Acceptance

Welcome to Season 2! It seems like only a few weeks ago that I was recapping Season 1, and here we are again. While most of House's patients begin the episode on a metaphorical Death Row, this time, we get to go to a real one. One inmate is ordering his last meal of lobster, a strawberry malt, and "those chocolate donuts that come in a box," proving conclusively that 1 out of 1 Death Row inmates prefer Entenmann's to Sara Lee when it comes to last-meal pastries. Another inmate, played by LL Cool J, sits and thinks. Then he paces around as the warden tells the last meal guy that he can have the spiritual advisor of his choice and a chance to say his last words. Then the warden leaves, and both Death Row guys laugh at the idea of their needing a spiritual advisor because they're both going to hell. Last Meal Guy wonders if he'll get "another" stay of execution, and then a guard comes to take LL away for his daily exercise hour. He's walked into a cinderblock-walled courtyard with a basketball hoop and no basketball, and he proceeds to mime a game by himself until he gets some company. It's a bloody woman, and she wants to know why LL hit her all the time. "You know why!" he tells her. "You could've stopped," she answers, like she's talking about getting teased about her bad hairstyle as opposed to being beaten to death. Then an inmate appears and accuses LL of stabbing him in the back and not fighting fair. And then a guard appears and is able to tell LL that he had a wife and three kids despite the gaping slash wound in his throat. LL runs to the exercise room door and pounds on it, beginning for help, when another inmate appears, his throat also slashed open, and asks LL what he did to deserve being killed. LL freaks out as everyone talks over each other and then the Magic School Bus Cam shows his heart pumping just a little too fast and furious, and he collapses.

House -- the hair on his head, if not the hair on his face, having had a slight trim over the hiatus -- heads for Cuddy's office, where she's meeting with unbearable Stacy. He immediately pops a few pills (perfectly understandable) and heads inside, but he's stopped in the outer chamber by a bright young man who claims to be Cuddy's new assistant. House is jealous that Cuddy gets a secretary and he doesn't, like he'd even want one or be able to keep one, and the assistant responds that he's not a secretary -- he's an assistant. "I graduated from Rutgers," he finishes, as if this were proof of non-secretariness. House says he hopes Rutgers offered some sexual harassment law courses, because he's going to need them working for Cuddy. ["Shout-out!" -- Wing Chun] And then House walks right into Cuddy's office. That's the last we see of Cuddy's Able Young Assistant for this episode, but I hope it's not the last we see of him, period. He might be fun.

Oh, no -- Cameron still has a job. She also has a new shade of hair, but has managed to keep that assertive attitude that immediately buckles when House assigns her to do his extra Clinic hours while he goes to treat a patient in prison. Foreman thinks that treating convicted murderers is a waste of their time. House doesn't think you can really make distinctions like that, pointing out that if they did, Foreman would surely suffer for it, given his juvenile record that those new viewers may not have known about and therefore must be mentioned. House goes off to jail, Foreman and Chase go off to not do extra Clinic hours, each giving Cameron a pat on either shoulder as they leave.

The Warden exposits that House's newest patient has killed two inmates and one guard on top of the person he was sent here for killing in the first place. House claims to have a great bedside manner, and the Warden says that LL is too dangerous to go to the hospital infirmary, so they put him in an office supply closet after removing anything he could use as a weapon...OR DID THEY? LL is chained to the bed, but the Warden still prefers to stay as far away as possible. He asks House to give him his cane, too, since it is dangerous.

Remember when I said I wanted to see the Cottages doing their Clinic hours? Well, I was wrong. Cameron's patient is a young woman with a "little cough" who needs a health clearance to start her job at Princeton. Cameron asks for a family history, and the patient -- Cindy -- brightly replies that her mom died of cancer when she was little and that her dad's heart "gave out" a few years ago. She grins at this, as if she were talking about puppies rather than dead loved ones, and adds that there are no brothers and sisters, although she did have a husband once, "but..." and Cameron assumes the face of Bonding with a Fellow Tragic Young Widow until Cindy concludes that it ended in divorce. Cameron just stands there staring at Cindy until Cindy asks if her test results are in the file Cameron's holding. Cameron's all, "Oh yeah! My job," and she looks at a chest x-ray and makes a face. "Is everything okay?" Cindy asks.

I'm gonna go with no, since Cameron's stop is Wilson the Oncologist's office for a consult. He takes one look at it and scoffs that Cameron doesn't need a consult for a clear-cut diagnosis. "All she has is a cough," Cameron protests. Wilson wishes he were taking care of that Death Row inmate he saw on the hospital mainframe (password: canesarehot) instead of getting stuck holding this whiny little girl's hand.

