By Sara M
House returns from its month-long absence with a lackluster episode in which a patient in chronic pain is determined to kill himself in front of (and, in one case, with the assistance of) his son rather than wait to find out what's wrong with him and whether or not it can be cured. Even House has to admit the guy has a point when it looks like they're out of diagnoses, but just when he's being discharged to off himself, House realizes he has a magical form of epilepsy that somehow made its way into his balls and laid dormant until the guy was in his late twenties.
In the meantime, House also sort of finds parallels in his situation and the patient's, even though they have very little in common except for the pain. House's pain is tolerable with painkillers, has a known cause, and could be taken away if he had his leg removed. The patient's is intolerable with no known cause or cure. See? Much different.
Meanwhile, Cuddy gives motherhood a try, only to find out that it takes work and time and energy and stuff. So she takes Wilson's advice very much the wrong way and offers her job to Cameron. From lowly fellow to ER Queen to Dean of Medicine in five short years -- way to go, Camster!
And on the Foreman/Hadley front, Hadley doesn't want a relationship with Foreman because she's terminally ill, but Foreman is a glutton for punishment and insists on it, even scheming behind her back to schedule her after Janice so Hadley can see how Janice's symptoms have improved since she started the trial. It works, but then he finds out that Hadley is getting the placebo and not the real medicine. So even if the medicine did work, it won't help Hadley.
House is back and it's on a new night! I was so excited that I stayed up all night to write this. I hope the episode is worth it! We begin on a dark, stormy night, which are the perfect conditions to write a suicide note, as this man, named Jeff (unless he signed his note with a fake name, which, why would you do that?), is currently doing. He looks at a cheesy family photo of himself with a wife and son in front of the Grand Canyon (they're all giving the camera the thumbs up. Who does that? If my family was that lame, I would kill myself, too) and takes his wedding ring off. He grabs the keys, and I see that I was wrong -- he's not writing a suicide note, but an "I'm abandoning my family because I'm a selfish dick" note. He grabs a few shirts from the closet, because he does things all backwards. When I left my wife and son, I totally packed first.
Meanwhile, the wife and son are driving home unexpectedly early because son Zach forgot to bring a hockey stick to his hockey game. Idiot. Zach is convinced that he's the worst player on his team. Don't worry, Zach! In a few minutes, that will be the least of your worries. And the least of mine, as I just recognized the wife as Sarah "Plot Contrivance" Glass from my 7th Heaven recapping days and now I'm having all kinds of horrible flashbacks. Fortunately for me, this doesn't happen very often because people who worked on 7th Heaven rarely get acting jobs. Zach enters the garage, only to find his father in his car, the exhaust running. He took the shirts out of his closet to use to seal off the garage door, so I was right the first time. Jeff is killing himself after all. I guess he took the ring off to spare the mortician from having to saw it off his bloated dead finger. That's amazingly considerate for a man who is happy to kill himself where his young son can find the body. Mom acts immediately, grabbing her cell phone while telling Zach to get back in the car. Zach doesn't obey, so he gets to watch his mother do CPR and bring his father back to life.
House spends some time in his bathtub wincing and rubbing his bad leg. We even get to see a shot of the scar just to make the ladies swoon. He then heads into work, followed by Cuddy, who still has those terrible bangs. House immediately blames her uncharacteristic tardiness on the new baby, but Cuddy explains that she was up all night working on finance reports and reveals that her baby is named Rachel. House calls her Mowgli. I call her Unnecessary. With that, House tries to get out of handing in his department budget report, only to be informed that Cameron already did it for him. How is she allowed to do that? And why? House also wants to know the answer to that last question, and Cuddy says she's guessing that Cameron needs a favor from House. House doesn't like this at all, but Cuddy says she's too busy with her baby to get in the middle of this.
