By Sara M
This episode is one giant mood swing. The first half is merry and light and fun, with House getting all jealous after Cuddy turns down his date in favor of hanging out with Wilson. He seeks out Wilson's second ex-wife to try to get the scoop on Wilson's dating habits and find out how threatened he should be by Cuddy and Wilson together. He somehow figures out that the solution is for Cuddy to sleep with Wilson before she falls in love with him. No one consults Cuddy about this. Chase is adorable, even while being a little too persistent with Cameron and giving Foreman's surprise-visiting father a big hello. The patient of the week doesn't seem too bad off with her brain and lung problems that look like a cut-and-dry case of an autoimmune disorder. And Foreman's dad brings Foreman's mother to town with him, and she seems in control of her faculties and really sweet and warm. But then...Wilson's ex-wife makes House feel like a jerk. Foreman is convinced that the patient's autoimmune disorder is cancer, and the only treatment for it is total body radiation. With her liver failing, they don't have time to do the tests that will confirm the diagnosis, so they do the radiation and kill her immune system to make her better. Except that it's only after they do that that they realize that she doesn't have cancer or an autoimmune disorder -- she has an infection. And now that her immune system has been killed, she has no defense against it. She'll die within the day. Foreman feels terrible, as well he should, and he stays with her until the end, because she's yet another PPTH patient with no family or friends. Foreman goes to his mother for a hug. He gets it...but she doesn't know who he is, as we find out in the most heart-wrenching way. Ouch. On the one bright side, House adopts Wilson's ex-wife's dog after finding out it's his canine counterpart.
We open on the FOX city backlot set with a guy trying to play some Three-Card Monte. I don't know why he's conducting what I'm assuming is an illegal activity in the middle of the day on a busy street, but I admire his gumption. He "randomly" selects a woman from the audience to play. He shuffles the cards around and she picks the queen. He starts to pay up while the audience full of suckers oohs and aahs at the easy money that they, too, might collect. When he offers her a chance to go double or nothing, she takes it. And she picks the queen once more, although she and the guy exchange looks that suggest they're in on this together. One dumb schmuck falls for it and steps up to play. The guy running the game says the schmuck can go right after he tries to win his money back from the girl a third time. But when the girl goes to pick the queen again, she looks stricken and says she "can't decide." The guy is extremely hostile and impatient towards her about it, and then she passes out. The guy takes off. Fortunately, the audience of suckers are also Samaritans and they stick around to help.
Almost three full seasons in, and I still love the theme song.
After the break, the girl, whose name is "Lupe," is at PPTH telling Foreman that for thirty seconds, she couldn't do anything. Her brain just wouldn't let her make a decision. Foreman says that the inability to make a decision is called ebullia and was part of a transient ischemic attack. That means blood was cut off to part of Lupe's brain. Lupe asks if a TIA is like a stroke. "A little," Foreman says. Right, nothing that a young, able-bodied woman should be worried about. What's with all the young ladies getting strokes these last few episodes anyway? I was under the impression that I didn't have to worry about them for a long time yet, but it seems that on this show, you can get them at any age for any reason. Foreman asks about any possible workplace environment toxins Lupe could have been exposed to, and that gives her the opportunity to tell him and us her employment history, which is a series of go-nowhere sales jobs and stretches of unemployment. One of those jobs is at a place called Jeans Gone Wild, which sounds like the best store ever. While Lupe continues to list off her jobs, Foreman almost has a TIA of his own trying to hide his complete and total disgust with her.
House and the rest of the Cottages talk in the meeting room. Cameron thinks the TIA was caused by a clot from the heart, Foreman thinks it's drugs, and Chase looks at the whole picture and considers Lupe's spotty job history, saying it could be a symptom of a neurological problem. Foreman assumes that Lupe is a "scam artist" who works at whatever job she can find for long enough to qualify for unemployment, then lives off of that and gets high until it runs out. I don't know what's going on with New Jersey's unemployment system, but here in California, you can't make enough at Jeans Gone Wild to eke out a living on unemployment. Plus, if you get fired from a job or quit, you get a lot less. Chase doesn't think they should assume Lupe is on drugs, and Foreman and Chase squabble about that for a while just for the fun of it, while House looks out in the hallway and spots Wilson making time with some woman. Foreman and Chase's argument over whether or not Lupe is a drug addict concludes with Chase shoving Lupe's clean tox screen in Foreman's face. Foreman goes to tattle to House about how Chase just wasted his time, but House isn't there.
