By Sara M
House treats a man with frontal lobe disinhibition, which means he turns into Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar and can't help but say what he's really thinking all the time. That means he insults his wife's job and charity work and calls his young daughter "below average." I'm not sure about the daughter, but the wife can't be too bright to insist on visiting her truth-telling husband and bringing their young child along even after it's made very clear that he will say hurtful things to them. She also insists on taking a stray dog into the house that isn't housebroken, which is how the team comes up with a diagnosis of a dog-related infection. Antibiotics cure him, but his frontal lobe disinhibition is permanent unless a surgeon can be convinced to do the very risky surgery to remove the damaged area. House is able to convince Chase to convince his boss to do it, since the last thing he needs is another person on this Earth just like him, but after the damaged area is removed, the patient is still telling it like it is and now his body temperature is dropping. Whoops! House is in New York with Wilson visiting Wilson's long-lost guilt-inducing schizophrenic brother when he figures out his patient's true diagnosis -- a benign fibrous tumor that his body is fighting with an over-the-top autoimmune response. They take the tumor out and he's back to his socially acceptable self, although it's clear that a few days of saying what he really thinks has taken its toll on his family.
We open at a book tour kickoff dinner. The author has to give a speech, which he apparently didn't expect and isn't very good at, using most of it to wonder what he's supposed to say. Nick, his editor, suggests thanking people, and author Tim starts with Nick, thanking him for being a good editor and for doing a lot of necessary hand-holding to bolster Tim's apparent lack of confidence. As the room toasts to Tim's collection of short stories being another best-seller, Nick suddenly decides to stop holding his hand and says there's no way short stories will sell since they haven't made money since 1908, which seems to be the time period Tim is recalling with his hairstyle. Nick continues that the publisher only put the book out so as not to offend their star author. Nick's wife decides to step in at this point and says his name warningly, and Nick seemingly snaps out of it and apologizes. But then he keeps going, turning on the publisher and criticizing both her people and her mothering skills. And with that, he gets a bloody nose and collapses, but not before hating on the title of Tim's book.
Cameron brings the case to House's attention off-camera, and by the time House arrives at work, the Cottages are all a-twitter over their chance to take on a case reminiscent of Phineas Gage, who survived a large railroad spike being blown through his head only to emerge with a very different personality due to frontal lobe disinhibition. Nick also has frontal lobe disinhibition, and he didn't even need a railroad spike to get it. So worry not, people who want frontal lobe disinhibition but are worried that the decreasing use of trains in modern day America means less railroad spikes to accidentally blow through your skulls -- it's still possible. Foreman cheerfully reports that the MRI didn't show anything to explain Nick's problem, even though that goes without saying. The only thing that MRI is good for is murder. Hadley suggests that Nick has a tumor in his nasal cavity eroding into the brain that the MRI was not able to see somehow. House sends the Cottages off to stick a scope up Nick's nose and look around for tumors.
Nick is in bed playing cards with his young daughter, who says he's going to keep losing their game if he insists on telling what his cards are. Is he telling her because of his frontal lobe issues or because he's one of those dads who insist on letting their kids win? I did not have one of those dads. He even beat us at Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur. Kumar and Taub have to interrupt, and Kumar apologizes with a big smile on his face. "You don't look sorry!" Nick says. "Um ... no offense. Although you do look kind of cheerful. A little creepy." He then wonders if he should switch to a doctor who isn't all giddy about how sick he is. I see nothing wrong with what Nick is saying to Kumar right now. I'd be pissed too, if I just essentially lost my job because I was unable to keep my mouth shut and some doctor who can't be bothered to dress professionally was grinning in my face about the prospect of sticking something up my nose. Taub saves Kumar, explaining the test to Nick. He asks the daughter to get lost, but she doesn't move. The wife is nearby all of the sudden, and speaks up to say their daughter, Marika, has an "auditory processing disorder." That seems to mean that everything has to be spelled out for her in very clear terms.
With that, Taub gets the test started while the wife decides to leave her husband's bedside in his time of need to do some last-minute planning for a breast cancer walk. Nick just says it's too bad his nose isn't as big as Taub's, because then that scope would fit much easier. Wife decides to stay in the room, presumably to stop her husband from insulting everyone (not like she's done a good job at that before). She stupidly announces her intentions, which just opens her up for some fire from Nick about how breast cancer walks are stupid and pointless. He thinks their efforts would be better suited if they built homes for Habitat for Humanity for breast cancer instead of tying up traffic. You know what? He's totally right. That's a great idea. This frontal lobe disinhibition seems to make people very sensible. Wife asks Nick why he walked last year if he thinks those walks are so stupid, and Nick says if he refused, his wife wouldn't have sex with him. Everyone looks grateful that Marika's auditory processing disorder means she has no idea what her father is saying right now. The wife decides to leave the room again, leaving Marika in there, exposed to any and all inappropriate and mean comments from her father. Nick begs Taub to cure him, then makes another crack about Taub's big nose. Whoever wrote this episode hates Peter Jacobson.
