By Sara M
Somewhere in the concrete jungles of Manhattan, a high-powered woman wearing a high-powered business suit does some high-powered work. You know she's important because she asks for projections and a lot of phones ring around her. She takes a phone call about an upcoming meeting. The caller says she'd better have some stuff to tell the board about Asia. The woman, now given the name Carly, says that she totally made up the Asia thing, so she has nothing to say about it.
By the time the meeting starts, however, Carly has plenty to say, and tells the board that their makeup company is about to dominate the Asian market. I do wonder why their office appears to be located in an airplane hangar, though. Either an airplane hangar or part of the hospital set, with its identical use of windows and cherry-colored wood. The board is thrilled with the news about Asia, and wants to hear more. Carly's hands start shaking as she tells them that India, with its half-a-billion female population, has a lot of spending power. Not according to what I've seen of the country on The Amazing Race, although I'm sure that depiction is not entirely accurate. Carly grabs her right leg, and her CGI muscles swell and tighten and make the nastiest sounds. Carly calls an end to the meeting that just started as she text-messages an "I need help" to someone. Carly lies through her teeth that she has to go to another meeting with some Chinese state officials, and the board is very happy indeed. Wow, being a businessperson is easy -- all you have to do is make stuff up! Carly's assistant comes in and asks what's wrong. "I need a doctor," says Carly. "I can't move my leg!" I don't see why she couldn't have ended the meeting with that instead of the lie about China, but I guess it would have given her less CONTROL.
House brings Carly's case to the Cottages, who ask him how he got this case. House says that Carly is very high-powered, so her case had to be brought to "da man." And House apparently is "da man," which he always suspected. Cameron is the first to say that Carly's leg problem could be caused by the same thing that crippled House -- a blood clot. Chase doubts it. Foreman agrees that a herniated disc is much more likely. "I don't know, Eric," Cameron begins, drawing funny looks from all. Who does she think she is, Dr. Smiley? She gets Eric and Robert to agree that a blood clot, while unlikely, is also the most deadly of Carly's possible conditions, so they should focus on it first. "Stop talking," House tells her, because he says what most of this show's audience is thinking and that's why we love him. House infers that Cameron read one of those books for high-powered people on how to make friends and influence people and is attempting to use her newfound knowledge here. "Soft positional bargaining," House says, showing that he's read a couple of those books in his lifetime as well. "It's not gonna work." Nevertheless, House orders an angiogram to see if there's a clot, and tells Cameron to read less and watch more TV, where people use sex to get what they want, which works out better for everyone.
Meanwhile, Cuddy is using "impact" as a verb as she tells the board of hospital people that a man has made an incredibly significant donation to the hospital on the condition that he be made the board's chairman so that he could see how his money was being spent. I'm going to guess that the ob/gyn lounge is getting a few new plasma TVs, and anything not made of glass will be replaced with its glass counterpart. House's requisition for money to fund the purchase of a diagnostic tool called the "Game Boy Advance" will be summarily rejected. Cuddy introduces everyone to Edward Vogler, the new chairman of the board. The old chairman of the board has got to be so pissed off right now. Vogler, played by Principal Chi McBride, stands to tumultuous applause and launches into a speech about how he took the money his dad gave him for college and invested it in a friend's business. Dad was pissed, but then the business took off, and Vogler invested the profits in other companies and is now worth a billion dollars. When he went back to his dad to rub it in his face (and, one would hope, to pay back the college loan with interest), he found him in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. So now Vogler is donating $100 million to the hospital so that they can come up with cures for diseases and prolong the lives of parents so that their kids can tell them how wrong they were. Vogler's speech is accompanied by the Violins of Inspiration, but Wilson doesn't look very pleased. "Things are going to change. A lot," says Vogler. Uh oh.
Carly is reluctant to give up her cell phone until Chase points out that the angiogram machines will destroy it. Back in the booth, a young blonde resident is all impressed that someone as young as Carly is already the CEO of a major company. Chase starts up the angiogram, and then flirts with the blonde instead of paying attention. Uh oh.
Vogler and Cuddy walk the hospital's one hallway. Vogler tells Cuddy how important it is that the hospital look like a professional business, and then he notices House playing with a yo-yo, his feet up on a table. Vogler asks Cuddy why this doctor isn't wearing a lab coat, and Cuddy says that House is "different." "Everyone's buddy?" Vogler asks. Cuddy chokes back laughter and says "not exactly." Vogler wants House to wear his lab coat.