House reports to Wilson's office to find out what's up. It turns out that the woman Wilson was talking to is his second ex-wife. I feel...almost cheated to have seen her. I kind of want Wilson's wives to be like The Nanny on Muppet Babies: you never see their faces. But now at least one of them is real, and she's now a real estate agent in the middle of a crappy real estate market forced to move into a condo. "She wants me to take Hector," Wilson says. House thinks for a minute, then guesses Hector is the pool boy, since anyone with a Hispanic name must be a hot pool boy. Actually, Hector is a dog Wilson and the ex bought on their honeymoon, who is not allowed in the ex's condo complex. Wilson can't take Hector either, because he still lives at the Best Western and it doesn't allow dogs. And this is why our animal shelters are filled with cats and dogs; why would Mrs. Ex-Wilson choose to live in a place that doesn't allow dogs? Especially since she didn't have any ideas about where to put Hector except her hope that Wilson could take him in.
With the pretense of caring about Wilson now disposed of, House moves onto talking about what's really important: himself. He asked Cuddy out to a play on Thursday. Wilson chuckles until he realizes House is sincere. Sincerely REJECTED, that is, because Cuddy turned House down, saying she was busy. Wilson asks if House then bribed a janitor and broke into Cuddy's office to check her appointment book to verify this, which is so last season. House tries to save face by claiming that he only asked Cuddy out as a "test" to see if Cuddy would say yes to him like she did to Wilson. Since she didn't, House assumes that this means Cuddy didn't go to the play with Wilson because she wanted to see a play -- she went because she wanted to be with Wilson. Or maybe she said no to House specifically because she doesn't like going to plays with men who loudly proclaim that they only invite women to plays to have sex with them. Either way, House is convinced that Cuddy like-likes Wilson. Wilson takes ten minutes to get his lab coat on as he refuses to be sucked into House's "vortex of insanity" that's not all that insane since House is usually right. This time, though, he's way off as Wilson reveals that Cuddy really is busy on Thursday -- with Wilson. Seeing an art exhibit. Wilson enjoys himself way too much as he tells House that it's not a date.
House returns to his office and orders Cottages off to run tests on Lupe, sure that none of them will figure anything out. Meanwhile, he'll be downloading porn from the internet.
Foreman and Chase are on their way out when someone calls out for an "Eric." It takes everyone a second to realize that that's Foreman's first name. The caller is Foreman's dad. "Hello, Mr. Foreman!" Chase says, grinning hugely. He is such a parent suck-up. Of course. Foreman sends Chase away and asks his dad what's going on. Big Daddy F says that Foreman's mom's sixtieth birthday is coming up, so he brought her to Princeton to see her son, since he couldn't go home to see her. "You haven't been home in eight years," Big Daddy F says icily. DAYAMN! That's a long time. I know Foreman's mom has some unsaid mental thing that makes her not able to recognize her own family members sometimes, but still. Eight years. Foreman says he talks to his mother on the phone. She only knows who he is sometimes. I wonder what their conversation is like on those occasions when she doesn't. Clearly, Foreman can't handle seeing his mother in person and having her not recognize him. But Big Daddy F doesn't care about that and has brought her to Foreman anyway.
Even though Chase and Foreman insist that their patient lives in a dump, it's still a pretty big apartment. Dingy and dirty, but big. Foreman is well pleased to find a crack pipe in a drawer, especially because, as Chase guesses, it means he'll have an excuse to skip dinner with the parents to test it for toxins. Chase volunteers to do the tests for Foreman so Foreman can be stuck with his parents. Considering that Chase usually avoids doing work, this is a pretty huge gesture on his part. Oddly, Foreman doesn't seem to appreciate it.
