House TV Show - Decepticon - House Photos & Videos, House Reviews & House Recaps | TWoP

Aired 12-12-2005

You guys, I don't know what's going on here. Call it a Christmas miracle, but Cameron rocks in this episode (okay, she is a little whiny in the beginning, but she more than makes up for it), while the usually awesome Foreman is a smug jerk. Plus, House reveals a previously unseen ability to be charming when he needs to be and flirts with all the ladies! It's like everything was upside down and inside out! The layers of House's dysfunction onion peel to reveal that he frequents OTBs, where he meets Cynthia Nixon, who promptly has a seizure. She's admitted to PPTH with its new Foreman-led diagnostic team. Foreman assumes that anyone who hangs out at an OTB is an alcoholic prostitute, while House thinks the Cushing's Disease Cynthia was recently treated for has come back. Then they find a mass on her pancreas and give her two months to live. Cynthia takes the news suspiciously well, making Cameron wonder if the only thing wrong with her is that she has Munchausen's syndrome and has been making herself sick for attention and sympathy. It even explains the mass on her pancreas, which is just some harmless scaring from Cynthia's insulin injections, and not a tumor. Everyone scoffs at this, until Cameron proves that she's right -- and in an extremely cool way, too. So they're all ready to discharge Cynthia, but then House decides that she actually has something wrong with her besides all the mental illness-created symptoms, and he wants to run some more tests. Foreman overrules him, and Cynthia's discharged. Of course, that doesn't stop House, who injects her with an insulin and colchicine (everyone's favorite gout medication!) cocktail to trigger another seizure that will prove his diagnosis correct. The treatment is a bone marrow transplant, and just when they start destroying Cynthia's existing bone marrow, House realizes that she smells like grapes, indicating an infection and not a bone marrow problem after all. Whoops! Fortunately, they're able to get to Cynthia in time, and her bone marrow is saved so that she can go to another hospital and pull the same thing all over again, now with a new symptoms-causing drug to add to her arsenal. Great. Foreman has enjoyed his newfound authority, and he and Cuddy discuss making it a permanent thing; Cuddy will allow him to entertain the silly notion since it gets House's paperwork done and makes her life easier. For now, anyway.

We join House at an off-track betting house. I always thought of OTBs as shady and possibly illegal, but this one appears to serve food and beverages and looks like a fun place to hang. House shoves his way through the crowd ("cripple coming through!") to get to the registers or whatever they're called (when I bet on horses, I like to do it at the track, so I'm not much of an OTB expert) in time to place his bets for an upcoming race. Unfortunately, he's stuck behind some guy who's more interested in the cashier's birthday than he is in placing his bets in a timely fashion in order to allow the people behind him to do the same. House is irritated. Special guest star Cynthia "Miranda Hobbes" Nixon overhears the scuffle from her spot in another line and steps forward to expertly place bets for the stupid guy. She hands the cashier the guy's money, possibly pocketing some of it for herself, and winks at House. House finally gets to place his bet on a horse named "Seminal Uprising," and Cynthia Nixon makes fun of him, saying that the horse is a loser. I'm just disappointed that there aren't any horses with my favorite name, "Hoof Hearted." Say that a couple times fast and you'll see what I'm talking about. Anyway, House's dream girl goes to bet on a horse named "Termigator," but the race closes before she can. She's pissed, but House tells her it would have been a losing bet; he knows that Seminal Uprising's jockey is bulimic, and throws up after weighing in, which somehow gives him an advantage. Horse turns his attention to the race, but the rest of the crowd is focused elsewhere: the floor that Cynthia Nixon is currently seizing all over. House would rather watch the race than help a sick person, so he asks the crowd if anyone is a doctor. A guy steps forward and starts trying to do chest compressions on a woman who clearly doesn't need them, since she is still able to breathe her heart is beating, and House orders him just to call an ambulance. He notices some weird streaky bruising on Cynthia Nixon's stomach, and that's what finally tears him away from the horse race. He kneels down to check it out and tells the guy to tell the paramedics to take Cynthia to PPTH: "Her doctor's name is House." Termigator wins the race. Seminal Uprising's jockey wanders off to eat a lot and barf again.

