A mysterious man with no ID comes to PPTH, suffering from a respiratory attack. Foreman also comes to PPTH, suffering from needing a job really bad and having nowhere else to go. House isn't pleased to have his former Cottage forced back on him, and sets about pranking Cuddy to get back at her. She, in turn, replaces his Vicodin with laxatives. Elsewhere in the hospital where no one has any work to do, Chase takes bets from the staff on who the Number to get fired will be. It should be all of them, since they contribute nothing to this week's case. Instead, House is the one who figures out the patient is suffering from Mirror Syndrome and has no idea who he really is, instead adapting the personality of whoever happens to be close by. He does a remarkably good job of this, and most of his doctors are left a little unnerved by what parts of themselves are reflected back at them. Only one of them actually learns something from it: Foreman realizes that he doesn't hate being back at PPTH after all. And House realizes the patient is a farm equipment salesman from Whocares, Ohio, and is suffering from something related to pig poop.
The Fox city street back lot is alive with hooligans spouting some really fake dialogue, as one ruffian tells another he has to steal from a stranger or else suffer the indignity of getting a job. The younger ruffian isn't thrilled about stealing from people, but he certainly doesn't want to have to work for a living, so this is his only choice. A man exits a bar alone, and the older guy picks him as the younger guy's first victim. "You'll remember that guy for the rest of your life," he says, as if people with the ability to see into the future or the effects their actions have on themselves and their victims would be muggers. It's the people who don't care enough about others to even remember them who victimize people, not the ones who do. The muggers make their way towards the man, who is played by Frank Whaley. The younger guy greets him with an awkward "Hey, how are you doing?" followed by a more assertive "Give me all of your cash!" Meanwhile, they're both standing like ten feet away from their victim and have no visible weapons. Great job so far, muggers.
Frank asks if the guy wants to buy himself a "pretty dress," as he is a "little bitch." Well, that's probably the wrong way to respond to a mugger, but go, Frank! The older guy takes the lead and screams at Frank to give him his wallet, making this the loudest and longest mugging ever. Frank makes fun of the older guy's sister, so the older guy finally pulls out a knife (which he probably should have done at the beginning if he wanted fast results), at which point the younger guy stupidly calls him by his first name, Tony, which should make identification of the criminals that much easier at the police station. Especially since the muggers have made no attempts to conceal their faces and are standing in the light. But Frank doesn't notice, because he's too busy coughing. The younger guy worries about Frank's health, but Tony tells him to get Frank's wallet and go. He does, and they take off. But when Frank collapses, still coughing, the younger guy whips out a cell phone and calls 911. You know, between him and the prostitute, criminals are far nicer and more decent people than the regulars on this show. Also, way to mirror the opening scene of The OC there, show.
We skip the usual minute of the Numbers sitting around the classroom waiting for House to decide to show up for work, and we jump right into the diagnosing. House says they've got a man with a respiratory collapse and no visible cause. The Numbers throw out some useless suggestions until Cuddy and Foreman enter the room. Foreman announces his entrance with a differential diagnosis of a laryngospasm, and Cuddy announces that she's hired him. An annoyed House fires Foreman "to infinity," and Foreman is actually surprised and displeased at Cuddy for not telling House that Foreman was coming back to work for him, as if she'd ever have the balls to do that. Cuddy says that she's House's boss, and now that House's little job interview has resulted in the death of a patient (13 takes a second to try to look remorseful; doesn't quite pull it off), she's going to exercise that authority. And since Cuddy has such a great track record of authority-exercising, I'm sure that will go down just fine. All the Numbers care about is that Foreman's presence on the team means there's one less slot for the rest of them to fill. Cuddy, suddenly faced with the consequences of her decisions, doesn't really answer their questions, instead saying that House can fire anyone except Foreman, who will be her "eyes and ears." For someone who wants someone else to work as her little spy, Cuddy sure did a crappy job of getting into Foreman's good graces last week. As Cuddy leaves, House asks her where Foreman will be keeping his balls. Foreman rolls his eyes, but Cuddy seems to enjoy that little quip.