House finally corners Cuddy and finds out that she doesn't even know anything about the artist whose exhibit she's going to see. Big mistake, Cuddy. This is how people end up paying to see a painting of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant poop. House demands to know why Cuddy's choosing an art gallery with Wilson over a play with House. Cuddy sees right through this and says that House is just being a child who only wants a toy after he sees another kid take it out of the sandbox. Cuddy's impression of a greedy child is very good here. Also, she's totally right. House won't be thrown off, however, and he asks why Cuddy turned him down. Cuddy says that she wants a "friend" and Wilson is a "safe choice." House is pleased to learn that he isn't safe. Cuddy is exasperated, but in a way that suggests that she's loving this. She walks away. House calls after her that Wilson is not a safe choice. Oh, please. I know a lot of people think differently, but to me, there is nothing sexy about Wilson. He's very safe.
Foreman has no choice but to show up at his parents' hotel room. Big Daddy F opens the door and a woman's voice calls out for Foreman. A very healthy-looking woman smiles and rushes up to hug and greet him. Is this the mother we've been hearing so much about? Because she has great teeth for someone with some kind of senility. And she seems pretty much together right now, asking Foreman if he's been praying like his father wants him to and looking for a high school graduation picture of Foreman so they can look at how far he's come -- a play on a young Foreman's habit of looking at the last chapters of his school math texts because he wanted to look forward to everything he'd know by the end of the year. Yeah, and because the answers are always in the back of the book. Foreman and Foreman Senior seem uneasy about this even though it seems perfectly fine to me.
The day, Foreman shows Lupe the crack pipe he found when he broke into her apartment. She denies it's hers and coughs. Foreman ignores her constant coughing to make it very clear that he thinks she's a crackhead who got arsenic poisoning. He takes some of her hair out to test for arsenic. Suddenly, Lupe's coughing blood. She goes into respiratory arrest.
When we come back, Lupe is breathing again and on her way into the MRI of DOOOM! Chase and Cameron are monitoring it, which can't be good for anyone. They at least manage to tell us that Lupe's hair only had trace amounts of arsenic in it, so that isn't what's making her sick. She may want to keep crack pipes out of her apartment in the future, though. Or at least hide them better. Chase begins the MRI and tells Cameron that he's available tonight if she changes her mind about seeing him. Cameron turns the invitation down forcefully. She says she doesn't want to do anything with Chase except work. And even then, Cameron rarely wants to do it. Chase tells her to chill out; he's just saying he's available, and he's going to be doing that every Tuesday from now on. No big deal. And then he goes back to work. But Cameron doesn't want to work anymore. She tells Chase to put her behind him. He points out that she's the one bringing it up now. All he's doing is reminding her once a week that he's interested in her. Until, hopefully, he moves on and finds someone who actually likes him. Cameron doesn't know what to say to that. Chase finds a mass.
A biopsy shows white blood cells where there aren't supposed to be any. Cameron says that this suggests an autoimmune disorder. House wants her to get specific about what kind of autoimmune disorder, while Foreman just wants to treat her with steroids, since, Foreman says, all autoimmune disorders are treated with steroids. He provides several examples of this, one of them being "lupus vasculitis." Okay, does that really exist? Is it possible that the two diseases it never is on this show have now come together to form one super-disease it'll never be on this show? That's awesome. Foreman makes his point, and House sends them off to start Lupe on steroids. As for House, he's too busy tonight to do any follow-up with Lupe. Of course, Cameron wants to know what House is busy with. "Wilson's got a date tonight," House grumbles.
I thought (hoped) House would be off getting in the way of things at the art exhibit, but instead, he's made an appointment with Wilson's ex-wife. She shows him a condo he's pretending to be interested in, and he asks her if it's in the same neighborhood where she and Wilson had their first date. Ex-Wife is amazed that House was actually paying attention to that. He wasn't, actually; their first date was in Boston. Ex-Wife tries to show House the all-granite countertops while House pumps her for info on what it's like to date Wilson. Like he doesn't know.
Meanwhile, Wilson and Cuddy are at the art exhibit, only to find a different artist's work there as Wilson supposedly got the dates wrong. The Hockney exhibit they were supposed to see finished on April 20th, and Wilson thought it was going until May 20th. Well, April and May do look a lot alike so I can see what an easy mistake this would be to make. The new artist prefers sexier art. Lots of pictures of women with gags in their mouths. Wilson makes sure to say that this isn't where he'd usually bring someone on a date. His use of the word "date" gets Cuddy's attention. Wilson quickly stammers that this isn't a date. He just thought Cuddy would find the landscapes to be peaceful and relaxing, especially since she's so busy at work. Meanwhile, it's quite obvious that as far as Cuddy is concerned, this is not a date. She's wearing a dress with a turtleneck and long sleeves, which means she's in Goody Cuddy mode and not her usual V-neck tiny blazer mode.
