By Montykins
Remember how Park punched her old boss? Well, her disciplinary hearing takes place at the end of this episode, and that takes up much of the non-medical discussion. After accidentally betting House that she'll be exonerated, she ends up apologizing and not getting in trouble at all. So if you were expecting her to get fired in the fourth episode of the season, she doesn't. What a twist!
In hospital news, this week's patient is a captain of industry who's thinking of moving his company to China. This provides House with a chance to beg for lots of money and Adams with a chance to talk about jobs leaving the country. He starts with something cool called "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome" and ends up with hyperviscosity syndrome brought on by Y-shaped antibodies from his rheumatoid arthritis. He ends up sending the company to China over his daughter's objections.
In his ongoing campaign to raise money to get his old office back, House steals a laser and hocks it or something. Then he uses the money to buy a lot of stock in the patient's company, so when the China move is announced, House makes enough money to get the laser back, give Wilson five thousand dollars he stole along the way, and buy his old office and staff back. So Chase and Taub will be back episode, apparently.
Oh, and Adams is late for work early on in the episode. That ends up being because she just got divorced. And I think she gets officially hired at the end of the episode, which is good. I mean, she's been spending all this time treating patients without actually being employed at the hospital, so it's nice to get the paperwork taken care of.
An older, white-haired gentleman steps out on the front porch of his enormous mansion (it's got marble columns! And not just two or three, either) and flourishes a trash bag to begin the process of de-TP-ing his trees. At first I thought it was just a regular post-Halloween scene, but there are also signs calling him "Benedict Barton" and insisting that he save US jobs. And also he's been hung in effigy. So we are to conclude that he's very rich, but not very popular. A cheerful younger woman drives up in an expensive car, and I naturally assume this is his trophy wife. No, it's his daughter. Cliché: avoided! Anyway, she encourages him to call the cops about the vandalism. Or at least not move the company to China. He won't. He can't! He absolutely must move the company, no matter what it does to local jobs. Well, at least the local effigy-makers are getting work. She suggests some external investors, but he refuses to consider to sell off parts of the company. It's a family business, and it's his responsibility, darn it!
As he protests, he cuts off in the middle of a sentence and looks at his hand. A POV shot reveals that she looks like she's a million miles away. And so does his hand. Finally, he speaks: "I need you to drive me to a doctor." A sensible plan! He's handling this very well.
House has binoculars and is looking through them backwards so things look like they're far away. Park suggests "the JVE virus." House recommends she read the inoculation record so she won't suggest things that are already ruled out. She closes his laptop, then opens it so that he can read her an email from her ex-boss apologizing for hypothetical sexual harassment. What's happened is that he's taken some sexual harassment courses and issued a blanket apology that doesn't admit to anything specific. This is relevant because Park's disciplinary hearing for punching him is coming up. She insists that he grabbed her behind, although House characterizes it as a "celebratory slap." House: "You are so fired." Park is fired up and defiant and says, "A hundred bucks says I don't get fired." He takes the bet and promptly fires her. It begins to dawn on her that House doesn't play fair. She tries to modify the bet to whether she'll be fired after the hearing, and House chooses to interpret that as a further bet, in addition to the one she already lost, putting her "a C-note in the hole." Such colorful language! Do you think he picked that up in the joint?
Adams enters and deflects House's accusation of tardiness by pointing out that she doesn't even work there. I don't think the show should dwell on that, because it doesn't make a lot of sense that she's allowed to work on the patients without being on the payroll. If nothing else, House's methods tend to involve a lot of risk, and the insurance company would probably prefer that non-employees not put patients in constant danger of dying. Adams notes that Barton (the patient) is rich and white, because House is still trying to get funding for a staff and his old office. Say, who was doing the diagnostics while House was up the river? Did they just shut down that whole department for a year? Because this town seems to have a pretty steady stream of people with impossible-to-guess diseases. Seems like it might have been a good idea to try keeping the department operating even without Mr. Brilliant Jerk over here. Anyway, could it be atropine poisoning? Nope. Park suggests thyrotoxicosis. House thinks it might be worth a try. Didn't we just have thyrotoxicosis? I'm sure I remember typing that word recently.
