By Sara M
House serves time in the Clinic, where he has the grave misfortune of being stuck with a rape victim. Meanwhile, Cameron gets stuck with a friend- and family-less man dying of cancer. The question now is, what will happen first: House offending the rape victim to an extreme that even loyal viewers wouldn't have thought possible, or Cameron marrying her patient? Amazingly, neither event occurs, as the woman takes a liking to House and insists that he be at her beck-and-call for annoying pseudo-philosophical religious discussion and personal revelations, and the guy dies a bachelor. But wait, there's more! It turns out that the rape victim is pregnant and insists on keeping her baby, much to House's annoyance. He takes her for a walk in the park and they talk about God and I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that House's opinions about the existence of God are almost identical to mine. House tells his patient that his father was mean to him when he was a kid, and she opens up about her rape and decides to abort the baby. And if all of that wasn't happy enough for you, some guy has a cockroach stuck in his ear. The fact that that such a thing can and does happen to people is proof enough that there is no God as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure how I felt about this episode yet, but it showed a side of House that I think we all needed to see, and for that alone, I'm happy. Too bad they had to leave Foreman and Chase off in plotless land to do it.
After yet another long three-week wait, we're back! House strolls into Cuddy's office and cheerfully asks her what she wants. She asks him how many cases he has right now. He stupidly answers "three." House, you never have three cases. Even in "Three Stories," you really only had two cases, since the third one was you. And those two didn't even happen at the same time. So Cuddy doesn't believe him, and assigns him to non-stop Clinic duty for the two days, saying that she would've only given him one if he hadn't lied to her. "That's dishonest! I refuse to participate in this --" House starts to high-horse, but Cuddy high-horses him right back by reminding him that he owes her big-time: "I kept you out of jail. I can put you back." Except that she can't unless she wants to go to jail, too. But House leaves to do his Clinic duty, calling Cuddy a "perjurer" over his shoulder as he leaves. "Felon!" she snaps back. Meanwhile, Cuddy's really getting into her new perjurer ways by wearing a business suit with the kind of cut that fellow perjurer Li'l Kim would go for. Every shirt you own doesn't have to be a dramatic V-neck, Cuddy. It's called a scoop neck. Look into it.
House's first patient is a guy who told the nurse he had a runny nose, but who actually has a runny penis. He thinks he has an STD. You know, if you aren't mature enough to tell a female medical professional (yes, I'm assuming the nurse is female. We've never seen a male nurse on this show. Hell, we really haven't seen any female doctors, when you think about it) that you might have an STD, then you aren't mature enough to engage in the type of activities that could give you an STD. House's second patient is a young woman who also thinks she has an STD. And his third patient is an older lady who just says "I think I have a..." and points downward. You know, to her lady bits. We cut to an awesome shot of House looking disturbed and upset as he takes one, two, and then three rubber gloves from the dispenser. I guess she's what you might call a "triple bagger."
Despite House's earlier safety over-precautions, he handles the resulting STD swab with his bare hands. The swab isn't even in a biohazard bag or anything. I can't wait until season, when an overzealous OSHA inspector shows up and immediately decides that he hates House and Will Stop At Nothing to get him fired. I think that's when this show will finally get the villain arc right. House goes to the lobby and yells at any patients who are there for a runny nose that they just have a cold and should go home. A few people leave. Dude, what kind of asshole goes to a free clinic for a runny nose? You deserve to catch the flu for wasting everyone's time with that. House tells everyone remaining that they'll be seeing a different doctor because he's sick of "wiping crotches." No one seems too upset about this. Except Cuddy who, upon seeing House heading for the patient waiting area, ran right out of her office to yell at House that he is going to do his Clinic duty whether he (and the patients) like it or not.
Suddenly, some guy starts screaming and running around the Clinic holding his head. "Call Security," Cuddy orders. Ha! House has two gunshot wounds to prove how effective Security is. I'm pretty sure PPTH's crack security team consists of two retired women who volunteer on weekday mornings. Although I shouldn't underestimate how deadly PPTH's volunteers can be. House heads toward the pharmacy, where PharMarco asks if he should prepare a sedative. "No, I'm good, thanks," House says. Marco just looks at House. Marco should be glad House hasn't shoved his cane somewhere unpleasant after Marco tattled on him to Shitter, thereby prolonging that storyline. The guy is still running around in circles screaming while everyone else stands there watching him. I guess Evil Nurse Brenda isn't working today, or she would have shoved a pen through his neck by now. So it's up to House, and he picks up a random syringe, trips the guy with his cane, tosses the cane off to Cuddy in a sweet little move, and then jabs the guy in the ass with the needle. By the way, if the need for an actor to play the patient in a scene like this should arise again, House casting people, I am free, and one of my acting strengths is running around in circles screaming. (This also applies if Chase or Foreman need to do anything to a patient's butt, although I doubt that's even worth mentioning since they never do anything, period.) Call me! The guy stops screaming and moving, and House rolls him over. He's frozen in place, his mouth and eyes open. It is not dignified. House says that they need a team right away. Marco runs over, sedative in hand, only to get told off by Cuddy for taking forever to get it. That's not fair, Cuddy. How is Marco supposed to find a sedative in a timely manner when those pharmacy shelves are packed to the gills with Vicodin? House grabs the sedative from Marco, and Cuddy asks him what he shot the guy up with if it wasn't a sedative. House says that it was a paralytic. A paralytic that he just found, in the syringe, on the pharmacy counter? What the hell? Cuddy's pissed, noting that the paralytic means the patient is still in terrible pain, delirious, and now unable to breathe. All because House didn't want to wait three seconds for Marco to get the real sedative? That's horrible! The poor guy! Fortunately, a team arrives to help him to breathe, and House tells Cuddy that he's found a patient for reals. Which means no more Clinic duty.