Meanwhile, the Ex says that Wilson never actually asked her out on a date; she was coming out of a bad relationship, and he was trying to be her friend. Ha! That's how my dad got my mom to go out with him. The Ex says that Wilson would take her to museums and plays -- friendly stuff. And Wilson was sincere in his desire for friendship; as Ex says, "James Wilson: carefully calibrating his level of protectiveness for your individual needs." That line doesn't make much sense, but it does get House to asks whether she just compared Wilson to a tampon, which was funny. But kind of gross, when you think about it. The Ex says that she was the one who made the first move.
Cuddy and Wilson have a medical interest in whatever's being displayed on one canvas, which involves a bicycle pump and the large intestine. Draw your own conclusions. I'm guessing we'll see some incarnation of this as a patient of the week in a later season.
Ex continues that Wilson was so nice and considerate and such a "knight in shining armor" to her that she couldn't resist him. By the time Wilson wasn't there for her anymore, it was too late and she was hooked. House asks if she might not have fallen into the Wilson trap if she had had sex with him before she fell in love with him. Ex says she would have, then gets a little TMI and says sex with Wilson was "fantastic." "Nobody works harder to give a woman what she wants," she explains. Wait, are we talking about tampons again?
Our patient is still coughing. She denies that the crack pipe is hers, but does admit to taking a few hits off of it. "What's wrong with having a little fun?" she asks. Um, what's wrong is that IT'S CRACK. Lupe senses that Foreman doesn't like her. He says that honestly, she doesn't stick out enough in his mind one way or the other. Lupe gets all hot and bothered and says she can tell that Foreman thinks he's better than she is because he got out of the projects and became a doctor and she didn't. How can she tell that? Because he's black? It's not like he's wearing a neon sign that says "Ask Me About My Rough Upbringing In The Ghetto." Lupe says that the only difference between them is that she made bad decisions and he made good ones. Well, duh. That's the difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa too, if you want to break it down. Foreman shows that he's exactly the smug, superior prick Lupe thinks he is when he tells her to stop having fun with crack pipes and start going back to school. Lupe whines that "the system" isn't set up for "people like [her]." What system? The one that gives out tons of financial aid and loans? Yeah, you've got to pay those loans back, and it's not easy, and it sucks to be in debt for years and years, but that's what you have to do. Foreman notices her eyeballs looking yellow.
Lupe's liver will fail in two days. Foreman says they're not looking at an autoimmune disease after all, since the steroids aren't working. Cameron insists that it is an autoimmune disease, since the white blood cells are attacking Lupe's body and that's the way it goes in CamLand. Foreman thinks it's a rare and aggressive form of cancer called lymphomatoid granulomatosis, which Foreman says fits all the symptoms. Lupe's only chance is total body radiation right now. Doing the tests to confirm the diagnosis will take longer than she has to live, of course. Chase and Cameron protest, but Foreman presents the case to House that if he's wrong and Lupe does have an autoimmune disorder, total body radiation will suppress her immune system just like those steroids would. So either way, Lupe will win. Unless,of course, it's not an autoimmune disease or cancer. But House goes for Foreman's reasoning and even volunteers to get Lupe's consent when Foreman says he can't do it because she's kinda pissed at him. Chase doubts that House will rub her the right way any better, but House doesn't care how she feels about him; he's only interested in the reasons why she doesn't like Foreman.
House quickly goes through the boring consent form crap and asks Lupe why she doesn't like Foreman. "He thinks he's better than he is," she says. But House points out that she doesn't know how good Foreman is, so she can't know that he's not as good as he thinks. Lupe says no one is as good as Foreman thinks he is. House says he is. And...yeah, he is, pretty much. At being a doctor, anyway. House gives Lupe the consent form to sign, but she wavers. "I can't decide...," she says. House figures out that this is not a good time to play Three-Card Monte with her. He asks her other questions to test this theory, like, "Who's the better James Bond: Sean Connery or Daniel Craig?" When she can't answer that, he knows that she's having another ebullia episode. Clearly, since everyone knows the answer to that question is Pierce Brosnan. Lupe passes out and the monitors beep. House takes the consent form from her and sits back and watches while the nurses rush in and work on getting her better. House tells them to give her blood thinners and then radiate her body. And then try to get her to sign a consent form. The nurses are like, "We're a little busy trying to make this woman not die; could you give the orders when we're finished, please?"