LL's not looking good. His fingernails and lips have a bluish tinge, and House says that he needs to be put on a respirator right away. Warden says that's too bad, since they don't have any respirators here, making me wonder what, exactly, they do in that hospital infirmary anyway. Warden says he'll request one at the budget meeting, and reminds House that LL is on Death Row as House whips out his cell phone to call for an ambulance. Warden says that's a waste of a call, because no Death Row inmates leave his prison -- "at least, not through the front doors."

Looks like House cleverly took LL out through the back door, since the thing we see is House, a bunch of cops and paramedics, and LL leaving the elevator. Actually, it was Stacy's lawyer magic that got LL released to the hospital. Stacy says that Judge Markham is a "sucker" for eighth-amendment arguments, which is all well and good, until it turns out that Cuddy can't be convinced quite as easily. "House!" she barks. "Ruh-roh!" House says, doing a hilarious imitation of Scooby-Doo. That and the "partypants" thing might be enough to get this episode an A+. Cuddy wants to know why a simple consult has resulted in an entire floor of her hospital's being shut down. She's very disappointed in Stacy, who's all pissed off because House told her they had Cuddy's permission to do this. Ha! Hey, Stacy, at least when House lies to you, it doesn't result in chronic leg pain. Cuddy tells them to send LL back to prison, but they can't -- they're bound by the court order Stacy got to treat LL until he's better and can be released back to Death Row. "Is it just me or is that weird?" House asks, because while he would love to see a few humans be wiped off the face of the planet, it's just the stupid ones he wants to get rid of, not the ones who are smart enough to kill three people while under armed guard. That kind of problem-solving should be rewarded. LL is wheeled away, and Stacy puts a hand to her forehead and wishes she hadn't paralyzed all the muscles there so that she could know whether she was cutting her face open with her fingernail or not.

Cameron bounds into House's office, where her boss compliments her for putting a file on his desk chair, forcing him either to deal with its contents or never sit down again. Or he could just pick it up and put it somewhere else, like I always do, only to forget about them and then get in trouble for not paying that car insurance bill I buried under all the other stuff I didn't want to deal with. Cameron says she promised Cindy that House would see her, and House says he doesn't know why Cameron did that when Cindy has a clear-cut case of metastatic squamous cell lung cancer and six months to live. Cameron asks House if he even looked at the x-ray, and House says no, he was just guessing. Duh, Cameron. Cameron says that a few spots on an x-ray do not a lung cancer diagnosis make, and House calls her a hopeful child, adding that the other lung has swollen lymph nodes, ruling out pretty much every other diagnosis. But Cameron still wants to brainstorm. House looks at her, grabs Cindy's x-ray and slaps it up on a lightboard, and then starts writing. Cameron's all happy that she's finally getting what she wants for once and starts doing a differential diagnosis session before realizing that all House is writing on the lightboard are the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and ACCEPTANCE. I'm not exactly sure what the bargaining is doing there, because it's not like you can bargain with cancer for a life extension. "From your tear-filled, puppy-dog eyes, I think I made my point. Now go tell Cindy Whatever-her-name-is that she's dying," House orders, and he's off to the meeting room. Oh, man, we aren't even fifteen minutes into the second season and Cameron's eyes are already tear-filled. This bodes not well, my friends.

Foreman and Chase are sitting around in the meeting room when House enters and starts doing a differential diagnosis for LL Cool J. Cameron comes in and is appalled not only that is House focusing on a patient that isn't hers, but that it's a guy on Death Row. "That's who you're working on instead of Cindy?" Cameron asks, totally missing the point. House isn't working on anyone "instead" of Cindy; he isn't going to work on Cindy, period. It wouldn't matter if he had ten cases or none. Unlike LL, Cindy's diagnosis is clear and therefore does not need the work of a diagnostician. House explains the definition of "dying" to Cameron, and she self-righteously says that she took an oath to do no harm, like House is somehow harming her patient by not treating her when really, if he were to treat Cindy instead of LL, he wouldn't be helping Cindy at all and he'd be harming LL by not treating him. Shut up, Cameron. House calls her patient "Cindylou Who," which is awesome, and then Foreman asks if they can get on with their jobs because he apparently hates Dr. Seuss. House calls LL Foreman "homie," and Foreman sarcastically says that since both he and LL are black, they must be the same and have the same opinions about everything. Chase snickers at this, because he and Foreman have a tenuous friendship, and Foreman adds that LL's problems are probably caused by heroin addiction. Chase asks how a guy on Death Row gets heroin, and Foreman laughs at him derisively. As I said, that friendship is pretty tenuous. House says that when they have a yachting question, they'll throw it over to Chase, who's just as sick of the rich-boy jokes as Foreman is of the poor-boy ones. House orders a tox screen on everything tox screenable, including hair, which might be a bit difficult considering that LL doesn't have any. Foreman and Chase run off to do their jobs, but Cameron insolently stays behind to glare at House until he gives her the universal hand signal for "after you/please leave now."