House has made plans for him and Wilson on Wednesday night: a monster truck match. On a Wednesday night? I thought those only happened on SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!! Wilson won't be seeing it no matter what day it's on, as he informs House that he doesn't like monster trucks and never did. House can't believe it, but Wilson insists that he's been faking his love of monster trucks this whole time. But he can keep silent no longer: "death to monster trucks!" he says. I think that kind of already happened. In, like, 1993. House refuses to believe Wilson, saying he must be hiding something. Kumar interrupts to tell House that they didn't find any nasal cancer in Nick, who's going to be on the business end of a divorce soon if they can't cure his frontal lobe disinhibition. Why would Kumar tell House that? Does he think House really cares about his patient's marriage? Wilson remarks that it sounds like House's new patient is his colleague in asshole. Kumar says that's only until they cure him, but House disagrees. Just because Nick is usually able to stop himself from saying asshole comments doesn't mean he isn't an asshole deep down inside. This frontal lobe disinhibition is only his true self coming through. Wilson begs to differ, saying that the fact that Nick doesn't say his asshole thoughts and has worked hard to create a nice guy persona for himself means he really is a nice guy. This gives House the chance to say that Wilson is "all persona" and Kumar the chance to show off his supreme nerdiness by comparing Nick to Harry Potter, whose inner nature should have placed him in the Slytherin house but he refused and was put in the Gryffindor house instead. House just stares at Kumar, most likely thinking that the fact that he doesn't understand how saying something like that exposes him to endless mockery from House is enough to make said endless mockery a waste of time. Instead, he sends Kumar off to scan Nick's brain for damage.
Kumar apparently passed the buck to Hadley and Foreman, as they're the ones sticking Nick in a tube. They'll monitor his brain activity while he answers certain questions. But first, Nick has no choice but to say everything he's thinking about Hadley. As you can imagine, his thoughts are mostly concerned with her beauty and how he enjoys imagining what she looks like naked and how he'd "do" her. Hadley doesn't even blink, since House is her boss so she's heard this all before and worse. Cuddy walks in, answering a page, and Nick finds a new female to fixate on, loudly announcing that he'd "do her in a minute with fudge and cherries on top." There's nothing worse than being forced to say your sexual fantasies out loud so everyone can know how lame they are. Hadley tries to explain Nick's situation to a shocked Cuddy while Nick starts talking about how he's currently imagining both of them making out in a king-size bed with a mirror on the ceiling. And if Hadley had frontal lobe disinhibition, she'd be forced to admit that that sounds like a great time. Then Nick reveals that he prefers Cuddy to Hadley. At this point, Cuddy realizes that House paged her in order to watch her be embarrassed by Mr. Inappropriate, and asks where he's hiding. Hadley and Foreman claim to have no idea, and since the fun is over, House reveals that he's been sitting in the dark booth the entire time by turning the light on. I wonder if Hadley and Foreman knew he was there the whole time? I hope they didn't, and talked shit about him and hurt his feelings. Cuddy takes off, and a very satisfied House follows her out.
In the hall, he says she should be thanking him. Cuddy seems to disagree, until House points out that she's 40. Well, she should definitely be thanking him now. Instead, Cuddy says she's 38, not 40, but that is a lie. Wasn't she 38, like, five seasons ago? You can't tell me that less than a year has passed in House-time since then. House explains that since Nick can't lie, he really did prefer Cuddy's body to young Hadley's, which Cuddy should take as a compliment. Perhaps, but it's not like House put Cuddy in the room with Nick knowing that's what he'd say. He could just as easily have been very insulting. So I can't award House too many nice points here. Cuddy says she's not flattered at all, but as soon as House turns away, a huge girlish smile creeps across her face. It's hard being a woman; when construction workers whistle at you, you feel insulted and flattered at the same time. Also, whoever wrote this episode loves Lisa Edelstein.
In the booth, Foreman tries to make Hadley feel better after Nick's rejection by saying he thinks she's better than Cuddy. That's only because he's probably still mad at Cuddy for refusing to give him that recommendation. Also, I have to wonder where Cameron would have ranked with Nick. Too bad she already got her three seconds of screentime last episode and so won't be appearing this week. Hadley says she's okay with being second to Cuddy, and only looked upset because she didn't appreciate knowing that Nick was having lascivious thoughts about her. Foreman doesn't get it, saying she should be flattered that someone finds her attractive. Hadley says she'd rather people be attracted to "the whole package" -- her looks AND her personality. Good luck with that one, Hadley. Your personality is pretty ugly from what I've seen so far. Also, it's not like she was looking to make connections with women based on personality when she was having all those one-night stands last year, so, whatever. And whoever wrote this episode doesn't care one way or the other for Olivia Wilde, but was probably told by their fellow writers who do love her to say nice things about her or else.