Clinic duty! House checks out a kid's sore throat. He says that the results of the throat culture will be back in a few days, and the kid's dad has no response. The kid explains that ever since his dad had knee surgery, he hasn't been able to speak. House is confused, and then lets out a sudden "boo!" which gets a scared gasp from the kid, but nothing verbal from the dad. The nonspeakingness seems legitimate.
Coming off the elevator (drink!), Cuddy tells House that he needs to wear his coat. House says he needs to have sex with someone half Cuddy's age. Cuddy tells House to make their huge benefactor happy and wear the stupid coat so that they can cure cancer. House thinks that Vogler is going to use their hospital to run clinical trials that will kill patients. Cuddy is shocked that House would have a problem with killing people to make them better. "All [Vogler's] done is taken your game and gone pro," Cuddy says, thinking she is very smart indeed. House says that Vogler will kill their hospital. "Wear the damn coat," Cuddy orders. Yeah, that'll happen.
Foreman comes in to see Carly. He informs her that all their tests show that there is nothing wrong with her, so she probably had a blood clot that went away on its own. She'll be released tomorrow. Meanwhile, Carly is in the fetal position in her bed, her face twisted in pain. Foreman finally notices and asks if she's okay. Carly responds with a scream.
The Cottages talk about the new chairman of the board. Foreman doesn't like him. Cameron thinks they should all introduce themselves. House wants to talk about their patient, who is registering a ten on the pain scale. The only explanation I can think of for why hospitals persist in using the pain scale is that those face drawings it has that serve as a reference point of what varying degrees of pain look like (zero is a blue smiley face, while ten is a red crying face) are so amusing in their ridiculousness. When I'm in pain, I usually can't conceive of there being anything more painful than what I'm currently experiencing, so I would always want to say ten, but then would feel like a wimp and probably settle for seven or eight. Thus, the pain scale is useless. The Cottages protest that all their tests came back normal. Then Cameron asks Robert what Carly's sedimentation rate was. "Normal, Allison," Chase says. "Are you mocking me?" Cameron asks. "Duh, Allison," Foreman says, and he and Chase laugh at her. If Cameron didn't deserve that, I'd feel sorry for her. "My Aunt Elisa lives in Philadelphia," Cameron begins. "Oh! It's story time!" says House, who can't believe Cameron would set herself up for his sarcasm so easily. Cameron continues by saying that her Aunt Elisa, who lives in Philadelphia, has a body temperature that is always slightly lower than normal, meaning that ninety-eight point six is a fever for her when she's in Philadelphia. Maybe Carly, who lives in New York City, has a sed rate that is naturally low, meaning that what's normal for everyone else is high for her. "That's absurd," House says. "...I love it." Well, of course. And again, why do they even do tests at this hospital if even the normal results may not be normal? A high sed rate could mean cancer, so House says he'll talk to Wilson. He asks Cameron to skip the part about her stupid aunt and her current location time. Cameron smiles in validation.
Wilson and House compare notes about Carly, and Wilson brings up Vogler and how his desire to cure more commonplace diseases such as cancer are a bad omen for a guy who treats people with African sleeping sickness. House shrugs it off, saying that he's been through three regime changes at this hospital and he's still there. Wilson tells him to put on the coat. "It itches!" House whines. Wilson says he'll do a bone scan on Carly. House throws a pill in the air and catches it in his mouth.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Simpson is immediately annoyed to see House yo-yoing outside his operating room. House asks him about a knee surgery he did that resulted in the patient's being unable to speak. Simpson is still bitter about the case that raised his malpractice insurance premiums, and says that nothing happened during the surgery that would have rendered the guy unable to speak, which is why they ended up settling for over a million dollars. If I were the medical malpractice insurance company, I would not have given that much money to someone who had no proof that there was anything wrong with him, but that's just me.
Carly's assistant asks Carly what to tell her family members, and Carly tells her to lie to them that she's on a trip because she doesn't want them to see her "like this." Whatever, Carly. Wilson enters, and Carly kicks out her assistant. She already knows that Wilson is an oncologist, so she's ready to hear the bad news. Wilson says they didn't find anything in the bone scan, but that he's thinking she might have pain in an area that is unrelated to where her cancer actually is. Since her mother died of colon cancer, he wants to do a colonoscopy. Carly says she'd rather leave the hospital and die at work, because that's always fun. I'm sure it will have a big impact on the Asian market. Carly refuses to be "looked at," and have the colonoscopy. Wilson says that they have a virtual colonoscopy that is expensive, but non-invasive.
