A guy eats steak and watches basketball. Around him, a bunch of men in suits argue over whether he should testify. Bill, his lawyer brother, doesn't think that the federal government's witness protection program will keep him safe. The Feds think differently. The witness, Joey, just wants everyone to shut up and step away from the TV set so that he can watch the game. He does complain, though, that he wanted pasta for dinner and they gave him steak. He starts to have his post-dinner cigarette, which Bill grabs out of his mouth and breaks in two, telling him to eat his "quit candy" instead. Joey says that the reason Bill doesn't want him to testify is because he'll lose his brother to the witness protection program. He might lose him sooner than that, though, as Joey stands up to go to the bathroom, gets dizzy, and collapses. The Feds, suspecting Joey of faking it, yell at him that either he's dead or he's testifying. Joey doesn't respond, because he's in a coma.
While the post-credits sequence of someone asking House to take a case and his reluctantly agreeing to do it was getting boring and predictable, it's much preferred to what we get this time, which is Vogler and Cuddy having a meeting. Vogler wants House's budget reports. Cuddy says that House didn't turn anything in to her. House enters before I can fall asleep and demands a lawyer; he got a federal court order to treat a comatose witness. Vogler tries to out-House House by sarcastically saying that treating sick people will be a public relations nightmare for the hospital, but since Vogler isn't House, it doesn't quite work. House just rolls his eyes and says he doesn't like the federal government ordering him around. Cuddy says that House can either hire and, presumably, pay for, his own lawyer; refuse to treat the patient and go to jail; or just treat the patient. House snaps that Cuddy would love to see him in jail, since her latest fantasy involves conjugal visits. Vogler appears to find this very entertaining, although as soon as House is out of the office, he's all serious again and tells Cuddy that their meeting will end either when House is fired or Cuddy has managed to convince Vogler that the hospital needs a cranky, snarky, sexual-harrassy guy on staff.
An inspection of the patient reveals that he is, indeed, in a deep coma. He doesn't even respond when House blasts his brand-new Gameboy DS in his ear, although I'm not sure what response House was expecting from him other than some hints at how to beat the last level of Metroid. He reports the findings to the Cottages, saying that Joey is an eight on the Glasgow coma scale, which is pretty near dead and impossible to fake. Poisoning and head trauma have been ruled out as causes, but House orders an MRI anyway, as well as any other tests he can think of, since the Feds are footing the bill and we all know how much money the government has.
Bill steps up and introduces himself as Bill Arnello, "Mr. Smith's" lawyer and brother. House tries to escape the human interaction by promising to do an extra-good job on the patient and hopping into the elevator. Bill follows. As the doors close, House asks if Joey is in the Mafia, and what his special Mafia nickname is. Bill pushes the "stop" button on the elevator, which doesn't intimidate House at all. Bill orders House to fix his brother, but not to release him. He wants time to convince his brother not to testify. House says that the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital tends to treat only sick people, so that might be difficult. Bill doesn't care. He gets the elevator moving again and tells House that if he doesn't fix Joey, he'll "take away the things you love 'til there's nothing left." If Bill wants his threat to be successful, he had better be talking about things and not people. Wilson might want to take a long vacation right about now, though, just in case. Fortunately, the elevator doors open shortly after the threat, sparing House and Bill from having to stand around in that awkward post-death-threat silence. House exits the elevator, saying he's assuming that Joey is in the Mafia.
Coma Joey and his prison tattoo get an MRI. In the booth, Cameron asks Chase if House seemed "weird" to her. You see, she explains, "we spoke about how we felt." She'd better be using the royal "we" there: I recall her speaking a lot, and House ending her monologue with exactly one word: "no." It wasn't much of a conversation, really. Chase -- who still hasn't learned his lesson about not getting distracted during patient tests -- asks Cameron why she would do a thing like that, and Cameron says that she likes House. She like likes House. But he doesn't like like her. Chase says that House doesn't like anybody, and "nobody" likes him, thereby implying that Cameron is a nobody. Good. Interesting how Chase's opinion of House has changed since he got yelled at last week.
