Join us, won't you, for a day in the life of Cuddy? Watch as she attempts to make it through a long day filled with evil health insurance companies, ungrateful patients who are either sue-happy or obsessed with breast milk, all of House's problems, employees who are even worse than House, an insane surgery unit, a boyfriend who makes bets on their sex life, a sick kid and an unresponsive nanny, and being called an idiot or a bitch several times. It's the most thankless job in the most thankless life in the world, but just when Cuddy's about to quit, everything resolves itself in time for a cheery and cheesy music montage. It's nice to see PPTH from someone else's point of view every once in a while, but there's a reason why this show is called House and not Cuddy.
An alarm goes off at 5 am, already telling us there's no way we're in House's apartment. He barely gets to PPTH in time for lunch. No, this episode belongs to Cuddy, who manages to not look beastly at 5 in the morning, which is quite the accomplishment. She reaches across the bed for Lucas, but he isn't there. So she checks her Blackberry instead before going through her morning yoga routine. And she's supposed to be a semi-new mother? I don't think so. Sure enough, Rachel's cries soon put an end to Cuddy's alone time. She throws her baby in the shower with her, which, while cute, is a great way to burn and drown your baby at the same time. Cuddy hustles through the rest of her morning routine, getting ready for work while keeping an eye on both the time and her daughter, who has learned to walk and is using the knowledge to get into all sorts of trouble. Finally, the nanny arrives along with Lucas, who is annoyingly unsympathetic both to Rachel's fever and the fact that Cuddy is running late to work, where she has to give some important proposal at 8:30 that she hasn't even finished writing yet. I guess she should have been working on it instead of doing yoga. Lucas wants to have sex with Cuddy before she leaves, and has no problem letting her know this in front of the kid and the nanny. He promises to be finished with her in ten minutes, and they make out in bed for a while until an "emergency page" from House interrupts them. Well, it interrupts Lucas, who is obsessed with House. Cuddy just tells him to ignore it. Two minutes and one cheesy wipe later, they've just concluded having sex with most of their clothes on. This includes Lucas's jeans and belt. This House-at-8-pm thing is really killing the realism of this show. The only hint that they've just had sex is the fact that they're breathing heavily. Lucas apologizes for being way too fast on the draw, promising to make it up to her if she gives him a few minutes to collect himself. She does. And we now officially know way too much about Cuddy's sex life.
Cuddy arrives at PPTH, where a nurse who isn't Evil Nurse Brenda informs her that there's a problem in the pharmacy while House limps up to demand Cuddy's attention because she didn't answer his emergency page. Apparently, Cuddy was right to turn down his latest insane diagnostic tool of infecting a patient with malaria. Her victory is short-lived, however, when House reveals that he was with Lucas on his stake-out last night (Lucas was checking out someone's claim of a "soft tissue injury" and despite being a private detective for years and supposedly good at his job, he had to take House along with him for confirmation. This is also despite Lucas and House clearly having their differences just last episode) and they made a bet with each other over whether or not Cuddy would stop sex to answer a page from House, as he claims that Lucas told him they have sex every morning. Either that, or House has been sitting in the bushes under Cuddy's bedroom window every morning. Either way, someone is a sleazebag here. The nurse who doubles as Cuddy's assistant because Cuddy is too lazy to hire a real assistant and takes her nurses for granted walks in to tell Cuddy that the pharmacy still has a problem and her 8:30 appointment is here early. Cuddy hands Nurse Assistant something and asks her to proofread it for her, because that's what Nurse Assistant spent all that time in nursing school to do.
Cuddy arrives at the pharmacy, where an Andy Dick lookalike tech says they received twice the amount of meds they ordered and he can't find a purchase order to show to the drug company to prove their mistake because they've all gone missing. Which is apparently Gail's fault, but she's sick today and Andy Dick wants to make absolutely sure he doesn't get blamed for this. Instead, he can be blamed for seriously wasting Cuddy's time. Cuddy's about to leave when a thought occurs to her. She asks Andy Dick which drug they got the double order of. "Vicodin?" she guesses, because it's all about House. But this time her hunch is wrong, as Andy Dick says the double order was for ephedrine. Something about that causes Cuddy to order sick Gail into work ASAP.
