House TV Show - Office Politics - House Recaps, House Reviews, House Episodes | TWoP

Aired 2010-11-08

We begin with one of those great political ads that tout the other guy as an America-hating incompetent liar, like we all didn't get to see enough of them leading up to last week's election (also, oops on the timing there, eh, Fox?). Anyway, John Moreno wants to let all the Mexicans into America to steal our jobs and healthcare, so New Jersey needs to re-elect Senator Hal, who protests that this ad insults his "core consistency" of Latinos. His advisor/campaign ad creator Joe reminds him that his opponent's last name is "Moreno," so it's pretty safe to say that the Latinos are going to vote for him no matter what. Wiping ominous sweat from his brow, Hal still refuses to let Joe run the ad no matter how many points the polls say he's behind by. Joe responds by breaking out in a weird rash. It doesn't look that bad to me, but Hal suggests that he call an ambulance. I guess you can do things like that when you have good health insurance, unlike the millions of people in this country who don't and who still won't if Senator Hal's party gets its way.

House sees his latest Clinic patient off, a guy wearing a toga who suffered from keg stand-related injuries despite looking about 35 years old and therefore way too old for that shit, only to run into Cuddy, who nags him about the fact that he still hasn't hired a woman to replace Hadley. That's not really fair, since he's hired quite a few women at this point. They just haven't lasted more than one episode. Cuddy has decided that if she wants something done right, she'll have to do it herself, and informs him that his new Cottage is Martha M. Masters. House takes one look at the resume and points out at Martha only a third-year med student and therefore totally unqualified for what should be a prestigious fellowship. Cuddy says Martha graduated high school at 15 and has two Ph.Ds in applied math and art history. Well, I hate her already. Also, if House is going to hire someone who isn't a doctor, it should be Weird Beard. I really miss that guy.

House walks into the meeting room and is greeted with new patient Joe's skin and liver problems. His case was "personally recommended" to House's team by Senator Harold "Hal" Anderson, which Foreman thinks is so awesome that he wears his very biggest and smuggest smile when he mentions it. And then Martha M. Masters walks in, full of innocence and social awkwardness if not a medical degree. House introduces her to her new co-workers Boring, Bimbo, and Bite-Size before making her answer a series of smart-people questions to prove her genius to the crew, as well as her dorkiness. She does not, however, know the answer to any of House's monster truck-related questions. While House continues to make Martha feel inadequate and unwelcome, the Cottages get to diagnosing, eventually coming up with toxic exposure and being sent off to search Joe's house for chemicals. To Martha, he simply says "if you want to stay on this team, have an opinion." Geez. He could have at least given her a minute to actually read the patient's file.

By Sara M

Foreman, Taub, and Martha arrive at Joe's house and Martha bores them to death with comments on Joe's house's architecture. For some reason, she doesn't say anything about how very Southern Californian this supposed New Jersey house looks. She apologizes for freezing up in the meeting room, saying that being to a "legend" like House was very intimidating, but now that she's around "ordinary people," she feeling much more talkative. Maybe she shouldn't be, because now Taub and Foreman are insulted. Martha shuts up for a second and notices that Foreman is picking Joe's lock. She uses her geniusness to infer that this means they are not invited guests. They couldn't have given her a heads-up during the ride over? Now she's all freaked out about breaking into Joe's house and won't cross the threshold.

Taub and Foreman check out the kitchen first. Foreman is surprisingly positive about Martha, saying he likes her freshness and enthusiasm and that Taub should give her a chance. Taub says the fact that Martha has no practical experience or medical degree means more work for all of them, since they'll have to supervise her at all times. Foreman suspects that Taub is just mad that there's yet another person on the team smarter than he is, as Foreman includes himself on the list of people smarter than Taub. He proves this by being better at looking through the garbage and finding an empty bottle of unpasteurized apple cider.

While Foreman updates House on the cider and the chances that it could have liver-damage-causing E.coli, Taub only wants House to know that Martha wouldn't enter the house. Foreman says that Taub is jealous of Martha's intelligence, but House points out that Taub must be used to working with people who are smarter than him by now, so he thinks it's more that Martha's youth and med student status makes him feel that much older. House tells Taub to collect Masters and start treating Joe for E.coli.