Foreman wonders what they should ask Nick for the test. It should be something Nick would prefer to keep secret but won't "hate" them for knowing about him. Foreman asks Nick if he votes the same way as his wife, and Nick says no way. He told her he voted Democrat, but he actually didn't vote at all. And his wife didn't notice his lack of "I üoted today!" sticker? Idiot. Hadley the young idealist can't believe that Nick is forty-six and has never voted. Nick says her voice is not attractive when it contains that note of disapproval, but I have no sympathy for him because lying to your wife about voting is dumb. It's more effort to lie than to just freaking vote. Foreman notices a spot in Nick's brain that isn't lighting up like the rest, and Hadley cuts Nick's anti-voting tirade off to tell him they have all the information they need. She then turns to Foreman and says the spot is too close to the brainstem to do a biopsy. Except they're always saying that brain biopsies are too dangerous to do, and then they do them anyway. Foreman thinks they should assume they're looking at neural sarcoidosis and start treating Nick for that with steroids and see what happens. With that, Hadley catches Foreman checking out her ass, but Foreman covers by saying he's actually attracted to her love of voting.
Meanwhile, Kumar and Taub are paired up in the cafeteria. Taub is feeling very insecure about the size of his nose after Nick's comments. Kumar tells him not to worry, since Nick also said he had a creepy bedside manner and that's not true. Taub thinks that one over and decides he doesn't feel any better. Clearly, he thinks that Kumar really does have creepy bedside manner, but Kumar doesn't pick up on that. Kumar asks Taub how he could never have dealt with this issue before, coming from a plastic surgery background and all. Taub says he was always told that his nose suited his face, and now he thinks people were just saying it to be polite as part of the "social contract" we have to mention many times this episode in order to justify the title. In a particularly unflattering profile shot, Taub asks the cashier what she thinks of his nose, trying to get an unbiased opinion. But if the cashier isn't going to tell off House for all the abuse he doles out to her, then she sure isn't going to insult Taub, so she just says "it's fine. It's a nose." Don't think the "it suits your face" comment is all BS, Taub -- I knew a guy with a large nose that really did suit his face. Then he got a nose job and now he has a little pixie nose that does not suit his face at all and we never know where to look when we see him at reunions.
House limps over to Wilson's table with an empty plate, ready to fill it with his friend's food. But Wilson is clearly still smarting from House's "persona" comment. Undaunted, House sits down and takes his food anyway, saying that Wilson isn't like Nick, whose nice shell hides an asshole core. No, House says, Wilson doesn't have a core at all. He is whoever he's with needs him to be. You mean, like Brad Pitt? He morphs into the male version of whatever girl he's with. That's going to bite him in the ass when he breaks up with Angelina Jolie but still has to take care of all those kids. House wants to know how Wilson came to be this way. I want to know why House thinks that insulting his best friend and saying he has no core is a good idea. Or why he'd want to be friends with someone like that in the first place. What's really bothering House is the fact that he knows that Wilson has a secret appointment on the night of the monster truck rally. He doesn't like it when his only friend hides things from him. I think Wilson needs to stop marking mystery outings in his appointment book where House is bound to see them. Did he really think that marking it off but not saying who the appointment is with would really be enough to throw House off the scent? Wilson claims he's playing racquetball with Taub, and he only tried to hide it from House to save Taub from being harassed by a jealous House and to save House from being hurt by the fact that there are some things Wilson does that House and his bad leg can't do with him. That pretty much ends the conversation.
Guess what? The steroids aren't making Nick any better and now his kidneys are failing. Good call, Foreman.
While the rest of the Cottages try to figure out what's wrong with Nick, Taub checks out his reflection in a spoon, because convex mirrors are so reliable that way. House tells him to stop, and Taub responds by diagnosing Nick with leukemia, which is stupid since Foreman points out that Nick's white blood cell count is normal. Less spoon-gazing, more file-reading, Taub. House doesn't care about Nick anymore now that he has Taub's attention. He asks him about his racquetball skills. Taub says he's played against Wilson a few times, then suggests diabetes. I've known people with diabetes, and frontal lobe disinhibition never happened to them. Hell, it never happened to Stacey from The Baby-Sitter's Club book series, and she had the worst diabetes ever. Kumar likes a congenital metabolic disorder better, but Taub doesn't think it would rear its ugly head at such a late stage of Nick's life. Kumar points out that Nick's daughter has a neurological condition, which could be related. Yes, they both have a congenital metabolic disorder that shows up in girls at age 7 and men in age 47. Brilliant! House just wants to know how Taub, a Jew, can possibly be able to compete against Wilson, who played tennis for his college team. How quickly we forget that Wilson is supposed to be Jewish, too. I know they only mentioned it in the pilot, but still. I'm pretty sure it counts. Taub says Jews can too be athletic, pointing out Sandy Koufax. House says the Jews always go on about Sandy Koufax. Yes, we do love our Sandy Koufax. Larry King loved him so much that he pretended they were childhood best friends for years. Foreman doesn't like the congenital diagnosis because it involves a lot of testing and he's lazy. Yeah, best to just assume it's neural sarcoidosis and pump the guy up with steroids. House keeps trying to quiz Taub about racquetball, and Taub coolly has an answer to all of his questions and insists that diabetes is a better diagnosis than the congenital thing and requires less work on their part. But House has an idea of how to see if it's a congenital thing: they'll run a peripheral nerve test. But not on Nick, since his brain damage will make the results inaccurate. Instead, they'll do it on Marika. So now we're assuming that it's a congenital condition AND that Marika has the same thing. Kind of a stretch, no? Kumar is assigned to test Marika while Taub gets to do punishment diabetes blood tests until he tells House what he and Wilson are hiding. We cut to Hadley looking confused, both because she doesn't know what's going on and because she's usually the one with the secret stuff going on that Taub and Kumar are clueless about, so this is different for her.