Nurse Assistant is ordered to get Cuddy's 8:30 appointment a cup of coffee while she attends to an emergency page to the OR, where a surgeon whines that House bribed the maintenance people to make it extra-cold in there so Dr. Crybaby would hurry up and finish, thus freeing the room up for House's patient. Yes, because nothing makes you speed up like having frozen fingers when you're trying to do delicate work. Cuddy wants Dr. Crybaby to deal with this on his own, but he says he's busy doing surgery on a patient who is about to freeze to death. Cuddy is left to call the heating guys and make them turn it back on. She might also want to fire them for taking money to turn the heat off at the expense of the health of a patient. And then she can fire House for doing the bribing in the first place, because his patient isn't any more important than the guy who now has icicles in his spleen.
House is waiting for Cuddy outside the OR. He makes a joke about Wilson's tendency to donate his liver to anyone who needs it (I love that this is a running joke now, by the way) before informing her that his patient is covered with boils and a giant abscess and thus needs an OR right away, so freezing Dr. Crybaby out of it was necessary. Cuddy says Dr. Crybaby will be done just as soon as he and his patient thaw out. She escapes House by dashing into an elevator at the same time as the nanny calls with an update on Rachel's condition: she barfed and still has a fever. Good thing we aren't watching an episode from Rachel's point of view. Cuddy tells the nanny to call back in a half hour before finally making it into her office for her 8:30 meeting with Eli Morgan, the representative for Generic Evil Health Insurance Company, whose contract with PPTH is up today. Eli and Cuddy have been trying to negotiate the terms of a new contract for months and Cuddy is apparently done with it. She hands Eli a folder that contains PPTH's "final offer:" a 12% increase in all reimbursements in return for PPTH agreeing to a capitated structure (as opposed to a "fee for service" structure, where the provider is paid for each service, the capitated structure pays a set amount per person enrolled regardless of what, if any, services he requires). Basically, Generic Evil Health Insurance Company is sick of paying out the ass for all of those expensive and unnecessary tests and scans House runs on his patients, so they've cleverly changed it so that now it's PPTH's finances that House will drain with his nonsense. Without even bothering to look at the proposal after all of Nurse Assistant's proofreading work, Eli tells Cuddy "not a chance" and turns to leave with a "say hi to your sister for me." What's that about? Is Cuddy's sister tight with evil health insurance companies or something? Cuddy gets tough and informs Eli that if he turns her offer down, PPTH will terminate its contract with GEHI Co. Eli isn't worried about this at all, figuring GEHI Co. has PPTH by the balls since GEHI Co. insures 80% of PPTH's patients and PPTH is the smallest hospital in GEHI Co.'s network, which means it doesn't have the same leverage as the larger hospitals do. "You can be expensive or small. But you can't be both," he says. Cuddy confidently says she hired a big-deal PR firm to represent PPTH and will make the contract termination announcement at 3 pm unless Eli changes his mind. Eli doesn't look like he's going to budge an inch.
One hour later, Cuddy has another meeting, this time with PPTH's board of directors. More like bored of directors. I'm getting a sinking feeling that we're just going to watch an hour of Cuddy going about her daily business full of administrative minutia. If I wanted to see that, I'd get a real job. Cuddy hands Nurse Assistant an envelope full of scripts for the customer service reps that might be very busy starting at 3 pm today if Eli doesn't agree to Cud
dy's demands. Cuddy orders Nurse Assistant to keep this quiet, but as soon as she leaves her office, she finds House ready to talk to her about how and why her negotiating strategy failed (basically, she was wearing the wrong bra). Cuddy worries that House heard something through the grapevine, but no, he figured it all out based on empirical evidence. As he does. He's thrilled to hear that Cuddy played hardball with the health insurance company solely because he thinks this will be "fun to watch." Hmmm ... I'm not so sure about that. Cuddy escapes House's questions by jumping in an elevator as Taub and Hadley get off of it to tell House about the latest tragedy to befall their patient, who is apparently named "Mr. Pluto." Um, ok. WHY aren't we seeing Mr. Pluto this week? He sounds awesome. The Cottages think Mr. Pluto has congestive heart failure, but House knows the real diagnosis. As he says it, the elevator doors close. We, like Cuddy, will never know. Or care.On her way into the meeting, Cuddy has a confrontation with another doctor. This time it's Dr. Dave Thomas, who, along with founding Wendy's, is PPTH's Chief of Surgery. And he just had to deal with Dr. Crybaby moaning about House for twenty minutes, so he's a little sick of House and how PPTH caters to his every whim while he can't get a replacement for Chase, who he says House "stole" from him. Well, maybe if you hadn't forced Chase to do like every single surgery then he wouldn't rather work for House than you, Dave. He says that if Cuddy doesn't stop putting out House's fires and start "doing [her] damn job," she'll be looking for a new Chief of Surgery. Cuddy just lets him talk to her like this. Weak.