It's snowing in New Jersey! The Cottages have assembled to discuss their newest patient. Cameron's primary concern is, of course, House's personal life, and she wonders what he was doing at an OTB. I'm surprised she knows what an OTB even is. Maybe she frequents them now that she does meth. Foreman explains that, since House is addicted to pain pills, he must also be addicted to everything else in the world one can be addicted to, including gambling. Chase protests that House is only addicted to pain pills because he has a pain problem, and House walks in and says that winning on that race would have alleviated some of his pain. He starts discussing their newest patient, a "hot OTB babe," with seizures and weird bruising. Foreman notes that her blood alcohol level was high (0.13 -- not exactly through the roof, but well over the legal driving limit), and assumes that Cynthia is an alcoholic, which explains all of her health problems, case closed. Never mind the fact that she may not even be an alcoholic. Chase decides that an attractive woman at an OTB must be a prostitute, and that Cynthia might have a prostitute-y STD that explains her symptoms. But Foreman's the boss this month, so he tells them to give Cynthia heparin for her alcoholism-relatd blood clotting, which explains the seizures and bruising. House protests that Foreman is being a little quick to judge. Dutiful and loyal Cameron comes up with three possible diseases that have nothing to do with Cynthia's shady lifestyle, and House tells them to get started looking at those, starting with Cushing's. Puh-leeze -- if it were Cushing's, wouldn't Cynthia be fat and unpopular? That's what I've learned from this show, anyway. Foreman asserts his authority and tells them to do a full work-up on Cynthia instead. House will be taking her medical history, because that's the most embarrassing thing for him to be forced to do.

House and Foreman visit Cuddy's office, where House protests that Foreman's leadership position is supposed to be for appearances only. Foreman doesn't agree with that, and neither does Cuddy. House threatens to shove his cane up Foreman's ass, and Cuddy praises him on presenting a very convincing argument. Seriously, House; threatening physical violence is never the way to prove that you're mature and able enough to retain your leadership position. House whines that he shouldn't be punished for Chase's "killing" someone. Cuddy, who's probably been waiting all week to get to say this, says there's a flowchart in the lobby that specifies who gets to be in charge when someone else kills someone: "If Cameron kills somebody, Chase takes over." Chase is going to be taking over a lot, in that case. Cuddy orders House to defer to Foreman for the three weeks, even though this is a ridiculous plot contrivance. Foreman smirks and says that he likes sugar in his coffee. Cuddy reminds him that all mistakes in the department are now his responsibility, not House's. Remember that while you're enjoying your sweet-ass coffee, Foreman.

Cynthia Nixon, whose character's name is revealed to be Anica, tries to fill out a medical-history form while House looks over her horse-racing picks. She complains that, with questions like "were you vaccinated for polio?," she must have the form intended for FDR. Nice try, Anica, but FDR was the one person who you wouldn't need to ask if he'd been vaccinated for polio, wasn't he? ["She should know that by now." -- Wing Chun] Anica's health seems to have improved enough for her to jump up and whisk the horse racing paper out of House's hands, telling him that she'll give him all the winning picks he wants after he cures her. She reads off another silly question about how happy she is with her life, and House agrees that the form is completely without merit, and throws it on the floor so that the flirty doctor-patient repartee can truly begin. Anica wants to know what a "respectable doctor" like House was doing at an OTB. House wants to know what a whatever she is was doing there, too. "It turns me on," she purrs. House asks her for a list of things that turn her on, because he's taking the kind of medical history most doctors only wish they could: "Rough sex? Casual sex? Casual rough sex?" "No sex," Anica says. She moved to town recently (from Chicago?) and doesn't have a job yet, so she doesn't know anyone. Which is why she was at the OTB, I'm guessing, since that's such a great place to mix and mingle. House checks out Anica's streaky bruising. Anica smiles seductively at him, like House is giving her a massage as opposed to poking around at the insane red lines she's got on her stomach. She claims that his prodding doesn't hurt. House mentions Cushing's syndrome, and Anica knows exactly what that is, because she saw that episode. That, and the fact that she had an adenoma removed from her pituitary gland last year.

House and Foreman hang out in the booth while Anica is wheeled into the MRI of DOOM. House is thrilled with himself for being right about Anica having Cushing's, which Foreman has to point out was actually Cameron's idea. He checks out Anica's MRI scans, but can't find the pituitary tumor re-growth they're expecting to see. He goes on the intercom and asks Anica to stop moving her head. "Sorry!" she sings, extremely cheerful about her possible brain tumor. It's almost like she's enjoying all these tests and attention. Foreman still can't find anything. House says that they must be dealing with a "micro-adenoma" that is too small to see. Or exist. When Foreman finds out that House didn't do a lumbar puncture on Anica because he was so sure she had Cushing's, he turns off the MRI machine and orders him to do that.

House tells Anica to curl into a fetal position. Anica wants to know why Cameron is standing around when she's never had two doctors in any of the other lumbar punctures she's had done before. She sure does know a lot about medical tests! House non-reassures her that Cameron is there to make sure that he doesn't paralyze his patient. Anica looks worried for the first time since she didn't get to post her Termigator bet. House goes in to do the lumbar puncture, and Anica jumps and gasps in pain. "Whoops!" House says. That's something you never want to hear from the guy poking around in your spine. He makes a few more unsuccessful attempts, and Anica starts to sweat as she shrieks in pain. House comments that LPs are a lot harder than he remembered them being. Cameron finally gets up the courage to step in and asks to take over. "Eighth time's a charm!" House says, and goes in for yet another poke. Anica's blood pressure skyrockets as she complains that her chest feels tight. Cameron orders House to stop lumbar puncturing. He gets up, calmly walks over to an attending nurse, and orders her to treat Anica for a "hypertensive crisis." "She'll be fine. Cameron -- meet me in my office," he says. Cameron rolls her eyes.