In the hall, Cameron takes her anger over the fact that she sucks as a doctor and a person out on the innocent Chase and Foreman, who were apparently supposed to have her "back." She says she figured Chase would be against the death penalty, having gone to a seminary (that's right, new viewers!), and the logic of Chase following the church's tenets because of his experience falls immediately flat when you look at Chase's way-too-tight-in-the-crotch-area pants. What God made, he doesn't necessarily want everyone to be able to see the outline of.

The Cottages enter LL's room, where the patient is sleeping and therefore doesn't have to suffer through Cameron's newest death-penalty lecture, Foreman Edition. You see, Foreman is black, so he'll be sensitive to the fact that black people are ten times more likely to get the death penalty than white people are. Foreman says that doesn't make the punishment racist; it just means they need to "kill more white people." Oh, Foreman, you are more like House every day. Meanwhile, Chase and Foreman are busy getting all those samples while Cameron stands around and thinks of more things to add to her lecture. LL can't take it anymore, so he wakes up and starts thrashing around against his restraints, his legs kicking up in the air and getting dangerously close to violating FCC nudity standards. Eventually, he's able to destroy the hospital bed railings to free himself from the restraints and yank the respirator tube out of his throat as the police run in, guns drawn. The Cottages are like, "Day-amn!" LL asks for water. For all that, he should have at least asked for a strawberry malt.

The Cottages return to the meeting room, where House asks for the differential diagnosis for being "thirsty." If you read the popular Baby-Sitter's Club series like I did, you'd know that being thirsty is one of the first symptoms of diabetes, and every time your throat was dry you'd think that you were doomed to a life of eating raisins while your friends (except for that self-righteous health nut Dawn) all ate the two-year-old candy bars Claudia stashed in her room. Damn you, Ann M. Martin! Chase says that LL was just dehydrated, and is fine now that he's been put on a saline drip. Foreman says that the drug tests came back clean. Cameron doesn't have anything to contribute, so she heads for the whiteboard to draw some pretty flowers or something. House orders her to put the marker down, since only he is allowed to write on the whiteboard. Cameron does get in a good line when she asks whether House has a "House theory" about how a negative drug test can still mean the patient is a heroin addict, though. I'll give her that. The whiteboard reads "Dead Man Dying," and House asks what else could cause LL's symptoms of tachycardia and pulmonary edema besides the drugs, stopping midway through the sentence when he notices Stacy pacing around his office. Go away, Stacy. Chase reports that LL's bicarb was low, and House says that could either be the cause of LL's tachycardia or a result of it. Cameron doesn't have any proof one way or the other, but she thinks it's the cause. House tells her to save her diagnosis based on what she wants it to be for her other patient, which she will, thank you very much.

Cameron wants to put LL on a bicarb drip that should keep him alive long enough to be executed, and Foreman agrees. House says their job is to diagnose and cure patients, not make them better temporarily. The he totally shuts the blinds in Stacy's face, which was awesome. The Cottages stare, and House explains that "Mommy and Daddy had a little fight. It doesn't mean we've stopped loving you," which I would have loved if the Mommy was Cuddy and not Stacy. House orders an arterial blood gas and sends the kids on their way.

House looks around as he exits the meeting room, finds the hallway Stacy-free, and sneaks out in the opposite direction of his office -- only to walk smack into Stacy Stoneface. He's impressed by her ninja skills, and asks her to guess what number he's thinking of. Stacy's guess is "Are you trying to get me fired?," which is not a number. Stacy tells House that if he didn't want to work with her, he should have just said so, and not tried to get her fired. House says he doesn't mind her working in the hospital; he just doesn't want her in his office. Stacy says that since she's a lawyer and House is a jerk, "there's bound to be some overlap." "I hope that was a euphemism," House says. If he means that he's hoping she meant they'd be having sex, I have to disagree. "Cuddy just reamed me!" Stacy continues. "I hope that one means what I think it means," House says, having delightful fun at Stacy's expense, which is always the best kind of fun. Stacy keeps going, saying that Cuddy told her that one of her reasons for hiring her was to have someone in the hospital who could keep House in check. House says that the number he was thinking of was six. He was probably thinking of Cameron's mental age when he thought of it. "I need to know can I trust you?" Stacy says without pausing between that "know" and "can" like I'm pretty sure she was supposed to. If it gets her off my screen sooner, though, I'm all for it. House says that he lied to Stacy because if he hadn't, his patient would have died. "Great. Now I know," Stacy bitches.

