The audition experiment continues as House splits the pretenders to Chase, Cameron, and Foreman's thrones into two teams of five to diagnose a man with SMA, a degenerative disease that may or not be affecting his ability to swallow and causing him to faint. Whoever wins is, presumably, not fired. That one pinchy-faced woman switches to the other team, sucks up to Cameron and Chase as a means of trying to get the diagnosis first, and is undiplomatic at every turn, so...she's the Chase, I guess.
Meanwhile, House's clinic patient, who was recently in a car accident, wants to repeat his near-death, go-to-the-light experience -- which he does by plugging a knife into a wall socket. The guy survives, and tells House there's something bigger out there.
Neither team can figure out what's wrong with SMA Guy, of course, and there's the predictable hijinks and guessing -- worms from the patient's trip to Thailand, melanoma of the eye -- while Kal Penn dickers over the terms of the prospective firings, so I suppose he's the Foreman. And also, he's Kal Penn, and why would they put him on the show if he's not staying. During the part where everyone's convinced it's cancer, SMA Guy says he's had enough of being trapped in his own body; he just wants to die and get it over with, and set himself free. House thinks that's bollocks, of course, and repeats the knife-in-the-socket experiment (on himself) to prove to SMA Guy that there's no afterlife. He pages the pinchy-faced woman before he goes through with it, though, so she arrives moments later and resuscitates him. When Wilson questions him later about what he saw, House is mum.
Up in SMA Guy's room, they've discovered that it's not cancer, gone back to the worms idea, and given him another treatment, which is supposed to start working immediately...but it doesn't. He asks that his dog be put up on the bed with him, and that his hand, which he can no longer move on his own, be put on the dog's head. Then he goes into Cheyne-Stokes and dies. Minutes later, so does the dog.
Pinchy gives House the news, and he hauls himself out of his sickbed to run the diagnosis postmortem. Turns out the guy not only didn't take the pills, but he gave them to his dog; since the dog is of a breed with a particular gene that can't take typical heartworm medication, SMA Guy knew he and the dog would both die. The worms diagnosis was correct, and the big-foreheaded girl who was running with it is upset, sitting by the body and brooding about how she didn't watch SMA Guy to make sure he took the pills. Aaaaaand she's evidently the Cameron. House delivers a lecture but doesn't fire her, she leaves the room, and House grimly tells the corpse what he saw while he was temporarily "dead" by electrocution: nothing.
Elsewhere, the real Foreman gets himself fired for taking a diagnostic long shot that, while correct, reveals he's still haunted by past mistakes.
A man in a wheelchair rolls out of his van and tells his dog to fetch him a blanket because he's cold. Amazingly, the dog obeys. Can helper dogs really do that stuff? That's so cool. The guy then pushes the limits of dog-human communication by telling his canine companion about a girl who works at an ice-cream store with an open blouse you can see down. Apparently, Cuddy's doing some moonlighting at Scoops. The dog obligingly presses the "walk" button at the stoplight for the guy, but midway through the crossing, his owner passes out. The dog barks out for help, only to almost get hit by a car driven by some inattentive radio-dialing menace to all pedestrians, who would have driven through a red light and run a wheelchair-bound man over if she hadn't seen his dog in time.
The Numbers have been sitting around the classroom all day with no House in sight. It's now four o'clock, one hour past House's expected arrival time. No one seems to have had the foresight to bring any reading material, and they're bored. Eventually, Anne Dudek (who I can now see is 24) takes a stand and says she's going home, and everyone should come with her. That may have worked at the car wash, but 18 immediately warns the room of what 24 is up to, because he wants to get this job by merit, not by scheming! Poor 18 has a lot of living in the real world to do, methinks.
