A woman jogs. Actually, it looks like she's sprinting, probably to finish her run strong. Closer examination reveals the woman to be Cuddy, who waves good morning to a neighbor as she jogs up the walkway to her beautiful house that they can try to make look like it's in a temperate climate all they want, but I totally saw some tropical plants hanging out on the lawn. That, and I happened to drive by the house used for the exteriors and saw them shooting it. Anyway, good to see that Cuddy's been spending all that time off-camera meeting the neighbors and getting some basic repairs done on her home, as we see Alfredo the Hunky Handyman just climbing down a ladder to her roof as she approaches. Man, everyone has a Hot Young Spanish guy working on their homes these days! Alfredo asks Cuddy if he can finish up the work tomorrow, since he's not feeling well today. "Mexico playing Argentina on TV?" Cuddy asks, going for the racist assumption for the first and certainly not the last time this episode. Of course the Latino wants to skip work to watch soccer. He'll watch it on Telemundo, where the announcer guy says, "GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!" Alfredo pants and wheezes that his asthma is pretty bad today, and Cuddy says that after six years working for her (apparently, her beautiful house is quite the money pit), Alfredo can't lie to her. She's having a dinner party tonight, and if it rains, the roof will leak all over it. Alfredo agrees to finish the job today, and Cuddy heads inside.
Cuddy throws her iPod armband down on the table rather roughly (but I guess when you're raking in those Chief of Medicine dollars, you can afford to break a few gadgets), and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge. She starts choking after taking a sip, her eyes rolling back into her head. Just before I can be disappointed that my guess that a Mystery Illness would take down a member of the opening-credits cast wouldn't happen until Season 5, Alfredo screams and goes flying past the kitchen window. That's probably not supposed to be hilarious, but it really was. Cuddy immediately recovers from her over-exaggerated swallowing effort and pokes her head out the window to see Alfredo moaning on the ground.
An overhead shot of an ambulance crossing what I'm guessing is a river in New Jersey (I didn't see any palm trees this time, so it probably is the real thing) cuts to Cuddy inside the ambulance going all EMT on Alfredo's ass. He has some pain in his ribs, but Cuddy's more concerned about the fact that the two smallest fingers on his right hand are a shade darker than the rest. "They feel funny," Alfredo says. He asks if this is a bad thing. Cuddy looks concerned, but I'm not, because this is going to be a Cuddy-riffic episode and I am thrilled!
Post-credits, Cuddy has brought Alfredo's case to Wilson and the lollipop-sucking House, who wonder how falling off a roof can make a man's fingers turn black. House knows he has an entire episode ahead to make sarcastic remarks at Cuddy's expense, so he refrains from doing it here and simply says that Alfredo's fall might have done something to his spine that restricted blood flow. But he can't resist making a crack about Cuddy's jogging clothes, which she is still wearing, noting that her tank top "really absorbs moisture." I'm not sure if he's talking about the weird red stain on her stomach or the patch of sweat around her cleavage area, neither of which makes much sense, since the red stain doesn't look like blood (nor would I expect to see any, since I didn't see Alfredo bleed in the ambulance), and I was not aware that the air between one's boobs had the sweat glands you'd need to make a sweat patch like that. ["Uh...if you really sweat a lot, the separate boob sweat patches can spread toward one another. This happened to a friend of mine." -- Wing Chun] Cuddy responds by throwing a shirt over herself, and House continues by saying that Alfredo could have DIC -- disseminated intravascular coagulophathy. Wilson doesn't seeing how a clotting problem could be caused by a fall off a roof. House says that trauma sometimes activates the body's clotting enzymes. House takes the file from Cuddy, who starts to thank him for doing her a solid until he makes it quite clear that he couldn't care less. Cuddy seems surprised by this, for some reason.
“ Stacy isn't just a lawyer: she's Cuddy's Wilson. Except that she totally lacks the warmth and kindness of the real Wilson and therefore ends up seeming more like Cuddy's Sympathetic Robot Friend. ”
House and Wilson spend some more time together, and House complains that Cuddy's protein C(razy) decision is almost irresponsible in the risks it poses to the patient. "It's exactly the type of thing you would do," Wilson says.