When we return from those awesome opening credits, the guy is stuck in bed with a ventilator shoved down his throat. Foreman says that when the sedative wore off, he was still screaming, so they had to put him back down again. House asks for a differential diagnosis on a guy who's psychotic, dizzy, and has pain in his right ear. Chase and Cameron ask House where he gets the dizziness and right ear pain from; House says that the guy was dizzy, therefore the pain was in his ear. Cameron says that just because the guy was running around in circles doesn't mean he was dizzy, and House criticizes the imperfect circles the guy was running in, like I'm sure Mr. No-Thigh could do any better. Foreman guesses a hemorrhage, and House says that explains everything and tells them to do an MRI. They start to stand, but House wants more diagnoses. Chase says that the guy might be psychotic and pulled a Van Gogh and damaged his ear, causing the dizziness and pain. "Excellent!" says House. Chase puffs up with pride, apparently not noticing House's total lack of sincerity. He orders a psychiatric workup on the patient, and then demands a diagnosis from Cameron. She says that she was going to guess what Foreman said. Ha! I've done that in class before, too. House tells her to say something else, and she checks out the file and says that maybe the guy just had a really bad ear infection and it exploded through some ear bone while he was waiting in the Clinic. It would be cool if that were what happened, because it would mean that House's yelling at people and refusing to examine them actually made someone's head explode. House orders a CT scan and blood cultures.
As the Cottages are on their way out, House tells them also to pour some alcohol in the guy's ear and take the cockroach out. Yes, that's right -- the guy just had a cockroach in his ear, which House noticed when he took the guy down, but decided not to tell anyone because having a new patient would get him out of Clinic duty. Really, House? What the hell is this guy's insurance provider going to say when they see charges for a fucking VENTILATOR because the guy had a cockroach in his ear? Not to mention that the poor guy had to go through having his lungs PARALYZED while he was conscious for NO REASON. Plus, the guy had that cockroach in his ear for a lot longer than it had to be, and it was obviously causing him incredible pain that whole time. And if it was biting him, it may have caused irreparable damage to his ear. All because House didn't want to do a measly two days of Clinic duty. Such an asshole. Oh, and if you think that cockroaches in the ear aren't common, this happened to a co-worker of mine once. A beetle crawled into her ear while she was sleeping and she had to go to an ER to get it out. She said that it was really painful and horrible. I said that beetles often chose warm, tight spaces to lay their eggs in, and that maybe, in a few weeks, we'd get to see a whole bunch of baby beetles come flying out of her ear. I was kidding, but she didn't seem to think that was very funny. She got me back, though, when a donkey at a petting zoo bit my arm and left a bruise and she said that petting zoo donkeys often carry rabies. The moral of the story is that you should wear earplugs to bed and not assume that all petting-zoos animals actually liked being petted. And now you know.
House is hanging out at a heretofore unseen park when Wilson walks up and asks him why he's there instead of at work. Why are you, Wilson? Don't you have a cancer diagnosis to screw up? House says that he's enjoying not being at PPTH, and people-watching. Wilson doubts this, since House hates people and therefore would not want to look at them. House says that he'll be staying at the park as long as possible, since it's the last place Cuddy will look for him. At a certain point, isn't sitting in a park in the middle of winter doing nothing worse than actually doing your job?