House focuses back to the patient and tells the Numbers to try to set off another laryngospasm, as it's the only way for them to learn why Frank is having them in the first place. They go off to torture their newest victim, leaving Foreman and House alone. The two take a stroll down the hall, where Foreman apologizes for Cuddy's public display of authority. House says Cuddy was just trying to establish her dominance, albeit four seasons too late. It's no skin off House's back; if he can't fire Foreman, he'll just make him miserable enough to quit. Foreman says he won't quit (this time), no matter how miserable House threatens to make him. "I already am miserable," he says, although his natty suit and cheery pink tie seem to say otherwise.
Someone has allowed CTB near the machinery, so she and Random Guy are administering a stress test to Frank to try to kill him. CTB pays little attention to Frank, instead grumbling that Cuddy is going to make sure none of them get hired. Random Guy concentrates on the task at hand, since he's Random Guy, and there's no point in giving him dialogue. CTB just wants to know whose ass she's supposed to kiss to get the job: Cuddy's or House's. The answer, of course, is C: Wilson's. Meanwhile, Frank complains that his foot feels tingly and his stomach hurts. He asks the doctors if the stress test is supposed to cause that. "No," CTB answers simply.
She heads out into the hall to tell everyone about Frank's new symptoms, only to find them crowded around Chase, who announces the latest odds on which Number is going to get fired this week. There is no limit on how much you can bet, so CTB immediately puts five hundred dollars on Kumar, who responds with a thousand dollar bet on CTB. I would just bet ten million dollars on myself and then do something that gave PPTH no choice but to fire me. Then I'd be out of work, but with a huge pile of cash. I guess you have to pay up front though, as Chase says he won't take checks, and CTB and Kumar stand around looking awkward. You can end the scene anytime now, editors.
Foreman has taken over the blackboard, and he writes down Frank's new symptoms while House sits at one of the desks and sulks. Just like the time when Foreman became his temporary boss. Instead of calling this "repetitive," let's say they're artfully mirroring a past scene and then count our blessings that they chose this and not, say, Stacy Frozenface or Shitter. While the Numbers and Foreman try to help their patient, House interrupts them with jabs at Foreman and how he quit PPTH, has a tattoo, and doesn't want to turn into House, and yet, here is he is at House's blackboard. "Can we stick to the medicine here?" Foreman asks naively. He really has been away from PPTH for a long time. Fortunately, the immature name-calling is interrupted by an urgent page -- Frank just crashed. It'd be kind of worth it if Frank died right now and they spent the rest of the episode ripping House a new one for calling Foreman a whore instead of curing a dying man. Anyway, the Numbers take their sweet-ass time leaving the classroom to bring their patient back to life. If that were me dying, I'd come back to life just to slap them all for calmly walking to my dead body. They didn't even speed-walk! Once they're gone, Foreman tells House that he was right -- Foreman is a whore who compromised his principles by coming back to PPTH. He didn't have a choice. Now that he's worked for House (um, and there's that little matter of disobeying orders and kidnapping a patient over at Mercy), he's unhireable anywhere else, as evidenced by the two places he interviewed before giving up. "I hate being here," he says.
The Numbers finally make their way to Frank, who's lying on the floor, seemingly alone. This raises the question: who paged House? And why would a building full of medical personnel just leave a man dying on the floor like that? Do they not have to help him if he isn't their patient? Were they on their coffee break and refused to be interrupted? PPTH is a building full of irredeemable assholes! Even lowlife muggers care more about human life than the staff. Kumar wants to take this opportunity to see if Frank is having larygnospasms, but CTB points out that the information will be useless if their patient is dead, so they might want to concentrate on getting him breathing again. So while Kumar does his studying, CTB runs off to get an intubation kit. And PS just runs away, presumably hoping to avoid murder charges. As for Foreman and House, they watch the action from afar, neither feeling the need to help at all. House says he realizes that Foreman is in an impossible position and there's no point in humiliating him further. "Thanks," Foreman says, absurdly thinking House is being nice. House says he'll just humiliate Cuddy instead until she fires Foreman. Foreman ignores him, saying he's got a new theory on their patient: he's faking everything. Reading through Frank's file, Foreman points out that Frank's character name, "Martin Harris," is exactly the same as that of the EMT who brought him in, and Frank's symptoms are the same as those of his fellow patients, as written on the whiteboard at the nurse's station. A nurse's station staffed by nurses who won't lift a finger to help a guy dying on the floor except to page his doctor. Either Frank has Munchausens or he's Keyser Soze, Foreman says. House disagrees: while Munchausens patients create symptoms, they do not create names. Also, we've seen Munchausens in a different episode.