Stacy says the same thing to Cuddy as they walk into Cuddy's office, because Stacy isn't just a lawyer: she's Cuddy's Wilson. Except that she totally lacks the warmth and kindness of the real Wilson and therefore ends up seeming more like Cuddy's Sympathetic Robot Friend. Cuddy says that she doesn't feel right about overruling the best diagnostician in the whole wide world. "You care about this kid," Stacy says, "Your judgment --" and here I thought she was going to say something reasonable about how Cuddy's personal relationship with the patient is clouding her judgment so that maybe she should take herself off the case, but then she finished with "-- should be worth more than [House's]," which is pretty much the exact opposite of good advice. Cuddy says that House also mentioned that Cuddy hasn't been a real doctor in ten years. "Now that sounds like him," Stacy says, without adding the reassuring things Cuddy probably would have rather heard than another reminder of the fact that Stacy and House have a History Together. Man, Stacy's as bad at being a sympathetic ear as she is at giving advice.
House grabs another lollipop from a nearby jar full of them as he and Wilson discuss how House totally would have gone for the protein C thing if Cuddy hadn't mentioned it first, and they're both surprised that her concern over the patient is ruining her sense of humor. Wilson sarcastically says he can't imagine why that would be.
Foreman's on Clinic duty, and his patient is Mac from Night Court, hooray! Mac is responsible for what might be my brother's single favorite moment in television history that does not involve Bob Newhart, which was the episode when a news crew was doing a story on the night court gang, and the reporter said that the court clerk has the very latest in high-tech gadgets at his disposal to make the justice system run smoothly, and the camera turns to Mac concentrating hard in front of his computer. Then you hear the theme song from Super Mario Brothers play and Mac notices the camera on him while he's playing videogames and realizes he's busted. So funny. Mac tells Foreman he's been having breathing problems when he walks up the stairs, and Foreman says it's because his blood pressure is high. There's a new blood-pressure medicine out now that Foreman recommends, adding that it's "targeted to African-Americans," because it also treats the nitric oxide deficiencies that, according to studies, African-Americans are more likely to have. Mac doesn't like the sound of this special drug for black people at all: "I've had white people lying to me for sixty years." Foreman laughs and asks if Mac thinks Foreman just has a good tan. Mac says he thinks white people are lying to Foreman, too, citing the "cheap meningitis drug" that's been sold in Africa as evidence of medical racism. Foreman says that's greed, not racism. I don't see why it can't be both. ["Yeah! I saw The Constant Gardener! I know what time it is!" -- Wing Chun] Foreman tells Mac that the best way to stick it to Whitey is to live long enough to collect Social Security. He gives Mac the prescription.
“ Cameron explains that the surgery only 'fixed the problem created by the medicine [they] gave [him].' It's too bad that Stacy the Lawyer is too busy pretending she's Cuddy's bestest friend and personal confidante to do her job and tell the staff not to say things like 'that stroke you had that required brain surgery was totally our fault, whoops!' ”
Alfredo wakes up and notices that he can't move his right arm. He screams for a nurse, but this hospital doesn't employ nurses, so Chase rushes in. He takes a look at Alfredo's vitals and makes a really obvious "oh, shit" face that you'd think medical school would've taught him to curb.
Chase tells Cuddy that the protein C has caused a bleed in Alfredo's brain. He's called a neurosurgeon.
Alfredo's head gets drilled. Cuddy watches from the operating theater balcony thing that's been getting a lot of use this season.
The morning, Alfredo can move his arm again and wants to know when he can go home. Cameron explains that the surgery only "fixed the problem created by the medicine [they] gave [him]." It's too bad that Stacy the Lawyer is too busy pretending she's Cuddy's bestest friend and personal confidante to do her job and tell the staff not to say things like "that stroke you had that required brain surgery was totally our fault, whoops!" Alfredo's mom espaols that Cameron looks too young to be a doctor, because even she realizes that Cameron's an airhead for saying that stuff about the deadly medicine, and she can't even speak English. Cameron says that she's the youngest of the five doctors working on Alfredo's case, so Mamacita can stick her preocupado up her nalga. Alfredo asks why Cuddy hasn't been in to visit him yet, and then starts coughing and hacking before Cameron can answer, fortunately for everyone. "That doesn't sound too good," Cameron says about the cough, oddly not adding, "It's probably because the air in this hospital is filled with pneumonia sometimes, whoops!" The Magic School Bus Cam zooms into Alfredo's lungs and then back out to Cameron, who could also stand to enroll in the "How to Disguise Your Concern In Front of Your Patient" class Chase needs to take.