Cuddy enters the conference room, where the various suits and one whose lab coat tells us that he is a doctor ask for details on what Dr. Dave's damage was. Mind your own business, Dr. Nosy. With that, they get down to business: the pending deal with GEHI Co. Cuddy updates them on her "final offer" and accompanying 3 pm termination ultimatum. No one is pleased with this, least of all Dr. Nosy, who says PPTH will be out of business in three months if they don't take GEHI Co. insurance. The only other conference attendee who gets lines says that Cuddy's 12% increase request when GEHI Co. was only offering them 4% is kind of insane. Cuddy doesn't think 12% is a problem for GEHI Co., pointing out that they're giving more than that to other hospitals who aren't nearly as good as PPTH. "In a perfect world, that would definitely matter," the suit says. That guy is cool. Let's have an episode all about his life , please. I do like how Cuddy has the nerve to say that PPTH is such a great hospital when its employees are literally freezing each other (and their patients) out of operating rooms. If PPTH is one of the best-rated hospitals in the state with that standard of care, then I weep for New Jersey. Cuddy seems to think that GEHI Co. needs PPTH in its network to be able to convince potential customers that its coverage is the best. HA! Cuddy seems to be under the mistaken impression that people have a choice when it comes to health insurance providers. For most people in this country, your insurance dictates where you receive care, not vice versa. For instance, when the hospital my surgeon wanted to do my tonsillectomy at wasn't in my health insurance company's network, I just asked to have the surgery performed at a hospital that was. And I found that surgeon in the first place by looking through my health insurance company's list of in-network doctors. Not to mention that if GEHI Co. subscribers are that desperate for PPTH care, they can simply go to the Clinic for free. "They need us," Cuddy says of GEHI Co. "No. We need them," says Dr. Nosy. "We need each other," says the suit. He pauses so some random woman can nod wisely, then ends the meeting with a final offer of his own: if Cuddy terminates PPTH's contract with GEHI Co., then the board will terminate her. Cuddy manages to look confident until she reaches an empty elevator, at which point she allows herself to look slightly terrified and very tired.
Cuddy tries to return to her office, but first she must deal with Nurse Assistant, who tattles on House for not showing up to Clinic duty. Instead of being a boss and ordering House to stop napping and start working, Cuddy does House's work for him, because apparently she just doesn't have enough to do. Her patient, an older gentleman, announces that he has cancer, and the only cure for it is breast milk. Not more cowbell? For some strange reason, the patient's oncologist won't write him a prescription for it. Um, is breast milk even able in a prescription? I'm pretty sure I've never seen it in my pharmacy before. "It has cancer-fighting qualities," the patient claims. He thinks that all he needs is a prescription and then he'll be able buy it from the local breast milk shop and his insurance will reimburse him. "They have no choice but to pay!" he thinks. HAHAHAHA! WRONG! Cuddy tries to school him, but he only gets angry at her, accusing her of trying to help his insurance company screw him over after he's paid premiums for thirty years and "never been sick a day in [his] life" until he got cancer. Now he can't work and that means he can't pay for breast milk unless it'll be reimbursed by his health insurance company. Seriously, how expensive can breast milk be? Cow milk at Trader Joe's is less than two bucks for a half gallon. This guy is going to the wrong breast milk stores. He demands that Cuddy give him his goddamn breast milk. Go ahead and do it, Cuddy. It won't be your problem when he gets turned down for the reimbursement on something he already paid full price for. But she refuses, so he calls her a bitch and leaves. Way to get way too angry with someone who's trying to help you out with your weird breast milk obsession, guy.