Foreman gets ready to take some blood from LL's femoral artery, which is near his groin. LL and his fake teeth balk at this, and Foreman says that, at this point, LL's jewels are really more for decorative purposes than they are for practical use anyway. LL demands painkillers. Foreman goes to inject them, and his coat sleeve lifts to reveal a tattoo just above his wrist that we've never seen before. LL assumes that it's a gang sign, but Foreman says it's a Native American symbol that means "force of life." More like "force of lame." Also, it's a good thing Foreman wore long sleeves when he interviewed to become a Cottage. Or maybe he got this tattoo afterwards, hoping it would get him fired so that he could work for a non-racist boss. LL doesn't believe him, and asks Foreman how he went from "gangbanging" to being a doctor. Foreman loses it a little, and angrily asks how LL went from loving a woman to murdering her, and LL isn't laughing anymore. He does answer the question, however: "Bitch stepped out." Foreman glares at LL while the wheels in his head turn and he tries to think of a way to use that to get rid of Cameron. Then he stabs LL with the needle, apologizing for "accidentally" not giving him enough painkillers.

The results of the blood gas are back, and House is pleased to report that they show Cameron was wrong, wrong, wrong! Also, they have a new symptom for LL: anion gap acidosis. Any ideas? Foreman has one: back in his juvie days, kids used to sell oregano, pretending it was pot. I have a feeling that happens out of juvie, too, Foreman. I know we all have to re-learn these characters' identities, but I wish Foreman's role on the show wasn't reduced to the fact that he's black and has a criminal past. He wonders if LL thought he was doing heroin, but was actually doing something else. House asks what something else would cause anion gap acidosis, and Chase says "mudpiles." House tells him to wash his hands before he comes back, and Chase impatiently explains that it's a mnemonic device, not a bathroom request. The "M" stands for "methanol," down to the "I," which stands for "INH," which is where House stops them. INH (isoniazid) treats tuberculosis. TB is common in prison, which means that INH is, too. Maybe LL Kill J ODed on it. House asks for a volunteer to go to LL's cell and find his "secret stash." The white people all look to Foreman, who rolls his eyes and volunteers. He's on his way out when House orders Chase to go. Chase shoots him a look and asks if House has a reason for that "beyond making [him] completely miserable." House says Chase has a pretty mouth, so maybe the inmates will "open up to him." Also, House is still a little bitter about the whole Vogler-tattle thing last season, I suspect.

House eats a sandwich and enjoys his daily dose of General Hospital. Wilson enters the room, takes in the scene, and points out that House is in a patient's room. With a patient in it. Who is comatose. And House is using his prostrate form as a table. Nothing gets your appetite going like having a styrofoam container and a thin sheet separating your food from a sick, unwashed old man's deal. House says that if they're going to put a TV in a coma patient's room, someone might as well use it. Wilson has a seat on the other side of the coma patient, his moral issues about this apparently dealt with, and asks House if he knows why people are nice to each other. House says it's either because people are decent and caring, or -- and this is obviously the explanation he favors -- because people are cowards and they're afraid that if they're mean to people, people will be mean to them. Then he whisks the open bag of potato chips away from Wilson as Wilson says that whether House likes people or not, he needs them, and he needs them to like him, if only for the simple reason that House is going to need another court order sometime in the future and he's going to need someone to get it for him, which might be difficult if the hospital's lawyer hates him. "If Stacy can't trust you, you can't use her," Wilson says, looking pained to say this, either because he's annoyed that Stacy put him up to this or he just doesn't like the idea of using people. Whatever the reason, House offers Wilson a potato chip as his way of agreeing with him and thanking him for telling House this. Wilson doesn't take the chip because he's too busy thinking that House intends to win Stacy back and make her dump her sick husband. "Bros before hos, man," House says, sticking out a fist. Wilson does not respond in kind, and then House's pager goes off. LL is dying.

House enters LL's room to find the monitors beeping wildly and Foreman standing by watching. Foreman says that LL's in bradycardia and his heart rate will soon drop to nothing. House gets to work, asking Foreman if he was just waiting around to call that time of death. Foreman says there's nothing to do but give LL atropine, which will only buy them another few hours. "Get out of here," House says, either because he cares about his patient or because he was planning on eating dinner over him.