Kumar sets Marika up for the nerve test, telling her to let him know as soon as she starts to feel uncomfortable as he puts bands around her hands and feet. Marika is only worried that a medical test means there's something wrong with her, but Kumar tries to ease her fears by saying that this test will help Nick get better. The better she does, he says, the better he'll be. Poorly explained and possibly inaccurate. Maybe it's a good thing that we don't see much of Kumar after all. With that, Kumar and the wife retire to the booth and Kumar starts cranking up the heat on the bands. Wife would rather chat about how she's having a hard time with the things her husband has said to her. She knows he can't help saying them, but that doesn't change the fact that he thinks them. You know, Kumar could say here that they don't know if Nick even thinks the things he's saying because of the brain damage to make the wife feel better but instead he wonders why Marika hasn't felt the heat yet. Could she be sick too? No, she just didn't want to say anything until the heat was so unbearable that she had no choice but to scream in pain. Kumar whips the nerve things off her hands and feet, which are now burnt, and asks why she didn't say anything when she started to feel it. Marika says she wanted to hold out as long as possible since Kumar said the better she did, the better her dad would be. Wife glares at an apologetic Kumar, but it's kind of her fault, too. She should have known that Kumar's explanation was sucky and Marika might not get it, but instead she was too busy thinking about herself.
Taub's stuck with Nick for hours on end as he performs the glucose tolerance test. Nick complains that he's hungry, having probably exhausted any and all negative comments about Taub's appearance at this point. He then asks Taub if he can make sure that Hadley isn't at his bedside any more, because he doesn't want to share his "rich imaginative life" with her. Hadley making out with Cuddy on a bed with a mirror on the ceiling? That's not all that creative, Nick. Stop patting yourself on the back. Taub says sexual thoughts are normal, as if that's supposed to make Nick feel better. The thoughts are normal. Saying them out loud kind of isn't. Nick says he'd rather be judged by his actions than his thoughts, and when he says he's never cheated on his wife, Taub makes an "I DID!!!" face. Nick picks up on it, much to Taub's surprise, and says Taub is a creep. Taub runs away.
He heads down to the morgue, where House is waiting for him with a racquetball ball. Taub passes an exiting morgue worker on his way in, and I have to wonder what that guy is thinking. There's a doctor stretched out on a vacant slab, tossing and catching a ball, and now he's having some sort of meeting there. Also, why hasn't the morgue banned House and his team from the area after that time that he shot up one of their corpses? Or the time Cameron tried to make them answer her calls from newspapers? They are nothing but trouble down there, but the morgue keeps putting up with it. Taub wants to know why House paged him to the morgue. House says the morgue is the only place at PPTH with a perfect racquetball wall, and he demands that Taub update him on Nick's condition while hitting a ball off of it with the racquet provided. And if Taub refuses to do it, he'll be fired. I'd just like to say that the morgue wall is a perfect racquetball wall only if the sport now includes big metal drawers in its courts. Taub accepts the challenge, and attempts to hit the ball while telling House that Nick tested negative for diabetes. He has some trouble when the ball bounces off a corner of a drawer and gets caught up in the legs of an autopsy table with a dead guy on it, but otherwise seems to be doing okay. Taub says he's thinking that Nick's thyroid is affected instead of his pancreas, and gets so excited when House says that "makes sense" that he goes flying into a morgue workstation packed with breakable items and destroys them all. See, morgue? This is what you get. Exasperated, Taub admits that he isn't playing racquetball with Wilson and only said he was because he wanted a department head to owe him a favor. He didn't realize that it would come at a cost of his time and the hatred of the entire morgue department, who now have to clean up after him. He should have known, though -- how long do you have to work for House before you realize that helping someone hide something from him is a bad idea that will only bite you in the ass? House congratulates Taub for putting a good effort into making his racquetball skills look convincing, but says it wasn't good enough -- the racquet House provided was for squash, and any real racquetball player would have known that immediately.