Cameron cashes her chips in immediately, asking House to treat Jeff, who has chronic pain all over his body that seven specialists haven't been able to diagnose or relieve in three years. House thinks Cameron is trying to teach him some kind of lesson about dealing with chronic pain, but Cameron claims she's just hoping he'll able to help Jeff. She's given up on House helping himself. That's what she says. I don't believe it, though! Hadley refuses to mind her own business and speaks up with to give a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, only to be sassed by Cameron, who says fibromyalgia provides neither an explanation nor a cure. Nor is it, some say, a real condition. I say I don't know if it's real or fake, but it's definitely over-diagnosed. Also, the only person I know who claimed to have it diagnosed herself and used it to get out of gym class. Foreman has to stick up for his lady love, though, and says that the American College of Rheumatology has specific diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia, which means nothing since it's just saying that you feel pain in certain areas, and anyone can do that. Meanwhile, House has some specific diagnostic criteria of his own for whether or not two of his Cottages are in a relationship with each other, and Foreman and Hadley just met it. Cameron continues that Jeff doesn't meet the criteria for fibromyalgia, and duh, Hadley. You think a guy's going to come to you after seeing seven specialists for mysterious chronic pain and none of them thought of fibromyalgia first? Please.
Taub speaks up to point out that the fact that Jeff tried to kill himself makes him think that he has some psychological problems, so they should consider that the pain is all in Jeff's crazy head. Cameron says the suicide attempt was only because of the pain, but Taub doesn't think that a rational person would try to kill himself. Kumar tries to prove him wrong by asking what he'd do if he was being burned at the stake and someone gave him a gun. Taub says he'd shoot the people burning him. Good answer. Stop being difficult, Kumar. Jeff isn't being burned at the stake. He might feel like it, but an undiagnosed condition isn't the same as the certain death of being burnt at the stake. Meanwhile, House is too busy studying his Vicodin pills to pay much attention to Taub. He agrees to take the case and sends Taub off to check if Jeff's pain is psychosomatic, Hadley off to search Jeff's home, and Kumar off to get him a Vicodin refill and a donut. Foreman, of course, volunteers himself to accompany Hadley on the home search.
Taub tries to give Jeff the depression test, but Jeff knows what he's up to and claims he isn't depressed and knows that trying to kill himself was stupid. Self-deprecation is a sign of depression, Jeff. Just saying. Taub ignores him and keeps asking the questions. He then moves onto the wife, who says her husband is calm and that talking to people makes his pain worse. "Interesting ... " Taub says, in that condescending way doctors have that makes you think you gave them the answer that says you're crazy. Then he talks to Zach, who says his dad helps around the house all the time and used to be strong and play hockey. And he laughs all the time. Whatever you say, Zach. I haven't seen Jeff laugh once.
Hadley and Foreman check out the garage. Foreman's found a ton of pain medications in Jeff's house, but notes that he's much more responsible about taking them than, say, House. Then he admires Jeff's car. Hadley, on the other hand, disagrees with Jeff's method of killing himself before hurriedly clarifying that it's not like she's planning to kill herself anytime soon or anything like that. Damn. Foreman then reveals that Hadley has been avoiding him since they kissed. Hadley denies this, claiming she's been busy. Yes, doing drugs and picking up chicks at clubs is a rather time-consuming hobby. Foreman asks Hadley to go out to dinner, because he apparently likes being rejected. Hadley turns both dinner and another make-out session down. Foreman asks if it's because they're co-workers. He's such a glutton for punishment. For whatever reason, Hadley clearly isn't interested in having a relationship with you, Foreman. Don't make her spell out why. Hadley admits that she doesn't want to see him because she actually likes him and doesn't want to have a serious relationship because she has a freaking terminal illness and the more involved she is with Foreman, the worse things will be for him when her health starts to decline. Makes sense to me! Why doesn't it make sense to Foreman? What is he, Cameron? Where was this willingness to be supportive of someone with a degenerative illness when he was avoiding having to see his senile mother for years on end? With that, Hadley finds a freezer full of meat that she instantly identifies as quail. Does she moonlight as a butcher or something? She's got some serious meat knowledge!