Wilson is having coffee when House shows up to ruin his good time. He wasn't having a good time anyway. You see, Bonnie The Ex called last night and mentioned House. Wilson is sure that House wasn't seeing Bonnie for her condo-selling skills, since she's "the worst realtor in New Jersey." That's kind of an accomplishment, really. There's such a big pool of realtors in New Jersey to pick from; the chances of being the worst out of all them must have been small. Wilson thinks that House is trying to get back at him for dating Cuddy by dating Wilson's ex-wife. House says that he's trying to find out more about Wilson's dating habits to prevent him from divorcing Cuddy. And House has come up with a plan: Wilson must have sex with Cuddy before she develops feelings for him. Or they could just act like adults. But no. Wilson thinks Bonnie said he was bad in bed, but House just says she said if she had slept with Wilson before developing feelings for him, she would've been able to leave him. Wilson doesn't get it, so he leaves. Hopefully, he's going to check up on that new patient with the aggressive cancer. But I doubt it.
Lupe is done with total body radiation. She's not feeling well, and I sure hope that was necessary. If not, well, at least she still has her memory, unlike some people. Foreman and Cameron check her out. A funny moment where Foreman tells a blabbering Cameron to shut up turns very unfunny when Foreman hears a murmur in Lupe's heart. Suddenly, Lupe's in severe pain from the pressure of a simple blood pressure cuff. I guess that's supposed to mean something's gone wrong, but those blood pressure cuffs can really hurt sometimes. A friend of mine once got stuck in one of those blood pressure tester machines at a pharmacy. It was pretty funny to watch, but she said it was very painful.
But for Lupe, it's much worse. She feels intense pain at just the slightest touch. That's not a symptom of cancer, the other Cottages point out to Foreman. It's Anti-CIPA. Also: sepsis. Foreman doesn't want to believe it, because it means that she had a simple infection all along and they just did the worst thing possible for it by frying her immune system. Everyone's pretty grim, although they maintain that they tested Lupe for an infection and found nothing. Apparently, they missed something in her heart, so, way to go with those tests, Cameron! House says once they find the infection in Lupe's heart, they can go tell her she's about to die. Funny how those diagnostic tests don't work in time to prevent someone from having an unnecessary total body radiation, but they do work in time for you to find out what's about to kill you. Foreman volunteers to be the bearer of bad news.
Bonnie rushes into House's office trying to sell him another condo. Poor Bonnie; she really, really needs to sell a condo. Even though she knows House is a waste of time, she keeps trying. So he has to straight-up tell her that he doesn't want a condo, and he never did. He was wasting her time to serve his own selfish ends. Bonnie looks like she's about to cry. I feel really bad for her. This is why I can't bring myself to hang up on telemarketers. Bonnie decides to tell House a little story about how Hector the dog got his name. Apparently, he was the worst dog ever. He never did what he was supposed to and peed all over their rugs. Sounds like someone sucks at dog-training almost as much as she sucks at real estate. "'Hector Does Go Rug' is an anagram for 'Doctor Greg House,'" Bonnie explains. I guess that makes sense if you say things like "Hector does go rug." Maybe Bonnie would sell more condos if she spoke better English. Maybe I'm just resentful because most of the anagrams you can make out of my name have the word "ass" and "rim" in them. Anagrams suck! But anyway, even that early in her marriage, Bonnie says, she resented House. And now that she's got the golden opportunity and the emotional worked-up-edness, she's gonna say the stuff she's always wanted to say to him: House always needed Wilson. He didn't care that Wilson had a wife at home who needed him, too. She won't blame House for ruining her marriage, but she says he certainly didn't help. And then she starts to leave, thinking she's had the last word. But no, House has a rebuttal. First, Hector Does Go Rug is a lame anagram. "Huge Ego, Sorry," House says, is a much better anagram for Gregory House. It's pretty much prefect, actually. But who wants a dog named that? Second, Bonnie sucks at being a realtor. She will not guilt-trip him into buying a condo.