House and the Cottages go over Joey's MRI films by his bedside. They found a subdural hematoma, probably caused by a run-in with the business end of a tire iron back in 1996. Liver tests were slightly elevated, but there's nothing that would cause a coma. Foreman wants to drill into Joey's head and "evacuate" the hematoma. Joey would rather he didn't, and voices that opinion, surprising everyone with his newly-awake state.
Coming off the elevator (drink!) Chase tells House that since Joey is totally fine now, he can be released. House would rather keep Joey around until they figure out what put him into the coma in the first place. That, and he found a tiny horse's head to his Gameboy DS earlier. Foreman agrees with Chase that Joey should be released. House turns to Cameron, calling her "my girl," because he has no problem playing with people's exposed emotional vulnerabilities when it will get him what he wants. Or when he's bored. Or both. But Cameron managed to grow little bit of a backbone this past week, and she agrees with Foreman and Chase. House dismisses her "medical opinion" by implying that she's only disagreeing with him because he shot her down. I felt sorry for Cameron until I remembered that if I were her, I would have left this job a long time ago. I certainly wouldn't have confessed my feelings to a guy who has made a hobby out of rubbing salt in other people's emotional wounds. House doesn't really care that all the Cottages are against him, since this isn't a democracy and he gets to do whatever he wants. And he wants Joey to stay.
House enters the Clinic exam room to find a young guy holding a fussing baby. House assumes that the baby belongs to the kid, who protests that this is his brother, whose care he has been entrusted with while the parents vacation in Barbados. Older bro claims he was studying when the baby started to cry, and now he's having trouble breathing and has been wheezing. House shoves a pair of forceps up the baby's left nostril and pulls out a tiny policeman figurine covered in nasty baby nose matter.
A page interrupts House from the rest of his Clinic work, and he limps over to Joey's room, which seems to be lacking its patient. Foreman explains that Vogler told the Feds that Joey was fine, and that they came and took him away. House wants to know who talked to Vogler. The Cottages shrug. One of them is LYING!
Back in their eternal meeting, Vogler is still trying to get House fired, saying that House loses money and is uncontrollable. Cuddy says that she is the only person capable of controlling House, which might be true in Happy Unicorn Fantasy Land, but I have yet to see much proof of this. For every hour of clinic duty she forces him to do, she seems to spend three alternately outsmarting and being outsmarted by him. House angrily bursts into the room. Vogler greets him with a little rap ditty complete with the air record-scratch, and he still isn't as cool as House no matter how hard he tries. Also, he hikes the back of his pants up way too high. Loosen up the 'penders, Vogler.
Vogler congratulates House on his "impeccable timing," but House isn't in the mood; he wants to know why Vogler was messing with his patient. Vogler pulls up a chair, saying he's ready for a demonstration of Cuddy's talents. Well, when you put her on the spot like that, there's just no way she can succeed. And indded, she gets about all of three words out before House is telling her that she doesn't know anything about his patient and snapping at Vogler that Vogler's not even a doctor. Vogler says that Joey was there because of a court order; he faxed Joey's records to the judge and she rescinded it. Thus, no more patient, and the government stays off the hospital's ass, not like they were really even on it. If they were, though, they could all fit on Vogler's ass alone, along with the entire population of New Jersey and probably most of the Eastern seaboard. House gets a page and takes off, apparently no longer having a problem with Vogler's decision. "Something's up," Vogler says.
Or down, as Joey has taken a turn for the worse and is being wheeled into the ER after barfing and passing out. Cuddy and Vogler come down to investigate, and the main Fed guy angrily says that they told House Joey was healthy again. House takes a minute to enjoy this moment of triumph.
The Cottages report that Joey's symptoms are totally different symptoms from the ones he had the last time he was there. He has symptoms of hepatitis C, and the blood test came back positive. But House thinks the suddenness of its onset indicates that whatever is wrong with Joey was initially caused by the something acute, not chronic. He may be suffering from the hepatitis now, but they should focus on figuring out whatever triggered it in the first place. Chase points out that Joey had raised estrogen levels in his blood, which apparently indicate that a chronic condition caused this. House asks Cameron what the other test results say, and Cameron reports that Joey's normal albumin levels could be a sign that he has an acute condition. House raises his eyebrows and once again tries to enjoy his moment of triumph, which is interrupted by Chase's bitchy whining about how Cameron's tests count more than his do. House says that Cameron's cuter, which is a subjective opinion. Cameron looks down at the test results and hopes House doesn't notice the part of the margin where she absent-mindedly drew a heart with the initials "A.C." and "G.H." in it.