Chase is searching through LL's cell when House calls to ask if he's made any progress. Chase says he hasn't talked to any inmates, and that he has no intention to. LL's life isn't worth risking his own, Chase says. House angrily asks if anyone does their jobs anymore. If they don't, I think we can blame it on their example: Cameron. Fire her now, please. Chase says that he's searched "both" of LL's cells -- the one he lived in and the one he was confined to after collapsing in the exercise yard. You know, the office supply closet one, which is full of office supplies. Like copier toner. House hears that, and tells Chase he can come back.

House wheels a cart into LL's room and closes the blinds to the outside. LL is intrigued. He takes out two specimen cups and tells LL that he's dying. And that deserves a "last drink!" And with that, he pours out two shots of a nameless brand of dark liquor (apparently, Bacardi 151 did not want to be associated with getting drug addict doctors and Death Row inmates plastered. Weird) and gives one to LL. "You're okay," LL says. "Thanks. That means a lot," House snarks.

Remember Cindy? Cameron does, and she's drawing her blood for some more tests. Cindy asks if they have any idea what's wrong with her, and Cameron says that diagnostics is more of an "art than a science" (which is what you'd think, too, if your doctorate of medicine came from Art Instruction Schools), and that they don't know enough yet to be sure of anything. "Should I be worried?" Cindy asks, and there's really no other way to take that and no other way to answer it, provided that you're capable of the sort of mature interactions being a doctor requires. Obviously, that's not the case with old Cammy, so she just says: "I work for one of the top diagnosticians in the country. We're pouring all of energy into figuring this out."

The only pouring that's actually happening is back in LL's room, where the bottle is almost empty and House is beating LL in their drinking contest by at least three shots. Wow, they've both had enough alcohol to be dead by now, or at least not able to stand. House pours another shot and makes fun of LL for being pretty bad at drinking for a Death Row inmate, and then downs the shot himself. "You'd better get me the one or I'll kill you," LL says. They look at each other for second, and then LL starts laughing. House laughs, too, and pours another shot, but their merriment is short-lived, because Cameron's here. "I'm a little busy right now getting my drink on," House slurs. "Unbelievable," Cameron says; she does an impersonation of Mary Tyler Moore's panic face and leaves. If they just relegated Cameron to doing that, I'd be happy. "That's the finest piece I've seen in ten years," LL says, reading the lines Jennifer Morrison paid him to ad-lib. "I coulda hit that," House slurs. But he didn't, and LL says that House should be in jail, not him. House laughs, hands LL another shot, and then asks LL why a guy on Death Row would try to kill himself. LL's face: "I'm busted." House's: "I'm plastered." House says he knows that LL drank copier fluid to kill himself. He just wants to know why. LL sighs and says that "it just hit" him that, in jail, people control your actions. He wanted to take control of something, so he decided to choose when to die. And he screwed it up, because although he ingested a lethal dose of copier fluid, the poisonous methanol is neutralized by ethanol, which LL has also had enough of. So, he'll be peeing out that lethal dose. "Man, you are drunk," LL says. "Yes, I am. I also saved your life," House says, and downs another shot, "at least for now!" He laughs. LL does not.

The morning, House comes to work wearing Hangover Sunglasses. Stacy's the first to greet him with a shrill "good morning" designed to make his head hurt more. It makes my head hurt, too, and I'm not even half-drunk yet, let alone hungover. Stacy accuses House of being a "lightweight," which is just a little bit of an understatement. I mean, he had at least half a bottle of 150-proof alcohol there. I'd probably get wasted off of the fumes of that, let alone having to drink it. Of course, I'm also so small that the DUI guide that came with my new driver's license said I can't even have one drink in one hour without being on the legally-drunk borderline. Stacy asks House if he's planning to have LL discharged, now that he's healthy again. "Absolutely," House says, and the elevator door starts to close in between them. Stacy glares at him, looking like she wants to murder him in his sleep. Oh, calm down, Sela. Sexual tension is not supposed to look like homicidal rage. House sticks his cane out to stop the door from closing and asks Stacy if he can trust her. "You used to," Stacy says, not adding that the last time he trusted her, his leg was half-amputated. House says he thinks that LL is still sick, and that he wants to keep him in the hospital until he knows what's wrong. Stacy looks even angrier, if that were possible, and House says that she can either tell Cuddy and have a sick man released to die, or keep it from Cuddy and give House some time to try to save LL's life. The elevator door closes.