The Numbers report that they could not find any evidence of a laryngospasm, and Frank's breathing came back to normal on its own, lending credence to Foreman's theory. As they help Frank up, House notes that he's wearing a lab coat and insta-diagnoses him with Giovannini's Mirror Syndrome, which doesn't appear to actually exist. I found some stuff on the internet about Mirror syndrome, but that involved a pregnant mother and her fetus, so I'm guessing it's not the same unless House is ready to break some serious ground here. Oddly, House says there's no other Mirror syndrome in existence, nor does anyone mention Korsakoff syndrome, even though we saw it on this very show just a few seasons ago. I guess this is our signal to throw our disbelief right off a cliff and let it suspend there for the rest of the episode. The medicine totally sucked it this week, so let it go now and hope that the plot device it created was worth it. Personally, I don't see how it can be. Exaggerating symptoms or stretching medical truth is one thing; making something up out of thin air is another. I read once that the guys who do South Park used to use "crab people" as their placeholder for plots before they had them written out. One day, they got so desperate that they actually used crab people in a show. South Park is written by two guys, like, the night before deadline and they made it until Season 7 before they used crab people. This show is staffed by about fifty executive producers and Sara Hess, and they only made it until Season 4 before they had to use their crab people. For shame.
Anyway, House says that Frank's totally fake disease means he has no memory of his own identity, so he pulls names and symptoms and whatever else from the world around him to create one without even realizing he's doing it. If that's the case, then they just have to figure out what's causing the fake mirror syndrome in the first place. House knows one quick way to prove that Frank has the crab people.
I find it hard to believe that this is the only possible way to do this, but in the scene, House and Frank bust into the OR, where Wilson is attempting to do surgery (I guess he moonlights in the OR when the hospital is out of cancer). "What could possibly go wrong?" Wilson says resignedly as he sees House and a strange man enter. Foreman watches from the OR balcony and tries to look superior, knowing his opportunities to do so are diminishing by the second. House asks Frank who he is, but Frank has no answer. Wilson resumes the surgery as well as his stupid psychoanalysis bullshit that I begin every episode hoping he'll finally drop forever, only to be constantly disappointed. "Stop worrying about the power play!" Wilson lectures. Ah, but House has found a way to make Wilson's lecture into a diagnostic tool for once, and he asks Wilson for more. Wilson says House is threatened by Foreman and feels the need to "impress Cuddy." Instead, he should accept that Foreman can help him do his job and put him to work. Meanwhile, Frank observes and starts looking very Wilson-y in his mannerisms. Finally he speaks up: "Sure, deflect!" "Who is this guy?" Wilson demands. House says they've just found out. "It's all about Cuddy! How to be the 'alpha-dog.' You can almost smell the pheromones now, huh?" "I like him," Wilson decides. Since we know that Frank is just doing an impression of Wilson, this must mean that Wilson likes himself. I guess those anti-depressants really are helping Wilson after all. House is so thrilled with his accuracy that he takes a second to look up at Foreman and gloat. It is at this moment that Frank decides to do a little surgery. House catches him just in time, and notices that Frank's got some weird dark lines all over his hand. He decides that this is the best environment to cut one of them open and see what comes out. Frank whines a very Wilson-y "ow!" and House says his blood has turned to sludge. "If we don't heat you up, you're gonna die," he says. Dude, if his blood has turned to "sludge," I think he's already dead. That sounds serious. Instead of rushing the guy to a hot tub, though, House takes a second to wave Frank's arm in Foreman's face and gloat over how he was right that Frank was really sick and Foreman was wrong.