By Sara M

While Taub explains to Martha how plasmapheresis works, she's preoccupied with feeling guilty about breaking into Joe's house and thinks they should tell him the truth. Taub doesn't understand how that could possibly be a good idea, but Martha says if they want their patients to be honest with them, then they must, in turn, be honest with their patients. Taub says if Martha needs to clear her conscience that badly, then she can tell Joe the truth. They make their way to Joe's room, where Joe is busy on the phone doing political advisor things. Martha suggests that Joe "slow down" on his work while he's sick, like he's going to do that during the busiest and most important week every six years. Martha then tries to ease into her confession, asking Joe if he isn't curious as to how his doctors found out he was drinking unpasteurized apple cider. Joe shrugs that they must have broken into his house. He doesn't really care what they did as long as the result is that he gets better. Martha says honesty and integrity should matter, too, apparently forgetting that she's talking to a political advisor. She then starts nattering on about low voter turnout rates in America, which causes Joe to immediately fall asleep from boredom. Oh, I'm sorry, he's just paralyzed.

After the break, Chase says the paralysis was just temporary and caused by a transient ischemic attack threw out a blood clot. This gives the group a new symptom, but House takes a second away from that to accuse Martha of "ratting out" her co-workers, and she defends herself by talking about ethical obligations before coming up with a diagnosis of Wilson's disease. For this, House lets out a tiny cheer and tosses the contents of his coffee mug at her, which is, luckily for her, confetti to celebrate the popping of her diagnostic cherry. But, he says, like losing one's real virginity, the first time is always bad, and Martha's diagnosis is totally wrong. Also, House wants to know why she has all these "stupid ideas about morality." Martha says those "stupid ideas" are what most doctors consider the "rules for professional conduct." Yes, because clearly that's something House cares about, what with his referencing virginity and boobs and throwing little pieces of paper on her head. While everyone else tries to do his job and diagnose something, House says that rules are for stupid people who need guidelines that tell them how to behave, and since Martha is clearly not stupid, she shouldn't care about them. Geez, maybe Martha just doesn't want to get arrested for breaking into someone's house. That doesn't seem all that stupid or crazy to me.

By Sara M

Chase sticks up for Martha by agreeing with her neuroendocrine tumor diagnosis, saying that Joe exhibited a symptomatic loss of good judgment with that anti-immigration ad that just showed up online and was probably leaked by Joe himself, thus exposing his senator boss to a "major backlash." House is still pissed off about Martha's honesty thing, and even she is now so over him that she just rolls her eyes in response while Foreman asks if they can go treat Joe for their latest diagnoses of a neuroendocrine tumor and DIC. House agrees, but first asks Martha if she'd lie to a patient to save his life. Martha says she would not. House then asks Martha if she would lie to her grandmother that she liked a crappy Christmas gift. Martha says she would lie about that, and House takes this to mean that Martha will lie when it "doesn't matter" but not when it does. "How'd you get so screwed up?" House asks. You know what's really screwed up? Thinking that hurting your grandmother's feelings by saying you don't like a gift she gave you "doesn't matter."

He finds Cuddy and asks her if he can fire Martha now. She says he can't without "real" cause. House whines that Martha has these things called "principles." Cuddy, of course, doesn't see how this is a bad thing and says that having someone on the team with a "fresh perspective" might be just what this show needs to liven up its increasingly dull seventh season. Cuddy gets in the elevator, but won't let the door close so she can continue her conversation with House. What a bitch! There are other people in that elevator who have floors they need to get to. She tells House to give Martha a "real chance." But when Cuddy arrives at her office, Martha is there waiting for her and terrified that House is about to fire her. Cuddy says he won't, and that he'll respect Martha for having "strong beliefs." Martha says she's more concerned that her personality is incompatible with working well with others. She says her genius has kept her apart from her peers and classmates for most of her life, and is even setting her apart from Cuddy right now, as her eyes are glazing over in boredom as Martha discusses various genius things. Cuddy says Martha chose to be a doctor and that's a "team activity," so three cheers for Martha for stepping outside of her comfort zone. Martha says she's thinking of quitting medical school altogether, as if there aren't doctors out there who are really awkward around other people but somehow manage to do their jobs anyway. Suck it up and deal, Martha. And stop running to the boss of the entire hospital for a freaking pep talk. Cuddy says House won't care about any of Martha's bullshit as long as she can help him do his job and solve the case. Then they'll get along "just fine." Yeah, because House treats his other Cottages so well.