Since she no longer has a real patient, Cameron goes back to Clinic duty like an idiot. Her patient is a sad old man who hands her some papers that doctors "at the other hospital" gave him. Ooooh, snap! Looks like PPTH just done stole one of St. Sebastian's patients! Cameron reads the papers and sad music plays. Uh-oh. The guy has inoperable cancerous tumor in his lung. Oh, well, he can just take one of that cockroach guy's lungs, then. It's not like he's using them. I'm sure he won't mind, and if he does, House can just shoot him up with something. Old Guy asks if he can sleep at PPTH tonight: "It's cold outside." No, it isn't! We just saw a guy jogging in shorts! House was sitting out there all day with nary a hat on! Anyway, Cameron walks out of the exam room and heads for the chapel to get married to the guy. But Cuddy spots Cameron and asks why Cameron's doing Clinic duty when House has a patient. "He doesn't," Cameron tattles. Aw, Cameron! Geez. She's so cool sometimes, and then she'll come across some dying person and get lame again. It's like terminal cancer is her kryptonite.
House is either frozen to death or napping on a park picnic table when Cuddy comes up and says she knows all about his shirking activities. House is pissed that Cameron told on him, but Cuddy says, "She got punished -- she's stuck with another dying patient." Well, if he wasn't dying before, he will be now that Cameron's his doctor. House pops some pills, and Cuddy is outraged. She stupidly believed that House was off drugs after rehab. She only lied on the stand because she thought House was getting clean. House says that if she's going to hold jail over him every time she wants him to do his job, he'd rather be in jail. "You owe me," Cuddy tells him. And the guy who paralyzed a patient's lungs for no reason suddenly develops a sense of honor.
House looks up a patient's nose, which we get to see in Patient Nostril Cam. Because didn't we all want to see what an exam looks like from a booger's point of view? And it's good that they throw the poorly-neglected Magic Schoolbus Cam a bone every now and then. House compliments the patient on his excellent nose-hair grooming techniques and the guy -- whose complaint of dryness in his nose brought him to PPTH -- says that good grooming is important, since people judge you by how you look. People also judge you for using a free clinic instead of seeing your doctor. For instance, the guy says, House looks like someone who doesn't care very much about his personal appearance, so the patient was afraid House would be equally shabby in his work. And yet, the patient allowed him to examine him anyway, so...who cares? House interrupts the guy to ask if he uses toenail clippers to trim his nose hair. The guy says he does, and House says that he has athlete's foot in his nose. And yet, apparently, not in his feet. Oh well, I'm sure Tough Actin' Tinactin' works in noses, too.
House walks out into the waiting area and offers fifty dollars to any patient who will leave right now. Cuddy can't believe this, and I have to praise Lisa Edelstein for coming up with fresh new ways to be shocked and angered by House's actions. She has to do it at least once every episode, and yet, it's always fun to watch. Some Wilford Brimley-looking guy walks up, coughs into his handkerchief, and asks for the money. House and Cuddy both notice that the guy's coughing up blood, but House doesn't really care. He pays the guy off, and Cuddy calls House into her office. So I'm guessing that the old guy took his money and left and then proceeded to die from tuberculosis because House didn't want to do his job? That's cool.
In Cuddy's office, House tells Cuddy that it doesn't matter what she does: he will get out of Clinic duty. How about saying "you're fucking fired," Cuddy? The only reason you don't fire him is because he saves lives. Well, in the first fifteen minutes of this episode alone, he put a guy on a ventilator for an ear cockroach and sent someone's grandpa home to die with fifty bucks. I think House's win-loss ratio is pretty even at this point. Cuddy says that she can make the Clinic interesting for House, offering to pay him ten dollars for every patient he can diagnose without touching. If he has to touch a patient, he'll pay Cuddy. How will she know if he touches the patient or not? I doubt he'll tell the truth. And even if he does, he'd compromise patient care in a second if it meant winning ten bucks. House asks Cuddy why it's so important to her that he deal with patients. Does she think that he'll "find some humanity" by being around the people he totally hates? Yes, Cuddy says she does think that. People really need to stop expecting House to find humanity or humility or anything else that begins with "hu." He's more likely to find a manatee in the Clinic than humanity.
House has gotten around Cuddy's rules by making patients touch themselves. Some guy puts a tongue depressor on his tongue and says "ah." A woman touches her rash and reports that it feels "rough." A guy takes his heart rate, and the number he comes up with makes him either about to die or bad at math. They wait a bit, and since the guy doesn't die, House concludes that he sucks at math; he writes the patient a prescription for StickyBear Math Town. House comes outside and triumphantly tells Cuddy that she owes him thirty dollars. Then he walks into an exam room and sees that his patient is the Designated Hot Girl who wears a vampy dress to the free clinic for reasons unknown. At this, House closes the door, doing a great look into the camera as he does so.
Cut to House coming up behind Cuddy and saying that he owes her ten dollars. Judging by the expression on her face when House pretty much walks into her ass, I'm sure Cuddy has a feeling why. Cuddy hands House the STD test results on his pre-credits patients, and says that she won't pay him for those ones because he already touched them. She says this in a really flirty way, apparently hoping to cash in on House's current amorous mood.