House wants to do a liver biopsy before they treat Joey for hepatitis. Chase wants to do it now so that Joey will be healthier sooner -- earning him, House suspects, a gold star from Cuddy. Chase asks House if he's putting off the hep treatments to prevent any of them from getting gold stars, and House says that he can go ahead and start the hepatitis treatment right now, then. He asks for a biopsy of the liver, and Chase and Cameron are dismissed. Foreman is asked to stay behind.
Foreman and House move to House's office, where House says he's kicking Foreman off the case. Foreman is understandably confused. House explains that someone told on him to Vogler about how he lied to the transplant committee. Foreman laughs that House thinks it was Foreman, and House says that Foreman's actually the only person he knows didn't do it, because Foreman is "too careful" for that. He wants everyone in the world to think he thinks it was Foreman, thereby causing the true culprit to let his guard down so that House can catch him. All of this paranoia and secret plotting is kind of ridiculous, but not as much as the fact that Vogler's chairman of the board position seems to give him unlimited power.
Chase finishes an ultrasound of Joey's liver and tells the brothers that Joey has hepatitis C. Bill asks Chase how that happened, and Chase says it's usually transmitted through an "exchange of bodily fluids," like sex or drugs. Bill doesn't like either of those options, and gets all up in Chase's face. Chase doesn't know enough about American culture to realize that you shouldn't go against a mobster's commands, and maintains that Joey has hepatitis C and that they're going to treat him for it. Bill gives Chase one of the hardest bitch slaps I've ever seen in my life, and I have seen a lot of bitch slaps. Chase's hair flops all over the place from the impact and he tries not to cry as Bill orders him not to treat his brother for hepatitis C, which he certainly does not have. Chase just stands there and takes it. His wimpiness makes him less attractive to me. That, and his hair.
The Eternity Meeting continues. Vogler is now attempting to use clever psychological manipulation to convince Cuddy to fire House. He tells her how House doesn't respect her, and lies to her and makes her look like an idiot in front of the rest of her staff. Cuddy says that might all be true, but that House is an asset to this hospital, and that she will protect him because of that. Vogler accuses Cuddy of being "soft," which Cuddy bristles at since she's one of only three female chiefs of medicine in the country's major hospitals. Vogler says that Cuddy is protecting House because she likes him, and that kind of thinking is "bad for business." Cuddy just sits there and takes it. Her wimpiness makes her less attractive to me. That, and the fact that she's female.
The nose baby and his brother are back. Bill enters the room, since mobsters and big donors are allowed to go wherever they want in today's hospitals. House tells Bill to wait a second as he attempts to shove some forceps up the fidgeting crying baby's nose. Bill steps right up to the baby and yells at him to stop, and sure enough, the baby shuts up and stays still, allowing House to pull a tiny firefighter out of his nose. House compliments Bill on the "neat trick." "They have to believe you'll actually hurt them," Bill says. I guess we're all relieved that Bill didn't bitch-slap the baby.
Bill and House enter House's office. Bill tells House that "his people" insulted Joey by saying he was either a "crackhead" or a "homo." Since when was hepatitis C something only gay guys got? Bill needs to stop watching The Sopranos and start watching whatever show will inform him of the difference between crackheads and heroin addicts. You don't get hepatitis by sharing a pipe, so much. House says that if Bill has a problem with what hepatitis C indicates about his brother, Bill can just assume that Joey got raped in prison. No one suggests this, but Joey also could have gotten it from his tattoo or, you know, from heterosexual sex. Bill's worried that people will find out that Joey is being treated for hepatitis C, and his reputation in the mob world will be destroyed, because all mobsters apparently believe that hepatitis = gay. House says he's more than happy to treat Joey for hepatitis without putting it on Joey's records. Bill thanks him, then asks if the hepatitis drugs will fix his brother. "I doubt it," House says. So then...why, exactly, are they giving it to him at all?