By Sara M

While Joe gets an MRI (of DOOOM!!), Foreman mutters that he's going to talk to Martha and give her some tips on how to handle House. Chase tells him not to, since he's finding this House vs. Martha stuff very entertaining and he doesn't think House will fire Martha so soon anyway, seeing as how Cuddy will stop having sex with him if he does. Joe pipes up to say that he doesn't think they're going to find any tumors in him since he believes he has awesome judgment, as not only did he not leak the ad, but also whoever did was actually being very smart since he believes that ad is going to win the election for Senator Hal. Joe points out that Chase entered this country legally and not without some difficulty, and so he should resent people who do so illegally more than anyone else. It took him five years to get his green card? What a moron. All my dad had to do was marry my mom. Joe says the best part of that ad is that it isn't even true -- Moreno hasn't said anything about giving illegal immigrants amnesty and the picture of him to a Mexican flag was taken at a completely unrelated event. He thinks this proves that his judgment is sound. Foreman agrees, noting that Joe is also free of tumors. Not to mention extremely pleased with himself.

Foreman heads to the lab to check on Taub and the blood tests for DIC. He makes a crack about Taub being old and decrepit, and Taub says that's rich coming from Foreman, since Taub thinks he's in better shape than him. "You're in rounder shape," Foreman says. Do the writers hate Peter Jacobson or something? Why so many jabs at his age and appearance all the time? Taub challenges Foreman to a basketball game after work. Foreman readily accepts.

By Sara M

Senator Hal stops by to visit Joe, who accuses him of leaking the ad since he and Hal were the only two people with a copy of it and Joe knows it wasn't him. Hal grins and says the polls show that Moreno's lead over him has decreased to just two points. Hal and Joe are very pleased with themselves until Taub and Foreman come in to say that both of their diagnoses were proven wrong. They want to explore the toxin theory again, but Taub notices that Joe is now peeing blood. Good-bye, kidneys!

Back in the meeting room, Martha is able to come up with a new diagnosis of Henoch-Schönlein purpura that sounds good enough to everyone and even earns her faint praise from House, even though he's still smarting because she didn't get his earlier bleeding heart/bleeding urine joke. But when Martha recommends either steroids or chemotherapy as the course of action, House tells her to cross steroids off that list, as he'd prefer to give Joe the more effective chemotherapy to confirm their diagnosis that much sooner. Or, you know, prove that the diagnosis is wrong and expose Joe to chemotherapy for no reason. House says if Joe knows about the less scary steroids option, that's what he'll pick. So he doesn't want anyone to tell Joe about it. Of course, Martha thinks withholding information is wrong and that all they have to do is explain the pros and cons of steroids and chemo to Joe and he'll be sure to make the correct choice of chemo. Since when did Martha decide that she was an expert on people?

Joe wants the steroids. House is standing by to witness his prediction coming true and also to call Joe stupid for good measure. Joe doesn't want to go with chemo because it'll leave him feeling like crap at a crucial time in the election, even though Senator Hal urges him to get the chemo. Joe refuses and demands to be started on steroids right away.

Taub and Foreman prepare to face off on the basketball court. Foreman expects this to be an easy victory for him, but then Taub nails a free-throw. And another. And then, when Foreman actually tries to guard him, he sneaks around Foreman and gets a third point with a lay-up. Oh shit! It's Muggsy Bogues time! Muggsy Bogues is the short man's hero. Foreman is able to get a point over Taub, and then he follows that up with two more, one of which he gains by checking Taub out of the way. And then we watch a one-on-one basketball game in a poorly-lit gym that showcases Peter Jacobson's surprising basketball skills. Omar Epps', too, but we already knew he could play because we all saw Love and Basketball. In the end, Foreman wins with 11 to Taub's 7. But he will admit that Taub has plenty of youth left in him. Which means there must be yet another reason why he hates Martha so much.