House scribbles "hypertensive crisis" on the whiteboard and boasts that he was correct in his Cushing's diagnosis after all, since Cushing's + stress = hypertensive crisis. Um, wouldn't it have been slightly less painful and risky to the patient just to do the freaking LP correctly to diagnosis this? I don't know what's worse -- House deliberately sucking at the LP just to prove that he was right, or House actually being that bad at LPs. House plays with one of the candy canes that someone insensitively put in his office while Foreman ticks him off about mangling the LP and says that alcoholism could explain the hypertensive crisis just as well as Cushing's, provided that you, like Foreman, are obsessed with being right and House being wrong, and that you assume that people are addicts even though there isn't any proof of that. Anica's blood pressure could have gone up because she's in alcohol withdrawal. It's a simpler explanation than House's invisible tumor theory. Surprisingly on House's side, even though he isn't the boss to suck up to, Chase says that there could be a cortisol-secreting tumor somewhere else on Anica's body. House says he wishes Chase were in charge instead of Foreman. Too bad Chase had to go and kill that patient! Chase looks like he either wants to kill himself or House. Ease up on the guy, House. You just almost paralyzed a woman in your unnecessary quest to prove your medical awesomeness. Cameron, hanging out by four Christmas stockings that I'm guessing were put up after Foreman was put in charge, just looks confused. House tells Foreman that they should do a scan for tumors. Foreman doesn't move. House clasps his hands and grovels sarcastically until Foreman relents, even though he still thinks their patient is an alcoholic, which he still doesn't have any proof of, nor has he even tried to find any. I never thought I'd say this, but shut up, Foreman.

By Sara M

Cameron and Chase enter with some bad news. Anica has a mass on her pancreas and, according to Chase, two months to live. "On the bright side," House reports, his blue eyes shining with triumph, "I was right!"

Even though I'm soon to be a Sirius customer, I love the XM satellite commercial where David Bowie steals Snoop Dogg's bling. Mr. Bowie just looks so damn proud of himself.

Anica's scarfing down some chocolate pudding when Cameron enters her room. Anica asks to see House instead, as she apparently enjoyed his little game of pin-the-tail-on-Anica's-backbone before. After that, I personally would have wanted to see any doctor but House, but Anica's a different case, isn't she? Cameron says that she has some news for Anica -- news that Foreman, in his infinite supervisory wisdom, thought Cameron should be the one to deliver: "We found a mass in your pancreas. It looks like cancer." She sighs, and reluctantly explains that pancreatic cancer is super-deadly, with fewer than 20% of its victims surviving past a year. "What's the treatment?" Anica asks, all matter-of-factly. Cameron says that they'll biopsy her pancreas and then "look at" her options. "Sounds good!" Anica says, still digging into her pudding. Cameron asks for her consent to do the biopsy. "Wish me luck!" Anica says. Hey, when Andi was all brave like that, everyone thought she was a hero. Cameron is more confused by Anica's behavior than she admiring of it, though.

House and Chase perform the biopsy. Anica must be thrilled to have, in charge of this procedure, one doctor just coming off suspension for killing his patient and another whose attempt to do an LP put her into a hypertensive crisis. Wilson and Cameron observe, and Cameron comments on how casually Anica took the news about her cancer. Maybe it's because you didn't exactly spell out the fact that she was going to die, Cameron. As for Wilson, he doesn't really care about that because he's so entertained by the fact that House has been forced to assist Chase.

House enters the Clinic exam room and looks up from his patient's chart to see his female patient de-pantsed, stirruped, and waiting for him. "Perfect," he says, and then immediately moves to the phone to call Foreman in for a consult. Hee hee hee. He puts his gloves on and starts checking out his patient's lower area. She explains that she's been using a contraceptive jelly for the last few weeks because her boyfriend doesn't like condoms. House goes in to get a sample as the patient shows him the jelly she's been using. Its main ingredient isn't spermicide; it's strawberries. The patient has been smearing Smucker's in her nether regions. House stares for a second in disbelief, and then manages to say that they're dealing with a neurological problem. "There's something wrong with my brain?" asks the patient, who is too stupid to figure out the difference between contraceptive and fruit jelly, but somehow knows that a neurologist is a brain doctor. An attending nurse, who totally rules but is certainly no Evil Nurse Brenda, tries not to laugh. House gets a Q-tip full of his patient's jelly-encrusted discharge and proceeds to wave it in the entering Foreman's face, asking him to smell it. Ew. House takes a sniff of it himself and says it "smells like vaginosis." Ew. Ew. Ew. Vaginosis smells like fish. I have to wonder if the patient assumed she was secreting caviar. Foreman informs House that "Anica's" (way to say a patient's name in front of another patient, there, boss) biopsy was negative for pancreatic cancer. Surprise! He leaves, and the patient asks House how long she'll have to wait to have sex again. "On an evolutionary basis, I'd recommend forever," House predictably responds. The scene cuts before we can see the part where House and the nurse exchanged high-fives.