Wilson and House walk through the parking garage and talk about Vogler. Wilson warns House that Cuddy and Vogler have been talking about House for the past two days. House isn't paying attention because his car is gone. He assumes it's been stolen, but Wilson says it seems to have been "reincarnated." There's a shiny red 1965 Corvette in House's parking spot, with a thank-you note on the windshield, signed by Bill and Joey. Wilson says there's no way House can keep it, but House says he didn't ask for it or make it a condition of Joey's getting proper treatment, so there's really nothing except an appearance of impropriety. And House doesn't think the Mob will take kindly to having their gift returned. He has no choice but to keep this awesome gift. Wilson seems to agree.
In the lab, Chase and Cameron talk about House's hot new car. Cameron, all high on House calling her "cute" and "my girl," defends it by saying that House's getting a car from a patient's brother is no worse than Vogler's getting favors for donating money to the hospital. Chase, his cheek still sore, says that at least Vogler doesn't set Chase up to get smacked in the face. Foreman enters the lab and says that Joey's liver is getting worse. House enters with the biopsy results, which say that Joey's liver problems are caused by an acute condition, and not by the hepatitis. He enjoys his moment of triumph, his third of the episode, and then asks Foreman why he's working on a case House took him off of. Foreman loudly says he wants no part of House's diabolical plan to expose the evil genius working against him. "Well, it's clearly not gonna work now," House says. He'll have to go back to his secret whiteboard to sketch out another plan! Ears suddenly burning, Chase asks who the "evil genius" is, and House says that if he knew that, he wouldn't need a diabolical plan to fish him out, would he? No, he could just see which Cottage is the most interested in the investigation and overly defending his innocence, and that'll give him the answer right there. And it's not Foreman or Cameron, who go right back to work, asking House what could be killing Joey's liver if it isn't the hepatitis. House's guess is toxins. Cameron protests that Joey isn't involved in a career that would expose him to toxins. House reminds her that Joey is a mobster. They get exposed to all kinds of stuff, including poison.
Feds stand guard outside Joey's room. Bill paces worriedly.
Meanwhile, House and the Cottages are kind of screwed, since Joey's liver only has about two hours left and it's not very likely that they'll get a transplant in such a short amount of time, especially since Organ Transplant Queen Cuddy is too busy with Vogler to work her special brand of magic, i.e. buying a liver from the black market. House says that there is a way they can buy some time.
A live pig is lead through the halls. Cuddy may want to keep that in mind the time she's desperately searching for the unsanitary conditions that may have caused a baby-killing outbreak.
In an operating room, Joey and the pig are worked on while Chase voice-overs that they're basically using the pig as a dialysis machine. Joey's blood is circulated through the pig (whose liver cleans it), and then is put back into Joey's body. Don't go out and try this on some random pig you find on the farm, though; these pigs are genetically altered for this. Chase says that the procedure won't cure Joey, but that it will give them more time to figure out what's wrong and, one hopes, treat it. Chase pats Bill on the shoulder, apparently quite comfortable interacting with a man who has been known to slap him for no reason.
Cameron and Foreman are on poison-test duty. Cameron reports that they can rule out hemlock, and Foreman laughs at her for testing for something that is just so ancient Greece. Cameron points out that hemlock does grow wild by the highways of New Jersey, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. Foreman gets to what he really wants to talk about: Cameron's crush on their boss. Cameron says that Chase has a big mouth, and Foreman says that Chase is probably the person who ratted on House to Vogler. House enters and asks if they have any new information from the test results. They don't, except that Joey is a long-time smoker who has been trying to quit recently. House gets all close to Cameron, who says that Joey started quitting two weeks ago. House nods and hobbles off. Foreman asks if Cameron just got all giddy because House was so close to her. Cameron tries to make a witty retort, but it ain't happening.
The main Fed questions one of Joey's guards about a suspicious recent infusion of cash into his bank account. House interrupts to say he figured out what's wrong with Joey: he took so much of that "quit candy," some herbal thing from China, that it poisoned him. They'll just keep Joey on the pig liver for a while to filter it out of his system, and he'll be fine.