The gang returns to the meeting room for Hadley's diagnosis of rhabdomyolyisis from toxic wild quail, which would cause both his pain and the elevated CK levels in his blood. Taub is bizarrely hostile to this, saying the CK levels can also be explained by carbon monoxide poisoning and the pain profile he took clearly shows that Jeff's pain is purely psychosomatic. Meanwhile, Kumar and Foreman aren't paying attention because they're watching their boss take pills and wince uncharacteristically. House finally speaks up to disagree with Taub's diagnosis. But Taub will not be deterred, saying that Jeff is just depressed and some anti-depressants will make him all better. I think Taub's been watching too many of those "depression hurts" commercials. He also accuses House of wanting Jeff to have a physical problem because of House's own relationship with chronic pain. I diagnose Taub with having a stick up his ass today. House just goes with Hadley's diagnosis and tells them to check Jeff's urine and biopsy some muscles. Whether it ends up being rhabdomyolyisis or not, I'd like to know why Jeff has so much quail meat on hand. That big freezer was bursting at the seams with it! Is he stockpiling for an apocalyptic scenario? Does he just really, really love quail, even more than Hadley, who loves it so much she can immediately identify a plucked and skinned bird? So many questions! With that, House leaves for the day.
Hadley does the muscle biopsy in front of poor Zach, who has really seen enough, hasn't he? Of course, things don't go well, as Jeff's arm suddenly starts to hurt and his BP drops. Then he goes into cardiac arrest and flatlines. Poor Zach. Now he's been traumatized for three lives.
House, meanwhile, is in bed. His cell phone vibrates, but instead of answering it he takes a few Vicodins.
Back in the meeting room, Foreman hangs up the phone, giving up on House answering it. Hadley says Jeff had a pulmonary embolism, and Taub has to begrudgingly admit that Jeff's problem is not psychosomatic after all. Ha ha! In your face, Taub! But Kumar points out that this also rules out rhabdomyolyisis. In your face, Hadley! But not as much as Taub's, because he was being such a pill. With that, the phone rings. It's House, blaming his inability to answer his phone on the fact that Foreman didn't let it ring long enough for his crippled self to get to it in time to answer. Except that the phone was on his bedside table. If House was missing both arms, I can see where there would be a delay. But he isn't. So stop trying to guilt trip Foreman when you couldn't answer the phone in time because you're a drug addict, House. Anyway, he's immediately figured out that the Cottages' late-night phone call means that Jeff had a pulmonary embolism that rules out both Taub and Hadley's diagnosis. House also adds that had Jeff had something that only ruled out Taub's diagnosis, both Hadley and Foreman would be "singing in the rain." Kumar comes up with Trousseau syndrome, which has something to do with cancer. House likes it, and tells them to check Jeff for tumors. He hangs up, and Taub cluelessly wonders why House thought Foreman would be singing in the rain with Hadley when it was just her diagnosis. Foreman and Hadley make twin innocent faces while Kumar the all-knowing smiles. And back at the House house, House finds a leak in his ceiling. He stupidly pokes at it with his cane, and it disintegrates and a pool of water splashes down on House in slow-motion. But his hairpiece remains intact!
Taub and Kumar check Jeff for tumors in the MRI of DOOOM! Kumar asks Taub who he knows who committed suicide, and Taub lists off various famous people, real and fictional, who did so, including Hemingway, Goebbels, and Romeo and Juliet. How is Goebbels on that list instead of Hitler? If you had to list a Nazi, wouldn't you go with the number one guy? Kumar patiently explains that Taub's strong reaction to the subject of suicide and his determination that he'd never do it indicates that he has some sort of baggage about the subject. Taub lashes out at Kumar, saying he assumes everyone has painful pasts because his childhood was so orphan-riffic. Kumar points out that that's a good reason why he wouldn't commit suicide, since things started off so bad for him that his life now always seems great by comparison. Taub just says that committing suicide when you have a wife and child counting on you being alive is a betrayal. Kumar drops the matter, and Taub feels the need to explain to him that his parents are both alive and well and not suicidal. Kumar cuts him off when he finds something in Jeff's diaphragm. Whatever it is, Taub says it isn't cancer.
House limps into Jeff's room, where Hadley and Kumar are getting ready to take Jeff away for his angioplasty. Zach is excited that his father's pain will finally be gone, and House chooses this moment to say that the angioplasty will be totally ineffective, but the pain will go away. He tells the Cottages to cancel the angiogram and finds the source of Jeff's air flow problems -- he blew into his own IV tube, which caused his cardiac arrest and the stuff they found on the MRI. Yes, Jeff tried to kill himself again, as House feels the need to spell out in front of Zach. Come on, House. Just because you have daddy issues doesn't mean everyone has to have them. Jeff admits that he was lying when he said he would never try to kill himself again. "I want to die," he says; "please just let me die." "No," House says. Maybe House doesn't want Jeff to die, but PPTH doesn't seem to bothered about it, judging by how poorly they supervised the suicidal guy.