By Sara M

House is watching television in the comfort of his office when Foreman walks in, his hands full of files and his head full of outrage. It seems that House ordered MRIs for the entire maternity ward. House says that one of them is necessary, so Foreman will have to comb through every single file to figure out which one it is instead of dismissing them all outright. Throwing a wrench into the works of providing adequate healthcare to new or expectant moms -- way to take a stand, there, House! Foreman turns House's TV off -- he's watching a monster truck rally, by the way -- and asks him what he's supposed to do in this new position. House tells him to act like his employee and "bitch," and then pulls out a year's worth of discharge summaries and happily tells Foreman to get to work signing them, since they're Foreman's responsibility now. That doesn't make sense to me, since House was the doctor in charge of those particular cases, so I would have thought he'd still have to sign off on them, demotion or not, but Foreman just tells him to "keep it coming." He can take whatever House dishes out!

Even though I'm soon to be a Sirius customer, I love the XM satellite commercial where David Bowie steals Snoop Dogg's bling. Mr. Bowie just looks so damn proud of himself.

Anica's scarfing down some chocolate pudding when Cameron enters her room. Anica asks to see House instead, as she apparently enjoyed his little game of pin-the-tail-on-Anica's-backbone before. After that, I personally would have wanted to see any doctor but House, but Anica's a different case, isn't she? Cameron says that she has some news for Anica -- news that Foreman, in his infinite supervisory wisdom, thought Cameron should be the one to deliver: "We found a mass in your pancreas. It looks like cancer." She sighs, and reluctantly explains that pancreatic cancer is super-deadly, with fewer than 20\% of its victims surviving past a year. "What's the treatment?" Anica asks, all matter-of-factly. Cameron says that they'll biopsy her pancreas and then "look at" her options. "Sounds good!" Anica says, still digging into her pudding. Cameron asks for her consent to do the biopsy. "Wish me luck!" Anica says. Hey, when Andi was all brave like that, everyone thought she was a hero. Cameron is more confused by Anica's behavior than she admiring of it, though.

House gets double-punished, as he now has to listen to Cameron whining that she didn't get to be the new boss. She wants to know if she's done something wrong to deserve this. House tells her to "shut up," and explains that Cuddy only picked Foreman because he's black. And that, people, is a racist thing to say. But it's not the only racist thing House will say in this episode, so I'll save the rant for later, especially because I can explain part of House's statement here by the fact that he would have said anything to shut Cameron up. It doesn't work, though, as Cameron asks him what he thinks of her leadership skills. House responds that they're "excellent" except for the fact that they're also "non-existent." "Kind of like Anica's tumor" is a great retort that Cameron does not offer. She whines that "there's more to being a leader than being a jerk!" First of all, Cams, you asked House for his opinion and he gave it to you. Sorry it wasn't what you wanted to hear, but you did ask. And second of all, House wasn't saying you had to be more of a jerk, he said you had no leadership skills. Hush, now.

Cameron and House part ways when she starts walking to her car and he heads for his motorcycle. "No way," Cameron states. House just tosses her his helmet. He says that there's construction on some road, so the motorcycle will be faster. Yeah, faster to DIE! He swings his leg over the motorcycle and revs it. Cameron and her non-existent leadership skills give up the fight and hop on the motorcycle behind him. She puts her hands at his side, and House grabs them and clasps them firmly around his torso. Jennifer Morrison does the perfect "I'm touching my crush!" smile here. And I have to say, that moment went a long way toward redeeming Cameron for me. I really wish they had kept her crush on House at this subtle and cute level instead of expanding it all out of control and weird and making her look like a creepy little girl with emotional problems. Too bad. As for House, it's hard to tell if he's smiling at having an attractive young woman's arms around him or grimacing at the thought of having to navigate snowy, construction-filled roads without a helmet, having given his only one to Cameron. I'm sure the motorcycle helmet safety committee is!