House breezes in and tosses files to everyone as he describes their new patient. 18 thinks it wise to interrupt to ask House why he's an hour late. 18 really cares about the patient, you guys. That, and timeliness. 13's smirk fades as she reads from the patient file that he has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which is incurable and unfortunate, but not a diagnostic mystery. I'm surprised House would have anything to do with SMA after last time when it lost him some precious French fries. House says he's dividing the class into teams. The team that can figure out what's threatening to "deprive the patient of the twenty or so miserable years he's got left with SMA" wins not being fired. Kumar asks how they're supposed to split up, and Thing 1 suggests splitting up girls versus boys, because she's in second grade and boys have cooties. For her assistance, House calls her the "fat twin." He tells the group that if their genitals "dangle," then they're on the Confederacy. If they're "aesthetically pleasing," then they're Union. This doesn't help me figure out who is on which team at all. Almost immediately, 24 requests to be on the men's team, figuring there's no way House will hire a team of all girls. House agrees to the switch as long as the men do.
They don't seem thrilled about it in the scene, where she's walking down the hall with them as they all summarily dis her and refuse to allow her on their team. No girls allowed! I see Weird Beard is still around, even though he's not a real doctor. 24 accuses them of being threatened by her. I'd be; she's about one step away from killing the other Numbers off to get that job.
The distaff side Camerons it up by diagnosing House's mindset rather than their patient. 13 figures House must already know what's wrong with the patient to risk his health on a little game like this.
So typically, the men think they should "gang-bang" their patient with a battery of tests and see if the results give them any clues.
One of the twins suggests that the dog is a carrier of whatever's ailing their patient, but the Indian-looking woman who didn't get any lines last week says House must know the dog isn't a factor, since she has veterinary training and that wouldn't be fair to the male team. Um, yes, let's base our diagnoses on House's fairness. That'll work.
18 guesses the dog as well. Kumar mentions a recent trip to Thailand that their patient took as another potential source of infection. Meanwhile, they write all kinds of nonsense symptoms on the Whiteboard, hoping the girls will see it and be led down the wrong path, securing a victory for the men. Weird Beard notices 13 leaving the room, and I notice that my arch-nemesis Deran Serafian has been promoted to Co-Executive Producer! Good news for him; bad news for viewers at all susceptible to motion sickness.
Since she still doesn't have a team, 24 is making friends with Cameron by asking her annoying questions like, "Why do you guys keep a D-cell battery in a urine specimen cup?" followed by, "Why would someone swallow a battery?" when Cameron answers that they pulled the battery from a patient's intestine. For a cutthroat bitch, 24 is kind of naïve. Cameron cuts to the chase (no, not the character. Not yet, anyway) and asks 24 why she's kissing Cameron's ass. 24 appeals to Cameron's caring nature by telling her that House is turning patient care into a game, and the patient is sure to suffer for it. The scene ends before 24 whips out a bunch of cute photos of the patient's dog and a copy of his family tree that shows all living relations are dead.
House decides to check on his Clinic patients, which he hasn't done in like two seasons. Understandably, his first patient, who's all bandaged and casted up after a recent run-in with something decidedly bigger and heavier than he is, is a little annoyed at the amount of time he's had to wait for his doctor and whips out a knife as soon as House enters the room. "Whoa," House says, because, really, what else can you say? The patient isn't going for him, however, but for the electrical outlet. He jams the knife in it and electrocutes himself while House watches, his face a mixture of "Am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing right now?" and "Sweet, I didn't get stabbed."
13 gives the POTW a lecture about fainting, then says she thinks he picked up a threadworm when he was in Thailand. She gives him two pills and promises he'll be all better. Except we're only ten minutes in, so he won't. While 13 gets the patient a glass of water, Kumar and some other Number we don't need to care about stroll in and start treating the POTW. 13 says they could at least wait for her to finish, but they'd rather fight it out in front of their patient, which I'm sure is doing wonders for his morale. 13 puts a cup of water on the patient's table to the pills and leaves as Kumar tries to wheedle information out of him about what the women's team is testing him for. But POTW is wise to their machinations as House already told him that he's got two teams of doctors competing over his diagnosis. POTW is all for this, figuring with ten doctors treating him, he should be getting ten cures. It's not about the quantity of the cures, POTW. It's about quality. Kumar tells POTW he needs to collect a stool sample from him and is annoyed when POTW responds that'll be tough since he's immobile and hasn't been shitting recently. Kumar looks extremely put out that he has to help POTW to the bathroom. Yeah, people with disabilities are such a pain in the ass, aren't they? Meanwhile, the other doctor does all the heavy lifting while Kumar gives POTW some head support only after he's asked.