Cuddy emerges from the exam room and hopefully asks Nurse Assistant if anyone called for her. Someone did, but it's not Eli. Instead, there's some problem in the ER because one of the on-call doctors doesn't actually have privileges at PPTH. Yes, the best hospital in New Jersey has doctors in its ER that aren't allowed to practice. Cuddy tells Nurse Assistant to call Dr. Arochefsky and have her fill in, saying she's bound to agree because she owes Cuddy a favor. We will never find out what all that's about, so who cares? Also, there's some lawyer-type guy in Cuddy's office that Nurse Assistant just let wander in there because he didn't want to wait outside with "a bunch of sick people." That, and he probably got creeped out by the guy sitting to him who kept talking about breast milk. time, Cuddy, lock your office.
The very lawyerly-named lawyer, Ronald Westbrook, represents a former PPTH patient named Martin Acevedo, which is Spanish for "Ungrateful Bastard." He's suing PPTH and Chase for performing surgery on him without his consent. Cuddy says she saw the signed consent forms with her own two eyes. Westbrook says Martin signed under the belief that he'd just be getting stitches to close the wound where his thumb used to be before he accidentally cut it off with a table saw. Instead, Chase re-attached his thumb like an asshole.
Cuddy goes to Chase, who admits that Martin requested the "cheapest" solution his missing thumb problem because he had to cover 40% of the cost thanks to his crappy insurance. Oh my god, is this an episode of House or is it a Michael Moore documentary? Health insurance is a freaking mess, but I don't know that the best way to show that is with a guy who thinks breast milk will cure his cancer and another guy who is such a penny pincher that he'd rather lose his ability to pinch than pay for thumb re-attachment surgery. Chase just couldn't let a good thumb go to waste, so as soon as they put Martin under, Chase went and re-attached his thumb anyway, figuring Martin would be grateful. Instead, Martin is on the hook for thousands of dollars in unwanted medical bills so he and his insurance company are suing PPTH to get out of paying the $80,000 bill. Chase just shrugs and says he couldn't bear to leave a patient unnecessarily thumbless "just to save a couple of bucks." Then he shouldn't have lied to his patient in the first place. I hope this comes out of his paycheck. And he gets fired. Because even though reattaching the thumb might have been in Martin's best interest, I don't like the thought of a surgeon being allowed to do whatever surgery he thinks is best for me, whether I want him to or not.
Cuddy doesn't have time to fight with Chase, though, as it's time for her meeting with Gail, the pharmacist. Gail is slightly overweight, which is how Cuddy knew that she must have ordered that ephedrine for herself to use as a weight loss aid. And she couldn't buy a diet pill at the drug store? Or a salad? Really? But Gail seems to think that ephedrine was the only way for her to lose weight and thus the only way her husband would find her attractive again. Cuddy says there are "healthy" and "legal" ways to lose weight. Like not eating so much, which should be easy for Gail now that she is sure to be unemployed. She begs Cuddy not to fire her, but come the hell on, Gail. She puts a big guilt trip on Cuddy, saying her husband will divorce her for sure if she gets fired, like her marriage problems are Cuddy's fault. Also, whoever is playing Gail is a terrible actress. She's supposed to be crying but there are no tears and her forehead isn't wrinkled so it looks like she's laughing rather than sobbing. They couldn't find any other slightly overweight actresses for this part? Cuddy says she'll do Gail a favor by not reporting her to the DEA, but she has to fire her. Cuddy at least has the grace to look sad about it. I wouldn't. You steal drugs from my pharmacy and you are done! Also, Gail called out sick today but she doesn't seem very sick. She was probably lying about that too. Go burn some calories on the long walk to HR, Gail!
Cuddy has lunch with Wilson in the cafeteria and updates him on her shitty day. Wilson tries to make her feel better until Cuddy tells him why, exactly, the board is threatening to fire her and he says her termination is a distinct possibility because he, like everyone except Cuddy, doesn't see GEHI Co. agreeing to a 12% increase. Cuddy says her personal life isn't faring much better, as the nanny won't return her calls and she's going to have a huge fight with Lucas when she gets home. Not only that, but also the salad she just bought looks gross and the lettuce is probably swarming with E. coli. She asks Wilson for advice on the health insurance thing, but he just urges her to talk to House, saying that he is a wimp when it comes to these kinds of things and House is definitely not. For some reason, Cuddy thinks that House will only make things worse.