House and the Cottages have taken their act on the road to Cuddy's nursery, where she's proving that she knows how to change a diaper while everyone looks around awkwardly. Cuddy's annoyed to hear that a suicidal patient wasn't properly supervised and able to attempt it again. House gets too close to Cuddy, who gets a whiff of him and makes a grossed out face before asking him when the last time he took a shower was. Geez, it's only been, like, a day since the pipe burst. House must have some body order to be ripe already. "Scent of a man!" he says, adding that she wouldn't recognize it since she's always drunk when she's exposed to male scents. Not in front of the baby, House. Cuddy says Jeff is depressed and has depression pain and that she has a DYFS inspection coming up so she'd appreciate it if they would all leave. Yeah, because those foster children agencies are so good at making sure the homes they put their kids in are safe, loving, and secure. I wouldn't sweat it too much, Cuddy. Meanwhile, Hadley comes up with a diagnosis of non-motor seizures, pointing out that she's actually thinking about the patient, unlike her boss and her boss's boss. House says the EEG results say no to this, as they're cleaner than "Cuddy's rubber nipples." At this, Cuddy and House exchange a look that was ridiculously rehearsed and held too long. Foreman goes with a glycogen storage disease, and House proclaims that together, "Foreteen" have come up with a good diagnosis. Hadley smiles at this, because she loves portmanteaus. She loves Brangelina and Bennifer and TomKat and all of them! And now she's got one, too! It's so awesome we can all totally overlook the lack of chemistry. Kumar smiles, too, because he's totally figured out what's going on at this point. His smile does not last long, as Cuddy shoves a dirty diaper in his hand to throw away on his way out of her house. That's really fucking rude, Cuddy. And gross. I hope you get turned down by the DYFS just for that. House sticks up for Kumar, saying that if she wants a man to take her crap, she has to marry him. "Or employ him," Cuddy says. Really? Because I tend to doubt that taking out the Dean of Medicine's foster kid's diapers was part of Kumar's job description. When everyone leaves, Cuddy takes a second to hold her baby, which is the fakest baby doll I have ever seen on TV since the last time they had a baby on this show. They've been setting Cuddy up to get a baby for like three seasons now! Surely they had time to get a better doll than that. They should have gone to one of those people who make realistic dolls I saw on the BBC America documentary My Fake Baby. Those breathe and everything!
Hadley returns to the Huntington's trial to see her trial friend Janice on her way out, and looking much better. She can even walk, albeit shakily. Janice says she's feeling better than she has in years and her basil something volume ["Basal ganglia. Thanks, internet!" -- Angel] has improved. Oh no! I don't want this Huntington's drug to actually work! Although Hadley's been pretty bearable all episode so I might be okay with her living after all. Janice tearfully thanks Hadley for getting her back in the drug trial. Damn straight, she does! Janice was all ready to give up because Foreman was mean to her, and look what she almost missed. She must feel pretty stupid now. Hadley says she hasn't seen Janice in a while, since their appointments are now at different times. Janice says they aren't anymore -- her appointment time was switched to right before Hadley's just today. Because Foreman thinks it's okay to mess with a dying woman's schedule just to prove a point to Hadley and get some.
Kumar and Taub get ready to test Jeff for the glycogen thing. Zach and the wife are there, too, because at this point, Zach's already scarred for life so he might as well see it all. Jeff has to do some muscle tests, and squeezing a tennis ball causes him pain, so he suggests that Zach and his wife leave the room. If only he cared about shielding Zach from stuff like this before he tried to kill himself in the garage. The wife starts to refuse, but Jeff says he doesn't want them to leave to protect them -- he can't handle both these tests and them being around. They leave, and Taub lectures Jeff about being a selfish jerk to his family. Jeff tries the "you don't know me!" line, but Taub just says that whatever Jeff's going through right now, it's better than killing himself. Kumar mutters something about Taub's obvious baggage, and Taub rules out that glycogen storage thing just as Jeff cries out in pain, saying the pain just jumped from his arm to his leg, which has never happened before.