House walks into Cuddy's office and takes a seat. She's waiting for him to open with his usual barrage of insults, followed by a request to do a medical test on his patient that is absolutely insane and very dangerous, but just might work. Instead, he just sits and sighs, then finally says that with his office occupied by his teams, Cuddy will have to yell at him in her office this week. Then he comments on her cleavage-displaying office attire. Ah, he's back to normal. I was afraid the suicide attempt he witnessed might have thrown him off his game. Cuddy picks up on the plural teams House mentioned and accuses him of making a game out of patient care, a phrase I'm sure she stole from Cameron when Cameron came into her office to tattle on House. Cuddy assumes that House already knows what's wrong with the POTW and is withholding treatment from him while he's subjected to unnecessary tests and drugs from the Numbers. Well, Cuddy, when you put it that way, it sounds cruel. House changes the subject to what's really on his mind: why someone would voluntarily stick a piece of metal into an electrical socket? Cuddy mutters that she's starting to understand how the guy felt.
And then we go to New York, where Foreman is heading up his own diagnostic team. So I guess he really was in New York all this time like Wilson said? Meaning that House didn't really see Foreman at PPTH? Either House is having hallucinations or he really does think all black people look alike. Anyway, Foreman's team (the Foreboys) do some differential diagnosing until Foreman figures out that their patient's recent disinterest in her crossword-puzzle habit is because of blurry vision, and one of his Foreboys comes up with a diagnosis of an aspergillus fungal infection. Foreman sends them out to cure their patient with a smile and a "great job." He's so not like House he can't even believe it.
House studies his suicidal Clinic patient's knife (looking a little burnt around the edges) while asking Wilson why someone would kill himself in such a strange manner. Wilson would rather ask House why he's dividing his Numbers into teams and compromising patient care. When House doesn't bite, Wilson leaves, all jealous that House loves the suicidal patient more than he loves Wilson today.
24 tries to get back on the men's team, which is currently struggling to get a stool sample from Patient O'Constipation, by promising them a way to get their parasite test results directly from one of House's former Cottages. Kumar says they already have their diagnosis, but 18 immediately says Kumar is lying in order to make 24 go away. 18 must really suck at parties. I'm getting sick of his straight-arrow ways already. 24 says that the real reason why she wants on their team is that with her on it, they'll win, knocking the much better team of women out of the competition and leaving her with a bunch of idiots to compete against for the job. That's great news for the patients who will suffer from the mistakes the two idiots who get the job with 24 are sure to make that the more qualified women's team members would not have. There are times when being cutthroat hurts more than it helps, 24. In the end, that explanation wins her the men's approval and a place on their team.
It turns out that Cameron's advice to 24 was to get a jar of bugs and make them bite the POTW, then test the bug's stool for parasites. This is even better than testing the patient's non-existent stool, since the parasite will be more concentrated in the smaller bug poop. Unless the bugs have parasites of their own. Meanwhile, I had no idea that bugs pooped. I mean, I guess they'd have to, but I never thought about it until now. And now that I have, that's so gross. 24 starts the bugs a-biting, but POTW immediately starts coughing and going into respiratory arrest. 39 tells 24 to get the bugs off of him, but she refuses, since she's not done with her test yet. Her test won't matter at all if the patient is dead before the bugs can crap out some parasites. Even POTW's dog is annoyed and barks at her. Finally, 39 physically pushes 24 off the patient and attends to his choking problem.
But it's all worth it, because after the break, POTW is getting a nice back massage. House has called everyone back into the classroom for this new symptom where the patient's throat thinks his lungs are his stomach. That's what he said, people. I don't get it any more than you do. House asks the room for suggestions, but no one wants to give away any answers to the other team, because the job is more important than a patient's life. So House has to actually call on people, and starts with the Number we know isn't going to make it, so whatever, who says POTW's symptoms are "exotic" and therefore must be connected to his trip to Thailand. It turns out that the Number, whom House nicknames "Grumpy," was with Doctors Without Borders for eight years. House asks him why he wants a job that will keep him stranded in New Jersey now. It turns out that Grumpy is recently engaged and trying to settle down.