By Sara M

Martha rushes into House's office to alert him that they're about to give Joe the wrong medicine and she can't change the order since she's not a doctor. House, of course, was the one who changed the order to chemo in the first place and so he fully supports giving Joe a medication he specifically refused. Is chemo something that you can just switch out with steroids? Like, don't you have to be in a special room with a special set-up to get it? I don't think it's as simple and hooking up an IV line, is it? Of course, Martha threatens to tell on House. House says that for potentially risking his patient's life like that, she's fired. Martha says she's still going to tell Joe the truth. House says he'll have her thrown out of medical school if she does, and he's ready, willing, and able to lie to whoever he has to do it.

After the break, Foreman urges House to hire Martha back, saying he thinks they need someone like her on the team. Well, then, I guess they shouldn't have let Cameron leave, since there was a time when she was the annoying moral backbone of this show. Taub, of course, thinks they're fine without her. And Chase wants everyone to know that Joe now has a pulmonary edema, which rules out Martha's HSP diagnosis and means if House was able to give Joe that chemo, it would have been unnecessary, so Martha was right not to want him to do it. House says it was Martha's diagnosis that was wrong in the first place, so she shouldn't get too much credit for this. Taub suggests schistosomiasis, an exotic infection that Joe could have caught from the exotic fish in his tank at home. Really? Because he's just going around touching his fish? That is some thin reasoning. House orders the three to grab some sample sea life from Joe's house. They leave just as Cuddy arrives.

Oops! Martha tattled on House to Cuddy, because that's what Martha does. Did House really think she wouldn't? House says he was right to fire Martha because she endangered a patient's life. Martha points out that all she did was refuse to lie to him, and Cuddy says House's team is supposed to challenge him. House says Martha isn't a challenge, but an "immutable obstacle," as if he's never had to deal with a Cottage who made him tell the truth before. And he asks Martha if she really thinks things are going to go well for her if Cuddy forces him hire her back. Martha agrees with that, but Cuddy snaps at her that she is not going to quit. So now House wants to know why Cuddy loves Martha so much. He asks if she reminds Cuddy of herself, and says it's not true since Martha is smarter and has better morals. They are, House admits, similarly socially awkward. "She's a potential star and I want her in my hospital," Cuddy says. Martha smiles like she doesn't hear this every day of her life. House says Cuddy is free to keep Martha here, but not in his department. Hopefully they'll transfer her to someplace where people have fashion sense, because Martha has been sporting some exceptionally ugly clothes in the short time we've known her.

By Sara M

The still-employed Cottages check out Joe's fish tank, which isn't even that great. I was thinking it would be full of awesome saltwater fish, but it's just yucky fresh water fish that are so not worth catching a potentially fatal disease from. Chase says he thinks he figured out why Taub didn't like Martha, which he suddenly had much time and desire to think about since his "source of entertainment got fired." Chase's theory is that Martha's morals made Taub feel bad about his lack thereof when it comes to staying loyal to his wife. Okay, but how would Taub have known that? He had a problem with her before they broke into that house and Martha's morals reared their ugly head, as Foreman points out. Chase says it must be something about Martha's appearance, but before he can form a new theory, all three are caught red-handed in someone else's home.

Foreman calls House from jail. It's about damn time they got caught doing this stuff. Geez. House would rather not pony up the money to bail them out, so he hangs up on Foreman. Well, that would be enough to make me refuse to do any breaking and entering for House ever again. Also, why did he need all three of them just to get some fish out of a tank? Oh, right -- so that House is Cottage-less and thus forced to work with Martha again. Sure enough, House finds her in the doctor's lounge and starts in with another differential diagnosis session without so much as offering to re-hire her. She tells him to take this up with his employed fellows, but House says they're in jail for prostitution and so he has to hire her back. Martha decides to go with it and starts making suggestions, but House tells her to shut up and just let him bounce ideas off of her. He throws out a couple before Martha shushes him to watch a press conference with Senator Hal, who is telling the world that his advisor leaked a very "hurtful" and "hateful" ad. "I think he's lying!" Martha gasps. Senator Hal says that Joe violated his trust and has been fired from his campaign. "Thanks for your help," House says to Martha, re-firing her on his way out.

