Photos &amp; Videos, House Reviews &amp; House Recaps | TWoP

House TV Show - That's Cold - House Photos & Videos, House Reviews & House Recaps | TWoP