Kumar is assigned to test Nick's thyroid. Nick refuses to let anyone touch him until they explain why Marika has a bandage on her hand. I guess the wife was remaining silent on that front so that Kumar would have to deal with it. Nice. Kumar explains that Marika's hand was burned when they were testing her to see if her neurological disability was related to Nick's. That's all he gets to say before Nick announces that Marika doesn't have a neurological disability -- her "auditory processing disorder" merely means she's kinda slow on the uptake. "She's below average," Nick explains. The wife slapped that label on it because she couldn't accept that her daughter wasn't perfect. By the way, Marika is in the room for all of this, and while she might be slow, she's not totally stupid, so she gets the drift of what her father is saying. The wife, on the other hand, chooses to leave Marika in the room while her husband uncontrollably destroys his daughter's self-esteem instead of getting her out of there, which she really should have done in the first freaking place. Clearly, the apple didn't fall too far from the stupid tree, as Nick says that Marika probably takes after her dumb mom. Nick tries to make things better by saying this is why he wanted his wife to keep Marika home: "I didn't want you here," he says to Marika. FINALLY, Marika decides to take off. Of all the things Nick just said, "I didn't want you here" was the only thing that wasn't actually insulting. While the wife runs after Marika, Nick's fever spikes and his lungs fill with fluid. Why doesn't he just not talk at all if he knows that every time he does, something mean is said? It's not like he's under some magical spell and has to tell the truth all the time like Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar. How can he not know something is inappropriate before he says it, but immediately recognize it after saying it?
After the break, the Cottages assemble in the meeting room. Nick is now running a fever of 103, which points to an infection that the steroids made worse. Nice going, Foreman. House tells the Cottages to get a history from Nick, believing there must be something in there that they missed the first time around. Kumar keeps trying to argue that they've gotten the most detailed history possible, but House doesn't care. Taub attempts to escape and get the patient history, preferring insults from Nick to whatever House has cooked up for him, but it's no good -- House tells him to stay seated and wait instructions for his special punishment assignment.
It's actually not that bad. All Taub has to do is talk to Wilson. He invites Wilson to lunch. Wilson is confused, until Taub tells him that House figured out he was no racquetball player and is now trying to use him as a double agent. And I'm sure he had no idea Taub would immediately confess this to Wilson.
Kumar checks out Nick's eyes and notes that they're looking red. Nick says that's probably from his guilt and worry-induced insomnia, and tells his wife, who's a glutton for punishment and sitting in the corner of the room, that she might benefit from a few hours of sleep as well. Kumar agrees, but Wife thinks Nick is trying to make her leave because he's afraid he'll say something mean to her. Well, NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. You should be afraid of that, too. Leave the room and let actions speak louder than words in your marriage. Geez! But no, Wife is now afraid that Nick is holding back something even worse than what he's already said, and she apparently wants to hear it even as she pretends that she doesn't. Nick says he doesn't know what he'll say, and that's why he wants her to stay away. "This is pathetic," Wife says. She really is stupid. On her way out, Nick asks her to tell Marika that he loves her very much. Wife is sure Marika knows that, but Nick thinks she's just saying that to make him feel better. "Yeah," Wife says. Uh ... Wife? You're not the one with the frontal lobe disinhibition, so your only excuse for brutal honesty is that you're petty.
Kumar finds House waiting outside Wilson's office. He says he found something in the medical history they missed after all -- Moron Wife is a dog rescuer, and her latest case is a freaking Rottweiler that has taken over the house and marks his territory all over the living room. Who brings an untrained Rottweiler home to a house with a small stupid child in it? Stupid Wife, that's who. I think Nick's brain damaged itself to drive her away. And it was doing Nick a big favor. Nick recalled putting a glass of juice on the floor while he was trying to fix the TV recently, and the dog could have marked it as his territory. That, combined with the red eyes, points to Weil's disease. Worse than that, though, it means that Nick drank dog pee. Gross! House tells Kumar to start treating Nick with antibiotics and see if he improves as Taub exits Wilson's office.
House meets up with Taub in his office. Taub has a bunch of emails Wilson let him print out to try to throw House off the case. And by revealing that to House, Taub is now a quadruple agent. No wonder his nose is so big with all the lies he's been telling. House doesn't think much of this, since Wilson would only let Taub print out emails he didn't mind if House saw. But Taub managed to get a hold of Wilson's deleted, not-for-House's-eyes emails when Wilson wasn't looking. Sorry, Wilson -- Taub's loyalty to you ended as soon as it wasn't in his own self-interest to preserve it. House finds an email to a "J. Gonzales" at Mercy confirming an appointment for the night of the monster truck rally. Taub's already checked it out, and says Mercy has an oncologist named Joan Gonzales. House finds a picture of her and assumes that Wilson is trying to hook up with her, but Taub says the email came with a password-protected patient file, so it's a legit meeting. House isn't so sure -- the only patient file Wilson would password-protect to keep House from seeing is Wilson's own. Taub wonders if Wilson has cancer, but House doesn't see why he'd drive three hours to Mercy to see their oncologist when he could get PPTH's best treatment. Uh, I think that's a very good reason why Wilson would want to seek treatment far, far away from PPTH. Their best treatment is everyone else's worst. Plus, they only have one oncologist, so if he's got cancer, he's going to have to outsource. Also, Mercy is three hours away from PPTH? What was Hadley thinking, trying to get a job there a few episodes back? That long distance relationships are a good plan? With that, House pulls up some articles written by Dr. Joan Gonzalez. They're all about suicidal cancer patients. Wow, what a fun line of work Joan went into there. She must be a real hit at parties. Taub suggests that Wilson is depressed. House says no and immediately kicks Taub out of the room.