After the break, House de-elevators followed by Foreman and the Numbers. He tells them that people with fake mirror syndrome are "like mind readers," as they mirror everything about you -- moods, attitudes, everything. Since Frank's amnesia isn't based in reality, House can say that Giovannini gives you the ability to float and grow an eye in your ass and it wouldn't really matter. House is thrilled about the fun opportunities this presents, but says they have to cure the guy. Frank's hand turned black when he entered the sterile, yet cold, OR. Temperature was the only variable, which means Frank's blood is filled with cold agglutinins, antibodies that clot in cold temperatures. CTB says that indicates an infection. Cole adds it must be a "tiny" one, since Frank doesn't have a fever yet. House leads them into the cafeteria. Kumar suggests putting Frank in some warm water to make his blood nice and un-clumpy and then take blood for cultures. PS suggests doing an ultrasound on Frank's abdomen to look for an abscess. House approves of both of these approaches, then stands on a chair and makes an announcement to the room of innocent diners: the mayonnaise in all of their dishes was improperly stored, so they all need to get to the Clinic right away. Be sure to ask for Cuddy. One patron, a guy with a big head of white hair, makes a funny little sad face about this development. As the room empties, Foreman stands on a chair and says that the mayo is fine and to disregard House's statement. House counters that Foreman got his diploma out of a cereal box. At this point, I wouldn't trust either of these nutbags and would resolve to buy all hospital food from the vending machine from now on, but these guys just resume their course to the Clinic. One of them, by the way, is one of PPTH's shitacular security guards. He probably deserves a health scare after not catching the guy who shot House two seasons ago anyway.
House says they have to figure out who their patient really is in order to get a history. Since Frank's wallet was stolen, the only clue they have to his identity is his car keys. So, House says, they'll stick Frank in an isolation room so he doesn't catch "extreme bitch syndrome" from a nurse. He doesn't say which nurse specifically, but we all know he means Evil Nurse Brenda, although I have to say I've never encountered a nurse who wasn't a bitch, perhaps even an extreme one. I'm sure nice nurses exist. I just don't know where they all are. Anyway, Frank will stay in the isolation room while they do the cultures and the ultrasound and try to find Frank's car. House assigns Cole to the latter task, saying the last thing they need is for Frank to go all Mormon on them. 13 volunteers to assist Cole, leading House to say they must have a "love connection," because House is all of five years old.
CTB gets to be alone with Frank first, as she has a way to get unclumpy blood from Frank without having to stick him in a hot tub. I guess she put his arm in a hot box of some sort? I don't know, and it wasn't really explained. Maybe she just turned the heat up and bundled him up in sweaters. Anyway, she collects a nice, unsludgy sample and grins at her success. "That's right, baby. My blood's that good," Frank co-celebrates. CTB asks Frank if he's supposed to be her, as if he knows the answer to that. Frank just says he's always right. He has to be, since no one likes him. CTB makes a sad face. I can't believe Frank managed to nail her after all of three seconds and about seven words. But he'll keep doing that for the rest of the episode, so I have to. Meanwhile, if CTB doesn't want everyone to hate her, all she has to do is stop screwing them over. It's not that hard to figure out.
PS goes , foolishly giving Frank lots to work with as he explains the ultrasound process. While there's a lot I'd like to know about PS, we don't get any of it. Instead, we learn that Frank is attracted to CTB. I have no idea how Frank even got that, since PS and CTB weren't even in the same room together as far as we know. PS denies this, saying he's married and CTB is "too aggressive." Frank says that's not a bad thing, and PS has to agree. They high-five. Then PS sees something on the ultrasound monitor and suddenly ends the bonding moment and the ultrasound. He throws Frank a tissue to clean the gel off of himself and skedaddles.
It turns out that PS found a solid lesion on Frank's liver, so House reports to Wilson, who's looking supremely confident and powerful today. Why? Because he looked up Giovannini's syndrome in a fake Swedish medical journal and found that people who have it mimic the person in the room who appears to be in charge. So when Frank mimicked Wilson in the OR, it was because he thought Wilson was the most powerful guy in the room. Wilson -- not House. "I am in charge of our relationship!" boasts the guy who let House walk all over him and disrupt his surgery just to prove a theory about his own, separate patient. Keep wielding that upper hand, though, Wilson. Until week when it comes crashing down spectacularly. The two enter the classroom, but instead of seeing a room full of waiting Numbers and one Foreman, all they find is the skeleton pointing to "Clinic," which someone artistic took the time to write on the board all backwards and upside-down like.
