By Montykins
The patient of the week is Dr. Treiber, a jerk who works in the morgue of PPTH. He's devoted his life to cataloging the mistakes of the doctors who work upstairs, so when he comes down with a mysterious illness, he won't let anyone work on him but House. This proves to be problematic when House is whisked away by Wilson to go on a road trip without their phones. It's not really clear how Treiber manages to distinguish Chase's performance from House's, given that they've worked on the same cases for the last eight seasons, but Chase takes offense at this whole thing. He spends most of the episode lying to Treiber, claiming that all of his ideas are House's. And at the end, he's the one who correctly fingers Treiber's antibacterial soap as the problem.
House and Wilson have a good time on their road trip. Wilson eats an eight-ounce steak and has a three-way in which only one of the two women is a prostitute. Then he reverts to his old ways and gives up on seeing Julie Christie so that he can sit with an old lady with Alzheimer's.
And at the end, Chase decides he's been House's lackey long enough, so he quits the team. I'm willing to believe that this is a dramatic game-changing decision that could stick. Unlike Wilson's cancer, which I still don't think its going to kill him, even though the episode ended with a dramatic test result we didn't get to see.
"CLEAR!" Someone's already in the hospital. And they're dead. The doctor, who I think is Peter Weller, calls it at 8:32. There's sad music as family comes by and stands with the body. Then the body is moved onto a gurney and rolled into the elevator and taken to the morgue while sad music plays. Are we watching this episode backwards? Is this Memento? The autopsy doctor calls her Diana and takes out a bunch of internal organs and reports that Dr. Penza failed to correctly diagnose heart disease. He gloats about how often he's had to correct Dr. Penza. As he starts to investigate the brain, he stops and puts the scalpel to his own forehead. Someone comes in, calls him "Dr. Treiber," and stops as he sees what we see: Dr. Treiber has cut his own forehead open with the scalpel. As the blood drips down his face, he announces that he is cold.
A motorcycle rolls into the PPTH parking lot, ridden by House. Then a fancy sports car works its way into a handicapped spot. It's driven by Wilson! House stares at him, and Wilson admits that he can't drive stick. Wilson claims that he's going to be selfish, indifferent and shallow. As he makes a dramatic gesture, he accidentally sets off the alarm. House is unimpressed. Wilson claims that he's going to drive his car to Cleveland to meet Julie Christie, who's opening an animal clinic. He repeats that he's being extraordinarily selfish. House thinks Wilson's made sure his patients are covered. To prove how selfish and indifferent he is, Wilson lets the elevator door shut as somebody runs up to it.
Foreman presents Dr. Treiber to House, who declares it Walking Corpse Syndrome, which would be awesome. He thinks Treiber thinks he's dead. Foreman rejects it. And also, Treiber won't let anyone but House near him, since he doesn't trust any other doctor.
The team worries about Wilson. House says there's nothing to be done. They move on to the case. Chase thinks Treiber hates him, but Taub says that Treiber hates all doctors. Park defends him. Chase suggests checking the last corpse Treiber worked on. There could be toxic fumes! Park suggests blood clots. Adams and Chase are sent to ultrasound Treiber to look for clots, while Park and Taub go to investigate the morgue for chance of toxic exposure.
Treiber complains about being worked on by people other than House. Adams notes that he doesn't seem psychotic at the moment, but he promises he just snapped out of it for a minute. Chase promises that they're carrying out House's orders. Adams questions Treiber's ability to quantify House's accuracy. There are no sign of clots.
In the morgue, Park is impressed that Treiber has a giant white board covered in notes on how accurate each doctor's diagnosis was. Taub thinks it's creepy. Park points out that Treiber once spotted a link in child deaths, which was helpful. There are no toxic spores in the blood of the last corpse. Park wants to investigate the whole room for toxic exposure. Taub mocks this, but Park points out that not all the tools are hospital-issued. As proof, she holds up a hunting knife. Which, to be fair, was designed for disassembling animals, so there's no reason it couldn't come in handy when your job involves taking apart humans. Taub takes off his glove and at the same time, both Park and Taub find some energy drinks.
Wilson walks into House's office and offers to take him on the Cleveland road trip. House thinks Wilson will whine about his feelings the whole time. Wilson threatens to inject him with 20 ccs of Propofol. Weird. Wilson leaves and the team comes in. House looks at the can and says it's Stimulant Psychosis. Adams says they just have to hydrate Treiber and watch him.
Treiber has abdominal problems. It hurts! Park tells him it's withdrawal, but it isn't!
The team. Adams suggests that it could be an obstruction that's unrelated to the stimulant psychosis. That gets rejected as being too reliant on coincidence. Some other ideas go by. House isn't there, because neither he nor Wilson came in that day. They call House, but his phone just rings in his desk. He and Wilson are off the grid.