And yet, when she arrives back at her office, House is sitting in her desk chair and using her laptop. I have no sympathy for her because she should have learned and locked her door after the lawyer got in. Either that, or hire a real assistant who will keep people out. Cuddy greets him with "get out of my chair. And the answer's no," while House greets her back by mentioning all the porn sites that service the internet community's desire to see videos of naughty moms. And no, he does not get out of her chair. Instead, he shoves a consent form to treat Mr. Pluto's renal cell carcinoma with malaria and orders her to sign it. I don't know why we're bothering with consent forms when Chase already made it clear that PPTH doctors don't pay attention to them and do whatever they want anyway. "I'm giving him chemo too," House reassures her. "What is your sudden obsession with malaria?" Cuddy asks. House claims it's somehow a cheaper way to treat the patient, but Cuddy guesses he has a bet with a certain someone that he can use malaria as a diagnostic tool. "That doesn't sound like me," House says, adding that he doesn't see how his gamble on one patient is "juvenile, irresponsible, and dangerous," while Cuddy's gamble with GEHI Co is a "carefully considered negotiating position."
Cuddy gives Nurse Assistant more work to do, then runs after Stan, the head pharmacist, and nags him to audit those ephedrine orders. He's strangely reluctant to do his own job, even when prodded by his boss. What the hell is going on down in that pharmacy? Ever since Marco the pharmacist ran off with Evil Nurse Brenda to work at St. Sebastian's (who probably had no problem getting GEHI Co. to agree to a 15% increase), it's been a mess. Lucas arrives with some spinach lasagna for lunch because he apparently wants her to fall into a carb coma right around that 3 pm deadline. And because Lucas is an idiot, he seemed to think he could make a bet with House regarding his sex life with Cuddy and House wouldn't tell Cuddy about it at the first possible opportunity. When Cuddy confronts Lucas about this, he insincerely apologizes and says he'll only say bad things about their sex life from here on out. Does he think he's funny? He isn't, and he's annoying, and he isn't even good in bed. I don't get it. Oh, and then it turns out that the reason why the nanny hasn't called Cuddy back is because Lucas told her not to, saying he'd do it when he stopped by her workplace unannounced. He then avoids telling Cuddy about Rachel to ask what the expression "to break a fever" means. Because when a concerned mother asks about her baby daughter's fever, what she really wants is to wait as long as possible for the answer. FINALLY, he says Rachel's fever is gone, but she does have a teeny tiny rash. When Cuddy goes to call the nanny about this, something rings in Lucas's pocket. Yes, he took the nanny's cell phone by accident. And turned the ringer off on Cuddy house phone so it wouldn't wake him up. Oh my god, is everyone in Cuddy's life a fucking dumbass??? This is maddening! Lucas offers to make it up to her by digging up some dirt on Eli and the GEHI Co. CEO to get him to agree to Cuddy's demands.
Lucas does end up helping Cuddy track down the CEO so she can talk to him while he's trying to enjoy his lunch. She introduces herself to him, and he's not exactly thrilled to make her acquaintance. Also, is he drinking a martini with his giant steak lunch? Isn't it a work day? What the hell? He hints to Cuddy that the negotiating team is who she should deal with here, but she persists listing off all of PPTH's good points, including the fact that it has the "most innovative" diagnostic team in the country, whatever that means. PPTH needs all the money it can get to save as many lives as possible, while GEHI Co. needs money to fuel its private jets and sponsor PGA tours. And Cuddy is ready, willing, and able to tell the world that in a press conference if GEHI Co. doesn't agree to her demands. CEO seems to respect Cuddy's persistence, only to say that he really doesn't care what she says about him in the newspapers "as long as [he] stays rich." And the best way he can do that is to refuse to agree to Cuddy's demands.