House limp-marches into the Clinic and demands his doctors back right away. Except for Foreman, whom Cuddy can keep. No, says Cuddy; all doctors are needed to deal with the "Great Mayonnaise Panic of 2007." Meanwhile, every other patient in PPTH just died due to lack of care. Great job on the power struggle, House and Cuddy! Also, how many people were in that cafeteria?! I only saw like fifteen, and yet, the Clinic is absolutely swamped. House enters one exam room to find Kumar in the middle of a pelvic exam, a swab sticking out of his mouth. Very sterile, Kumar. "She said her hoo-hoo burned," he non-explains to House. Kumar is gross. Meanwhile, the patient has no problem with the fact that House just opened the door on her, exposing her and her pelvic exam to the rest of the Clinic. House heads for another room and finds CTB examining the white-haired guy, who is scowling something fierce. He asks her why their patient would have a liver lesion. CTB says they should biopsy it to rule out cancer. From across the hall, Kumar says it could be an abscess. CTB says the biopsy can test that as well. Random Guy walks up with a patient of his own and says if it's a vascular whateverhesaidandwhocares, the biopsy needle will cause Frank to bleed out. House says if that happens, they'll know what Frank had. Sure, Frank will be dead, but the mystery will be solved! It's all about making lemons into lemonade.
Figuring two out of three is good enough odds, House tells them to stick a needle in Frank's liver. PS grows a pair and says that Foreman should be consulted about this before they do anything. "You're risking a patient's life to get back at Cuddy," he says. House says he's got a better way to do that, and asks all the Clinic patients to raise their hands if they don't have health insurance. A number of people gleefully hold their hands high in the air, as if that's something to be proud of or admit to in a medical care setting. In this case, though, it is, as House orders expensive tests and private rooms for all of them. That's bad news for the patients who actually need those tests and have to wait behind the people who don't just so House can get back at Cuddy, but I guess we don't care about them. We'd better get an episode later on this season where Cuddy rejects House's annual raise on the grounds that PPTH has to save money after running all those expensive tests on people with no insurance.
Random Guy attempts to do the liver biopsy. He misses the first time and apologizes to Frank, who's too busy grunting in a Random Guy-like way to care. Um...does anyone really care about Random Guy at this point? I mean, he's Random Guy. He's wallpaper. Why bother expanding his character now? Random Guy asks what's wrong with Frank, who says it's "personal." Random Guy finds it hard to believe a guy with no memory could have personal problems, but I'd say that's the guy who would have the most personal problems. To wit: "I'm in a hospital. I don't want to be in a hospital," Frank whines. Random Guy withdraws a tube full of black gunk from Frank's liver lesion. "I'm bored," Frank says. Random Guy realizes Frank is talking about him. "You think everything's okay as long as you don't think about it, don't deal with it," Frank continues. Okay, but how can Random Guy deal with anything? He only gets, like, three lines an episode. Anyway, he's too busy staring at the black gunk to pay attention to Frank, who suddenly comes alive and gets all excited. Random Guy says he thinks he's looking at pus from a fungal infection. He gets all animated and says that when he was a Doctor Without Borders, he saw this kind of thing in tsunami survivors who got a fungal infection from the sand. Damn, between this and those Thailand threadworms, the sand in that region is bad news. "That's so cool!" Frank exclaims. Yes, Frank, tsunamis are really cool. They're just awesome.
Random Guy gives his theory to House, saying the fungal infection explains all of Frank's symptoms, even the ones the writers just made up. CTB is treating Frank for it now, and he should be fine soon. "This makes no sense," House says. Not the diagnosis -- the fact that CTB is administering the treatment and not Random Guy. "I'm out of the game," Random Guy says. House was right all along -- Random Guy doesn't want to be in New Jersey. He wants to be in the Third World. He got confirmation from an unbiased source who just happens to also be suffering from amnesia and sludge blood. House says Random Guy is nuts to think he can escape the misery of New Jersey by going to the Third World and helping people there. "You're gonna be miserable -- at home, at work, somewhere. The goal in life is not to eliminate misery. It's to keep misery to the minimum," House says. Right, well, that's what Random Guy is trying to do, isn't it? Keep sick Third World people's misery to a minimum by helping them? And, selfishly, he's happier there than at PPTH and therefore less miserable. I'm not really sure what House's point is. He makes a better one: Random Guy's fiancée is a court reporter. There's not much call for that in the Third World. Random Guy asks House why he even cares if Frank goes or stays. "You're good. Don't screw it up just cause you're miserable," House says. I guess people in New Jersey deserve good doctors more than people in the Third World? No matter where he is, he'll be helping people, right? I guess House just hates it when people quit reality shows before they get kicked off. Random Guy says he'll stay until Frank is cured. That should be in an hour.