House enters the Clinic exam room to find the mute father, who types "wHats werong gwith ricky" on his laptop. You'd think that he would be better at typing after having to use it as his primary mode of communication for the past year. And that he would have some complex emoticons to throw in there, like the Abraham Lincoln: =|:-)= or the Jack Lord: @:-|. House makes fun of Dad's typing crappiness, and says that his son has a simple case of strep throat. How the hell did it take them a few days to figure that out? Rapid strep tests take less than five minutes! Anyway, House has a special injection for Dad. He jabs the needle in his throat without even asking the guy if it's okay first, which is what you get for taking your son to the SAME HOSPITAL that took away your ability to speak during a routine knee surgery. "I wanna see you again real soon," House says.
Wilson reports that the virtual colonoscopy was clean. Much cleaner than a real colonoscopy would have been, I'd say. House finds it odd that a patient would rather die than have a regular colonoscopy, and enters his office to tell the Cottages that. He asks if they have any other suggestions for what's wrong with Carly, and glances down at the angiogram films. He throws them up on the wall and asks if anyone sees anything wrong with them. No one does. House says that he's looking at pictures of two left feet, meaning that either Carly is a terrible dancer or someone took two pictures of her left leg instead of one of the left and one of the right. Cameron and Foreman shake their heads and put their hands on their faces, all "oh shit, Chase is gonna get it now!" Chase jumps up and looks at the films while House looks at the paperwork. He notices that a resident named "Jenny" signed off on it. "Were you even in the room?" he asks. Chase stammers that he'll redo the angiogram. "You'll do NOTHING!" House shouts. He takes a minute to settle, and then tells Foreman to do the angiogram. "I can't believe I did that," Chase says. Yeah, of all the things to screw up, the condition that your boss has a personal issue with would be the absolute worst.
Carly asks why she's getting another angiogram. Foreman says that there was a "shadow" on the first, neglecting to mention that that's what hypothetically might have been on it, had they actually gotten a picture of her right leg. Carly complains that her chest hurts. Foreman tells her not to worry about that, even though every single time a patient starts complaining of something minor, it immediately turns into a seizure or respiratory arrest, which is the case here. The Magic School Bus Cam shows fluid going into Carly's lungs. "She's drowning!" Foreman says.
House stares at the Whiteboard of Symptoms. Standing out in the hallway, for whatever reason, Cameron tells him that they drained the fluid from Carly's lungs and stabilized her, and that the real angiogram showed no clot in her leg. "I'm thrilled," House says non-thrilledly. We go into a montage of him staring at the whiteboard and twirling his cane, and then he erases the board and writes down Carly's "psych symptoms," which include withholding pain, shame, and, of course, CONTROL.
Carly sleeps, but she is not alone. House lifts up the sheet over her leg, revealing an intricate pattern of old and new cuts. Nothing would be a better lesson to him on the importance of wearing a doctor-identifying white coat than for Carly to wake up right now, see some strange guy staring at her thigh, pull out the handgun she always keeps under her pillow for CONTROL purposes, and shoot him. But she doesn't, and House remains white coat-less.
House finds Wilson having lunch outside and says that Carly needs a heart transplant, which he knows despite the fact that the test results that will prove this aren't in yet. He won't tell Wilson how he knows, since Wilson is on the transplant committee, and knowing whatever House does would put Wilson in a really bad position. Wilson asks House why he brought it up in the first place, which I would like to know as well, since House won't tell Wilson anything and it still puts Wilson in a bad position because he knows that something is up even if he doesn't know what exactly it is. The Cottages run up and say that the latest test results show that Carly is in severe congestive heart failure, and will need to be put on the transplant list. House says she's already on it.
Vogler enters Cuddy's office and asks whether they really need to spend so much money on the department of diagnostic medicine, which only treats one patient a week and doesn't cure breast cancer. I can only assume that breast cancer was on Vogler's mind due to Cuddy's decision to wear a shirt so low-cut that it reveals the entire extent of her cleavage and possibly even a little bit of bellybutton. Come on, Cuddy. All she really has to do here is tell Vogler that House's team is working on a cure for people with heads shaped like one of Star Trek's Talosians, and I'm sure he'll give them all the money they need. Instead, Cuddy just says that House and his team save lives. Vogler asks if Cuddy is sleeping with House. "What? No!" Cuddy says, flustered. Vogler asks if she ever did, and Cuddy's answer is that it's none of Vogler's business and that it's an incredibly inappropriate question to ask besides, both of which are true, although it doesn't answer the question. A yes by omission, perhaps? Oh, House, you dog! Vogler says that House is still not wearing his coat. Cuddy says she told him to. Vogler asks if House's refusal to follow orders is a reflection of him...or his boss.