Barton's bedside. He says that everything looked tiny, and then it all went from small to big. House says it's "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome," which sounds like he's just making stuff up. But it really exists! I don't think it's a very good name, because it could apply to almost anything. If that's "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome," what's the name for when you cry so much you create an ocean of tears and then end up in a race with a Dodo? Anyway, House decrees that it's something in the occipital lobe. Allegedly it's a migraine without a headache. I have those! It's more of a glowing aura thing than a literary reference, though. House moves on to Phase II: begging for money. But Barton isn't feeling rich enough to hand out cash, saying, "We're trying to find money in our budget so we don't have to move our operations overseas." House pretends to accept that, then speaks Mandarin with the patient about mental illness: "It's taboo enough to destroy a high profile business deal." Then he vaguely threatens to breach confidentiality by putting him in a mental ward. Barton sighs (in Mandarin), "How much do you want?" The daughter looks suspicious.
House strolls into the cafe, pleased with having gotten a bunch of money so early in the episode. As he sits in their booth, he tells Adams and Park, "You're hired! You guys are going to love Doctors Chase and Taub." In my opinion, Doctors Chase and Taub would be better off not coming back to work for House. They should consider staying far away. Adams is appalled that the patient is destroying thousands of jobs. House says the jobs aren't being destroyed; they're just going to China. Park defends the basic concept of nationalism, which prompts House to compare it to "loyalty to real estate." He starts to steal Adams' burger. She leaves, saying, "I have hepatitis C." He switches to Park. She says, "She got it from me." House knows perfectly well that none of that is true, but he puts the burgers down anyway. I think he's just acknowledging a good excuse.
The daughter tells Adams she wants to get her father out of there before 9:00, when the market opens. The premise here is that the market knows that he's sick, and therefore the company business has gone down. Or possibly the market is eager to hear that the company's problems are at an end. Either way, I'm kind of surprised to learn that this is a publicly-traded company, because there was a lot of talk about how this was a family-owned company. They're certainly acting like Barton can do anything he wants, but if people can buy stock, there are shareholders to consider. In fact, remember that scene where Barton refused to consider outside investors? That's what selling stock means. Okay, anyway. The daughter tells Adams that she thinks her father's moving the company because her mother dies of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, rather than greed. He just can't stand to be reminded of her, see. So he's distraught, so it's okay!
Enough plot. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Coughing up blood! Intubation kit! Oh no!
After a commercial, it's time for Medical Talk! I suppose I should turn on the closed captioning at some point so I can give some of the hard-to-spell ideas that don't get picked up. Park goes with hyperviscosity syndrome. They're in Foreman's office, incidentally, which is huge. House suggests hyperviscosity syndrome as a way of bringing up the fact that Park sent out a non-apology apology that was just like her ex-boss's. She even mentioned anger management classes, which House doesn't want her to take. Naturally; he prefers having subordinates who are fun to taunt. If they learn coping mechanisms, they might learn to ignore him. Park suggests a clotting problem. House says Adams was hostile to the daughter, even though she was pleasant to all the rapists and murderers at the prison. She even came to work for House for free, and he's a sociopath. He's taken an interest in why she was late. She says, "I was at a job interview." House isn't buying it. She got there at 9:15, and the nearest hospital is 45 minutes away. Couldn't the job interview have been at PPTH?
Foreman enters and tells them to get out. House points him to the check he left on his desk, which House feels will excuse all his misbehavior (well, all his recent misbehavior) and also buy back his old office and former minions. Foreman knows it was given under duress and tears it up. Park and Adams start to leave. Then House grabs Foreman's ass. Not briefly, either; he gets a nice big handful of butt and holds onto it. He claims that he was doing this to prove that the natural response was what Park did, i.e. to punch the ass-grabbed. Foreman does not punch him. House: "My god, you have superhuman discipline. And glutes." Foreman: "Get your hands off me." Park: "Sorry." Foreman: "Go."