Anica's apartment sure looks lived-in for someone who just moved to town. Cameron finds two Post-It Notes on Anica's bathroom mirror reminding her of appointments with her ophthalmologist and gynecologist. Frequently seeing people whose job titles end in "ologist," Cameron explains, is a sign of Munchausen's. House points out that it could also mean that Anica has -- "and [he's] just thinking outside the box [heh heh -- "box"] here -- a VAGINA...and trouble reading." I think House is just upset because all this vagina talk gave him a flashback to his strawberry-flavored Clinic patient. For his part, he's found three different prescriptions of reading glasses, which indicates to him that Anica has a growing (yet still amazingly invisible) tumor pressing on her optic nerve. Plus, faking bad eyes is really scraping the bottom of the Munchausen's bucket, as far as I'm concerned. You don't get a whole lot of sympathy for nearsightedness. Cameron says that House is just seeing what he wants to see. He accuses her of doing the same thing. They're both right! "It's not your call," Cameron snots. Better call a taxi to bring you back to the hospital, Cameron! Minutes before you're putting your life in a crippled motorcyclist's hands is really not the right time to start showing off your leadership/jerk skills.

House and Cameron meet with Foreman. House points out that they didn't find any syringes that would indicate that Anica's been shooting herself up, so Cameron was wrong. Cameron says that Anica had a third of her pituitary gland removed and no tumor was found, so House is wrong. Foreman is hesitant to make a decision, and House yells at him to step up, warning that if he sides with Cameron and is wrong, Anica will die. Foreman agrees to do some test in Anica's brain that House thinks will reveal that she has a tumor. Cameron rolls her eyes and storms off to get Anica to sign the consent form. House still isn't happy, though, and tells Foreman he only sided with him because that was the safe route, not because he thought House was right. "You're a wuss," House declares. A wuss whose patients won't get sent home to die from a pituitary-gland tumor because everyone thought she was faking it. I wouldn't mind having that kind of wussy doctor. House assures Foreman that he will keep Foreman's wussiness a secret, and then walks out of the office and proceeds to call down the hallway to Wilson that he's got some great stuff to tell him about Foreman. Foreman almost destroys House's Magic 8-Ball in frustration, and then decides against it, since the 8-ball is Foreman's method of decisionmaking, after all.

Step Two of the Cameron Redemption Process is the following scene. She enters Anica's room, shoves the consent form in the patient's face, and says, "It's important for hospitals to get these signed for procedures that are completely unnecessary." Anica asks why they're doing a procedure that isn't necessary, apparently forgetting the precedent set by her fun times with lumbar punctures. "Because you're mentally ill," Cameron answers smoothly. She tells Anica that she knows all about her little ACTH injection secret and congratulates her for getting the attention from doctors she so desperately craves. Anica says that, right now, she's craving a new doctor. "I'm not giving you what you want?" Cameron asks. "I don't want a BITCH!" Anica says. Oh no she di-in't! Cameron stays cool and tells her to sign the forms and hope that her latest ACTH injection doesn't wear off before a "caring and concerned doctor" starts slicing through her brain. Anica signs the forms, and Cameron leaves. Anica notices that Cameron left her an early Christmas present -- a bottle of medicine.

Foreman's back in Cuddy's office, complaining that he doesn't want to be Cuddy's little tool to make House miserable. Cuddy tells him to slow his roll, and compliments his efforts at getting House to do all his paperwork and Clinic hours, which Cuddy's never been able to achieve before. That's got to be kind of embarrassing for Cuddy, but she's just really happy to have the diagnostics department running the way it's supposed to with House being an awesome doctor and someone else being a great administrator. She hints to Foreman that his temporary job could become permanent. Cuddy, you'd better have a good explanation for this or I'm going to start to think about not liking you anymore.

Foreman returns to the office and asks Cameron if Anica is ready for her procedure. Cameron responds that, yes, their mentally ill patient is ready for the risky brain surgery she doesn't need. Foreman rolls his eyes as the phone rings. Chase picks it up and hands it off to House, who then happily hands it off to Foreman. Apparently, Anica can't be operated on at this time. Cameron smiles and asks if this has anything to do with her pee turning orange. The three guys are confused as to how Cameron could have known this. Surely it's not that she's a great doctor. No, it's that she's a great mindfucker, because she left some antibiotics in Anica's room in a bottle that said they were dangerous and seizure-inducing and figured Anica would be a good little Munchausen's victim and take them. And she did. The antibiotics didn't give her a seizure, but they did turn her pee orange. Sweet, Cameron, although I don't know why she couldn't have given Anica something that would have made her pee turn an even cooler and more dramatic color, like neon green. Or alternately red and green, in honor of the upcoming Christmas festivities. Foreman is appalled that Cameron would set up a patient that he spent this whole episode assuming was an alcoholic. Cameron's really damn proud of herself. But there's still half of this episode left, so I'm thinking there's more to the story.

House throws some old paperwork off his desk and opens Anica's file, probably for the first time.

Anica sobs as Cameron starts to remove all her sympathy-garnering IV lines and other medical devices. She was almost happy about the cancer, but being discharged makes Anica sad. Cameron tells Anica, not unkindly, that she needs a different kind of medical help. Anica cruelly shoots back that just because Cameron is bulimic doesn't mean everyone else in this world creates their own medical problems. "I didn't do this to myself!" she insists. Cameron leaves the room. Once she's got a layer of protective glass between her and Anica, she shoots her a superior glare. Then she goes to the bathroom to throw up lunch. I'm kidding!