Cameron has taken advantage of her boss's tardiness to take over the whiteboard. She uses a tiny blank section in the bottom corner to write down Cindy's symptoms, and Foreman and Chase almost have to use magnifying classes to see them as they come up with differential diagnoses. They're spared from the eye strain when House comes in and tells them not to bother with Cindy, who only needs to be informed of her impending doom. He takes the marker away from Cammy and erases her mini-differential as he proceeds with the real case. Cameron says that she won't tell Cindy she's dying until she has a confirmed diagnosis. House ignores Cameron and says he thinks suicide is a symptom of LL's Mystery Illness. LL just filed an appeal, House points out, and New Jersey hasn't killed a Death Row inmate in thirty years. Apparently, they've come really close, since we did see that guy order his second last meal at the beginning of the episode. Maybe it's a game the governor likes to play, where he sees how close he can cut it before ordering the stay. His personal best is sixteen seconds, but he's hoping to shave at least five seconds off by having the execution room line pre-programmed into his phone. Chase wonders if LL drank the toner to get to a hospital he might have better luck escaping from, which House points out doesn't make sense if you take into account that LL's heart problems started before he ever got near that copier toner. House's theory is that there's something wrong in LL's head, and he orders all kinds of tests to check for it. Since the state is paying for them, they can "go nuts." If I lived in a state where you couldn't pump your own gas, I'd hate the government, too.

Foreman notices scars on LL's back as he prepares LL for what will probably be a painful spine-puncture thing. LL says that he was shivved his first month in jail, and that he got his revenge as soon as he healed up. At least, I think that's what he said; those fake teeth aren't doing LL's already marbled-mouthed sense of diction any favors. LL asks Foreman why they don't just let him die, and Foreman says he's different from LL. Oops! A nurse told LL all about how Foreman stood around and watched LL die before, so he knows that's not exactly true. Surely it was Evil Nurse Brenda who ratted on Foreman, hoping to get him killed as revenge for his pushiness during the meningitis epidemic. As Foreman sticks a needle into LL's back, he asks if there's any family history of mental illness. LL says he heard that his dad was crazy, but that he never met him. His mother was a drug addict, leaving him to raise his brother. Foreman assumes that the brother is in jail, too, and LL bristles and says that he's a good kid and that Foreman shouldn't judge what he doesn't know. But...but...Foreman's black! LL's black! They both have criminal records! Don't they automatically know everything about each other? This show needs to stop sending me mixed signals. LL's brother hasn't seen or talked to his brother since LL went to jail, which LL thinks is ungrateful, since he did change the guy's diapers and everything. "Can you imagine your whole life being about the worst thing you ever did?" LL says. Foreman can, because in this episode, his is. But before he can be sympathetic, he remembers that LL murdered four people.

House is most displeased to find that instead of leaving files on his chair, Cameron is now leaving her entire body in it. House asks her what she wants with that gesture, and Cameron says she "needs" lung lavage for Cindy, since none of the other tests have been "definitive." I don't know what Cameron's definition of "definitive" is, but it probably involves a hand with the words "TERMINAL LUNG CANCER" written on it slapping her across the face. I volunteer my hands if that is the case. House says that a biopsy would be definitive, but Cameron says that's "invasive and unnecessary." Invasive and unnecessary for Cameron, that is. I'm sure Cindy would agree to it, if she had any idea what was going on with her health. House says that Cameron's just trying to avoid the obvious as long as she can, and that he's not going to approve her silly lavage. "Why?" Cameron snaps, springing to her feet and marching over to House. "Because it's me?" Holy Christ, Cameron, not everything is about you. Some things are about what's best for your patient, who might want to know that she possibly has terminal cancer so that she can fucking plan accordingly. "I'm over you," Cameron volunteers. "I've jumped on the bandwagon. I hate you, okay?" "Great! Let's treat her," House says. Cameron goes from angry to whiny in .03 seconds and asks why House will fight tooth-and-nail for a Death Row inmate, but won't give a pretty young white girl a second look. House doesn't answer, because he knows this is stupid. Cameron says that she just wants House to treat LL and Cindy the same, which I'm sure he would if their cases were the same. "One test," she begs. House walks over to the lightboard and says that Cameron is the one going through the five stages of grief instead of the person who's actually dying. She just passed anger and went straight into bargaining. I'm sure Cindylou Who would be going through her stages, too, if she had a doctor who didn't lie to her. House tells Cameron that she can have her lavage if she does two of House's Clinic hours. Oh, great. Give Cameron another chance to find a sad sack case to bother us all with week.

Chase says that LL's brain looks normal. Foreman asks Chase how he would describe Foreman to people. "Insecure," Chase says. Foreman asks, if Chase were setting Foreman up on a blind date, how would he describe Foreman to the girl? Would he call Foreman "the black guy," "the neurologist," or "the car thief"? Why not all three, which I'm guessing is Foreman's official character description. Chase just laughs that LL is starting to get to Foreman.