Cuddy returns to PPTH, only to be summoned back to the pharmacy for an urgent matter. Stan the pharmacist finally did his job for the first time in years, and it turns out that Gail has been over-ordering and stealing drugs for quite some time now -- ten cases' worth ov
er the past three years, to be exact. Cuddy asks Stan how he could possibly be this in the dark about the pharmacy he manages for this long. Stan says he "delegated" that work to Gail because he is obviously one of those bosses who gets out of doing as much of his job as possible by assigning it to the people under him who are powerless to refuse. "[Gail] seemed perfectly trustworthy. How was I supposed to know?" Stan whines. "By doing your job," Cuddy snaps. Seriously. Fire him! Cuddy says they'll have to report this to the DEA, since Gail wasn't stealing $50,000 worth of drugs to lose weight as she claimed, but to sell it to meth labs. HA HA HA! I hope GEHI Co. finds out about where that 12% increase is going.Cuddy enters her office (which she left unlocked yet again) to find Eli waiting for her. He says the CEO was impressed enough with Cuddy's lunch visit to say he'd offer her double her PPTH salary to work for him. She should totally take that job. Are you kidding me? This PPTH shit is thankless. The CEO also authorized Eli to offer Cuddy an 8% increase. That sounds like a nice compromise to me -- right in the middle of both sides' final offers. And yet, Cuddy says it's 12% or nothing, because anything less won't cover PPTH's operating expenses and the risk they'll have to assume with that new capitated structure. Eli says it's not always about how much you deserve, but how much you can get. And 8% is all PPTH is going to get. Also, Eli claims that the guy who mows his lawn makes more than his kids' teachers. Either Eli has a massive yard, or he's being way overcharged.
Cuddy heads into a stairwell to think about things because she knows this is the only place where she can be alone, since people walk in and out of her office all day long and everyone at PPTH takes that one elevator. When Cuddy emerges from her Fortress of Solitude, she finds House standing in the doorway waiting for her. Mr. Pluto now needs a liver transplant, and that means dealing with Dr. Crybaby, who is apparently PPTH's go-to guy for transplant surgeries. The subject of liver transplants reminds Cuddy of Wilson, and then his advice to Cuddy to talk to House. She sighs and finally asks him what he would do about GEHI Co. and the 8% increase. "It's all numbers. Do the math -- and nothing else," he says, sounding oddly not sarcastic. He has a point, as Cuddy is emotionally invested in this, saying it's not fair that the GEHI Co. is trying to low-ball PPTH just because they're a small hospital. House reminds her that that's how business works. Which is something you'd think she would have learned by now.
Cuddy hangs out in her office until the clock strikes three without a call from GEHI Co. agreeing to 12%. And so, as promised, Cuddy calls a meeting with her employees to announce that PPTH will soon be making a formal announcement that at 5 pm today, their contract with GEHI Co. will be terminated. People are not pleased about this at all, and mutter angrily. I like the one guy who yells "why weren't we told about this sooner?!" like his one problem with Cuddy's PPTH-bankrupting decision is that he didn't get an earlier heads-up.
It's ten minutes to four and Cuddy still can't get her freaking nanny on the phone. Fire her! Fire EVERYONE! How can everyone who works for Cuddy be this incompetent? Does she hire idiots on purpose so she'll look smarter in comparison? Foreman walks in to inform Cuddy about something that shouldn't be her problem, and yet, like everything else in this episode, is. Mr. Pluto is being prepared for his liver transplant, but now House wants Chase to do the surgery instead of Dr. Crybaby because he's in a pissing contest with Dr. Dave. Since Cuddy is the only person at PPTH capable of overruling them both, she gets to step in.
She enters House's office, where she finds him in the middle of a full body massage. "What?" she asks, which is the correct response. House acts like this is his only alternative to Vicodin, which still doesn't excuse him for turning his office into a day spa. Although I guess this is partly Cuddy's fault, since her boyfriend turned House's other option -- a soak in the bathtub -- into a deathtrap. "Get off your ass and get your department under control," she orders. House responds by telling her, in his own way, to give in to the health insurance company.
Before she can do that, though, she has to meet with Martin and his lawyer again. Martin says he doesn't want to be greedy, but if he doesn't sue PPTH then he'll go bankrupt because of the hospital bills he didn't want in the first place. This is a fair point, but Cuddy thinks Martin should be happy to have his thumb back and not upset about being thousands of dollars in debt. She says that because Martin filed this lawsuit, his insurance company is refusing to pay their portion of his medical bills. "That's not our problem," the lawyer says. Cuddy seems to think that it is, because now Martin will be responsible for the entire bill. Except that he has a great case against PPTH that I don't see how he could lose, so he should be just fine, money-wise. And yet, Cuddy seems to think that Martin's best bet is to say that he did, in fact, want his thumb re-attached so PPTH can resubmit his claim to insurance and PPTH will generously cover 50% of Martin's deductible so he'll be on the hook for just $16,000. Um, plus whatever he's paid his lawyer so far. Which is probably also $16,000. But Cuddy thinks it's a great deal because Martin got his thumb, and thus, his ability to work, back. The lawyer has no interest in agreeing to Cuddy's "deal," since it'll mean less money for him. Martin whines that he knows he "should" pay PPTH, but it's a lot of money and he's still not able to work while his thumb heals, plus he's behind on house payments and his two kids need braces. And when he took them to the dentist to get those braces, the dentist put them to sleep and gave them porcelain veneers instead, then charged him three times more than he was expecting to pay for them. Cuddy asks if not having a thumb would make Martin's life easier. He says that "for now," it would be. She should have known that would be his answer. If he's behind on his house payments then he probably got one of those adjustable-rate mortgages because the first few year payments were affordable and that's all he cared about. Martin is not a long-term thinker. With that, Cuddy gets an urgent message on her Blackberry and excuses herself. On the way out, she says that Martin has a thumb because of PPTH, and he has to pay for it. And if that means ripping the braces off of his kids' teeth, she'll do it. Way to take a hard line with the guy who has a valid point while letting all of your idiot employees get away with murder, Cuddy.