Back in the office, Foreman says that they'll discharge Anica in a few hours. House disagrees, saying that Anica isn't going anywhere, because he thinks that she has a real medical problem along with the Munchausen's. Foreman thinks House is just trying to save face after being proven wrong by Cameron, of all people. "At the end of the boy who cried 'wolf,' the wolf does come. And he eats the sheep, and the boy, and his parents," House says. "The wolf doesn't eat the parents!" Chase scoffs, this being the only problem he has with how the case has gone so far. House says he has a special version of the story that makes you glad he doesn't have any nieces or nephews to tell it to.

By Sara M

House sings victoriously (Agner and Yellen's "Ain't She Sweet?," an unexpected choice from a guy who wears all those rock t-shirts) and hands Foreman Anica's lab results, which are positive for Epstein-Barr, a known cause of aplastic anemia. It's all good for House until Foreman notices that Anica tested positive for sickle cell anemia, which is unusual in a white person, and especially unusual for one who's never tested positive for it before. Foreman figures out pretty quickly that House ran someone else's blood to get the results he wanted. He must have had to do more than compliment her eyes to get the tech to agree to help him with that. House admits to what he did and begs Foreman to let him do the biopsy. I wonder if that will work?

Nope! We cut to House asking Chase to sneak into Anica's room and do a bone-marrow biopsy. Chase protests that he just returned to work from being suspended. House says that Chase is his only option, since "Blackpoleon Blackaparte" alerted the nurses not to let House into Anica's room. Now here is why House is racist: of all the things he could have picked out to make fun of Foreman with, he used his race. He always uses Foreman's race. There are a lot of other things about Foreman that he could say for the sake of being outrageous, but he keeps sticking with the black thing. Even if it's not supposed to be demeaning or necessarily malicious (although, remember Mandingo?), he just never seems to forget that Foreman's black. If I knew someone in real life who said the kinds of things House does, I would call him a racist and not want to have anything to do with him. Fortunately, House is a fictional television character, so I can enjoy his misguided antics without feeling guilty about it, just like how I love South Park's anti-Semitic racist Cartman and how other people loved Archie Bunker. If House isn't intended to be a racist, then the writers need to develop Foreman's character so that House can have some different ammunition for his insults. ["...'Blackpoleon'? Hee." -- Wing Chun]

Chase refuses to go along with House's evil plan, saying that he agrees with Foreman's decision. House reminds him that "Blackaparte's reign" is a temporary one. Chase, probably still smarting from House's comment about how he killed a patient, angrily says that it doesn't matter what he does; House will still treat him like crap. "'Crap' is a relative term," House says. Chase considers this.

Foreman and Cuddy are super-pissed, having caught Chase ordering supplies for Anica's bone-marrow biopsy. They tell House that Anica has been discharged and is on her way out of PPTH right now, so he can quit trying to save her life.

Suddenly, it's dark outside. House catches Anica on her way into a cab and tells her to hold it. The cabbie isn't too pleased at losing his fare, but House tells him, "Bite me." That was much more entertaining when the EMT said it to House, but not so much when House is saying it to some poor blue-collar guy who was probably relying on that fare to feed his kids tonight. But anyway, House brings Anica to a nearby bench and says he's got one more medical test for her. She's intrigued, because Anica loves her some medical tests, even if they are performed outside in the snow. House tells Anica all about colchicine, the gout medication that destroys white blood cells and makes for more plot points on this show than you would have expected. It's like Continuity Christmas this week! Anica keeps interrupting to protest that she really is sick and wasn't faking anything, and tells House to shut up. He says this isn't her fault; she grew up around a relative with a serious disease and saw how much attention and love that person got, and it screwed her up. I wonder if he would be this understanding about it if Anica had Munchausen's-by-proxy and was killing her children. We'll never know...at least not until Season 4, when a kid with a mysterious illness comes to PPTH and they figure out that the kid's mother was poisoning him. ["And that has been used on some awesome episodes of Judging Amy and Law & Order." -- Wing Chun] Until then, though.