Wilson and House zoom down what is obviously a Southern California highway as Wilson shows that he's bad at shifting. House is bothered by Wilson not wanting to talk about his impending death. Wilson says he's not him. He's Kyle Calloway.
The conflict is established: Treiber won't let anyone but House work on him, and House is gone. Chase has an idea that makes Taub say the word "intussusception." It could be cancer, so they need a plain film of his abdomen. Chase wants to lie to Treiber to get an X-ray.
House and Wilson are at a roadside diner so House can whine about not having a phone. Wilson says he'd just be downloading porn and playing Angry Birds. House orders a burger and Wilson orders an 80-ounce steak that's free if he eats it in an hour. He confidently predicts that he'll be inducted into the Wall of Pain. House decides he's enjoying this.
The X-ray came back blank. Trieber wants them to run his bowel because House said it was an intussusception and it doesn't matter if the test came back blank. Treiber insists on Chase doing the surgery, because "Statistically, you're the best surgeon in the hospital."
With 25 seconds to go, Wilson is desperately eating steak as House spoons it into his mouth. He swallows the last mouthful as the clock reaches zero. Congratulations, Kyle! He throws up just after getting his picture taken for the wall. House asks, "That still counts, right?"
Treiber is rolled into surgery. Chase asks why he treats Chase like an idiot. The answer is that he feels that Chase has wasted the spot he got on House's team. Treiber wanted that spot. "You've been given everything. Looks. Talent. My future." And nine years later, he's done nothing with it.
Wilson throws up in the bathroom and says he's glad he did it. He was a hero for "a bunch of morons I'll never see again." He goes off to get dessert.
Treiber's surgery. Chase asks Taub how long he'll work for House. He thinks a fellowship is supposed to teach you to stand on your own. Foreman's in charge here, Cameron's in charge of some hospital in Chicago... then Taub cuts in with, "And Kutner and Amber are dead and Thirteen is having sweet Sapphic sex on some island." They find something in the small intestine, but it's not an intussusception. I'm pretty glad I found out how to spell that, because it's coming up a lot.
The team is in House's office. House hasn't checked his voicemail. Chase doesn't care about House's problems and suggests intermittent porphyria for Treiber. Adams is outraged that they'll lie to Treiber again. "This is a drug that will damage him if you're wrong."
Wilson says he wants a threesome. House asks if he doesn't want to do a twosome first. All right, boys, settle down. Wilson says he wants two women. He doesn't want to think about consequences. House says he'll tell him what to do.
Treiber is a little skeptical about the porphyria. Chase promises him that House believes strongly that this is the right call. He injects some drugs into the IV tube.
Wilson has shaved his head at House's instructions. No, wait, he just has a bald cap. I assume he's going for Cancer Victim cred, although since he didn't do the radiation, he has to fake some of the signifiers. House sees a woman at the bar and says that she's empathetic, which means she's a hooker who gave him a "cancer rate." Wilson doesn't want to pay for it, but House says it's on him. The bartender comes over and House tells her his friend is dying of cancer. She tells him not to give up hope. House tries some obvious sex puns.
It's not porphyria. Treiber wants to talk to House. Chase tells him they don't know where he is.
House naps in the car outside the motel room. Wilson comes out, his bald cap kind of ripped up. House asks how it was. Wilson says it was confusing, perfunctory and sad. And one of them stole his wallet. But he sees pleased with the overall experience.
Foreman yells at House's team: "You're lucky he's not pressing charges!" Which is something the head of the hospital normally shouts at House himself. Chase defends porphyria as a legitimate call, but it happened to be wrong. He claims that they did everything House would have done, and Foreman objects that they lied to the patient. Because House would never do that? Anyway, Foreman is now in charge and Chase will have no further contact with Treiber. He's still on the case, though. Taub declares that it's sarcoidosis (treatment: corticosteroids) and Chase counters with a prion disease. Adams likes that theory since he could have come into contact with an infected brain. Foreman thinks Treiber's too smart not to take the right precautions, but Chase points out that Treiber's whole philosophy is based around doctors making mistakes. And that includes Treiber. He wants a brain biopsy. Taub says they have to choose to biopsy the heart or brain. Foreman picks the heart. Chase looks cranky.
House tells Wilson where to hide your wallet when with a hooker. He's down to twenty dollars, and he can't use his credit cards out of state while he's on probation. Wilson doesn't care. He's got enough gas to get to Julie Christie. House admits that he's kind of hoping Wilson doesn't stop being Kyle Callloway.