And then, immediately following that scene, is a commercial for a new depression medication. How fitting! Nothing cures depression like a medication that has tardive dyskinesia listed as a possible side effect.
Good news for Nick -- the antibiotic seems to be working. Bad news for Nick -- it's still pretty early in the show, so he's not out of the woods yet. And even worse news for Nick -- as Foreman explains, while the infection is gone, the brain damage it caused will last forever. I love it when diseases leave presents, don't you? And you'd think that they would have let Nick know that this was a possibility a long time ago. How cruel to tell him he's cured and in the same breath tell him that the worst thing about his disease is permanent because the surgery to fix it is too dangerous. Nick says if PPTH won't do the surgery, then he'll "shop around" for a "better hospital" with "better doctors" that will. You won't have to look far, Nick. It's called St. Sebastian's, where the surgeons are plentiful and well-groomed, unlike PPTH. Foreman tries to break it down for Nick that the slightest mistake during surgery could spell death or permanent disability. He says lots of people have learned to live with neurological deficits, which is easy for him to say since his brain damage in Season 2 only lasted, like, one episode, and consisted of not being able to tell his left hand from his right. Kumar Sunshine says at least Nick won't get worse, right? "Get the hell out of my room," Nick orders. Seriously. Kumar's bedside manner does suck and is creepy after all.
House is sitting around the lobby when Wilson walks in, sighing dramatically. House knew he'd find Wilson there because his assistant told him Wilson was taking a walk. Whoa, hold the phone -- Wilson has an assistant? Since when? Where is he or she? Why hasn't he or she been mentioned before? Does House drive them all away so that Wilson has a new one each week, ala Murphy Brown? I need to know more! House knows that Wilson only takes walks when he needs to think about something, and that's only if he can't go to House's office. So whatever Wilson is thinking about, it's something he can't tell House but can tell Dr. Gonzalez at Mercy. House tries not to turn green with envy as he says her name, but you know he wants to. Wilson tries to escape by going to the cafeteria for hot coffee, but since the cafeteria is handicap-accessible, House is able to follow him. And now House has apparently turned into my grandma, as he's all concerned about the fact that Wilson took a walk in the cold without wearing his jacket. Wilson says he simply forgot to take it with him, but House thinks he chose to be uncomfortable because he hates himself. Wilson snaps and says he'd appreciate it if one molecule of his life remained unknown and unexamined by "Gregory House." Uh oh -- he used House's first name. That's serious.
House returns to his office to escape Wilson's brutal honesty, only to find Nick waiting for him. This is just not House's day. He hopefully assumes that Nick is here to thank him, but no. Nick is not grateful. He's pissed off. PPTH is about to discharge him into a life where he drives everyone who cares about him away. House doesn't seem to think that's such a bad thing. He must not realize that Nick doesn't have a piano and an inner hatred/fear of all mankind to keep him company. Nick asks House to operate on his brain, saying he'd rather be dead than live like this. He spent his life keeping his mouth shut to make the people he loves happy, and that's the only life he wants to go back to. It kind of sounds like he wants surgery that will close the barn doors after the horses have already escaped. Anyway, he happened to catch House at a vulnerable and particularly self-hating moment, so he agrees to try to get Nick his surgery. Either that, or House just doesn't want to have any asshole competition.
Chase is surprised to see House waiting for him in the locker room and seems to wonder if he's about to get mugged. No, House just hands him Nick's file. Chase looks at it and points out that he isn't a neurosurgeon. Except that he is. He's an everything surgeon. Why pretend that isn't the case now? House says Chase's boss is a neurosurgeon, and he's sure Chase can convince him to take on this case, since the boss is an egomaniac and Chase is a suck-up. Chase sips from an empty cup of coffee and asks House why he cares about this patient after the medical mystery has been solved. House says it's a quality of life issue -- if Nick goes home with the disinhibition, then he'll lose his job and his family and be lucky to find one friend who will put up with him until he drives him away as well. Is House talking about himself here? Because we've been there and done that with the "House is afraid he's driven Wilson away for good" storyline several times over. Come to think of it, we've been there, done that, with the "someone close to House is hiding something, and he's determined to find out what!" storyline several times over as well. Either House learns to stop nosing around in his friends' business, or they learn to stop being friends with him or stop trying to hide things from him. I may find it all tiresome, but it convinces Chase.