Out in the hall, Park is baffled at why House would be taunting the head of the disciplinary committee and tells House to forget the bet. He looks mildly baffled and says, "You two really need to do your research on me." See, this is why he needs a steady stream of new dummies to bother. It's no fun when the victims are expecting to be needled. House proposes a test (activated protein C) that will cause the patient to either bleed out in one case or throw another clot in the other case. As long as they're watching him, they'll be ready!
Barton tells Adams that her boss employs blackmail, so maybe she could stop being snotty about his business practices? She ignores this (presumably because she doesn't want to have to defend House's tactics) and interrogates him on his future factories' working conditions. He claims that American companies don't use that much child labor. Park pipes up that her ten-year-old cousin works in an American factory and is happy as a clam. It's cheaper than school! Barton is itchy, which means ... something.
In his office, House uses a homemade strobe light to annoy the ortho people door. When one comes over to call House childish, House makes the ortho guy vomit into a trash can. Apparently you can do that with a strobe light. The ortho guy asks, "You think I'm not gonna go to Foreman with this?" Of course he will. House will deny it, but Foreman will obviously believe him. I'm not sure how this works out in House's favor, since the best case is that no one can prove what he's doing but everyone will know it's true. Adams points out that his strong attachment to his old office is just like "loyalty to real estate." House pontificates in an attempt to distract from what was actually a pretty good point. Adams pontificates in return (sorry; it turns out I don't much care about the philosophical justifications for nationalism), then brings up the wife's non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which might have been misdiagnosed HTLV1, which could have then been passed on to their new patient. So now it's cancer. Time for radiation!
House does some clinic work (which is always fun) and works on a guy in a Chang and Eng costume. The costume consists of a dummy attached to his waist. He got in a fight for insisting on being called a "conjoined twin," rather than "Siamese twin." House points out that Chang and Eng were, in fact, Siamese twins, in that they were twins from Siam, which is now called Thailand. That's where we got the phrase from! Park comes in so House can make her lecture the patient about settling disputes physically. Then it turns out that House was tricking her into saying, "sometimes it's incredibly satisfying to punch someone who deserves it" so he could record it on his phone. Park is dismayed that House now has evidence that he can use at the disciplinary hearing to make her lose her bet with him. Park does not appear to realize that the disciplinary committee is unlikely to take anything House says at face value. I have to assume that whenever House isn't actively working on a case, he's appearing in front of some board or another for his constant stream of misbehavior.
Radiation room. I don't know that for a fact, but Barton is in the clutches of some expensive-looking machine, so it's a pretty good bet that this involves the radiation treatment. Adams chats with him over the intercom, sharing their latest theory. He says his wife couldn't possibly have given him an STD, which sounds to me like the opening for a subplot about he and his wife no longer having sex. But it doesn't go anywhere. Adams talks about grief counseling, which he dismisses. She insists that his emotions factored into his decision to move his company right after his wife died. He answers, "My wife is the only thing that keeps me here. I visit her grave once a week." Adams seems disappointed that there isn't a soppy emotional explanation for his behavior and concludes, "You just need a lot of money." Barton answers with a story about a Japanese family that went bankrupt after fifty generations, and how the last CEO must have felt awful. He's just trying to save the family business, you guys! And just then! Heart rate speeding up. Tightness in the chest. Heart attack! Oh no!
Wilson's office. Park wants advice. Oh good; I want to see Park and Adams interacting with Wilson and Foreman a little more. I already know how House works with them, you know? New interactions, that's what'll keep this show fresh. She tells Wilson about the bet and he confirms that House is definitely trying to get her fired because of the bet. She asks about a bet in the other direction for $200, but that's no go. Apparently House won't accept a bet like that because it impinges on his honor or something. He recommends she come up with something House values more than honor. And update her resume.