Chase is in the morgue. He looks at the shelves of brains in jars. None of them appear to be labeled "A.B. NORMAL" so he has to test them himself.
The road trip comes to a halt for a funeral procession. House watches Wilson carefully as the hearse crosses in front of them, followed by a bunch of other cars. Wilson just looks forward, revs his engine and blows past the cop who's stopping them. He gets into the left lane and passes the entire procession. It's quite symbolic. Then he has trouble shifting, cuts left through a fence and the car grinds to a halt in a field. House is down! Wilson runs around to the passenger side and asks if he's okay. "My leg still hurts." Wilson says they have 20 bucks to go eleven miles. It's time to walk!
Chase is cutting brains in half with a saw. He's Gunther Freakin' von Hagens in here. Park comes in and asks why he isn't answering his pages. He claims to be busy. The heart biopsy showed fibrosis in the cardiac muscle, so neither of the diagnoses were right. Chase says there's no point in going to the meeting when Foreman is just going to say it's an infection. Park calls Chase a baby, and accurately observes that Chase is trying to discredit Treiber, not heal him. He's not coming upstairs. "And when this case is over, I'm quitting. Drama!
Foreman is angry about that cliffhanger. He says it's an infection. He also says Chase isn't really going to quit, since he didn't quit when he got shot earlier in the season.
House and Wilson are in Oubliette, Ohio, which is probably not precisely accurate. They have a friend named Ina at the bus stop, but House says she's got Alzheimer's. Sure enough, she's waiting for a bus to Naples, Florida, which she believes comes every fifteen minutes. Luckily for them, a cab comes. House gets ready to hop in, but Wilson is sitting with Ina. House says Julie Christie will be there for another 45 minutes. House wants to ignore Ina because she already thinks she's in Florida. Wilson won't do it. House offers to bring her along, but Wilson won't go for that either. He's going to stay with Ina until the police come to pick her up. House sits back on the bus stop and tells Ina to shut up about the bus coming every fifteen minutes.
Chase is writing on a white board, trying to come up with tests and theories. Foreman stops by and tells him he's got everyone worried about his quitting. Chase says he's learned a lot and it's time to move on. But he's felt that way for years. Foreman suggests that Chase needs structure and support. And someone else calling the shots. Chase says Foreman is trying to insult him into making a decision. Foreman cheerfully admits that they've both seen it work. He leaves.
BEEP BEEP BEEP! Treiber stopped responding when Park was changing his IV bag. He's in a coma!
There are a lot of words on Chase's white board. The team comes to him, saying that Treiber's comatose, so it's time to hear what Chase's theory is. Judging from the white board, he's come up with absolutely everything. Some high points are Japanese Encephalitis, Syphilis, Anthrax and regular Encephalitis. I don't see Lupus up there anywhere. Chase says that Treiber's too good, so the answer isn't going to be in the morgue. Chase goes off to wash his hands, and Foreman says they should start over: "Psychosis, abdominal pain, pleural effusions, enlarged heart, coma." Chase suddenly says it's the soap. He leaves.
House and Wilson on a bus. Wilson says he blew it. House moans about how, "Here it comes." Wilson talks about how he had the chance to fulfill his lifelong dream while House claims he's going to jump out of the bus. Then Wilson admits that he never even had a crush on Julie Christie. He had a crush on some girl who looked like her, but this girl went off with a guy who had a car, band and a mustache. House identifies this boy as "Kyle Calloway." Wilson's story continues. The girl asked him if he minded if she went with Kyle. He let her go. He beats himself up about going home "so a CT Scan can decide my fate." He doesn't want to go back. He wants to keep being Kyle. House tells him that Kyle would have ditched the woman, but he also would have ditched House. "I can live without Kyle." He offers Wilson a Snoball.
Treiber wakes up to see Chase looking down at him. Chase tells him that the additional triclosan in his antibacterial soap tricks the thyroid over time, leading to Hyperthyroidism and some other stuff. Treiber admits he might not have gotten that. "House told us to look for irony," says Chase. Treiber knows it wasn't House.
Chase goes to Foreman's office and hands over his locker key. Foreman offers him his own team. Chase says it's time to step out of the shadow. Foreman says it's about time. They hug.
Wilson is in the tube. House examines the monitor. Chase comes in and asks if there's news. House asks if Chase came to him so House could talk him out of leaving. No, he came to say thank you. House shakes his hand and claims that it's been fun. His alternate line was, "We've shared a variety of situations." Chase leaves. Wilson, who was listening over the intercom, asks why House let him go. House blames the 13th Amendment. Then he sees something on the monitor. Something shocking. Something that renders him speechless. Something we won't get to see until week!
Two episodes to go!
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.