And so, the surgery. House watches it from the OR balcony. Wilson decides to join him. Either it's freezing in the OR balcony, or else Wilson is just trying to avoid another grandma lecture from House, as he's wearing both his coat and his scarf. He's also wearing his heart on his sleeve, as he apologizes to House for overreacting in the cafeteria. I don't think he overreacted, though. If House doesn't want to get yelled at, he shouldn't pry into things that his best friend is obviously trying to keep from him. He should respect that Wilson has a reason for his secrets. But he doesn't, so he says he's figured out what Wilson has been trying to hide from him. Wilson only snaps when he's afraid of losing someone. CTB is already dead, so it must be someone else. House went back to Mercy and found another J. Gonzalez employed there -- Javier, a nurse in the psych ward. Yes, it's the triumphant return of Wilson's long-lost brother, mentioned only once waaay back in Season 1. How can the writers remember that, but forget that Wilson was Jewish in Season 1 at the same time? The brother's name is Daniel, and he's Mercy's newest psych patient after being found sleeping in an office building. Wilson says that Daniel is on some new drugs that were developed after he ran away, and by tonight he should be ready for guests -- if he wants to see them. House asks Wilson why he kept this from him. The answer is another reference to the title, as Wilson says he and House don't have the normal "social contract." House doesn't lie to make Wilson feel better, or when he needs help deceiving himself. Anyone else would tell Wilson that everything will be okay and his brother will be happy to see him. House wouldn't. And Wilson didn't want to hear that. Too bad, because he's going to get it anyway: "it might all go horribly wrong," House says. But then he turns human and offers to keep Wilson company. Meanwhile, there's footage of Nick's surgery playing behind Wilson, and the surgeon is being awfully careless. I'm pretty sure I just saw him scrape away Nick's ability to breathe on his own. Bummer.
The wife is waiting for Nick when he gets out of surgery. Foreman removes the breathing tube, and, sure enough, Nick can breathe on his own. He made it out of the surgery just fine despite what Kumar and Foreman told him. He introduces himself as "Nick Greenwald, former SOB." Everyone is happy. Nick says he's ready to go back to his beautiful life with his beautiful wife. Hopefully, she'll stop whining and give him a break since he almost died to get his tact back. Whoops! Foreman doesn't understand -- they removed the damage, so Nick's disinhibition should be gone. Taub says whatever caused the damage in the first place must still be there. Guess it wasn't the Rottweiler after all! Then why did it get better after the antibiotics? Meanwhile, Nick's body temperature is dropping. He's still not as cold as his wife, though, who takes this opportunity to get all pissy and ask Nick what he really thinks about her and her line of work. And since she asked for it, she gets it. Nick says people who publicize important things are people who can't do important things themselves. Wife cries. Whatever, Wife. He also said you were beautiful. Stop focusing on the negative. She asks Nick if he regrets marrying her. "Sometimes," he says. She asks if he loves her. He immediately says he does. That's not good enough for Wife, who starts walking away. Nick's heart goes all wonky, and Wife leaves without knowing if he'll survive or not. She sucks. I'd regret marrying her all the time.
After the break, Foreman exposits that Nick's heart is fine but his temperature keeps dropping. He'll die of hypothermia soon. Taub exposits that House isn't answering his phone. Hadley says they must have been wrong about the infection. Whatever is really wrong with Nick, it's still causing brain damage. I hope that doesn't mean that Nick had a ridiculously risky brain surgery for no reason. What a poor showing by House and the Cottages this week. No one has any idea what could really be wrong with Nick, so Foreman orders a full body scan even though House apparently hates those, except in all the episodes where he orders them. Taub doesn't want to do the scan either, saying it'll show a bunch of meaningless anomalies that everyone has floating around his body, and they'll waste a lot of time investigating them. It's better than nothing, though, so Popsicle Nick gets his scan.
A nervous Wilson waits to see his brother. Mercy's psych waiting room is pretty much the most depressing place ever, all dimly-lit and full of gross furniture. House gets Wilson a cup of coffee in an uncharacteristically considerate move. Then again, the last time he gave Wilson coffee, it was full of speed. Be careful, Wilson. Wilson says the last time he saw his brother was 13 years ago (when he mentioned the brother back in Season 1, he said he disappeared 9 years ago, so this works), when he happened to walk past a deli where Wilson was eating lunch. Apparently, it was a huge deli with all sorts of obstacles between Wilson's table and the door, because by the time Wilson made it outside, his brother was gone. This also explains why Wilson works at PPTH -- he knew his brother was in the Princeton area, and when House told him there was an opening at PPTH, he jumped at the chance to take it and continue looking for his brother. With that, House's phone comes alive with the sounds of his Hanson ringtone. He doesn't answer, saying the Cottages already texted him to say they were doing something stupid.
Sure enough, Nick's body is full of anomalies and the Cottages have to examine and rule out. Foreman spots what could be a vascular malformation in Nick's liver and says multiple AVMs causing problems with Nick's blood flow would explain all of his symptoms. The solution? They'll have to scan Nick's entire vascular system looking for malformations and fix them all, providing that he doesn't freeze to death first.