Runny Penis gets a lecture from House about the importance of watching Dawson's Creek in order to learn about safe sex. The guy doesn't actually have an STD, but if he thought he did, then he must have had what House calls "S.W.S. -- Sex While Stupid." This from a guy who uses prostitutes. Even with a condom, you aren't exactly decreasing your STD-catching odds there. House rubs his forehead and starts telling the older lady to watch Dawson's Creek, even getting in a dig when she claims to be sixty but he says he's sure she's older. He really seems to hate that woman.
Finally, House lectures the younger woman. Unlike the other two, she actually does have an STD. She bursts into tears, and House really wishes Cameron weren't off with that dying guy so that she could come in here and give the girl a prescription for hugs. But she can't, so House tells the girl to cheer up: chlamydia is easily cured. He hands her some pills for it, and suddenly she bats his hand away and screams at him not to touch her. "Oh, God," House groans. I'm trying to figure out why House's handing pills to the girl with even touching her elicited a response like that when whatever crotch-wiping he had to do earlier apparently didn't faze her at all. Weird. House goes to Cuddy and says that he needs someone to take his patient. She starts to protest until he finishes, with much drama, by saying that the girl was raped. And Cuddy has to admit that while it's okay for House to learn humanity with toe-to-nostril fungal infections, he should probably sit the rape stuff out.
So after the commercial, Cuddy meets with the rape lady, who won't get a real name in this episode although she's credited as "Eve" so I guess I'll call her that. I was thinking of calling her "Shitter" since I still have that in my clipboard, but then I decided that probably wasn't very sensitive. Eve says that she'd rather stick with House as her doctor. Cuddy tries to convince her otherwise, but Eve just gets all angry-looking and asks Cuddy if she knows what she's dealing with. Oh, don't even play that card, Little Missy. Cuddy says she doesn't, even though I think House was close enough to rape Cuddy a little when he was standing behind her before. Cuddy extols the benefits of PPTH's psychiatrist, saying that she would be better at handling this than House, since it's only been "less than a week" since Eve was raped, and House is the first person she told about it. Well, that is one fast-acting STD she got. This might not be the right time to tell Eve that she should really come back for an STD re-test after a few months have passed and anything that was introduced to her system has had time to settle in. She may have tested negative for HIV and herpes now, but that doesn't mean they aren't there! She might also want to get an actual rape kit done as opposed to just a vaginal swab. When I worked at that hospital, we'd get the occasional rape victim panel, and there would be a swab from every orifice. Just awful. Anyway, Eve demands to have House as her doctor.
So House returns to the room and asks Eve why she wants him. "I don't know," she says. He says he doesn't want to treat her. She assumes he doesn't want to treat her now that he knows she's been raped, but he says that he never wanted to treat her. Now he just has an excuse to get out of it. Plus, as he points out, there's nothing he can do for her at this point. Physically, she's healthy. She needs a mental doctor for her mental problems. Eve says that she understands, but then insists that House be her doctor. And again, Eve doesn't know why. I wish green slime would pour on her head every time she said that like it did on You Can't Do That On Television. Since Eve has Been Through Something, PPTH has to function without one of its necessary doctors (in fact, its only necessary doctor) and bend to her will. Hmm. I seem to dislike the rape victim. That's...not good. I don't want to know what it says about me that this whiny rape girl is getting on my nerves, so I'll just try really hard to like her. It's still early in the episode; there's plenty of time for her to improve. Like maybe she could have answers for people's questions instead of saying "I don't know" and expecting that to be enough. That would be a good start. Eve says that she "trusts" House. "That's a bad reason," says House. "I don't care," Eve says. Um...Eve? Seriously? You may not want to put blind trust into guys you don't know very well. That could get you-- oh. Right. Well, lightning does strike twice, so...think about it. I'm just saying. House thinks that Eve is trying to assert some control after having control taken away from her. "I'm raping you?!" Eve asks. House says that she is, albeit in a "non-invasive" and "more annoying" way. Eve turns into the crazy angry Eve we saw before, and orders House to get the hell out of her room. Well, that didn't take long. It's for the best for everyone, though. House shouldn't talk to rape victims. Ever. Any kind of victim, really, but especially not rape victims. And by the way, I'm just going to say right now that I'm probably not going to treat what happened to Eve with the kind of sensitivity it requires. This is mostly because, on the second viewing, she got really fucking annoying. I liked her more the first time when I still hoped the episode would mean something. Also, Eve is a fictional character who has gone through a fictional tragedy. I have such a limited amount of sensitivity and empathy in me that I can't afford to waste it on people who aren't real. So I'm sorry if I offend any real people.