13 tires of all this personal crap and pipes up that the POTW's choking could be related to his SMA and therefore discounted as a symptom. She still thinks the POTW is suffering from a threadworm, but since he's taken the pills she gave him and hasn't gotten better yet, that's out as well. Not for 13, though, as she points out that he hasn't gotten worse, either. One of the twins suggests putting POTW on one of those tilt tables to stress his system. If he stays conscious, the girls win. House sends them off to do that, then asks the men's team which one of them wants to join the women to even up the teams. All the men raise their hands. Then House changes his mind, figuring that since one of the men on the team isn't a real doctor, the teams are still fair. Of course, he doesn't say who is the fake doctor, leaving them all to wonder. Instead, he lectures the men that instead of choosing a diagnosis and acting on it, they did a bunch of blind tests and hoped they'd get some clues from the results. That wasted the patient's time, so House is assigning them to a penalty box.
Back in New York, where the hospitals don't have walls made of glass, Foreman's POTW's gums are turning yellow. Her liver is shot. They were wrong about the aspergillus. I guess she stopped doing crossword puzzles because she discovered Sudoku. Foreman says they'll just have to keep trying until they get it right. "Or she dies," one of the Foreboys helpfully supplies. Foreman snaps at him that he doesn't need a team to tell him that humans are mortal, then realizes he's turning into House and quickly apologizes. It would be kind of funny if his patient died while Foreman was wasting time apologizing to everyone.
House stands over suicide guy's bed, waiting for him to wake up. He does, and he tells House he wasn't trying to kill himself. House says the only other option is that he was trying to kill the wall. Hee hee. House threatens to send Suicide Fred to the psych ward, where his roommates will be "Jesus and Crazy McLoonybin. That guy never had a chance." Really. What mean parents Crazy had. I do wonder what nationality McLoonybin is, though. Scottish, I guess. ["I'm thinking Irish. I think for Scottish, it would be MacLoonybin, no?" -- Miss Alli] Suicide Fred says that he was in a bad car accident last week and was technically dead for ninety-seven seconds. "It was the best ninety-seven seconds of my life!" he says. House looks kind of rattled, but then logically explains that as Suicide Fred's brain shut down, a flood of endorphins were released, making him hallucinate that he was in heaven or whatever. Suicide Fred says this had nothing to do with chemicals. He's sure there's something out there, which makes me wonder why he'd endanger the immortal soul he thinks he has by committing suicide. Even if he figured he wouldn't actually die because he electrocuted himself in a hospital, that's still a big risk to take.
While the men's team waits for the time penalty to end, 39 finally breaks the silence and asks who there isn't a real doctor. The guy who isn't a real doctor quickly says he's sure House was lying about that to jerk them around. 24 wants to talk about the case, even though House said they couldn't. Just to prove that he is so a real doctor, Weird Beard guesses a growth in POTW's neck that's giving him trouble swallowing and restricting blood flow to his brain, causing him to faint. Basically, if POTW has cancer, they win. If he doesn't, they're fired. They're all rooting for the cancer. They just need to do a CT scan to prove it, but they can't leave the room until the penalty is over. And Kumar's noticed that House's computer has a little camera on it and it's pointed at them, so if they leave to do the scan, House will know. 24 solves this problem by slipping under House's desk, out of the camera's sight, and crawling outside while all the men look at her ass. She surfaces in Wilson's office, interrupting his latest chat with one of his patients. 24 is so much like House that I don't think she stands a chance of getting hired, so let's enjoy her while she lasts.