Wilson The Angel of Death gets to help Foreman talk to Lupe. He's hoping Wilson will give him the kind of advice that makes people thank him after the bad news. Too bad Wilson didn't have any advice before they treated Lupe for cancer, like, "It's not cancer." That might have been even more helpful. Also, I'm pretty sure that people don't thank you when you're the reason why they're dying, no matter how good you are at breaking the news. In fact, I daresay Cameron's method of being too upset to say the bad news would work best here, as Lupe would die before she even knew she was going to. Wilson tries to help Foreman anyway. His advice is to "minimize" the hurt and not "pussyfoot" around the word "dying." Then give her time to process the news and tell her he'll be there through all of it (all ... two days or so). And then, if he feels it's appropriate, make some body contact. Wilson demonstrates this by touching Foreman's arm and Foreman totally makes a "Did you just touch me? Don't touch me!" face. Wilson says that if Foreman's freaking out about this, then he shouldn't try to hide it. Lupe will feel a little better, and he might get nominated for an Emmy!
Foreman walks in and tells Lupe she has an infection. The radiation worked, and now Lupe is dying. Lupe asks how much time she has. "A year?" she asks, horrified at the thought of such a short amount. She's even more horrified when Foreman's face indicates it's going to be a lot less than that. In fact, it'll be, like, a day. Lupe asks how bad this cancer can be. Yesterday, she points out, they thought she had a chance. Yesterday, Foreman says, they thought she had cancer. She doesn't. She never did. And whatever infection she did have, they killed her body's only way to fight it off. It's in her heart now. Without an immune system, the antibiotics can't do anything. Nothing can. Lupe's reaction is pretty good here, just crying and looking helpless and weak. Foreman says he's sorry and touches her shoulder just like Wilson told him to do. Her reaction is ... not quite what he was expecting. "Get the hell away from me!" she screams, and kicks him out of the room. Yeah, Foreman? People are usually kind of pissed at you when you murder them.
Foreman walks out and doesn't know what to do. But the music is building to something, so he punches the wall. He's fortunate that he's in the only section of PPTH lined with walls and not windows. He makes a nice dent and then holds his fist while it throbs with the pain he deserves.
After the break, Cameron tends to Foreman's finger, which is broken. But he's got it bandaged up. He shouldn't. He should leave it loose to flop around and hurt all the time for the twenty hours Lupe has left. Cameron tries to make Foreman feel better by saying that her steroid idea didn't help Lupe either, but Foreman says he's the one who obliterated her immune system. "One of us could go home with you -- " Cameron offers, and I can't believe she's going for Foreman already! Damn, woman! At least wait until season! Foreman tells her not to make him feel better; he deserves to feel like crap for killing a woman. Cameron points out that it won't help Lupe. No, but it might make her feel a little better to know that her murderer feels a little bad about it. And then Foreman notices that House is missing.
Foreman finds House preparing to grab some of Lupe's infected tissue so he can know what infection killed her. It'll hurt Lupe and it won't do anything to save her life, but House needs his answers. Foreman says House will have to "wait." Until, I'm guessing, the autopsy. Not a long wait, though. Be patient, House. He snaps at Foreman, but then backs down. Foreman tells a nurse that he wants to move Lupe back to her room. She doesn't need to be in the ICU now that she's dying. At least in her own room, Foreman says, she'll have privacy. Except she won't, because it's probably lined with windows. The ICU nurse gets pissy, but since she isn't Evil Nurse Brenda, I don't care.
Foreman drops by to see Lupe. She's not thrilled to see him. She says that if he's here for her forgiveness, he's not going to get it. "This isn't like you ran your cart into mine at the supermarket," she says. I'll bet it took her a while to think that one up. And I think it's productive of her to spend her last few hours on this earth thinking of things to say to Foreman to make him feel bad. In fact, I really wonder if I wouldn't try to kill him if I were her. There are no consequences, and at least I'd feel like I was saving future patients from dying unnecessarily at his obviously incapable hands. Foreman asks her what he should tell her grandparents if they don't make it there "in time." She doesn't have anything. Foreman asks if there are any friends he can call. She says her friends are the kind of friends who run away when you pass out in the middle of Three-Card Monte. Why must everyone on this show be so alone? New Jersey is the loneliest state in the union, I swear. She asks Foreman if it's a relief that she isn't leaving anyone behind. Come on, Foreman, it is. Admit it. But no, he just sits down. I'm still waiting for the last-minute life-saving operation. At the very least, a last-minute wedding between Lupe and Cameron.