House enters Carly's room, but she's awake so he can't check out any more of her body in the name of medicine. She knows who House is, having found a picture of him online, no doubt at www.allisoncameron.com, where it was surrounded by hearts and flowers. (If you're checking the site out at work, be sure the volume of your computer is turned down, as the link to the shrine for her tragically dead husband plays a very loud midi version of "Amazing Grace.") House tells Carly that she needs a heart transplant, due to the fact that she is a "high-powered bulimic," which he figured out when he saw that she cuts herself, as the two apparently go hand-in-hand. High-powered bulimics drink ipecac to induce vomiting, which will save your kid's life if he swallows poison, but isn't so great when ingested at regular intervals, as it causes muscle damage, as in her right leg and her heart. House is about to go in front of the transplant committee to present Carly's case, but the fact that she's bulimic makes her a "bad risk," and therefore unlikely to get a heart...unless he lies to the committee, in which case he'd lose his medical license. Carly asks House what he wants from her. House says that he wants to know if she is "worth it." Carly says she knows that House thinks she's pathetic, and House yells at her that this is about whether she wants to live or die: "I want you to tell me that your life is important to you, because I don't know!" House turns to leave, and Carly pulls him back. "I don't want to die!" she cries. Well, Carly, you should have thought about that before you decided to be a female CEO. Everyone knows that the tender sensibilities of the female gender mean that a position of stress and responsibility like that can only be handled with the help of self-destructive behavior. By the way, this episode was written by a man. I'm just saying.
So House goes before the transplant committee and tells them that Carly needs a heart transplant immediately. Nothing gets by Cuddy, who asks why House put Carly on the list before doing the tests that proved her eligibility for it. "I had a hunch," he says. "You don't have hunches. You know," Cuddy says. As Vogler enters the room -- because being the chairman of the board suddenly allows you to go anywhere you want in this hospital -- House says he figured it would be better to put Carly on the list if there was a chance she needed it, and that he would have taken her off if the tests showed that she didn't. This way, they won't waste any time. Cuddy asks if there are an "exclusion criteria" they should know about. House goes through a list of everything Carly doesn't have to avoid saying what she does. Cuddy asks about psychiatric conditions, and House says Carly is a "little blue," although that might be because she's dying. "If you subvert or mislead this committee, you will be subject to disciplinary action," Cuddy says, meaning that House can't avoid the question anymore. He'll either have to tell the truth and kill Carly, or lie and risk losing his license. He lies, and he couldn't be more obvious about it, looking at Wilson and Vogler before finally giving his answer.
It's raining in New Jersey. Wilson enters House's office, and House says it's "beautiful organ-donor weather," which is probably true. Those brain-killing car and motorcycle accidents happen much more frequently when the ground is slippery and wet. Wear your seatbelts and helmets, kids, or else your heart will be given to a woman CEO who will probably barf it out a few weeks later. Wilson asks House if he lied to the transplant committee, and House says he didn't, and adds that if Wilson thinks House did, Wilson should have voted against giving Carly a heart. Wilson says that House is his friend. House says that friendship isn't more valuable than ethical responsibilities are. "Our friendship IS an ethical responsibility!" Wilson says. That, and so much more. House gets a page: Carly is getting a new heart.
The operation involves heavy machinery, which I hope is not being operated by that awful Dr. Simpson. Or Vogler, whose chairman of the board privileges probably allow him to do it.
Chase wonders if House is going to fire him. Cameron doesn't think so. Foreman says that if he were House, he'd fire Chase. Foreman might want to read that book about winning friends after Cameron is finished with it. Chase wonders how House knew that Carly would need a transplant before they did. Cameron says that House is just amazing like that. Chase points out that, usually, when House is amazing, he rubs it in all their faces about how cleverly he figured out this answer. But this time, he's been conspicuously quiet.
Because any and everyone can just enter this poor woman's room and do whatever they want, Chase rifles through Carly's possessions. He finds a bottle of ipecac.
Cameron tells House that they just stopped Carly's heart in preparation for the donor heart, and that House's "dumb patient" -- dumb as in he can't speak, not that he's stupid, since that qualifier would encompass all of House's patients -- scheduled an appointment to see him. "I wanted you to know Chase is worried that you're going to fire him," Cameron then says, because she sucks so bad I can't believe everything on House's desk hasn't been sucked into the vacuum her suckiness creates. House says that if Chase is scared, he'll be that much more careful in the future.