Indeed, Joey wakes up and tells his relieved brother that he's hungry. Bill says that fish sticks are on tonight's menu. Joey groans.
House and Wilson tool around town in House's new convertible. House says that Joey will be discharged tomorrow to testify to his heart's content. Bill's not going to like that, but House doesn't seem to care. Wilson suggests that House let Vogler do the honors of telling the Feds they'll have their witness back soon, since that will make Vogler happy, and therefore make it more likely that House will keep his job. He also suggests that House learn how to drive better. House says that the later Corvette models came with a "shut up" button. I bet there's not a day that goes by where House doesn't wish for the creation of a shut up button. He'd use it more than his Gameboy.
The day, House enters Cuddy's office, where she and Vogler are still having their meeting. Surely it's bad for business to discuss this for such a long time, keeping Cuddy from doing whatever else she does at the hospital. Anyway, House is wearing his labcoat, drawing funny looks from everyone, including whatever random hospital officials happen to pass by, and he does his best impersonation of meek as he reports that Joey is healthy and can be released. Vogler calls up the U.S. Attorney's office while Cuddy whispers to House that his lab coat looks "good" on him. She does want to know how the quit candy could wreak such havoc on Joey's liver. House says that those hepatitis C drugs exacerbated the toxic effects. Of course, Cuddy didn't know anything about any hepatitis C drugs. "Oops!" says House, as he loses whatever points he gained with Cuddy by wearing that labcoat, and then some. House's beeper interrupts Cuddy's whispered lecture, and House informs "Ed" that Joey is back in a coma. Vogler hangs up the phone and hopes that the U.S. Attorney's office thinks dialing *69 is bad for business.
Joey is now worse than ever before, and no one knows why. Chase thinks it's the hepatitis C, and House says that they already figured out that the chronic condition wasn't bad enough to do this much damage. Foreman says those estrogen levels say that the chronic condition is bad enough to cause Joey's problems. House says that the estrogen levels are another matter entirely. No one seems to have considered the possibility that Joey is actually a woman, because that would be ridiculous. Cameron says that even if it is the hepatitis C, they can't do anything because the quit candy is still in Joey's system and treatment will kill him. But he'll die if they don't do anything, too. Chase knows of a treatment still in the testing stages at a nearby hospital, and suggests trying that. Sure, it's never been used on a human before, but it's not like they have anything to lose, except for everything they love, killed one by one. The Cottages get up and go to work. Before they leave, House wonders what else could elevate Joey's estrogen levels. "Nothing," Cameron says. Don't trust that, House.
Back at the Clinic, the baby is back with more nose problems. House uses some Mob mentality and threatens to snap the baby's nose off if it doesn't stop crying and squirming. It works, and House pulls a tiny firetruck out of his nose. Older brother says his brother isn't very smart, and, of course, House says that genetics are powerful. He sets the firetruck down to the fireman and the policeman, and then he has a thought. He grabs some crazy electromagnet thing out of the cabinet, saying he's always wanted to use it, and sticks it under the baby's nose. A large metal cat figurine pops out, and House compliments the baby on his well-developed sense of relationships, which we already knew when he did exactly what the dangerous mobster told him to, already making his sense of relationships better than Chase's. House explains that the baby stuck the police and fire people up his nose to save the cat. Great, but how did House know that whatever was up there was made of metal? Or that it wouldn't rip the baby's nose off on its way out? And how can you be smart enough to identify safety officers, but still stupid enough to stick a metal cat up your nose? It all gives House an idea, and he rushes off.
House writes questions to himself on the whiteboard. Why did Joey go into the coma, and why did he come out of it? Chase enters to report that Joey is not improving, and asks House whether he has an explanation for the estrogen thing. House says he does, but that he's not telling anyone. Chase takes that to mean that House thinks he's the one who told on him to Vogler. House says that Chase is at the top of the list, and, getting back to their dying patient, that the only coma you could come out of so quickly is a toxic one. Chase says that wouldn't explain the second coma, since all of Joey's food and environmental stuff has been strictly monitored. And also, he totally didn't tell on House to Vogler. Joey ate steak before his first coma, and fish sticks before the second. House can trust Chase, really. House says that Chase's assertions of honesty don't really mean anything, and leaves.