Adams tells House she can't even tell if it Barton had a heart attack. What? Wasn't he hooked up to various monitors and stuff? What good are they if they can't even tell a heart attack? House has something else on his mind: he wants $200,000 to invest in the guy's company, because it'll go up when he gets saved. I still say it doesn't make any sense for this to be a publicly traded company at the same time that it's a family business where one man makes all the decisions. Adams declines to loan him money, although apparently she's rich enough to consider throwing two hundred grand around. She goes down to five thousand, but only if he doubles his clinic hours. She thinks this will make him treat the clinic patients more humanely. He now guesses that she was late because of a parole hearing that didn't go well. So she's trying to make him do good Anyway, he accepts the deal.
House's office. Everything is in casts. The ortho people have come in and wrapped the lights, the chair, and each individual thing on the desk in plaster. It looks great! He goes into the ortho room to announce, "Of course you know, this means war." Yup. The ortho guy seems okay with that. His plan includes escalation and retaliation until things go too far. And in the end: "I'll get suspended. And you'll go back to prison. Happy pranking." House goes back to his office to scheme and plot.
Adams comes in and says some medical stuff. Park constructs a metaphor about how Barton's plumbing works, so the problem must be in his electrics. She also says her college roommate, editor of Yale Law Review, is writing her opening statement for the disciplinary hearing. House thinks that won't matter. Park mentions that Andrews (her ex-boss, the one who grabbed her butt) had been drinking. House reflects that he's taking sexual harassment training, not AA. He also mumbles something about how Foreman must have known that Andrews had been drinking.
Park barges into Foreman's office, which pleases me. Foreman's probably bored, just sitting there doing administrative work all day. She tells Foreman that he already knew Andrews was drinking that night. He agrees. She wants the meeting cancelled, on the grounds that Foreman wouldn't want people knowing that he set the wheels in motion. Foreman says Andrews was the only neurologist who was available, "so we agreed that he would come in and wouldn't touch the patient." Park intones, "I can understand the rationalization. We'll see if the board agrees when I tell them the whole story at my hearing." Foreman has done that already and gotten docked two weeks' pay. Park looks surprised that her attempt to blackmail Foreman didn't work. He thinks she's been working for House too long already.
Barton report: there were no electrical abnormalities in the atrium. Park thinks she's in trouble. She would also like Adams to submit a character reference, which is not a favor somehow. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Something's wrong with Barton again.
House suggests to Adams that they release Barton. That doesn't go over all that well. He just wants to announce to the world that Barton is fine so that the market will react to the news that the company's going to China. As I understand House's plan, he's trying to capitalize on the momentary dip the company took when Barton went into the hospital. That's incredibly unethical, but what else is new? But Barton's not ready, so House is out $20,000. He got $5,000 from Adams, stole another $5,000 from Wilson, and got the other $10,000 on margin. It's a good thing Wilson is a complete pushover or he might object to House stealing money from him. So now House wants $200,000 from Adams to cover his losses. She won't do it. He attempts to manipulate her motivations and she sees right through it: "So if I give you two hundred thousand dollars, I'll feel smart and pretty?" House's latest theory about her lateness was that she was with family. She starts to tell him what it was, but he cuts her off because where's the fun in that?
Adams and House are in House's office. Adams can't believe House. He can't believe her either! He professes to be shocked that she would disobey him. She's now on board with Andrews's theory. He admits that he wanted Park to do the tilt-table test, and that forbidding it was faster than recommending it. She wants to test for normal pressure hydrocephalus, which was Andrews's idea. House has another one. He sends Adams off to biopsy the liver. House: "Unless you want your own hearing." Adams: "You'd have to hire me first." She leaves. House looks contemplative.
Still in the disciplinary hearing, Park admits that it's unacceptable to hit people. She looks contrite. She kind of starts babbling: "It's like it wasn't even me. I would never do something like that. Even though I did. I'm sorry I'm not making any sense right now. I don't know. I just really love being a doctor so much and I barely even have a hundred dollars and... Please don't fire me?" Pause. She looks hopeful.