By Sara M

House talks to Joe, who also has a TV on in his room and so knows that Senator Hal just threw him under the bus to save his own chances of re-election. House says he thinks Senator Hal screwed Joe in more ways than that -- Hal has symptoms of hepatitis C, which House thinks Joe has too, caught from the senator. Joe denies sleeping or shooting up with Hal, but House says they must have shared something. What about a straw when they snorted coke together? That seems to ring a bell for Joe, who says he'll deny everything and asks how he could have hep C when he was tested for it earlier and it came back negative. House says that Joe's liver was taking a page out of Joe's campaign tactics book and hiding the truth from the test by producing cryoglobulins and causing a false negative test result. The plasmapheresis filtered out any other testable signs of hep C. So House knows Joe has hep C but no way to actually prove it. No matter; he'll shoot Joe up with some interferon to treat it anyway.

Still in jail, Foreman and Chase have plenty of time to come up with theories on why Taub hates Martha. Foreman says perhaps they had met before, and then they're interrupted by a guy using the toilet in the corner of the room. While Taub freaks out about the open display of pooping going on behind him, Chase and Foreman ask if he slept with Martha before or if she shot him down. Taub finally reveals the truth: he interviewed her when she applied to Hopkins and even though they spoke for an hour, she didn't remember him when she walked into the meeting room. Since Martha's genius memory is pretty damn good, Taub must be very forgettable.

By Sara M

House finds Martha making her way out of PPTH and informs her that she has been re-re-hired. Martha tells him to find another sounding board because she has enough self-esteem not to subject herself to this. House just keeps going, saying that Joe's hep C isn't responding to the interferon so he needs suggestions for what else to treat him with. Martha is about to walk out, but House says she can't, because then she'd be quitting. He's right. Martha says there's a German study where 15% of hep C sufferers were cured by being infected with hepatitis A. The other 85%, however, kind of died from having hepatitis A and C. Like, of course. What a horrible study. Who would volunteer to take part in that trial? Although it is a German test, so perhaps they didn't actually ask for volunteers. Martha says they could try treating Joe with someone that "mimics" hep A. Of course, House is ready to just give Joe the real thing.

He fires Martha again, which pisses her off enough to bring them both back into Cuddy's office. Martha tattles that House wants to give Joe hepatitis A. Cuddy, of course, refuses to let him do this. "That's an extremely cowardly position," Martha says. I guess Cuddy is now seeing why Martha has such a hard time working with other people. Cuddy doesn't understand why Martha is giving her shit when she's the one who brought this to Cuddy's attention in the first place. Martha says she only wanted Cuddy to know about it because that's standard protocol for an "unconventional treatment," but she still thinks they should put patient care over a fear of lawsuits from Joe's family after he dies from hepatitis A and C. Cuddy points out that they don't even know for a fact that Joe has hep C, which Martha admits is a good argument. Cuddy says if House can prove that Joe has hep C, then she'll agree to the hep A "treatment." Wow, way to stick to your guns, Cuddy. It only took a third-year med student all of three seconds to change your mind. Pathetic. House says that's impossible, but Cuddy says she's sure two geniuses can figure something out if they put their eggheads together.

But they will not be working together, as House says he's going to have to do this the unethical way, and Martha just fires herself and leaves. House walks into his office and finds the Cottages there, now out of jail and ready to figure out a way to give House a positive hep C test. Chase asks why they don't just test Senator Hal for hep C and assume that if he has it, so does Joe. Yeah, I'm so sure he'll agree to that. Please. Also, House says, a positive hep C test for someone else won't be enough for Cuddy. Taub says they can just run the test over and over again and hope they hit on one of the 0.1% of the times when it comes back with the wrong results. Well, that's going to be a lot of fun and shouldn't take that long at all.