House sidles up to that Fed guard and asks him how, exactly, he got all that money he was being questioned about before. Bill comes up behind them and tells House to leave the guy alone, which tells House all he needs to know. Bill and House walk down the hall, and Bill admits that he paid the guy to bring his brother some pasta for dinner, although the guy ended up bringing back steak, since the Feds are all ardent believers in the Atkins diet, apparently. House says that Joey has ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, meaning that his body can't break down large amounts of protein, especially when he's not used to them since he usually eats pasta. Thus, it was the steak that put him in the comas. This doesn't explain the estrogen level, but House says he knows of a chemical that raises one's estrogen levels dramatically when ingested: estrogen. Bill asks why, exactly, his brother would be taking girly hormones. House says there are some in a Chinese herbal aphrodisiac for gay men, which just happens to be sold on the same website that sells Joey's quit candy. Bill asks House if he wants to get bitch-slapped, too. House says Bill would have to slap him pretty hard to turn Joey straight. He tells Bill to be real here: mob guys like Joey don't get raped in prison unless, you know, they want to be. Bill insists that his brother is not gay. House says that Bill's over-defense of his brother's heterosexuality indicates that he has an idea that it isn't true, just like Chase's over-defense of his innocence indicated that he was actually guilty. House says it's up to Bill: if he doesn't think his brother is gay, then the hepatitis treatment should continue. If he does think Joey is gay, then the treatment has to stop and Joey will recover on his own. Joey will die if Bill makes the wrong choice. Joey, and every family member House and the Cottages have. They'll even dig up Cameron's poor, dead, husband and kill him again.
Bill takes a minute to himself to think, and then finds House outside Joey's room. He tells him to stop the treatment. Chase does so, and Bill says that Joey never said anything to him about being gay. House says that the Mob isn't known for its tolerance of others. He suggests that Joey's reason for wanting to testify might have been that the Witness Protection Program would allow him to start a whole new gay life for himself.
Three hours later, Bill is having second thoughts about taking Joey off the hepatitis medicine. But then Cameron comes up and informs him that Joey just woke up and asked to see him. Looks like Bill made the right choice after all.
Joey tells his brother he looks like crap. Bill says he just went through a lot of crap, having to figure out whether Joey was "normal" or not. Joey asks what Bill means by "normal," and Bill clarifies that House thought Joey was a "fag," and was using the Witness Protection Program to go out and be one. Joey asks Bill what he thinks, and Bill says he didn't know, but he had to make a decision, so he agreed with House. And lo and behold, Joey is getting better. Joey tries to talk to Bill, but Bill says there's nothing to talk about. Obviously, that Chinese internet company sent Joey the wrong pills and he took them without realizing it, probably because he was distracted because he was having sex with a woman. Joey figures that's as much acceptance as he's going to get, and drops it. Bill says that if Joey wants to testify, then Bill will support him. In the testifying thing, not the gay thing, which doesn't exist. He wants Joey to do whatever will make him happy. They hold hands, but not in a homosexual way.
The Eternity Meeting has concluded, and Cuddy informs House that Vogler wanted to get rid of House and his entire department. House drops a few pills in his hand and thanks Cuddy for sticking up for him, saying she'll have to follow it up with a "nasty" weekend in Vegas where she can really show off her administrative skills. Cuddy says that Vogler threatened to fire her, and House gets sincere for a second to apologize for that. He assumes this means he's been fired, but Cuddy says she just told Vogler that she knows everything about how the hospital runs, so firing her is not an option, and neither is firing House. House says that Vogler will figure everything out eventually and be able to replace Cuddy, so the solution is only temporary. Cuddy says she'll deal with it then. For now, though, "some things are going to change."
Not all things, though, as a lab coat-less House and Wilson walk down the hall. Wilson suggests that House rent out his new Corvette to try to make some money for the department and appease Vogler. He also points out the significance of Cuddy's sticking up for House. "To a point," House says. In return for not getting fired, he and two of the Cottages have to do six more Clinic hours a month. The third Cottage won't be doing any Clinic hours, since s/he will be fired. With that, House enters the meeting room. He and Wilson exchange a look through the window, and then House begins the day.