Cameron's non-invasive lavage requires her to stick a tube up into Cindylou Who's nose, fill her lungs with liquid, and suck it back up. The test results reveal no sign of infection, and Wilson says that just leaves the biopsy.

Cuddy has changed into her normal cleavage-baring attire and is furious to find that LL is still a patient in her hospital. House lies that they need him to stick around for observation purposes, which Cuddy doesn't believe for one second, since Stacy tattled to her that House thought LL was still sick. And that is why we don't trust Stacy, House. I hope you learned something today. "So much for attorney-client privilege," House grumbles. Cuddy hilariously throws her hands out and says "I'm the client, you moron." She's sending LL back to prison. House says that he has a court order. Cuddy says that the court order simply says that a doctor has to declare LL healthy in order for him to return to jail. It doesn't say which doctor. She should call up Cameron, then, because in her world, you're healthy until proven sick one hundred and three times over.

House catches up to Cuddy in LL's room, where the patient is alternately moaning and screaming in pain. Cuddy asks whether it's a throbbing pain, or an imaginary one because LL doesn't want to go back to Death Row. LL says he feels like he's being stabbed in the gut, and House lifts the sheet to take a look. "Oh, so everybody lies except a convicted murderer?" Cuddy scoffs, in what is quickly becoming the House equivalent of Star Trek's "I'm a doctor, not [an object/occupation]!" line. What Cuddy doesn't know (but we do, thanks to the Magic School Bus Cam) is that something is seeping through a hole in LL's intestines. Really, I think we were all better off not seeing that. House pulls back LL's sheet to reveal a nice bloody mess coming from LL's shorts. Ladies, I think you can sympathize with me here that getting your first period is always scary and embarrassing, so it must be pretty bad to have it happen in front of half the police force and doctor staff like that. Welcome to womanhood, LL! House says he doesn't think LL is faking the pool of blood, and asks Cuddy what she thinks. Cuddy doesn't respond, but if she had, it simply would have been to say: "Curses! Foiled again!" as she shook her fist in the air.

House looks over LL's criminal record as Stacy enters and non-apologizes that she didn't have a choice but to tell on House. House says that Hitler had the best intentions, too. And while he's comparing Stacy to Hitler, he might as well compare himself to Gandhi, who marched to the sea and made salt even though he wasn't supposed to. "I trusted you," House says. "I know," Stacy says, "but I crapped all over that just like I do all your other weak spots, because I like to torment you for no apparent reason." House says that he's an idiot. Stacy says that she did what she thought was right. House says that's the only reason anyone does anything. And then he has an idea.

Chase and Foreman -- who still do work at this hospital, unlike Cameron -- report that LL had a foot of necrotic bowel removed during surgery. I'm glad that was a "tell, don't show" moment. House wonders why LL killed the second inmate, and Foreman and Chase are lost. House says that LL had a reason to kill three of his four victims: the girlfriend was cheating on him, the first inmate attacked him, and the guard was known for being abusive. Foreman snarks that LL is doing us all a favor by ridding the world of "bad seeds," and House ignores that to ask, again, why LL killed the second inmate. No one knows. House writes a giant question mark on the whiteboard.

House goes to the source and asks LL, saying that the last killing is an anomaly, and that doctors love anomalies. It "doesn't fit," much like LL's blanket, which just barely manages to cover his bits. LL says that he was reading in the library, minding his own business, when he felt like a guy was staring at him. It made him feel "crazy." Sweat poured down his face, his heart was racing, and he "just raged out."

"What's the differential for 'raging out'?" House asks Chase and Foreman. Foreman suspects steroids. Chase suggests an adrenal gland problem. House tells them to have LL prepped for surgery for his pheochromocytoma -- a tumor on the adrenal gland that explains all of LL's symptoms, including the bowel and the superhuman strength LL needed to break his bed. House tells them to set up an MRI to confirm the diagnosis, then asks where Cameron is. Chase and Foreman shrug and run away.

Cameron is sitting in Cindy's room, laughing and joking with her because you know what cures cancer? Smiles. Wilson knocks on the door and asks "Ms. Cameron" (it's significant that he won't acknowledge that she's a real doctor anymore) if he can talk to her.