Wilson brings House some coffee. I'm kind of starting to think that there isn't going to be a last-minute life-saving operation.
Lupe can take some solace in the fact that she was right about Foreman; he didn't like her. That's a great thing to go to your grave knowing. Foreman says that he's made some bad decisions, too. He's stolen cars and robbed houses. Lupe wonders why she must spend the few minutes of life she has left listening to someone else's life story, and then she tells him to add killing her to his list. Yeah, Foreman pretty much set himself up for that one, didn't he? Foreman continues, saying that he turned his life around, but now he thinks that if he isn't the bestest smartest person in the room, everyone will know he doesn't belong there. He always worries about being sent back to where he came from. The last time he came home to visit, everything felt small and suffocated him. But when he was saying goodbye to his mother, she hugged him, and that's the last time he ever felt at home. "I only put distance between you and me because I know there isn't any," he says. Oh, well, that's a good excuse for KILLING HER. Lupe says Foreman was right about her, too: that stuff she said about the system not being meant for people like her is crap. She just couldn't try hard enough. She thought she had time to try later. And she still does, as House should be thinking of a last-minute life-saving operation any second now.
Later, she's still dying. Foreman's still there. She asks him if he'll ever leave. He says he won't. That's going to be a little weird for the patient who has that room. He holds her hand, and she lets him, probably because she's too weak to stop him.
And then she dies. What the hell?!? No life-saving procedure?!? I don't get it.
Foreman calls House and says that Lupe is dead, and House can do whatever he wants to her.
House rolls out his pouch of people-cutting tools he always has on hand.
Chase offers to get drunk with Foreman. He's so sweet this season. He walks with Foreman for a while and says that his religious beliefs are kind of wonky, but he needs to believe there's someone out there. So when he talks, he imagines someone's listening. Even if he knows no one is, it makes him feel better.
House cuts into Lupe. She ... isn't waking up. I don't understand.
Wilson talks to her grandparents. Nice of them to finally show up and have the decency to look upset.
House looks in the microscope for his answers.
I can't tell if Foreman is praying at his desk or not.
Wilson finds House in Lupe's room. She seems to still be dead. How can this be? How can House save fetuses with multiple organ failure and not some girl with an infection? House says he figured out the source of the infection: she scratched herself on her bra hook. WHAT?! FUCK! I wear a bra! Fuck! Nothing in this world is safe! House shows Wilson a tiny wound in the Lupe's back where the infection got in. It was a simple staph infection. "And some bad decisions," House adds.
House returns to his office. Foreman's there. Wilson decides to leave them to it. House tells Foreman to go home, drink, and come back tomorrow and do it again, "only better." Hey, it couldn't get much worse. Foreman says this wasn't a mistake or something they missed or a disease they couldn't cure: he killed her. House says that Foreman can look forward to doing this again. The kind of medicine they do means that while they save a lot of patients from crazy diseases no one else can catch, they're sort of screwed when it comes to common stuff that anyone can cure. Too bad Lupe didn't go to one of those common doctors. "There's nothing to forgive," House says. Logically, maybe. But not so much when you've actually met the human you killed.
Wilson and House head out. Wilson offers to take time out of his busy Cuddy-dating schedule to get dinner with House. House says he can't: "I have a dog waiting at home." Hector should be just perfect for a guy who seems to enjoy it when urine gets on his floor. I just hope he gets along with Steve McQueen.
And Foreman goes to his mother. She can tell he's upset. He says he did "something bad." "I hurt somebody," he says. He sure did! "It wasn't your fault," she says immediately. He says it was. In that case, she forgives him with a hug. That's great, but, it's not her thing to forgive. She says that she can see from his face that he'd never anyone on purpose. Foreman really wants to believe that and live in a world where your mom can make everything okay just by telling you it is. He gives himself a few seconds to do that, then has to ask if she knows who he is. I kind of want to stop the episode here and not see her inevitable answer. She says nothing, and he says, "It's Eric." "Of course," she says, hugging him...and then, horribly: "My little boy's name is Eric." Foreman's face crumples. The one time he actually wants to go home, he can't.