Anyway, speaking of victims, Cameron's with her patient. He won't get a name either, so I'll call him "Mr. B-Plot." Mr. B-Plot isn't too pleased to see "all this medicine" around him when he just wanted a place to spend the night. You know what? Die right now, Mr. B-Plot. Just die. The last thing I want to see is Cameron dealing with a dying man, so I certainly have no fucking patience for a guy who goes to a hospital to score a bed and then is angry when they try to actually treat him. You want a bed with no medicine? GO TO A SHELTER. Mr. B-Plot wonders what they're treating him for, since he's dying. How about that case of hookworm he probably picked up on the streets? Cameron says that they can at least make him "more comfortable," and I'm sure that nasal cannula is really comfortable, not to mention to constant beeping of the heart monitor preventing him from getting any sleep. Mr. B-Plot says that he doesn't want to be comfortable when he dies because he messed up his life. Interesting that his desire to be uncomfortable didn't extend to sleeping outside in the cold. Actually, no, I'm sorry. That's not interesting at all.
And some guy came to the PPTH Free Clinic with a case of the freaking hiccups. House says that they'll go away on their own, but the guy says he actually read about an experimental new treatment...
Outside, House tells a nurse to make a note in that patient's file that he has "drug-seeking behavior." Cuddy, who's always around, hears this and asks if the guy wanted morphine, in which case he's out of luck because I'm sure Cameron's hoarding it all to give to Mr. B-Plot whether he likes it or not. House says that the guy wanted "anal digital stimulation." Wow. That guy was cute enough, I'm sure he could have found someone to do that for him without having to wait at the Free Clinic and fake hiccups to get it. Talk about doing things the hard way. House notices that Eve is still talking to psychiatrist Dr. Stone, and asks Cuddy how long it's been. Cuddy gets all hopeful that he's actually concerned about a patient, but he assures her that's not the case. While she's lecturing him, he notices that one of the Clinic patients he paid to leave came right on back when House wasn't looking! Ha! Let's all hope, for his sake, that the TB Grandpa did this as well. The patient is a child, and he's being wheeled into surgery. His doctor, Dr. Moron, says that the kid swallowed a magnet that's interfering with scans to figure out where the magnet is, so they'll just have to cut it out. House insults the kid for being way too old to eat magnets, and then shows them a very clever way to see if the kid passed the magnet through his stomach and therefore out of danger: House holds a scalpel to the kid's belly, at which point his dumb-ass father says "you're gonna cut him open? Right here?" and yet makes absolutely no move to stop him. If I thought someone was about to slice my kid's stomach open, I'd, like, do something, but then again, my kids won't be eating magnets either. House isn't going to cut the kid open, of course: he hovers the scalpel over the kid's intestinal area until it's attracted to the magnet. This tells them where the magnet is: it's in the kid's intestines, and not his stomach, so he won't need surgery after all. Good call, Dr. Moron! Don't hospitals do a little something I like to call "endoscopies," where they can actually put a camera into the kid's stomach and look for the magnet, thereby ascertaining its location without having to do invasive surgery? Anyway, House demands his fifty bucks back...
...but is interrupted by some random woman calling out for a crash cart. That woman is Dr. Stone, who has managed to psychotherapy Eve into a drug overdose. Wow, great job, there, Dr. Stone. She and Dr. Moron should open up their own practice and then people like Mr. B-Plot could go there and not get any medical help. Cuddy and House rush for Eve's room, but neither of them actually managed to bring a crash cart with them, so that's helpful. Dr. Stone says that she gave Eve a few benzodiazepines to sedate her after Eve just sat there for an hour and refused to speak. Eve grabbed the entire bottle and swallowed it like a champ. Now she's on the floor seizing with foam coming out of her mouth. House gets uncharacteristically concerned about Eve, accusing Dr. Stone of saying something to her that made this happen. Something like "Hey rape victim, you're raping me now"? Why was Dr. Stone sedating her at all, though? Eve seemed fine until she went and OD'd. By the way, ODing in the middle of a hospital? Probably more of a cry for help than a serious suicide attempt.
House sits at Eve's bedside and waits for her to wake up, playing with his PSP. I guess the park finally kicked him out, so he had no choice but to be here. He takes the restraints off of Eve after she says she won't OD anymore; he tells her she'll be fine, physically, and that he's only here because he was "ordered" to be. "Why would you tell me that?" Eve asks. Um...because you asked, Eve? I guess she was expecting House to answer "I don't know," since that's her whiny response when House asks her why she wants him there. "Can't we just talk?" she asks. House says that she can use the phone and call a friend. Or, better yet, the police. Unless, of course, she happens to reach Shitter's desk, in which case he'll doggedly pursue her for stealing those benzos and not rest until her ass is behind bars while the rapist runs around free as a bird. House sighs and asks if she wants to talk about her rape. She doesn't. Does she want to talk about her STD medicine? She doesn't. What does she want to talk about? "I don't know. Anything." Except for rape and STD medicine, I guess. House gets fed up and ties Eve back to the bed. Ha!