Barton's daughter (whose name might well also be Barton) wants to know if this latest diagnosis is any better. Adams says they'll know in a few hours. The daughter says if Barton is still comatose in a day, she'll sign the move-to-China paper because it's what her father wants. "But unless he wakes up before tomorrow, it's gonna be my signature on that piece of paper." Adams: "You don't have to sign it." Stay out of it, lady. Just concentrate on fixing her father.
House plays with a ball on his cane. Adams enters his office. The liver biopsy was clean. As was the spinal fluid test. Could it be HTLV? No, because they rejected that earlier in the episode. Looks like they're out of ideas. Park enters, jubilant. She would like her hundred bucks from House. Adams suggests Eastern equine encephalitis. Yes, that's an "equine" in the name, but apparently it does affect humans. House is distracted by the noise of the ortho saws door. They seem to spend literally all day cutting casts off people in there. House gimps in and prepares to hit the ortho guy. Then! He sees an x-ray with metal in it. I think it may be someone with an artificial shoulder. He gets Idea Face and then tells Adams and Park to start the patient on plasma phyresis. That, he says, will make him wake up in an hour. He tells the ortho guy it's been a pleasure having him as a neighbor.
Barton's bedside. House smugs, "This diagnosis was brought to you by the letter 'Y.'" Barton is thirsty, which I think annoys House. He's supposed to be fawning on House's brilliance, not worrying about his own physical needs. House tells him he had large, Y-shaped antibodies clogging up his internal bits. This hyperviscosity syndrome was brought on by rheumatoid arthritis. Barton, who might not have been listening to all that, says, "So I'm gonna be completely cured." House gives him the papers to move his company to China. He wants him to sign before the market opens. Barton has literally just opened his eyes a minute ago and now House is pressuring him to sign these incredibly important papers. The daughter says, "If you move it, it'll be without me." She can't do it. "If this is really about family, you will not do this." House watches, tensely.
Barton signs. The company will move to China and House will presumably make his day-trading money.
House rolls a laser into the hospital. I'm not sure what the mechanics were of turning that laser into stock-buying money, then getting the laser back. Wilson meets him in the lobby and pays him some money, which is when we realize that Wilson made a bet with House that Park would get fired. Then he tells House that he only made the bet to balance House off. He goes on to tell House that he knows that he interfered in that hearing to make her more emotional and seem vulnerable. And that the committee all hates him, which seemed pretty obvious. Wilson thinks that House was neutral with regard to bets, so he must have gone out of his way to make Park get exonerated because he likes her. House claims he'd just rather win Wilson's money than Park's. Then he gives him back the five thousand dollars Wilson didn't know was missing.
House rolls the laser into Foreman's office. Foreman glares at him: "Congratulations. You're not going to jail. Today." House magnanimously offers to double his clinic hours, but Foreman has heard about Adams's deal and doubles them again. House tells him to call Chase and Taub. "Get 'em in here. The boys are back." Foreman points out that the check is for more than he told House it would take. "I know." This is a weird way to run a hospital.
Adams enters the ortho area, which I guess is House's once more. So if the ortho people run a stock scam that makes them even more money, do they get to buy the area back? House takes a lab coat off a skeleton and holds it out, congratulating her. I guess Adams is officially hired now. He has decided that she caught her boyfriend cheating. His evidence is that she kept pitching an STD diagnosis, talked about loyalty a lot, and mentioned being pretty. She says that it was her husband and she was signing divorce papers. House is surprised he missed her being married, but they've been separated for almost a year.
House grabs, not his cane, but a bat. He offers it to Adams. "It's all bought and paid for." She's being allowed to smash up the skeleton? Those are expensive! Which is dumb, because there are billions of the things. I've got one inside me right now. She smashes it in slow motion, which looks like fun. Then she busts up the whole rest of the ortho lab. Which is probably going to be left to the long-suffering custodial crew to clean up.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @montykins and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.