Back in the differential-diagnosis room, Cuddy takes a look at Alfredo's chest x-ray as Cameron explains that Alfredo's hand is getting worse, and now he has a high fever and "lung infiltrates." Cuddy suggests that the fall caused acute respiratory distress, and House pops a few pills and says that he'd prefer it if their diagnoses didn't depend on Cuddy's personal guilt. Cuddy responds by rolling her eyes and actually clutching her pearls, which makes me sad. House proposes that Alfredo was sick before he fell off Cuddy's roof, and Foreman says that pneumonia is consistent with Alfredo's symptoms. Chase and House rule that out, saying that Alfredo would surely have noticed the breathing problems that accompany pneumonia that severe before he ever got on Cuddy's roof, and then Cuddy sighs and tells them how Alfredo complained of breathing problems but she thought he was lying and sent him up to the roof anyway. "Well, why didn't you just take out a gun and shoot him?" House cruelly asks before even more cruelly yelling at her for leaving that little detail out because she was so certain that Alfredo's problems were her fault that she couldn't see any other reason, and now they've lost a day and made Alfredo's brain bleed. Cuddy looks sad, so Cameron, the self-appointed People-Picker-Upper, says, "If it's just garden-variety bacterial pneumonia, he's gonna be fine." Yeah, except that I really don't think garden-variety pneumonia is accompanied by black fingers. House orders some antibiotics for the pneumonia, and then says that they'll have to go break into Alfredo's house to look for environmental causes, calling him "Julio" and "Rico," because the only thing House even noticed about his patient was that he was Hispanic, and all Hispanic people have interchangeable Hispanic names. Cuddy says she'll go get a key to Alfredo's, and House yells after her that she is no longer capable of deciding what's best for his patient, just to get that last little dig in there. She leaves, and House nods at Cameron to accompany her.
“ Foreman remarks that House should really write a book about office politics. The title shall be Alternative Medicine: How Vicodin Makes Your Boss Less of a Pain in the Ass. ”
When the ladies are gone, Foreman remarks that House should really write a book about office politics. The title shall be Alternative Medicine: How Vicodin Makes Your Boss Less of a Pain in the Ass. House says that things could have been worse; for instance, he could have told Cuddy that Foreman and Chase will be breaking into her house while she's off with Cameron. Foreman and Chase jump forward and refuse, Chase saying that Cuddy is much scarier than House is. House chalks that up to the fact that she's female, and tells them not to worry, since he'll be coming with them. This probably just makes them worry more.
House and his boys de-elevator. House smugly sucks on yet another lollipop while Foreman and Chase both look miserable. They pass Wilson and Stacy, who are conveniently spending their busy schedules hanging out in the hospital lobby. Stacy is surprised that House is taking his Cottages out to lunch. Or maybe her eyebrows just make her look surprised. They're really high up on her forehead. Wilson says that there's no way House is taking anyone to lunch, especially not his underlings. Stacy notes that, since House looked especially pleased with himself, he must have felt compelled to confide in someone as to what he's doing, and that someone is most likely Wilson. She's right: Wilson says that House is going to break into Cuddy's house. "What? Why?" asks the woman who left cookies out when they all broke into her house. She wonders why House is so curious about Cuddy. Wilson is curious as to why Stacy is so curious about House's curiosity. Stacy is curious -- okay, we could do this all day, so I'll cut to the chase, which is that Wilson says Stacy is the one who dumped House (interesting), and that she's married, "and they are neither of those things." I don't even know what's going on anymore, but I'm not all that curious to find out either.
House limps up to Cuddy's front door. He wonders if Cuddy has red thongs (gross, House), and then bets the Cottages twenty dollars that he can get into Cuddy's house in twenty seconds, implying that he'll be using a credit card to break in. They both take that bet, and House puts his credit card back in his wallet and lifts up a flower pot to Cuddy's door, revealing a spare key underneath. I guess you don't have to worry about home security when you live in a weird dimension where palm trees grow in New Jersey. Foreman and Chase sigh, but I don't feel sorry for them. That's what you get if you still haven't learned not to bet against the Man Who Knows Everything. ["It's why no one ever takes any wager proposed by Robert Goren, either." -- Wing Chun] House grins smugly as he lets them in. Chase and Foreman give him the money as they enter.