Hadley finds Foreman and calls him out for putting Janice on display for her like that. But Foreman claims he doesn't make the schedule, and if he did, he wouldn't screw around with it just to get a date. Well, I guess underestimated him, then. He then says he had no idea Janice's condition had improved. So either he's lying, or Foreman should be fired for paying, like, no attention to the Huntington's trial patients he doesn't have a chance of sleeping with.
Taub and Kumar tell House about Jeff's newest symptom, but House is too busy typing up a letter on his computer to pay much attention. Taub says the fact that the pain is jumping from Jeff's arm to his leg without going through his torso means that the source of the pain must be in Jeff's brain and not his body. House discounts this and asks Taub if he knows the name of a lawyer, considering the fact that Taub is Jewish, and all Jews know lawyers. I don't, but I'm only half Jewish. The other half is English, and it only knows barristers and solicitors. So when I get sued, I guess I'm shit out of luck. Taub returns the volly by saying he'll be happy to find House a Jewish lawyer at their World Domination meeting. He's kidding, but you'd be surprised how many people think this is actually true. Kumar knows the name of one lawyer - the guy who represented the hospital when Kumar set that patient on fire. LOL continuity. Taub says they have to figure out if the pain if coming from Jeff's body or his brain if they want to solve this case, and Kumar asks how they can do that without chopping Jeff's head off. This gives House an idea.
House is closely examining Cuddy's new old desk when she arrives, annoyed to be called in to do her job. "Need to cut off a guy's head," House greets her, and she turns right back around. He clarifies that he needs to find out if Jeff's pain is coming from his body or his brain. A shot of lidocaine just below the brain stem should do it. Cuddy is furious that House is trying to force her into making a potentially unnecessarily dangerous patient care decision when she has to get her beauty sleep for the DYFS visit tomorrow morning, and accuses House of trying to make her choose between her child and her job. "I'm forcing you to do your job!" House barks. And if Cuddy didn't want House to "'inconvenience" her like this, she shouldn't have made him come to her house in the middle of a diaper change. What did she expect? Frankly, she's just lucky House hasn't come barging in on her DYFS session with file folder of evidence why she's an unfit mother ... yet. Cuddy says that House is experimenting on his patient because he's looking for a solution to his own problem, not because it's in his patient's best interests. The procedure he's proposing could kill Jeff. House says that if they don't do it, Jeff will kill himself anyway, so there's really nothing to lose. Cuddy says House isn't being objective, but then she gets an urgent page (Rachel learned how to dial a phone already?) and has to leave. On her way out the door, she tells House to do whatever he thinks is right. When it comes down to it, Cuddy's decisions are just as selfish as House's.
The morning, Cuddy is trying to work and prepare for the DYFS visit. Her house is a mess, thanks to her cleaning woman running late. Guess who isn't late? And, in fact, is one hour early: the guy from the DYFS! Cuddy is devastated, but I don't think he's going to care that much about a messy house. Messy house > crack den.
Chase preps Jeff for his procedure. Nice of him to show up this episode. House stops by and takes a few Vicodins for his own pain, and Jeff comments that painkillers used to be enough for his pain, too. Now they aren't, which is probably House's biggest fear for himself. Jeff comments that House must not have a family, and House agrees that he left them back on Krypton. Jeff doesn't laugh, because pain takes away your sense of humor. Instead, he takes over Wilson's job and starts psychoanalyzing House, saying that it's easier for him to handle his pain because he's alone and doesn't have to put up a front for anyone. He also knows that House is having more bad days. House says that's true, which surprises Chase. Not like it really matters what Chase thinks about anything, since he's not really on the show anymore. Jeff says he's House's future when the drugs stop working, and Chase shoots him up to shut him up. House looks up to see Cameron observing from the OR balcony. How is it that Cuddy is so slammed with work that she can't even clean her own house, but Cameron has so much free time? And by the way, Jeff isn't House's future. If the leg pain becomes intolerable even with the painkillers, he can just cut his leg off. I'd also like to say that when I'm in pain, even tolerable pain, I don't have the energy or desire to psychoanalyze complete strangers.