Anica denies House's charge, and he tells her that he's trying to give her what she wants; he's going to inject her with a drug that will make her sick and get her back into the hospital. He says he's doing it so that everyone else will see Anica as sick as the aplastic anemia he's decided she has is making her. "You've hit the Munchausen's jackpot," he says, whipping out a syringe filled with colchicine and insulin that will confirm his diagnosis. There's only one problem: if Anica's anemia was caused by something she took and not by aplastic anemia, then the shot will kill her. I'm not exactly sure how that works; you'd think that syringe would be more deadly for someone who's actually sick than someone who isn't. He asks Anica if she's taken anything else other than the insulin, ACTH, and Cameron's antibiotic pills. Anica says she hasn't, thereby admitting that she was, in fact, making herself sick. House sticks her with the needle. Anica says that her mother had MS, and that people cared about her. Then her mother died and "there was no one." I can almost feel sorry for her. Not for House, though. "Boo hoo," he says, and starts walking away. He can't be around when Anica starts having her seizure or else everyone will know that she got it because of what he injected her with and their plan will be destroyed. He says they're in a well-traveled area and that someone is bound to find her sooner or later, seizing all over the cold, cold ground. House keeps walking, and we hear Anica fall on the ground. He turns back to see her having her seizure. Despite his earlier statement about this being a popular spot, there doesn't appear to be anyone around to find her. House keeps walking away. He'd better hope he's right and that Anica was telling the truth, or else he just murdered someone.

By Sara M

But this is Foreman's decision now, and he's going to make one House doesn't agree with just to spite him. House protests that while all of Anica's other tests have had results all over the map, her anemia has stayed constant. He thinks she has aplastic anemia, and that if they throw her out of PPTH with "Munchausen's" on her record, she'll never be able to get the treatment she needs for it and she'll die. He wants to do a bone-marrow biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. Foreman refuses, saying more tests would just be feeding Anica's mental illness. House asks if they can test her without her even knowing it; he'll use her leftover blood to test for some of the causes of aplastic anemia. If he finds one, Foreman agrees to let him do the biopsy.

House strolls into the dimly-lit lab and orders a tech, who apparently thinks she's in a hospital that actually employs lab techs, to run a battery of tests on a teeny-tiny amount of blood that he's holding without wearing gloves (call OSHA!). The lab tech refuses, saying that there isn't enough blood. "You can try," House says. The lab tech responds that she could try to look like Salma Hayek, too, but that won't happen, either. Lab Tech has some self-esteem issues that need to be worked on, I think. House decides to take advantage of them and try something I never thought he was capable of: being charming and nice. He tells the tech that she has much nicer eyes than Salma. The tech looks at House, who flashes her a warm smile. She asks him how soon he needs the tests back. Score!

Foreman knocks on Wilson's door and asks if he can talk to Wilson about something confidential. Wilson says sure -- until Foreman tells him it's about House. Wilson eventually promises to keep Foreman's news a secret from House because Wilson can't resist good gossip. Foreman asks Wilson if he thinks House would take Foreman seriously as his boss; Cuddy "intimated" that this could happen. Wilson says that if Foreman's trying to usurp House, he'll need a toga and a different show. I don't who Foreman's trying to convince when he says that this really is a "win-win" situation: he'll do all the work House hates, leaving House free to do all the fun medical stuff. Except for the fact that Foreman probably won't let House do any of the tests he wants to do, if this week is any indication. Wilson says he won't tell Foreman how to take over Wilson's best friend's job, and that there's "no way" Cuddy would let that happen anyway. Foreman smirks knowingly. Wilson wonders if that was his only function in this episode.

House races into the bone-marrow death booth and turns the machine off. Everyone is confused. After confirming that Anica hasn't been in the machine long enough for it to have done any real damage, House says that she doesn't have aplastic anemia after all: she has an infection. Her fake Cushing's hid the telltale fever and high white count symptoms. An infection of the Clostridium perfringens, which apparently gives off a sweet smell (better than vaginosis, I guess), explains everything -- except, Chase notes, Anica's low white count. House thinks they should try treating Anica for an infection before they destroy her immune system. Wilson's facial expression indicates that he knows what's going on, but the rest of the Cottages are confused. Foreman asks House why he's all about taking the safe route all of the sudden. Lying badly, House says that maybe Anica decided to inject herself with gout medicine. Foreman finds it very convenient for Anica to have taken the one medicine that would confirm House's diagnosis. He can't believe House would drug Anica without her knwledge, even though Cameron kind of did the same thing. House's defense is that Anica consented to the injection. "She's MENTALLY ILL!" Foreman screams. "But she smells oh-so-sweet," House says.

The group heads off on a field trip to the bone-marrow killing machine. Cameron gets to hold House's cane as he lifts up Anica's shirt to reveal her weird bruises, and explains that the only reason she didn't get sicker like she was supposed to was because Cameron gave her those antibiotics. Anica would like to know what's going on. "Pull my finger," he orders. Stupidly, she does. Instead of farting, though, House makes a small incision in her bruise and takes a nice whiff of her pus. It smells "grapey." The bruises Anica gave herself with her injections have become seriously infected. Either that, or she has aplastic anemia and injected herself with grapes. I wouldn't put it past Anica to do just that. "I love the smell of pus in the morning," House says. "It smells like...victory." A pretty hollow victory, I'd say, considering that you came about this close to killing off an otherwise healthy immune system.