Kumar texts House with the update on Nick, but his overzealous spellcheck has interpreted his medical terms as "cyclone in the floral of his lungs." I have a feeling that line was in there just to express the frustration of the writing staff at their own computers' overzealous spellchecker. Anyway, House still wants to know why Wilson took a walk without his coat on. He thinks Wilson was trying to see what it would be like to be homeless in a New Jersey winter because he feels guilty about his brother. He figures Wilson thinks he has something to feel guilty about. He sure does! It turns out that Daniel is schizophrenic, and starting showing symptoms as a teenager. But with meds, he managed to keep it together enough to get into college. Meanwhile, Wilson was in med school getting phone calls from his brother every day and talking to him for hours that he didn't have. One night, Daniel called crying and upset. But Wilson had to study for an exam, so he hung up on him and went to the library. House can guess where this is going: the day, Momma Wilson called to say that Daniel ran away from school, leaving his meds behind. Without the meds, Wilson says, Daniel could never be able to choose to come back to his family. I want to know what miracle drug Daniel was on that made him that okay considering how totally removed from reality he apparently was without it. The writer of this episode, Doris Egan, might want to read up on schizophrenia when she isn't busy making every single episode of House she writes about House and Wilson's ridiculously unrealistic friendship or getting her sister cast on the show. At least she isn't obsessed with Hadley like all the other writers. House says Wilson tried to be selfish one time and it backfired on him horribly. Ever since then, he's been determined to do everything for everybody. Thus explaineth the character of Wilson. House chalks his entire being up to an "overreaction over a single event," but only says that so he can have his epiphany. He says Wilson just hung up the phone. It's not like everything was hunky-dory in Daniel's life until that moment. And Daniel was overreacting, too. Although not so much, since he kind of couldn't help it. Don't be like Wife and blame people for reactions they can't control, House. Also, what happened to Wilson's other brother and his parents? Why aren't they here for visiting hours? House then has his epiphany, as promised. "His glucose was normal," he says. Wilson realizes that House's limited attention span just ran out. As House dials his team, Javier comes out to let Wilson in to see his brother. House misses the chance to go with him and be a supportive friend. Shocking.
On the phone, House says that the cyst they saw on the body scan and thought was irrelevant isn't, since Nick's glucose levels should have been elevated after the unnecessary steroid treatment. But they were at the normal level, which means they were actually low. Yet another reason why we shouldn't give people steroids unless we know they need them. Foreman really screwed the pooch this week, huh? House explains that a cyst + low glucose levels = Doege-Potter syndrome. Which means it's not a cyst, so much as a fibroma-secreting human growth hormone. That explains the glucose levels, but not, Foreman points out, all the organ damage. House says that's the body overreacting to the presence of the fibroma and attacking itself. All they have to do is take out the fibroma and Nick will be fine. Except for whatever leftover problems he has from having part of his brain removed. Oops. House hangs up, and only then does he notice that Wilson is gone. Ah, well, House. You tried to be a good friend. It's sort of the thought that counts.
Fibroma removed, Nick is back to his old self again. He's getting ready to be discharged and figures he'll have to make his own arrangements on how to get home, since the wife is too angry at him to pick him up. Plus, last thing she knew, he was dead. Nick apologizes to Taub for making fun of his nose, and says it suits his face. Nice try, Nick, but you're several big nose jokes too late for that. With that, Wife enters the room, ready to take her husband back after all the horrible things he had no control over saying to her. How gracious of her. She tells him that she got a promotion at the cancer awareness center, which is pretty damn impressive considering that everyone else is getting laid off these days. Not to mention she's a moron. Nick sincerely congratulates her, but the wife clearly isn't comfortable getting praise from someone she now knows thinks her work is a waste of time. He asks about Marika, and the wife says she's sure she's fine and has forgotten all about what Nick said already. 'Cause she's dumb. And because kids are resilient. Let's hope.
Wilson is waiting for House when he leaves for the day. Did House just take off as soon as he saw that Wilson was gone? Because it seems like this is the first time they've seen each other since Wilson left House in the waiting room. Wilson is just as much of a glutton for punishment as the wife is, as he takes House back, saying he's going to see Daniel again week and wants House to meet him, too. That's just going to end horribly, Wilson. Or with House being too distracted by a case to pay you or your brother any attention. Wilson says that he always thought seeing his brother again would change everything, either for the best or the worst. In the end, it didn't really do much one way or the other. "We're just strangers," Wilson says. House says that's better than the worst outcome Wilson was dreading. They get in the elevator, and House asks Wilson if he wants them to have the stupid social contract Wilson has with everyone else. If you have to ask, then no. Wilson says he has to compromise about everything and worry how everyone will react to everything he says. House is the opposite, and therefore the only person that Wilson doesn't have to be that way around. And he'd like to keep it that way. Until House kills his girlfriend. Then he'll be pissed for a few weeks and House will have to befriend some other guy who disappears after just two episodes. Wilson isn't sure now if House is implementing the social contract or not, so he asks if House thinks things will work out with him and his brother. "No," House says non-social contractly. He adds that this time, though, it won't be Wilson's fault. That seems to be good enough for Wilson, who says he likes monster trucks after all.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, which she occasionally updates when she has something to complain about. Or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.
Discuss this episode in the House forums, get our diagnoses for the PPTH staffers!