Mr. DYFS looks around. He asks Cuddy if she has any guns or pets, trusting her response without bothering to investigate further. He notes that there are ants in the house. Wow, Cuddy must be freaking filthy to have ants in her house in the middle of winter in New Jersey. When he notices that Cuddy tried to hide some dirty diapers in her attaché case, she's sure she failed the exam, but Mr. DYFS is suddenly all smiles as he says that Cuddy is rich, seemingly stable, loving, and sufficiently embarrassed about her messy home, which makes her better than most of the foster mothers he visits. Indeed, I've known one foster mother in my life and she was none of those things. While Cuddy wants to be a foster mother to help a child (and help her child-wanting self), most applicants just do it for the money. Mr. DYFS says he'll see her year for another check-up unless Cuddy's already made the adoption final before then. Cuddy breathes a sigh of relief. I love that she was expecting the state to give her this hardcore inspection after all those news stories about what a crappy job most state children's welfare agencies do.
Back at PPTH, the pain in Jeff's legs has subsided. But it's not gone completely, which means the pain must be coming from both Jeff's body and his brain. They still don't know what's wrong with Jeff.
The Cottages assemble in the meeting room, but there's a visitor. An older gentleman asks for House, and House immediately points him to Foreman, who just looks at House, mildly annoyed. The guy doesn't believe him, and hands the real House a bill for his services. It's the lawyer House claimed was working for him in that letter he was writing, which apparently was a threatening letter to his insurance company so they'd pay for his broken pipe. He hands House a bill for the services he didn't render and says the time House makes a false claim like that, it'll be a lawsuit. And a bill. He leaves, but have we seen the last of lawyer Chris Kerrick? Maybe he's this season's villain story arc. Every other time House has messed with a professional, it's turned into one, so why not this time, too? The Cottages suppress laughter while Foreman glares at House, who says he tells people he's not House since the time when that guy asked which one of them was House and then shot him. Continuity x2!!! Except that House tried to say one of the Cottages was House that time, too. And it also didn't work. And with that, everyone gets paged.
This time, Zach's the person in pain. He's lying on the floor of the hospital, screaming. And the nurses thought the best thing to do was to take the time to find out who he was at PPTH to see and then who that guy's doctors are? While the mother begs for this not to be the same thing that's wrong with Zach's father and everyone stands over the kid looking concerned, House decides that Zach is faking. He limps to Jeff's room and finds an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol in his bed. Yes, he used Zach to distract everyone so he could kill himself. There won't be enough therapy in the world for Zach now. Not like the suicide watch people really needed to be distracted, since I don't think there is anyone on suicide watch and if there is, he or she clearly sucks at it. Kumar and Taub rush to get Jeff some life-saving dialysis while House goes off to yell at the kid. He lifts him to his feet, and Zach claims he's hurting him. Great, that's another traumatizing memory. I once had a fourth grade teacher who was evil, so she sent me out in the hall for accidentally bringing a pencil to the reading group. When she yelled at me, she grabbed my wrist so hard that it left marks. Although I guess in comparison to all the other stuff Zach's experienced in this episode, this is pretty minor. House tells Zach the pain will help him do a better acting job time he tries to fake it so his dad can kill himself. Zach sobs that House can't help his father and begs him to let Jeff die already. I'm having a hard time buying any of this. Kids really don't have the capacity to understand that a parent would be better off dead and not in pain than alive and in pain.
The team returns to the meeting room, but they're out of ideas. Hadley says nothing explains Jeff's symptoms. This gives House an idea: maybe whatever injury caused Jeff's initial pain has healed and can't be found. It's the drugs themselves causing Jeff's pain now. Apparently, the pain receptors in your brain can be total assholes and rewire themselves to read painkilling opioids as pain-causers. Wow, that sucks. I hope my body never tries to play opposite day on me. House orders the Cottages to take Jeff off the painkillers. Kumar points out that this will be very unpleasant for Jeff, but House thinks it's the only way to ultimately help him. Hadley tries to Make It Personal by asking House how he would feel if they took his Vicodin away. House points out that he's not the patient. And it's been done before.