Foreman enters Cuddy's office and says he wants to run the department permanently. Not so fast, Cuddy says: under Foreman's supervision, House managed to inject a patient with colchicine and insulin. Foreman says that he did what he was supposed to do according to Anica's charts, and that Cuddy would have done the same thing. Cuddy says she would have, and that she would have been wrong, too. But House saved Anica's life (eventually, and thanks to Cameron). And they even got her to agree to outpatient mental treatment. It's a pretty good showing for House overall, even though his patient was just a few minutes away from losing her healthy bone marrow and had that hypertensive crisis and probably has frostbite from her snow seizure. Foreman asks Cuddy if she ever really meant to give him House's job. Cuddy cryptically says that Foreman still has two weeks left to prove himself. Disgusted, Foreman says that Anica "should" have died, and that House isn't a hero because she didn't. "He's not Rosa Parks," Foreman declares, as if anyone on this earth suspected that he was. "He's an anarchist." And Cuddy had better nip that in the bud before PPTH's mortality rate goes "through the roof." Foreman's argument is seriously undermined by the fact that House has saved lives of quite a few people who "should have" died, according to God Foreman.

By Sara M

The day, Chase and Foreman discuss Anica's re-admission to the hospital, assuming that she injected herself with something she managed to swipe as she was on her way out. Cameron comes in and reports that, this time, Anica's white count is really low. Foreman checks the charts out and marvels that she actually has aplastic anemia. At the sound of him being correct, House drags himself away from his computer and rubs his victory in Foreman's face. For his part, Foreman looks really disturbed that Anica had aplastic anemia and that his sending her home could have killed her. Not like that will stop him from pre-judging someone in the future, because he always learns this lesson and he just keeps on doing it.

By Sara M

Foreman, who seems to think he no longer needs to wear a white lab coat now that he's a boss and all, enters Anica's room. He introduces himself, not having actually met her until now. He sure is acting exactly like the guy he purports to hate, isn't he? He tells Anica that she has aplastic anemia. Her bone marrow isn't working anymore. Unlike when Cameron told her about the deadly cancer, Anica is properly emotional and scared at this news. Foreman says that Anica has two options: a bone-marrow transplant, which will cure her but is dangerous, or weekly blood transfusions for the rest of her life. Anica chooses the first one. Foreman is thrown; he thought Munchausen's Anica would have been thrilled at getting the frequent medical care and attention she's been trying so hard for. "I just want to be healthy," Anica says. "It's not so much fun when you're actually sick," Foreman says. And while the comment looks pretty assholish, I thought Foreman sounded sympathetic and sincere here. Anica thanks him.

Wilson sets Anica up for her bone-marrow treatment. First, they have her stand in front of a machine that will kill all of her crappy useless bone marrow. Then they'll stick her in a sterile room for two weeks before giving her some nice, healthy donor marrow. Wilson asks Anica if she's ready for her bone marrow to die. Anica looks really unhealthy and scared. She says she's ready. The machine starts up. Anica asks for House.

House is too cool for bone-marrow murder; he's chilling in Anica's room, lying on her no-doubt nasty unwashed sick-person bed and checking out her horse-racing picks. He notices a strange smell in the air, and grabs Anica's pillow to get a nice big whiff of it. Then he goes into her clothes and takes out a lacy head wrap. At least, I hope it's a head wrap and not, like, panties, because House sniffs the hell out of that, too.

By Sara M

Awesomely, the Peanuts Christmas song starts to play. House makes Wilson pay for his Tic-Tacs at a newsstand like the abusive asshole friend he is, and says he kind of likes Foreman being in charge. It gives House more time for his soaps, and for lunch with Wilson. Wilson doesn't see how that's any different than usual. They head outside, and Wilson says that House would never be able to accept Foreman as his boss. "People can change," House says, changefully eating a few Tic-Tacs instead of Vicodins.

Meanwhile, over at another hospital, a doctor notes that Anica's white count is really low, and that he's going to have to admit her to run a few tests. "Whatever you think is best," she says non-changefully. She's pretty damn pleased to have found another way to fake her illness. Way to give her that info there, House. You could have just given her the injection without saying what was in it. And way to keep making yourself sick even after saying you didn't like actually being sick, Anica, which was the result of your injecting yourself with stuff in the first place. Maybe Foreman's right and Anica should have died after all.

House is back where he started -- the OTB. There are no hot babes here tonight, though, so he'll have to settle for betting on the races. He bets a lot of money on one of Anica's picks as he swallows what could either be Tic-Tacs or Vicodin -- the container they came from is conveniently left just off-screen for ambiguity, I think. Judging by what we just saw with Anica and House's trademark head-toss when taking them, I'm betting those aren't Tic-Tacs. Maybe we'll find out year. Until then, happy holidays!

House TV Show - Decepticon - House Photos &amp; Videos, House Reviews &amp; House Recaps | TWoP

House TV Show - Decepticon - House Photos & Videos, House Reviews & House Recaps | TWoP