What's the differential diagnosis for some girl who thinks House is the best person to help her through her rape trauma? Cameron says that House should stay with Eve because Eve wants to talk to him for whatever reason. House says that he sucks at this kind of thing, and Cameron emphatically says he doesn't. Yeah, Cameron? I don't think putting a reassuring hand on Eve's shoulder is going to cut it this time. Chase decides that if he's only going to get four lines in each episode, one of them will make him look like an asshole for no reason, and snaps at Cameron that her "romantically wanting to believe [that House is secretly a sensitive guy] is never gonna make it true." Foreman says that Eve probably wants "normalcy," and that is not a real word. Curse you, Warren G. Harding! Not only did you introduce a made-up word into the American lexicon, but you also totally sucked at being President and set the stage for the Great Depression! Foreman thinks that House should indulge Eve and do his best not to drive her to another suicide attempt. They can just talk about normal, everyday stuff instead of the rape. Cameron, on the other hand, thinks that House should try to get Eve to talk about the rape, because only then can she get over it. Foreman says that we should focus on the good stuff that happens in life and not dwell on the crappy stuff. That's the kind of thing you advocate when you, oh, let's say, steal your co-worker's medical paper ideas and then try to infect her with a mysterious deadly disease.
Because Cameron's a girl and probably knows more about this kind of thing, House goes with her advice and tells Eve that she needs to talk about the rape. She won't, because she doesn't think he wants to hear about it. Well, who does? And really, if you find someone who likes hearing about how you got raped, that's probably the one person you shouldn't talk to. House pamphlets that Eve did nothing to deserve what happened to her, and that it wasn't her fault. She says she knows all that. House asks her what she wants him to tell her, then. Don't ask her that, House. Because she's going to say "I don't know." Actually, she says, "I just want to talk."
Oh, no. Cameron asks Mr. B-Plot why he's so determined to suffer. Mr. B-Plot says that he gave his word to his father that he would. "He said I would die alone and miserable," says Mr. B-Plot. "That's not a promise," Cameron points out. True, but I'm not sure that semantics are really the issue here. I don't know what it is, but it's not that. "Why did your husband have to suffer?" Mr. B-Plot asks, and I officially hate him. Cameron was doing so well not bringing that shit up and he had to go and do it. Asshole! Cameron's jaw drops, and she asks him how he knows about her husband. "I just know," he says. And also because the back of Cameron's lab coat has a bumper sticker on it that reads "Ask me about my Poor Dead Husband." Mr. B-Plot finally admits that a nurse told him about Cameron's Poor Dead Husband. Evil Nurse Brenda strikes again! I love that Cameron's Poor Dead Husband is the talk of the nursing staff, though, so much so that they'll tell weird old homeless guys of questionable mental stability about it. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to freak you out," Mr. B-Plot admits. "Why?" asks Cameron. Because he's an asshole? Who cares? I don't. "I need someone to remember me," says Mr. B-Plot. Cameron stares at him with love in her eyes. Do I hear wedding bells?
House and Eve chat about college. Eve majored in Comparative Religion. By the end of this episode, we all will have, too. House starts telling Eve that her attachment to House isn't rational, and that everything has to be rational. "I was raped. Explain how that makes sense to you," says Eve. It makes more sense than her deciding that House should be at her beck and call and House then doing it. "Has anything terrible ever happened to you?" Eve asks House. Well, that's a fun topic of conversation. Let's impose on House even more than we already have. When House protests, Eve says, "You wanted this conversation." "You wanted it?" Dude, I think Eve is raping House. Annoyingly.
In the hall, Cuddy says that she did a pregnancy test on Eve, since House decided not to. And guess what? Eve's pregnant. Life couldn't suck any more for House. And, I guess, for Eve. And for the rape baby, who got flooded with an OD's worth of benzodiazepine. That can't be good for the development process. For the people on the forums who were wondering how they could get positive pregnancy test results so soon after the conception, hospitals do blood tests which test for the same hormone but can detect lower levels of it, making them more accurate then the home urine tests, so that they can be done earlier in the pregnancy. So they could get a positive result so soon, although I don't know why they would try for it and risk a false negative. Also, considering that the PPTH lab is staffed by people who aren't actually medical technicians, I don't know why they would use it at all.