Outside Cindy's room, Wilson says that, as the chief of Oncology, he gets all the biopsy results back. All of them. Even the ones Cameron tries to disguise by swapping the first letters of the patient's first and last name. Kindy Cramer has terminal cancer, and Wilson's guessing by her upbeat demeanor that Cameron hasn't told her that yet. "Well, I, I hadn't exactly gotten around to that, but I was just --" Cameron stammers, and Wilson angrily interrupts to ask if Cameron was making friends. I have to say how happy I was that Cindy had terminal lung cancer after all, just because it meant Cameron was wrong. I was starting to get scared that she'd be right and all validated and stuff, so this is a relief. Cameron says that Cindy is divorced with no kids and no family. "It's not your job to be her friend," Wilson tells her. It might as well be; it's not like Cameron's doing anything else. Wilson adds that it's also not a good idea to befriend patients. You get close to a patient, and then the patient dies and you're never the same, so you annoy everyone around you with your tragic life story. For everyone's sake, Cameron needs to learn emotional distance. "My husband," Cameron starts, and Wilson looks down, not to express sympathy, but because he just fell asleep. Cameron explains that she met her Tragically Dead Husband right after he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Or thyroid cancer, which is what she said he had last season. How awesome would it be if it turned out that Cameron was making this whole thing up for attention? Like, Foreman notices that the picture of Cameron's "husband" she keeps in her wallet is actually a magazine cutout and Chase finds several well-worn copies of Dying Young in her apartment? Cameron says that if she hadn't married her husband, he would have died alone: "When a good person dies, there should be an impact on the world. Somebody should notice. Somebody should be upset." Yeah, Cameron, they're called FRIENDS. Most "good" people in the world have them. Too bad Cindy, who we don't even know well enough to know if she's a good person (from her blithe manner when she discussed their death, I personally believe she killed her parents, so HA!), doesn't get to tell her friends what's going on with her health since she doesn't know about it.

House tells LL that he probably has an adrenal gland tumor, and that he'll need an MRI to see where it is. House claims that MRIs are "painless for most people," unless they're House's patients. In LL's case, it's because his prison tattoos were make with inks chock full of heavy metals. MRIs are magnets. Unless the MRI is just Magneto lying on top of a plastic tube, I find it hard to believe that even metal-laden inks could have that much of an effect. Then again, LL has been proven to have a low threshold for pain; maybe his screaming and thrashing around is just because he's a wimp. House, Foreman, and Chase observe from a booth, and I don't know how they can get any results with the patient moving like that. House calls LL a "big baby," and then he finds the tumor. "There's Waldo!" he says. LL begs them to turn off the MRI. House tells them to keep him in there until they see it, too. Uh...I'm pretty sure that "do no harm" oath applies this time, House.

Night falls on the hospital. Foreman enters House's office to report that LL's tumor has been removed and everything's fine. House says that LL can go back to Death Row. Foreman has a problem with this; after all, the tumor was what gave LL those "rage attacks" that made him kill. House says that they'll put the tumor on the witness stand. Foreman says they can put themselves there for LL's appeal. House accuses Foreman of being a hypocrite; Foreman wouldn't consider LL's upbringing as a reason why he became a murderer, but he's all set to write his murders off for biological reasons. Foreman says that upbringing and biology are totally different. House says that Foreman had to overcome one of them, so he's only half an expert. Plenty of adrenal gland tumor sufferers have become successful, contributing members of society who didn't kill anyone. It's not really fair to them to let LL use it as an excuse. "You want him to be executed?" Foreman asks. "That's not what I'm saying," House says. But he won't offer an opinion one way or the other. Foreman says that he's going to testify at the appeal. "You'll do what you think is right -- on your own time," House says, but I think he respects Foreman for that. And Foreman respects House.

Hey, have you ever watched TV before? If so, then you've probably heard the closing montage song, Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" many times before! Boo, House music department! Of all the sad songs in the world, surely there's one you could have chosen that hasn't been used a thousand times this year. "Hallelujah!" says Jeff Buckley's estate as yet more royalty checks pour in. Cameron tells Cindylou Who about her pesky cancer problem. "But...it's just a cough," Cindy says. Cameron makes a sad face as she realizes that she cannot legally marry Cindy to make her feel better. She gives her a hug instead. Cindy's face has the perfect combination of shock at the news and growing anger at the fact that one of the few weeks she has left was wasted while her doctor tried to get out of delivering bad news. I was really hoping that the scene would end with Cindy's many, many close friends entering the room with balloons and cards and Cindy kicking Cameron out to spend time with them, but it didn't.

In the last few hours, LL has recovered from his adrenal gland surgery enough to walk out of the hospital to go back to prison. Foreman is upset to watch him leave. I wish we could have seen Cuddy on the other side of the hallway, grinning with delight to have the floor free for non-criminal patients once again.

In his office, House finishes off that 150-proof alcohol as he stares at the five stages of death. Depression and ACCEPTANCE have yet to be crossed out. We see House erases the first three, and then he erases ACCEPTANCE as well. As for depression, we don't see him erase it, but when we see ACCEPTANCE written there, it's by itself.