“ Seriously, Cameron. If you're going to ask your boss's boss if she and your boss ever did it, you've got to approach it very delicately. Really, you shouldn't approach it at all. ”
Over on the other side of town (the dirty, poor side), Cameron and Cuddy are not impressed with the cockroach-infested, ironic leaky-roofedness of the Alfredo family house. First of all, that's a big house for a family that claims to be so poor the kids have to drop out of school to keep them fed. Second of all, just because people are poor doesn't mean they're content to let cockroaches take over their house or that they can't throw a few shingles on the roof to stop the leaks, or afford a bucket to catch the leaking water in. How insulting. Cameron isn't here to discuss socioeconomics and their stereotypical role in the media, though: she wants to know why Cuddy hasn't fired House when they seem to hate each other so much. "I don't hate him," Cuddy says immediately, and Cameron the Spy asks why not. Cuddy gives her a "don't continue this line of questioning" look that Cameron ignores as she says that House is a great doctor, but he's also an asshole. Cuddy reveals that House was actually fired from no less than four hospitals before coming to PPTH (wow), but that "the question is, why did [she] hire him?" I'm thinking it has something to do with that guilt complex we've been hearing so much about, and Cuddy and PPTH's role in House losing his leg.
Over at Casa Cuddy, Foreman asks House how he knew where her spare key was. House -- who's doing a remarkable job of kneeling on floor considering his bad leg -- says he just figured that someone as obsessive as Cuddy would have spare keys hidden all over the place. Apparently, her obsessiveness does not extend to home security. I mean, she could have at least bought one of those really fake-looking rocks with the hidden compartment they sell in the Miles Kimball catalogue. Having Finished examining the kitchen, House calls dibs on searching the bedroom. "This is where it all happens," he says, standing over Cuddy's bed. Then he jumps onto it. I don't thinking testing mattress strength is really part of the information they're trying to collect there.
Back in the Casa Cucaracha, Cameron asks Cuddy whether she knew House when they were both students at University of Michigan (interesting factoid!). Cuddy says that she was an undergrad when he was a med student, but that she knew him. Everyone did. House was a legend. A medical-school legend. Cameron asks whether Cuddy knew him any better than that, and Cuddy snaps, "My god, you're subtle." Seriously, Cameron. If you're going to ask your boss's boss if she and your boss ever did it, you've got to approach it very delicately. Really, you shouldn't approach it at all. But I guess Cameron is very curious. I'm curious about her curiosity about Cuddy's curiosity about House being a curious legend curiouscuriouscurious. Cameron decides to let it go because she obviously won't be getting an answer, and checks under Alfredo's bed, where she finds a dead rat in a trap, because poor people like to keep caught pestilence around for food. That's just Alfredo's midnight snack. Cameron says that the rat is "worse" than cockroaches, but I disagree, especially if Alfredo, like Cuddy, lives in the Southern California section of New Jersey, which, if it's anything like the real Southern California, has cockroaches as big as rats.
“ It's Chase's turn to be curiously curious as House examines Cuddy's curios to find a cure for Alfredo. ”
It's Chase's turn to be curiously curious as House examines Cuddy's curios to find a cure for Alfredo. Chase says there's no way House just guessed about the key. He knew it was there. House takes a thong out of Cuddy's dresser and asks if pink counts as red, and then tosses it to Chase to make him all flustered and distracted so that he won't ask any more questions about House and Cuddy's possible sex life. This is also where the break-in goes from humorous and fun to invasive and pervy and wrong. Tossing Cuddy's panties around and making comments about them is obviously not part of their medical inquiry, so it's a serious violation of Cuddy's privacy that indicates that House either has no respect for her or that his insane need to know every single intimate detail about everyone around him outweighs his sense of moral propriety. Either way, it doesn't make him look all that good. I really hope an episode comes up soon where the Cottages have to break into House's house and then they can pick through his stuff like he does to everyone else. House reports that he's found a shrine to Chase at the bottom of Cuddy's underwear drawer, full of pictures of a certain blond Australian. Chase walks up, very interested. "You're kidding!" he says. "Yeah!" House answers. Sorry, Chase.
House and Chase move to the Cuddy's Perfectly Purple bathroom, where House picks up a box of feminine hygiene products and announces to all that Cuddy uses Super Tampons. House, quit it with the fascination with Cuddy's vaginal paraphernalia. You may want to know everything about the area, but I really don't. I now see why Cameron wasn't invited on this trip, because as a fellow woman, she probably would have had a huge problem with this and reported House to Cuddy immediately. Since it's just the guys, though, Chase only says that House and Cuddy are too nasty to each other not to have been nasty in the past. "I can be a jerk to people I haven't slept with," says House. "I am that good." He does sound a tad defensive, but that might just be me hearing what I want to hear even though I now want someone better for Cuddy than a guy who makes tampon jokes. Like Alfredo. Go for it, Cuddy. House checks out Cuddy's sink as Foreman walks in, saying he thinks they're ready to go unless there's anything else House would like to sniff (ewewew). That's when House spots some mold growing around Cuddy's pipes. Her sink pipes, that is. He's not that invasive. Yet.