After the commercial, House is sitting on Eve's bed, telling her the news. She says she feels the same as she did before she knew she was pregnant and House moves on to discussing the "termination procedure," but Eve says no way. Abortion is murder, she states. House tries to disguise his contempt and says that "it's a life. And you should end it." Eve says that every life is sacred to God. When did she get all churchy?! For someone who thinks God should be the one to determine when you live or die, she sure was quick to try to kill herself, wasn't she? House points out that God doesn't really seem to care about human life all that much, judging by all the natural disasters he likes inflicting on people. Oh no! That's my logic for why I don't want to believe in God. I say that if there is a God and he lets horrible things happen to people, then I don't want any part of him. And I certainly don't want to spend my eternity in Heaven with it. I'd rather suffer in Hell with all my like-minded friends. Plus, I read in Dante's Inferno that there's one circle of Hell where it's just really windy, and that one sounded like it could be fun. I'm going to shoot for that one when I die, I think. Anyway, House tests Eve's "all life is sacred" theory, asking if the lives of Hitler or the guy who raped her are sacred. "My child isn't Hitler," says Eve. Well...not yet. One hopes, with the right kind of parenting, he'll be able to fully realize his potential. "I don't wanna chat about philosophy!" Eve says when the argument gets too difficult for her. "You're not killing your rape baby because of a philosophy," says House. House, don't call it a rape baby. I mean, honestly, now. Eve says that she's opposed to murder, and asks if House isn't. "Not as a general rule," he replies. But when it's unborn children and Broadway legends, it's alllll good. Maybe Eve can give her rape baby to Cuddy. Oh god please don't let that happen. I'm sorry I said anything. House says that birth is the dividing line, in a practical if not moral sense, between whether you can kill a baby or not. Oh, please. There's really no difference between a baby the day before it's born and the day after. There's definitely one between a baby the day before it's born and nine months before it's born. I'm not pro-life, but that doesn't make me pro-abortion either. I'm pro-choice, and that includes a rape victim choosing whether she'll keep the baby, ideally after giving the matter due consideration. And that's the rape victim doing the choosing, not a random asshole doctor she has a weird attachment to. Also, I don't think the rape victim should have to make a choice, like, three seconds after finding out that she's pregnant. She's got eleven weeks to decide before the end of the first trimester; why not let her use them? Like it or not, abortion is a huge decision to have to make, and it should be.
Eve says that House is enjoying this conversation, unlike when he tried to talk about personal stuff. Good observation, Eve. TAKE THE HINT. House just says that "there are no answers. If there are no answers, why talk about it?" So if you've been abused in the past, there are no answers, but if you're pregnant with a rape baby, there are? Because, really, I'd say there's no right answer for the rape baby thing no matter what you do. That's why abortion is such a hotly contested issue and child abuse isn't. Child abuse = wrong. Abortion = good points on both sides. House gets fed up and tells Eve, "You're healthy. You shouldn't be here." I mean, he said it all nice and gentle, but I think secretly he really wants her to leave. "I don't wanna go," Eve pouts. Have fun explaining that one to your insurance, Eve. If you thought House was unsympathetic and cruel, just you wait. "Wanna go for a walk?" asks House. I hope it'll be a long one. Off a short pier.
Cameron runs into Mr. B-Plot's room with a marriage proposal. I'm sorry, I meant "with a huge dose of morphine she tries to force into him." Even though he's supposed to be really close to death, he still has the strength to fight off Cameron. He says that he needs to suffer so that Cameron will remember him. She swears that she'll remember him whether he suffers or not. "Why?" asks Mr. B-Plot. "Because you're a nice man!" Cameron replies. "You don't know that!" Mr. B-Plot shoots back. And here's where I thought he was going to reveal that he had just raped some blonde girl who looked a lot like Scarlett Johansson and this whole episode would come together for me...but he didn't. "I have no family, I have no friends. I didn't even have a real job," says Mr. B-Plot. Well, I guess you should have thought about that during the fifty or so years you weren't dying of lung cancer and maybe done something about that? Mr. B-Plot doesn't want to be "just another patient"; he wants his death to matter, because his life didn't. "Don't do that to either of us," Cameron begs, and hey, Mr. B-Plot, here's your chance to do something for someone and not make some poor woman watch you die in horrible pain and have to live with that. But, of course, he doesn't. He just keeps suffering, and Cameron puts the morphine down and watches him, wondering if he'll survive long enough for the blood tests to come back for their marriage license.
Back at the park, House tells Eve that he comes to the park hoping to see a jogger break a leg. Eve doesn't believe him, but I do. Why wouldn't he want everyone to have the same handicap he does? He asks Eve why she thinks she got raped, if God is supposed to be a great entity who doesn't intentionally allow millions of people to suffer. Of course, Eve doesn't want to talk about it. Too bad, says House. Why doesn't Eve just make the argument that God kind of raped Mary to make Jesus, so obviously he's cool with the rape babies? Eve starts crying again, and I am so sick of her. House says that if you live for God, then your life is insignificant and pointless. If you live for yourself, then your life is the most important thing in the universe. That's a much better way to look at things, he thinks. Oh, but Eve says that if you don't believe in eternity, then your actions on Earth are irrelevant. If there aren't any "ultimate consequences," she says, then nothing matters: "I couldn't live like that." Okay, so, don't. Choose to believe in God and an afterlife and live your life that way. Millions and millions of people do, and it works for them. As long as your religious beliefs and opinions about the afterlife aren't causing you to fly planes into buildings, that's awesome. How do you graduate college with a fucking religion degree and have a crisis of faith after one doctor challenges you? Come on, Eve. Basically, though, it all comes down to Eve needing to know that the guy who raped her will be punished somehow. And she'll have to depend on the afterlife for that, since she refuses to go to the police. House asks her if that belief is making her feel good right now. Eve: "I was raped. What's your excuse?" The piano plays its mournful tune.