House and Cameron walk out into the hallway, where Cameron says she thinks Chase would perform better if he had some reassurance that his job was not in jeopardy, and House tells her to "stop it with the book." He asks her what her new attitude is about, and Cameron responds that people always "dismiss" her because she's "a woman" and "pretty" and "not aggressive." And also because she has nothing of value to add to this show and is really annoying and a tattletale. "My opinions shouldn't be rejected just because people don't like me!" she says. Well, I think that's ridiculous. House says that everyone likes her. "Do you?" Cameron asks. Silence. "I have to know." GOD, Cameron, if you wanted to be treated like a professional, you should act like a professional, not some fifth-grader passing a "do you like me? Check 'yes' or 'no' note to your crush during math class. I think House is supposed to look conflicted here over which answer to give, but he just looks bored. "No," he finally says. Ha ha! "Okay," says Cameron, and walks away to go put herself on the transplant list cause her heart just got BROKEN!
Speaking of hearts, House and Carly's extremely devoted assistant await the results of her surgery. It's over after a quick five and a half hours, which House says means it either went really well or really badly. The doctor tells them it was the former.
House goes to see his dumb patient, who still appears to be dumb. House says that the patient's vocal cords were paralyzed when he was intubated during the knee surgery, and that the injection of botox he gave him should have cured it. The patient shakes his head. House screams "boo!" again to see if that's true, and the patient does not scream back. House gets close and asks if he's just faking this now because he's afraid the settlement money he won will be taken away. I think that being rendered speechless for a year would still entitle you to something significant, though. House says he won't tell anyone, and that if the patient can talk, he should blink twice. The patient blinks twice, and they share a smile.
Carly wakes up from her surgery, looking remarkably healthy for someone who just got a new heart. House brings her some fried chicken, figuring that the strict diet she's supposed to be on while recovering won't do her eating disorder any favors. Neither will binging and the subsequent desire to purge, but whatever. Carly asks House why he fought so hard for her. "You're my patient," House says. Meanwhile, someone else's patient, whose heart crapped out due to no fault of his or her own, dies without getting a transplant, so great ethics there, House. On the other hand, I don't know how morally right it is that a committee of strangers can decide to let Carly die just because her psychiatric condition makes her more of a "risk" and therefore less deserving than someone else. It's a really, really fine ethical line. "Don't screw it up," House says. Carly nods. She'll have to give her company over to a man who can handle it without killing himself and then go get married and have some babies and cook a lot. And if that's not fulfilling enough, she can always go back to being Kiefer's office bitch. Just as long as a man is in CONTROL.
And then C.S.I.: NY begins. Oh wait -- House is just playing its theme song (better known as The Who's "Baba O'Riley," better known as "Teenage Wasteland") in his office. He plays along with the keyboard with one hand while pointing in a rocking-out fashion with the other. Then he sits and uses the other hand to play the piano part when it comes in. He looks a lot like me back in the days when I would listen to Tori Amos in my room and think about how much I hated high school and the world was so unfair, dammit! Feel free to make fun of me for this over email.
Vogler enters House's office, and House shouts above the music that he loves this part of the song, where the drums enter. He drums along with Keith Moon until Vogler stops the music and sits down. "You ruined it," House tells him. Vogler introduces himself as House's boss. House apologizes for not wearing his lab coat, claiming it was destroyed by the dry cleaners. And then his dog ate it. And then his alarm clock broke. Vogler takes out a bottle of ipecac and says that a "nurse" found it in Carly's purse. Chase, you weasel! "Oh my. If only I'd known," House says, not even trying to be convincing. He breaks it all down, saying that Vogler doesn't like House and he doesn't like Vogler, but that doesn't matter since one of them has money and the other has tenure, meaning they'll both be around for a while. So they might as well ignore each other. And then House turns his iPod back on, which starts playing "Hava Nagila." House scrambles to turn it off, saying it wasn't "nearly as dramatic as [he] was hoping." No, but it was damn funny and I hope it makes a reappearance in future episodes, like every time Cameron opens her mouth. Even Klezmer music is more pleasing to the ear. Also, the presence of Jewish folk music on House's iPod lends just a little more credence to the theory that he and Dr. Wilson are totally dating. I'm just saying.
Vogler turns to leave, but then tells House that he might need the unanimous approval of the entire board to get rid of a tenured doctor, but that it wouldn't be too difficult to get rid of the only two members of that board (Cuddy and Wilson) who wouldn't vote his way. Ominous!
"Baba O'Riley" comes back on for a really cheesy montage of House exiting the elevator and leaving the hospital in weird a jerky slow-motion. That kind of ruined the episode for me. Well, that, and the whole anti-powerful-women theme and the presence of what promises to be an annoying House-sucks-at-office-politics story arc.