So far, so good over in the women's tilt-test room. POTW's blood pressure is remaining stable and he's having a grand old time on the ride. Until, that is, 24 comes barging in and demands the patient so she can run her own team's tests. Very House-like, she grabs the joystick (any medical test with a joystick would make me suspicious) and says they need to stress their patient more to really test him. But even that doesn't seem to affect POTW, who says this is the most movement he's had in the last forty years. Forty? I thought he was in his twenties. I guess the upside of SMA is that your skin keeps its youthful appearance.
13 walks alongside House to report that the tilt-table test showed that the patient is recovering now. The threadworm pills must be taking effect, and House can go fire the men now. House would rather know what 13's backstory is, but she says that anything he needs to know, he can find in her file. House says she's hiding something, which intrigues him. If it's a dead husband, I will wash my hands of this show. Also, I find people with mysterious backstories more annoying than intriguing. 13 just wants to report on the patient, but House tells her to wait another hour.
Presumably one hour later, House welcomes the Numbers to "tribal council" while that annoying Survivor flute/ocarina thing plays and we see that he's set up a bunch of Bunsen burners to act as torches. Which is awesome. First, he addresses "Big Love," his new nickname for the Mormon. He says he knows 18 broke the penalty box rules by talking, but 18 says he only talked to tell everyone else not to talk. What a little weasel he is. 39 says they only talked to save a man's life. House says they didn't need to, since the women's team already won it and the men are therefore fired. He does not then go through the spiel of making them extinguish their burners because in this game, fire represents life. Just when the women are ready to bust out the celebratory champagne and cue the tribal singers for the credits, 24 runs in with CT scan results, which don't show the tumor they were expecting but do show a straightening of the esophagus, which 24 believes is scleroderma, which also explains POTW's fainting and choking. 13 asks 24 why she did a CT scan when they already proved she was wrong. "Good for you," House tells 24. I'll bet POTW's health-insurance company wouldn't be as happy about it. House finds fault in 24's diagnosis, however, when he points out that esophageal straightening indicates weakening, not the hardening of scleroderma. SMA explains the weakening, and the threadworm explains the rest. The men's team is still fired.
The men file out, and Weird Beard takes a minute to tell House that these were the "best two weeks of [his] life." "I think I will miss you most of all," House Dorothies. Then House calls Weird Beard a "ridiculously old fraud," just in case you thought House was being nice. Weird Beard lingers for a moment, pursing his lips and kind of looking like he's about to kiss House, but then he walks off. I shall miss you too, Weird Beard. With that, House whips off his do-rag and gives his hair a little toss.
24 won't give up, so she takes the CT scan to Chase for a second opinion while he's trying to scrub in for a surgery. Chase says he thought 24 was fired, as he's apparently been keeping tabs on this situation very closely, even though he claims to be over being House's underling. 24 just says House fired the men, neglecting to add that she was on their team. Chase looks at the films and says he doesn't think House was wrong, but she can run a blood test to confirm the presence of some antibodies that would say for sure. 24 can't run labs, of course, so she asks Chase to do it. He refuses, saying House will find a way to make his life miserable. Then...don't work at PPTH, Chase. If you're still afraid of House, why would you want to work near him? 24 counters that Chase will make House's life miserable if the tests prove she's right. Chase tells her to stop trying to appeal to him and Cameron with what she thinks they want to hear. 24 doesn't deny this, just saying that Chase's motives are more interesting than Cameron's. For real, 24. Chase says he can't believe House fired her. He tells her to get a sample of POTW's blood and he'll run the test for her when he gets out of surgery. Chase just can't say no to anyone.
24 goes to collect the blood from POTW, who's kind of bummed after finding out that since the threadworm diagnosis was correct, his choking was caused by his SMA getting worse. He says SMA has already taken his legs and his modesty away from him. Now it's taking away one of his "last pleasures" -- the ability to eat unassisted. 24 tells him that there's an outside chance that the threadworm diagnosis was wrong and they can fix what it really is, meaning POTW will get to eat again. She seems almost kind when she says this, but we all know it's just a façade. When she draws some of POTW's blood, however, she's surprised to see that it's green. POTW asks what that means. "It means I'm not fired!" 24 says, always thinking of her patient first. It also means POTW is a Vulcan. That's pretty cool, although I hope this doesn't mean T'Pol is going to show up.