Kumar and CTB tend to Frank. They wonder whom he's mirroring of the two of them. It turns out he's just plain old dying, his blood having turned to sludge all over his body, which is criss-crossed with a rash of dark lines.
After the break, Kumar says the heating blanket wasn't keeping Frank warm enough to stop the sludge factor, so they stuck him in a hot tub and that's doing the job for now. Good thing PPTH has hot tubs sitting around for such an occasion! House says this means that Random Guy's fungal infection diagnosis is out, and CTB confirms that the lab results showed that the black stuff wasn't even pus. Just blood. Some good doctor Random Guy turned out to be. House accuses Random Guy of seeing what he wanted to see instead of what was there, then asks him why he's even here since he quit. Random Guy says he spoke to his fiancée, and he's not quitting anymore. I guess fiancées in New Jersey are more important than people in the Third World. Anyway, nice to finally meet you, Random Guy. Too bad you're doomed to be fired by the end of this episode or the following one. Foreman says the antibiotics aren't working, so it's either a virus or some crazy bacteria that doesn't take kindly to broad-spectrum antibiotics. House gives Cole and 13 a call to see if they managed to find Frank's car. They're currently outside a tow yard trying to figure out a way to break in and dispatch the two guard dogs. House suggests killing them, but Cole just drugs some meat and tosses it over the fence.
House says it's time for a metaphor. When criminals are arrested, the police take mug shots and fingerprints and keep them on file even after the criminal has been released from jail. Similarly, the body creates antibodies to infections. If they can figure out what diseases Frank has had in his lifetime through his antibodies, maybe they can figure out where he's from. Hopefully, Frank got 134fifthavenuewestapartmentnumberfourmanhattanitis and their job will be much easier. The Numbers jump up to get to work, but Foreman stops them, saying he has to sign off on this first. The younger Numbers ignore him and leave. PS stays behind and tells Foreman that the way they see it, Foreman and Cuddy are decent people and House is not. Eventually, either Foreman will give in or Cuddy will. Either way, House will win, and they need to keep their jobs by being on his side.
Foreman goes to see Cameron, who's sewing up someone's leg in the ER. That patient is going to be really sorry when he sees that his doctor stitched "I luv puppies!1!1!!" in his leg. Foreman complains that Chase has put even odds on Foreman getting fired this week. Cameron doesn't care. In fact, she has a hundred on Foreman going. Foreman rolls his eyes and walks away. Cameron abandons her patient and asks Foreman why he even cares what other people think. Foreman says Chase is just jealous that Foreman was asked to be House's fellow again and he wasn't. Cameron laughs at this and Wilsons that Foreman isn't miserable being back under House again -- he likes this job and he's glad to be doing it again. Foreman says she's dead wrong and leaves without saying anything about the fact that Cameron's hair is blonde now.
Kumar hasn't been mirrored yet, so he's the one taking spinal fluid from Frank, who says that the way they're getting his medical history is "cool." Kumar agrees, then tells him to try to ignore the pain of this really cool spinal tap. "Bring the pain!" Frank says. Kumar gets a little offended and defends himself, saying he's not a masochist, then he realizes it's pointless to argue with someone with fake mirror syndrome. "I just like experience. If it's new, it's interesting," Kumar says. Maybe Kumar should go to the Third World with Random Guy, then. Frank says that if something isn't new, he makes it new. "I'm just easily bored," Kumar sighs. So am I, this week. Frank says there are three hundred million people in America (amazing how he knows that in spite of his amnesia) and if he's doing exactly what they're doing, then he's nothing. Kumar says he's almost done with the spinal tap. Frank says he likes hot tubs. Who doesn't?