Case in point: Cuddy's urgent page is to the surgical suite, where a large crowd has gathered to watch Chase and Dr. Crybaby get in a physical fight. Awesomely, while Hadley and Foreman try to hold Chase back and break it up, Taub and House stand and watch, making sure they're far enough away not to get punched by accident. Cuddy does a loud two-finger whistle to get their attention, a talent I was not aware she possessed, and walks them back to her office. But first, she must talk to Gail, so she orders Chase and Dr. Crybaby into separate corners of the Clinic. Meanwhile, doesn't Mr. Pluto sort of need that liver transplant? Like now?
Gail's demeanor the second time around is much different than it was the first. Now she's smiling and unapologetic, proud of her transgressions. "What are you gonna do about it?" she asks Cuddy. Ha! No wonder she was so unconvincing in Cuddy's office before -- she was supposed to be! Cuddy says she'll be telling on Gail to the DEA, but Gail says she'll just tell them that House "forced" her to steal those meds for him, while his boss let him do whatever he wanted because she's having sex with him. Oh come on, Gail. I don't think baseless allegations are going to fly in a DEA investigation. And yet, Cuddy seems scared. She asks if Gail really thinks she can lie her way out of this. "Yeah, I do. Anyth
ing else you wanna know, bitch?" Gail says coldly. Cuddy looks like she's about to cry. I demand a spin-off series featuring the adventures of Gail and Valerie, the psychopath patient a few weeks ago.Cuddy decides to take a break from the entire hospital, throwing her coat on and walking out on a call from the hospital board chairman. She tells Nurse Assistant to give him a message: "I quit." I guess this is why, despite all the bullshit, people work at PPTH: the drama! On a typical day of work you've got an evil pharmacist/meth lab supplier, a fistfight between surgeons, and then the Dean of Medicine publicly quits. And that's not even as awesome as the day when House announced to the lobby that he was sleeping with Cuddy or the time Cameron and her patient dove through a window. It's always nice to have something to talk to your significant other about when he or she asks how your day went when you get home from work.
Cuddy escapes to her car in the Fox Galaxy Lot parking garage. Her alone time soon comes to an end with the arrival of House, who taps on her car window with his cane. She lets him inside and they sit together for a minute before Cuddy informs House that he did, in fact, lose his bet with Lucas. House says he and Lucas will be even, then, because he's hoping to win his other bet with Lucas by prescribing that asshole Clinic patient some breast milk for his cancer. Cuddy sighs that she really thought GEHI Co. would agree to the 12% increase. House doesn't seem to have an answer for her with them, but he does think the hospital board won't follow through on its threat to fire Cuddy, nor will she follow through on quitting. She totally should though, because she can double her salary at GEHI Co.! And they'll be able to afford to pay it because they don't have that money-suck PPTH in their network anymore. Cuddy asks House what makes him so sure that she won't quit. "You're an idiot," House says; "this place needs you, and that matters to you." And how does that make Cuddy an idiot? I think it's because the reason why PPTH needs her is because she hired a bunch of incompetent morons who can't do anything without her. Except for Gail, who, while smart, is also evil. Speaking of Gail, Cuddy asks House about her. "She's a sociopath," he says without hesitation. He's known that for ages just based on how she opens her mail. Cuddy asks why he didn't give her a heads-up. "I figured it might come in handy one day," he says. Yes, because when you're a Vicodin addict, you definitely want a self-serving psychopath who has no problem ripping you apart to save herself in the pharmacy you count on to get your fix. And with that, Cuddy gets her very own epiphany face.