By Sara M

The writers remember that Wilson exists, so House goes to see him. He says if he doesn't lie to Cuddy then his patient will die. But that lie doesn't guarantee that the patient will live, either. Wilson says House has to choose between being honest and facing potential medical consequences or lying and facing potential personal consequences. Thank you for your two minutes of screentime, Wilson. See you week!

House lies on the floor and thinks about things for a while before heading down to the Clinic to draw blood from Senator Hal that will be tested for hep C. Hal just wants to make sure that no one knows that he got hep C from doing coke, which is understandable. Although he did just walk through the freaking PPTH free clinic, so people might figure out that some is up. House says that Hal didn't fill out any paperwork and he's going to use an "assumed name" to run the test, so Hal's secret should be safe. That assumed name, of course, is Joe's.

House brings Cuddy a positive hep C test result as she requested. Cuddy says she really appreciates that House "respects" her enough to follow her instructions instead of trying to undermine them. Yeah, I'm so sure it's about respect and not sex. Oh, and that he actually followed her instructions. Come on, Cuddy. Didn't she say she didn't want House to change? And yet, here she is, demanding that he be a forthright and responsible employee. And it's still not good enough for her since House still has to hire a new female Cottage. House says he's got that under control, and finds Martha in the cafeteria wearing another hideous outfit and offers her the job again if she can convince Joe into letting them infect him with hep A. He suggests that she not tell Joe that there's an 85% chance he'll die. Martha refuses, but House reminds her that if she doesn't tell Joe what the slim chances of success are, he'll agree to the treatment and there's a 15% chance he'll live. If she does tell him, though, he definitely won't agree to it and there's a 100% chance he'll die.

By Sara M

While House looks on, Martha tells Joe that they want to give him hep A to make him better. Of course, he asks what the chances that this treatment will actually work are. Martha sighs and says there's an 85% chance that the "treatment" will kill Joe, but it's the only chance he has to survive and, she points out, House believes this so strongly that he faked a blood test to get approval for this treatment and tried to bribe Martha into lying to Joe about the risks, offenses that could get him suspended or his medical license revoked. House does not like where this conversation is going. "He's risking his career to give you this chance," Martha says. See? Sometimes telling the truth works! As long as you throw House under the bus to tell it.

Joe agrees to the treatment, and House calls Martha an idiot in the hall for still believing that telling the truth is a good thing. Martha says that House must want her truth-telling in his team, otherwise he wouldn't have set her up like that in front of Joe. House says that could be it, or maybe he just wants to be there when Martha realizes that telling the truth and having principles means nothing. He says when he's done with her, she will not only lie to a patient, but she'll also want to lie to a patient. Martha says that will never happen. "See you tomorrow," House says. Martha walks away in slow-motion.

She's back to regular speed and yet another beyond ugly outfit when she finds Taub in the locker room. He exposits that Joe seems to be one of the 15% who doesn't die from the hep A and C combo, then begins to apologize to her, only for her to cut him off and ask if he interviewed her at Hopkins once. Taub acts like he had no idea about that until just now. Martha says she wanted to say something to Taub about it on the first day, but she wasn't sure how to broach the subject. He tells her not to worry about it, and now he has no reason to hate her irrationally.

Meanwhile, House has to sign off on various forms to let a med student be his Cottage. Cuddy watches, feeling victorious that she got House to hire her suggestion, but House says he wanted Martha as soon as she called Cuddy a coward. She says good-night to House with a kiss and a slap on the ass.

By Sara M

Joe watches Senator Hal's victory speech. He says that a lot of people contributed to this win, but "one person" stands out beyond all the rest. Of course, he's not going to give Joe the shout-out here, but instead his wife Loretta gets the nod. Joe doesn't seem to mind, though. I wonder how Loretta will feel when she finds out her husband probably gave her hepatitis C.

And then a nurse asks Cuddy where Senator Hal's medical records are, since she saw House with him in the Clinic on the same day and around the same time House ran that hep C test on Joe. OOPS. Cuddy's eyes well with tears like she didn't think this was going to happen and now it's her turn for a dramatic slow-motion walk.

You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, follow her on Twitter, or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.

Meet Martha Masters below, discuss the episode in our forums, then see why we hated Season 6!

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