Wilson walks in on Cuddy rifling around House's office. She's found his secret secret secret stash of pills in the lupus book and is going to replace his Vicodin with laxatives. Wilson tells her not to stoop to House's level, but Cuddy says this will give him a reason to stop attacking her. Cuddy, apparently, has never participated in a prank war. People don't stop if you make them shit a lot, Cudster. They get you back. Wilson has another suggestion: make House think he's won. If she can soothe his tremendous ego, he'll give up on getting her back for hiring Foreman. Cuddy sighs. "Where were you two hours ago?" she asks Wilson. Wilson pauses, then asks: "Where were you?"
House exits the men's bathroom a split second after flushing the toilet, which doesn't give him much time for hand-washing. Gross. Random Guy gives him the results of the CSF history, which shows antibodies to bacteria common in the Ohio River Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, and Central America. Foreman points out that there are explanations for why Frank would have those antibodies that don't have him living in any of those places, so the test is kind of useless. House says it's better than nothing, and Kumar runs up to report that Frank's rash is back. Apparently, it's not too hot in the hot tub. House tells them to inject Frank with something that will heat his body from the inside, then runs back to the bathroom.
Sadly for all of us, Foreman follows House in there to tell him that the lipopolysaccharides House wants to fill Frank with could make him too hot -- he could get a fever of 110 degrees and be the proud new owner of a fried brain. House tries to get Foreman to leave by pointing out how bad it smells in the bathroom and how it's not going to get any better. It smells, you see, because House is taking a shit. I can't believe they didn't insert pooping sound effects at this point. It's not like there's anything left to lose. Anyway, I hope this scene is included on the Emmy reel. Foreman stays in the room until House starts attacking him, asking him if he likes being Cuddy's "errand boy."
Just to prove House right, Foreman apparently went right to Cuddy and did some errand-boying, as she confronts House outside the bathroom about his crazy plan of giving a sick guy a fever. House says it's the only way to keep Frank warm enough to not die. Cuddy won't allow it, but House says it's not like she'll fire him, so whatever. And Cuddy gives up. That was too easy, and House sees right through her plan to make House think he's won in order to stroke his ego. He says it will not work, and he won't stop ruining her life until Foreman is out of his. Cuddy says she will not back down. "I know when my Vicodin isn't Vicodin," House says. Well, yeah, he does now. Cuddy smirks at how she got him until he continues: "Do you know when your birth-control pills aren't birth-control pills?" The smile disappears. Okay, except that I think she would know, since they're sort of in that tamper-resistant packaging and I would hope she keeps her birth-control pills at home and not, like, at work. All this is moot, however, since last time we heard, Cuddy wanted to have a baby really really bad and was having her ass injected to do it! But she couldn't get pregnant. And now she's fertile enough to need birth-control pills? The fuck? It's like this episode was written by someone who's never seen the show before and edited by a bunch of writers who were too busy planning their strike to get some well-deserved royalties to give it much attention.
House heads back to his office, where Cole and 13 finally have an answer for him about Frank's identity: his name is Robert Elliot and he's from Ohio. They give House a box full of everything that was in Robert's trunk and glove compartment. House examines it and says they don't need to do a heart biopsy after all -- House knows what Robert has and they just saved his life. Cole is thrilled until House says he was just joking. The box is full of Vapo-Rub and lunch receipts. That doesn't tell them anything. And at this point, the heart biopsy will tell them what they need to know faster than Robert's medical files will, so their finding out Robert's real identity is useless. 13 and Cole's shoulders slump and they leave, but House calls 13 back. Aw, crap. I was enjoying this relatively 13-free episode. House asks her why she wanted to help Cole, figuring the answer is that she didn't want to be around Robert and have her identity mirrored. Too bad!
House leads her into Robert's room, where Foreman is preparing to do the biopsy. House tells him to go iron Cuddy's shirts and shoves 13 forward to take over. He tells her to talk to Robert. But the person Robert mirrors isn't 13 -- it's House, since he's the dominant personality in the room. "My god, you are hot," Robert tells 13. That's all Robert can get from House? Really? House tries to make Robert think 13 is in charge, but it doesn't work. And Robert's rash comes back, so they need to make his fever even higher.