Cuddy meets with Gail for a third time. "I like you. I always have," she says, which shouldn't make any sense to Gail, seeing as how she called Cuddy a "bitch" during their last encounter. She says Gail must have done these awful things because she got "sucked up into a situation [she] couldn't control." And so, she's going to do Gail a solid and help her out with the DEA if she agrees to tell them the truth. Cuddy says Gail is a good person, deep down, which she knows after working with her for seven years. "You're an idiot. I started stealing from here six months after you hired me. You still don't even know the half of it and you never will," Gail says. Well, know that Cuddy knows there's more to uncover, I'm sure she'll look. Gail needs to stop being so proud of herself that she has to brag and start keeping her mouth shut. Gail says she knows that this job is too important to Cuddy to risk losing, so she won't report Gail to the DEA for fear that Gail's allegations about House and Cuddy will get her fired. Gail takes off, leaving Cuddy to stare at a giant orange flower on her desk and smile.
She takes the flower to Nurse Assistant to give to the DEA agent who will be stopping by shortly. Yes, this is no ordinary flower -- it's a flower with a microphone and a recorder in it, courtesy of Cuddy's private detective boyfriend. Oops! Gail really should have done her research in regards to who Cuddy was really sleeping with before she opened her big mouth. Cuddy plays Gail's admission of guilt back for Nurse Assistant, who gives Cuddy a high-five. She's probably hoping that Gail's firing will free up some money in the budget for Cuddy to hire a real assistant. With that, Cuddy says she's going to the board of directors to quit.
Freaking FINALLY, Cuddy's nanny decides to call. Instead of firing her, Cuddy asks about her daughter. Rachel's fever is gone, as is the rash. Wow. Between surviving her premature birth, being left in an abandoned house in the middle of winter with just a coat to protect her from the elements, spending the first three weeks of her life with crackheads, and then getting over a fever and rash in a matter of hours, I'm starting to wonder if Rachel is actually a superhero. If that Gail/Valerie spin-off doesn't work out (because, you know, Gail is going to be in jail and stuff), they should totally do one about Rachel the Superbaby.
Anyway, because Cuddy sucks at life, she misses the elevator and has to call for the one. Also, her employees have so little respect for her that they didn't bother to hold it for her. It all works out, though, since as Cuddy's waiting for the car, someone calls to her with "you bitch!" That could be anyone, based on what we've seen in this episode, but this time it's Eli, who tells Cuddy that G(not so)EHI Co. will agree to the 12% increase after all. Quick, cue the Triumphant Working Mother Montage Music! But first, Cuddy lets out a very cheesy "YES!!! WHOOO!" as the camera rapidly zooms out to a wide shot of the entire lobby. If you look really close, you can see two extras by the admittance desk giving each other a high-five. Even at this distance and with my non-HD TV, you can tell that they're loving their moment of over-exaggerated acting. Meanwhile, in another hallway full of PPTH employees who are all causally leaning against the wall because no one there works, ever, Nurse Assistant smiles and walks away. Her work here is done.
Cuddy tells the board that they got their deal with GEHI Co. They give her a round of applause. Lather, rinse, and repeat for the PPTH employees. Even House, who is too cool to clap, looks slightly pleased. Cuddy leaves her office for the day, only to find that someone snuck into her unlocked office yet again -- this time to drop off a check from Martin for $850.00. Just in case you didn't know what that was all about, he helpfully (and neatly!) wrote "thumb surgery 1st installment" in the memo box. I would have gone with the slightly more clever "two thumbs up!" Cuddy obviously agrees with me, as she rips up his check. Or maybe she knows that PPTH is swimming in money now that GEHI Co. agreed to their exorbitant increase demands. New Porsche for Cuddy!
At 9 pm, Cuddy lies in bed with Rachel, who sleeps while her mother strokes her back. Just don't startle her awake, Cuddy, or she'll accidentally kill you with her super strength! Lucas decides to do some stroking too, but of Cuddy's ass. Cuddy removes his hand, then reconsiders and puts it back. And then her Blackberry goes off with an emergency page, no doubt from House. "You gonna get that?" Lucas asks. Cuddy just looks at us.
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