After the break, House asks the class for a differential diagnosis for green blood. 24 and the men are back in the classroom, and Kumar asks if they're unfired now. Dude, a man has GREEN BLOOD. Care about your employment status later! Meanwhile, the women's team is just as petty, accusing 24 of faking POTW's green blood. House says that while 24 may be "manipulative, borderline evil, and shallow," she isn't stupid. 24's starting to look like she doesn't like being the cutthroat bitch anymore. Sometimes you just want to be liked instead of feared. 39 rises above the petty bickering with a reason for the green blood: the contrast dye they injected in the POTW for the CT scan isn't being filtered out by his kidneys, which means kidney failure is yet another one of POTW's symptoms. House awards 39 ten points for this, which troubles Kumar; he wasn't aware they were on a point system. He makes a huge deal out of this until House blows up, saying that this game is over now that their patient's kidneys are failing. This is what happens when you lead by example, House. You get a room full of petty, whining, selfish pricks. And a Mormon tattletale. The true source of House's anger is probably at himself, since he says he thought POTW had a threadworm. He has to admit that he was wrong about that and is looking at a patient with failing kidneys and no diagnostic backup plan. This episode really isn't House's finest hour.
13 suggests that the kidney failure is the result of bacteria crawling up POTW's catheter. The twins elaborate on this, saying that infection could have stressed his SMA-weakened system, causing him to faint and choke. 24 is still playing on teams and says she still think their scleroderma diagnosis is correct, as it is also consistent with the kidney failure.
House sends the Numbers off to test their theories while he chases down Chase, who's leaving work with Cameron in tow. House threatens to have Chase fired for performing a test for a fired employee. Chase calmly says House is just taking out his frustration with the case on him. If he needs Chase's help, he can ask for it. If he wants to vent, he can find someone else. For her part, Cameron says she likes it when her man sticks up to her other man. She smirks away as 13 and Grumpy rush up and tell House that POTW now has pneumonia that antibiotics aren't helping. The bacterial infection diagnosis idea was wrong. So was scleroderma, as Grumpy says the tests came back negative. House thinks they're looking at cancer.
So does Foreman, who tells New York's version of Cuddy that they've ruled out a fungal cause and everything points to anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. NYCuddy says it could also be an infection, which is a lot easier to treat. But Foreman says that the cancer is such an aggressive form that if they wait to confirm his diagnosis, it'll be too late. But if Foreman's wrong and it is an infection, NYCuddy points out, the cancer treatment will have destroyed her immune system. "I know you have some experience with that," NYCuddy says. She thinks he's trying to atone for his past mistake with this patient, and could be making the same mistake twice. Foreman doesn't think he was wrong about the cancer, but agrees to follow the order and administer the antibiotics.
Back in NJ, Original Recipe Cuddy confronts House just outside the elevator, demanding to know why he ordered eye-removal surgery on his patient. House says that's what his unproven cancer diagnosis says is the source of POTW's possible cancer. Cuddy thinks House should do a biopsy first, but House is so sure he's right that he sees no need to waste time with something as silly as proof. Cuddy's resolve crumbles, and House starts screaming for Wilson to come watch him "cut some cripple's eye out." Wilson immediately appears on the scene, probably expecting that this is part of another fight over PPTH's limited handicapped parking spaces. "Good times," he says.
Not so much, since Wilson has to now explain to POTW that he has skin cancer in his eye, which they're going to be taking away now. POTW doesn't see much point in treating the cancer, now that's it's clearly spread all over his body. Wilson says there's a chance that if they remove the primary source of the cancer and give him three rounds of chemo, he'll live. For a few months. House tells him to sign the consent, but POTW is weighing his options. Either he dies now, or he dies after a few months of puking and pain, confined to a hospital bed. Honestly, he'd rather die now. "I've been trapped in this useless body long enough," he says. "It'd be nice to finally get out." And when you think about the fact that the co-writer of this episode knows someone with SMA, that had to be an almost impossible line to write. House doesn't have time for poignant moments, though, as he has to make fun of POTW's belief that he'll sprout wings and go flying up to heaven. Wilson angrily tells him to shut up, and they take it outside.