Meanwhile, back on the Cuddy homestead, Wilson stops by with a present: a giant stuffed animal that is sure to collect dust, especially considering how crappy Cuddy's housekeeper is. Wilson assumes from Cuddy's lack of celebration and joy that the DYFS visit must have been pushed back, but she says it was today and she passed -- but it was still a disaster. In fact, she's a disaster both mother-wise and job-wise, as she was so concerned about passing the inspection that she couldn't properly supervise House. Wilson says everything still worked out fine on both fronts, but Cuddy's not so sure it will be okay time. Apparently, things are especially difficult this week because the nanny she hired is sick. So Cuddy has a tardy cleaning lady and a nanny who takes sick days within her first few weeks of working there? I didn't think it was possible, but Cuddy is worse at hiring personal help than she is at hiring PPTH personnel. Cuddy says she may have passed the DYFS test, but she didn't pass her own special inner test. "Why do women always do that?" Wilson asks aloud. "Fail?" Cuddy asks. Heh. No, Wilson says, create ridiculous standards for themselves they'll never be able to live up to. He tells her to be like any man in her position -- get helpers at work and home and stop trying to be superwoman. Except that Cuddy does have help at work and home. They just all suck.
Taub and Kumar tie Jeff to the bed, which they probably should have done after his second suicide attempt. Kumar explains that they're injecting him with something that will remove the opioids from his pain receptors so that they'll work correctly after a couple hours. Jeff figures out that he's in for a few hours of intense pain and begs to be knocked out. Kumar says they can't, because that would mean giving Jeff more drugs (you mean, like the drugs they just gave him to clear the drugs out of his system?), and they have to keep him clean. Since when did smacking a guy on the back of the head with a sap require drugs? With that, Kumar and Taub head over to the corner of the room to prepare the injection and chat. Taub admits that a colleague of his tried to commit suicide. He lived, but he made his friends and family feel bad. "He was a selfish ass," Taub says. With that, they shoot Jeff up. "It'll be over soon," Kumar says. I don't think that's very comforting.
House watches from the hallway. Foreman walks up and accuses House of torturing a patient based on a hunch. House says it's not any worse than manipulating a clinical trial to get someone to sleep with him. Yes, Foreman did change Janice's schedule after all, and House somehow figured it all out. Foreman tries to defend himself by saying that Janice's improvement is a real result, so it's not like he's giving Hadley false hope. House says that if the results were that promising, then Foreman wouldn't have to change the schedule at all (I guess because whoever used to go before Hadley would be showing the same improvements). Foreman looks sad, but not enough to tell Hadley the truth or stop trying to sleep with her.
The plumber is back. This time, it's because House set his kitchen on fire to get his pipes fixed for free, since, as House is all too happy to point out, accidental fire damage is covered under his policy. Thus, the pipe that melted will have to be replaced, along with the pipe over House's bedroom. The plumber agrees, and happily notes that while House's pipes were not damaged in the fire, his neighbor's were. So they'll be getting free pipe repair while House is still stuck with a broken shower pipe. And now he has to pay the deductible.
Suffering Jeff montage.
House comes into work the morning to find Jeff's wife waiting for him. Taking Jeff off of the pain meds didn't work, so House did, in fact, unnecessarily torture him for no reason. They've put Jeff back on them, but now Jeff's wife has finally come over to Jeff and Zach's side and thinks Jeff should be put out of his misery. But House is sure there's an answer for Jeff's condition. The wife isn't. She thought House would understand chronic pain because of his leg and figure this out. But he can't, nor can he admit that he wouldn't kill himself if he was in Jeff's place. The wife tearfully (but without actual tears in her eyes) tells him to discharge Jeff. House agrees.
Hadley doesn't want to give up, but the other Cottages are fine with it. I agree with Hadley. It's stupid to kill yourself if you don't even know what's wrong or that it can't be easily fixed. If you know you're going to die anyway and the pain will only get worse, that's one thing. But to give up because the physical pain is too much to bear without knowing for sure that it won't get better or when is just as bad as the people who kill themselves because they're in intolerable mental pain. It's got to really piss Hadley off to know that there are people out there who choose to kill themselves when she would do anything to stay alive. Meanwhile, House lies in bed, staring up at his broken ceiling.