Cameron still hasn't married Mr. B-Plot, although they have done some time-traveling together into the late afternoon/early evening. You know, if I were Cameron, I think I'd wait until just a few seconds before Mr. B-Plot died and say, "Fuck you! I'm out of here! But I would have stayed if you had taken the morphine. Sucks for you, bitch!" and run out of the room so that he could die alone and unimportant. Okay, maybe I wouldn't actually do that. It doesn't matter, since this will never happen to me because people don't act like this is real life. Mr. B-Plot dies, and it really didn't look as painful as Cameron said it would be. Cameron makes her sad face. By the way, during all this time, Foreman and Chase were playing an intense game of hacky-sack in the meeting room. In case you were wondering.
Back in the bright light of day, Eve wonders if the guy who raped her feels bad about what he did. Oh, but I bet he will when he gets rocked with some CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS!!!! Keep that baby, Eve! If he gets convicted of rape he'll go to jail for what, five or ten years? You keep that baby and he's on the hook for EIGHTEEN YEARS! Ha! Now I know the real reason she doesn't want an abortion. House asks her if she'll feel better knowing that the guy feels bad. Eve asks him why he always answers her question with a question. Except that she just answered his question that answered her question with another question. House says that he doesn't care how the rapist feels; he cares how Eve feels. Because he learned himself some humanity today, you see. And that something was: kill rape babies. House asks Eve why she "chose" him. "There's something about you," she says. "It's like you're hurt too." And just what gave that away, Eve? Usually when I see people limping around with canes, I think they feel totally awesome, so that was really insightful of her. House says that his story actually was true, except that it wasn't his grandmother who abused him; it was his father. No, not R. Lee Ermey! He seemed like a such a nice guy. When he said he would unscrew Private Joker's head and shit down his neck, there was such tenderness. By the way, are we supposed to feel sorry for House now? Or think that this in any way excuses his behavior? I don't think so. I hope not. And honestly, if I had a kid who acted like House, I'd make him sleep outside too! And if he knows the stuff his dad did to him was so bad, why does he inflict the same pain on others? And why does he like his mother so much when she obviously didn't step in and stop his father? Whatever. I'm going to pretend House never made that revelation and forget about it and hope it never comes up again. Eve says that she's ready to tell House about her rape, and he says that he'll listen. She says that it was a friend, and then we don't hear the rest, because we don't need to. I'm not sure if we needed to hear all the stuff before that either, but to each his own.
And over on the alternate timeline, it's even darker outside when Cameron cleans up dead Mr. B-Plot and notes the lack of a wedding ring on his finger. time opportunity knocks, Cameron, you'd better answer it. Also, I don't care about your personal struggle or that of some guy who had an entire life to live and didn't make it meaningful.
House and Wilson play foosball. Cuddy comes in, and House tells her that Eve terminated her pregnancy after all and has been discharged. Um...hooray? I'm...really glad the rape baby is dead? I'm sure Eve was in the right frame of mind to really consider that decision, so it was the right one for her? I don't know how we're supposed to feel about Eve's decision here. She was emotionally vulnerable, and the guy she attached herself to strong-armed her into aborting a baby after she had, like, an hour to think about it. There is no "right" answer when it comes to abortion, but there is a wrong one. And that might have been it. But I guess we're not supposed to think that. This show is amazing in that it can make me root for a drug abuser over a cop and think that an incestuous marriage isn't such a bad thing, but sometimes I think it pushes things a little too far. Cuddy tells House that he "did good" by getting Eve to talk about what happened. She'll be okay now, Cuddy says. House doesn't think so. Talking about bad things doesn't necessarily make you feel better. I'm guessing that telling Eve about his father didn't have a healing effect on House. Wilson starts asking House why he even talked to Eve if he felt that way, and House takes that opportunity to score a goal on him. Ha! Wilson just makes an "oh, of course," look. "Because...I don't know," House answers. Wilson asks if House is going to follow up with Eve. "One day, one room," is all House says in reply. And then he decides not to spend any more moments in a room with Cuddy and Wilson. I can't help thinking that it's too bad Mr. B-Plot had so much life and did nothing with it, while Rape Baby didn't get the chance to do anything at all.