Wilson asks House why he can't even let a dying man find some comfort in his beliefs. "His beliefs are stupid!" House singsongs. And really, does Wilson expect anything better out of House at this point? Doesn't he know him at all by now? Apparently not, as he asks House why it bothers him to let a guy with days or even mere hours left to live think there's something better on the horizon. "He shouldn't be making a decision based on a lie. Misery's better than nothing," House says. Well, the thing is, believing in the afterlife isn't like, say, believing in Santa Claus. The people who tell you it exists also believe it exists themselves. If they don't think they're lying, then is it really a lie? At times like this, I wish I took a philosophy class in college. Wilson says House doesn't know if there is an afterlife or not since he hasn't been there. Well, except for those two times.
House doesn't know what to do, so he kills some time in a music montage. First, he looms over Suicide Fred's bed. Suicide Fred isn't creeped out by his presence, since he's still riding the wave of post-afterlife-glimpse euphoria. House retires to his office and studies the knife. And then he studies an electrical socket. Uh-oh. Don't do it, House! Remember that time you died, and all you saw was a farmer and a volleyball game? How boring! And then we go to Foreman, who's studying his own Whiteboard until he makes a decision. He wheels his patient down a hallway, struggling with her gurney even though I've seen petite women handle gurneys unassisted. Foreman's a wimp.
13 and 24 stick a chest tube in POTW's lung to drain some fluid. They're surprised to see that the fluid that comes out is clear, not bloody like it's supposed to be. 13 tells 24 to call House, but he's already paging 24. She goes to answer the page and is rather startled to watch her boss electrocute himself by sticking a knife in an outlet. Well, there are definitely worse things to walk in on your boss doing. Like, what if you walked in on him picking his nose? That'd be so embarrassing. He's looking pretty dead as she starts CPR. How many times can you almost kill your show's lead before the drama starts to wear thin? The answer is two. This, by the way, is the third time. Fourth. if you count that Christmas OD.
The Numbers assemble in the classroom and wonder why their boss just tried to kill himself in front of, of all people, 24. Wilson walks in, apparently their sub for the day. He tells them that House "burned his hand pretty good" and was technically dead for almost a minute before 24 got his heart restarted again. He's still unconscious, Wilson says, his expression unreadable. He suggests that they focus on their actual patient.
When House does regain consciousness, he's immediately lectured on his idiocy by Wilson, who's been holding a vigil over him. Half of this episode has been people standing over other people in hospital beds. Wilson says that POTW doesn't have cancer after all, and their current diagnosis is eosinophilic pneumonia. Good thing they didn't take his eye out, then, isn't it? House assholishly blames his electrocution stunt on Wilson, saying Wilson suggested he see for himself if there's an afterlife, even though we've seen House question his non-faith a billion times by now, and we also know he's seen for himself whether or not there's an afterlife with his own multiple near-death experiences, so why in the world would he experiment with it again now? Other than the literal shock value of House dying and coming back to life, it doesn't make any sense.
House wants to talk to the Clinic patient, but Wilson says he died an hour ago. Wilson asks House if he wants to swap afterlife stories with him, but House quickly changes the subject to POTW, asking who came up with the pneumonia diagnosis. Wilson answers "Brennan," but no one knows who Brennan is. Wilson then feeds into House's addiction by ordering more pain medication for him. "I love you," House says. Wilson quickly runs out of the room so he can jump up and down in joy while he giggles and clasps his hands over his heart.
13 and the animal doctor administer the meds, with 13 promising POTW they'll work soon. POTW doesn't think they're working. "You must be wrong," he gasps. "Stop talking," 13 says. That's what I tell people who say I'm wrong, too. POTW asks for his dog. 13 brings him over, and the dog lies on POTW's bed, whimpering. Aww. POTW asks 13 to put his hand on the dog's head, since he can't. She does. "Don't worry. I'm not scared," he tells the dog. And then he dies. We get a close-up on the dog, and once again, this show has managed to make an animal emote.