House leaves the room and finds Kumar in the hall. He tells him to go into Robert's room and spy on whatever Robert says to 13. I don't care about 13 or her mysteries. I really don't. If I wanted mysteries in a hospital, I'd watch Diagnosis Murder. All we get from Robert when he and 13 are alone together is that he's scared. I'm scared, too. Scared that 13 will become a regular cast member. 13 leaves the room and tells House that the biopsy revealed nothing but healthy pink tissue. And his rash is still coming. Kumar says they'll have to put him back in the hot tub, which Robert should be happy with, since he loves hot tubs. "No, you love hot tubs," House says. Kumar mutters that he hates hot tubs. Dude, who hates hot tubs? House picks up on this and says that when Robert said he liked hot tubs, he must have been speaking for himself. He wasn't mirroring anyone. Right, because you always know whether or not someone likes hot tubs based on a three-second conversation with them THIS PLOT DEVICE IS SO STUPID. It didn't have to be, but that's the way it worked out. House thinks of a way to trigger more of Robert's own memories.
He walks into Robert's room wearing Robert's clothes with his hair combed down all Robert-like. Doing his best Robert impression, House says his name is Robert Elliot, from Hamilton, Ohio. House puts the shoebox full of Robert's car stuff on the table and asks Robert why he's in New Jersey. "Work," Robert says slowly. But he can't tell them what type of work he does. Also, he has a fever of 107 degrees, so I think he's kind of dead now, isn't he? Oh well! House starts going through Robert's receipts, saying he eats out a lot. He lists the restaurants off, and Robert says he knows them. "They're convenient," he says. Apparently, he's on the road a lot. House whips out the Vapo-Rub and hands it to Robert. He takes it and smears it in his nostrils, then inhales deeply like one of those people in the Febreze commercials. House has no idea why, of all the uses Vapo-Rub has, Robert would choose this one. Robert says it's so he can't smell the dung. Here's where my mad diagnostic skillz figured out that Robert just had a piece of shit wedged up his nose this whole time that somehow caused memory loss and sludge blood.
Actually, though, House figures out that Robert is around dung all the time because he's a farm equipment salesman. He got an eperythrozoon infection from pig feces on said farms. Symptoms of this infection include cold agglutinins and a type of amnesia that only exists in Plotdeviceland. Case closed. 13 says they'll start Robert on the appropriate antibiotics right away, but Foreman tells her to hold up. Kumar points out that Robert has a fever of 107. "It can wait fifteen minutes," Foreman says. Uh...no, it can't.
And so, they risk giving Robert brain damage in order to figure out who is truly in charge: Cuddy or House. They stand in front of Robert and introduce themselves. Outside, Wilson asks Foreman what he'll do if House wins. Foreman says he'll take the job in Boston. Wilson says there is no job in Boston. So...Foreman was just going to quit PPTH, move to Boston, and then find out there was no job for him? And then he'd just stay there instead of moving back to PPTH where the only job he can get was still waiting for him? What's the point in that? Maybe House was hoping Foreman would pick up a pig shit infection on the way there or something. Cuddy and House present their cases to Robert until he speaks: "you have great apples." Cuddy weakly says Robert could have been either one of them, as she loves her breasts just as much as the degree to which she shows them off would suggest. But House begins the celebration, dancing around in victory and shooting Foreman with his cane. I can't believe Foreman thought Cuddy even had a chance there.
It's firing time. All of the Numbers sucked it today, House says, as we see that quite the audience has gathered behind them to see who won the bet. That sucks. Not only do you get fired, but you also get fired in front of the entire PPTH staff? Not today, it turns out, as House decides to fire no one. 13 and Cole high-five while the betting crowd murmurs disgustedly except for Chase, who just won all of their money. He shoots House a knowing look as the White Stripes start to play.
House and Foreman leave for the day. Foreman says House was nice not to fire anyone. At this point, I guess Foreman is resigned to the fact that he is like House and is just trying to find an ounce of good in the guy to feel better about it. That, and he figured out that House was in cahoots with Chase this whole time. By not firing anyone, Chase kept all the money, except for the half he has to split with House. Well, now they'll never get into the Baseball Hall of Fame. House asks Foreman if he really does want to stay at PPTH. Foreman says he does. House says all the Numbers got some insight on themselves from Robert, but Foreman was the only one who actually did anything about it. "People don't learn. They don't change. But you did," House says. "You're a freak." If only he were a more interesting one.