His shower is working again, thanks to a bribe to the plumber that cost more than the cost to fix it himself. House says it's the principle of the thing -- he paid his insurance premiums for nine years, so when his pipe breaks, they're going to pay for it. Even if it mean he pays, too. The plumber asks if House is happy. "Nope. But I'm right," House says. They both head into House's bedroom, and as the guy scratches his nuts, House has an epiphany. He tells the guy to show himself out and not to touch the piano with his nut-scratchers.
House greets the Cottages with this: "testicles. What do they make you think of?" Taub immediately lists off way too many things, but none of them are the answer House is looking for, which is epilepsy. It can cause chronic pain if it spreads to the sensory region of the brain and rewires pain neurons, and if the seizures are taking place in a deep enough part of the brain, it won't show up on an EEG. And that part of the brain also controls the muscles that support the testicles.
House finds the family about to leave, which is nice because I really thought they were going to have House figure out the diagnosis after it was too late. "Feels like you got kicked in the nads, doesn't it?" House asks. Not in front of the child, House. Oh, whatever. He's heard and seen worse at this point. House clarifies, asking where Jeff's pain started. Jeff says in the stomach area. House asks if it felt like his kidneys were being pulled out through his scrotum. That rings a bell, as Jeff's question is a cautiously hopeful "why?" "Because epilepsy is treatable," House says. The family all look at each other, not sure if they should hope or not. The music of success if playing, guys! You can!
The music of success, of course, heralds the beginning of the montage of wrapping things up. Jeff's balls are tested for epilepsy. Wife and son wait for the results. Cuddy brings Rachel to work with her and looks overwhelmed. And Jeff's balls test positive.
Jeff and his son walk hand-in-hand in the hall. I hope Jeff feels really stupid for trying to take himself away from moments like that. Taub and Kumar watch them go, and Taub says this is why you don't kill yourself. Kumar asks Taub if suicidal colleague was actually Taub himself. Duh, Kumar. Taub just says it wasn't, and leaves. Kumar watches him go. I don't think he believes Taub. I also think Kumar knows more about his co-workers than they know about each other and him. It pays to be a silent observer.
Foreman arrives at Clinical Trial HQ to find Hadley already there. She says she's feeling better and asks him out. He accepts, and goes off to get someone to fix her leaking IV bag. Outside, he tells the nurse to be more careful with the IVs, and the nurse comments that the Huntington's medicine smells bad. But Foreman didn't smell anything, which means, as the nurse spells out for us, that Hadley's getting the placebo. Whoops! I guess Hadley was only feeling better because Foreman gave her some of that false hope House was talking about. Also, this is the worst clinical trial ever. It's ridiculously obvious who is getting the real drug and who is getting the placebo, the nurses don't know how to set up IV bags so they don't leak all over the place, and one of the people running it is works with and has a personal relationship with one of the patients. Even if the Huntington's drug does actually work, the results won't be valid because of all the crap behind the scenes.
Cuddy goes to see Cameron in the ER. Amazingly, she finds Cameron working, but Cameron is happy to leave her patient to talk to her boss. Cuddy asks Cameron if she did House's budget report so he'd take Jeff on as a patient, and Cameron says she did, hoping that seeing and curing someone worse off than himself would show House that he has something to look forward to. Instead, I think it only showed him what to dread. Cuddy randomly follows this up with another question: "how would you like my job?" Cameron clearly thinks that Cuddy has gone insane, as do we all. Meanwhile, the rest of the doctors on staff who have been at PPTH longer than Cameron and worked harder are probably all going to quit once they see the pretty young doctor getting a promotion like this over all of them. But at least it'll get Cameron out of the ER, so the patients there will be safe. And it's always nice to see one of the former Cottages get more than three seconds of screen time per episode.
And here's another something for the ladies! House fills up his bath with steaming hot water (is he trying to boil himself alive?) and gets in, using his shower pole as an aid to help him over the tub wall. That's when he realizes that doing that was what pulled the pipe open in the first place. He keeps doing it anyway, because while it would be cheaper to just install a handicapped rail, he'd rather pay extra for plumber bribes and fake lawyer fees than admit he needs help.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, which she occasionally updates when she has something to complain about. Or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.