24 stops by House's room to tell him their patient just died. PPTH's morgue is getting pretty crowded these days. House detaches himself from the wires he's hooked up to so he can go see the recently departed. POTW may be dead, but he still hasn't been diagnosed. 24 asks if they're all fired now that their patient is dead, because that's all she cares about in the end. House says he'd have to fire himself as well, so I guess not. 24 helps House out of bed and he leans against her to create sexual tension. On their way to the room, she asks House why he paged her. House says he knew that she'd be the most motivated to bring him back to life, since if he died, she wouldn't get the job. 24 says he surely didn't think that would be the only reason why anyone would care enough to save his life. House decides he can walk unassisted.
House enters the room, where 13 and the animal doctor are standing over their dead patient. What kind of small talk do you think they're making in a situation like this? When House starts trying to diagnose the dead, 13 objects on moral grounds. House ignores her until she turns her attention to POTW's dog. It takes the veterinarian to pronounce him dead. She guesses it either got whatever POTW had, although there are few viruses that can jump species like that, or maybe it died from grief. House has another idea. He asks 13 if she saw the patient actually swallow the threadworm pills. 13 says she guesses so, while the veterinarian helpfully tells us that the threadworm pills they gave POTW are fatal to the type of dog he had. With that, House finds an empty pill cup on the floor with dog bite marks all over it. "When I asked you if you watched the patient swallow the pills, the right answer was 'no,'" House says. 13 both diagnosed the POTW correctly and failed to follow up to make sure that he got treatment. Now he's dead and so is his dog. I can't blame 13 for this, though. Kumar and Grumpy were the ones who probably knocked the pills over when they yanked POTW out of bed for their stool test. And House is the one who pitted two teams against each other instead of having everyone work together.
House is getting back in his street clothes when Cuddy walks in and accuses him of killing his patient by making his care into a game. She also points out that if House hadn't stuck a knife in an electrical socket, he might have figured out that his patient didn't take the pills a little sooner. House says it's 13's fault POTW died. "You employed her," Cuddy points out. "You're responsible." She runs off before House can point out that since Cuddy employs him, she's responsible, too. He breaks rules because she lets him get away with it. Now a patient is dead and House should really be fired. But he won't be, so it really doesn't matter, does it?
And back in New York, NYCuddy asks Foreman how his patient is doing. He says the patient is recovering and will be discharged in a few days. NYCuddy isn't exactly thrilled about this, though, pointing out that by treating her for the cancer he wasn't sure she had, he could have just as easily killed her as saved her life. "If every doctor did whatever his gut told him was right, we'd have a lot more dead bodies to deal with," NYCuddy says. "You're fired." Oh, SNAP! In the real world, we can't all be maverick doctors who do whatever we want and hope our weak bosses will allow it! New York doesn't play that game! Cuddy needs to head up that way and take a few How To Be An Effective Leader lessons.
House finds 13 in the morgue, standing over POTW's dead, post-autopsy body. She says they saw his threadworms as soon as the pathologist cut into his lungs. If they were that visible, you'd think someone would have seen them in the lung fluid POTW was churning out. House reveals that he fired the other three women, so, see you later, twins and animal doctor! 13 worries that she accidentally dropped the pills or knocked them over without knowing, thereby dooming their patient. She's all teary-eyed and begs House to spare her the lecture and just fire her. He says he wouldn't give her a lecture if he were going to fire her. Now he knows that she'll never be this careless ever again. What about the other three who did get fired, though? Why fire anyone when the whole thing was completely screwed up? Whatever. Those twins were kind of creepy anyway. 13 leaves House alone with the body, her grief over his untimely death much healed by her not getting fired. "I told you so," House says before he covers the dead guy with a sheet. I guess he didn't see anything in the afterlife this time around. Interesting that, even as his errors lead to a patient dying, he's still convinced that his word is the absolute truth.
What ails the staff at PPTH? We've got the diagnoses.