House wakes up after a night with Cuddy in the best mood of his life. He gets to work to find a new case waiting for him -- a young man named Scott who had surgery on his brain for a seizure disorder that left him with two sides of his brain that are unable to communicate with each other and one hand with a mind of its own that enjoys screwing over its host body by throwing dinner rolls at large angry men and trying to sabotage his relationship with his girlfriend. He's also bleeding from his eye, has liver failure, and his heart is throwing clots all over the place. In the end, it's Scott's alien hand that figures out the diagnosis before anyone else, as it angrily tosses Scott's ultra-strength deodorant (applied several times daily because of his sweating problem) away and hits his girlfriend for bringing it to him in the first place. When the girlfriend points that out, the team figures out that an ingredient in the deodorant was what caused all of Scott's problems, including the seizure disorder that created his alien hand in the first place.
But that's not the meat of this episode, is it? No, it's House and Cuddy. Cuddy tells House that she doesn't want to get hurt by getting close to him and he spends the rest of the episode trying to make her angry at him for some reason. Wilson encourages this behavior, and when various prank attempts don't cut it, House announces from the balcony to the entire PPTH lobby that he slept with Cuddy. This gets Cuddy gets so angry that she fires him. When he goes to her office to talk, he suddenly realizes that her initial talk with him was because of what he said in the office last episode about suckling the baby that made her feel good about herself -- not because they slept together after she helped him detox off the Vicodin, because that never happened. What!?! Yes! He made everything after his suckling comment up in his mind while he hung out at home and took pill after pill and never detoxed at all, which explains why last week's detox session was so ridiculously brief. It also means that CTB is still around to whisper in House's ear, and Kumar even shows up to get his last digs in! While Chase and Cameron, who settled their differences in the C-plot, get married, Wilson drives House to a mental hospital straight out of the Victorian age and we can spend all summer wondering what will happen .
A couple eats at a restaurant. The man complains loudly and often about the quality of the food while the woman tries to be positive and hopefully makes a mental note to ask her therapist why she keeps dating men like this. A few dinner rolls are thrown at the back of the man's head, and we go to another table with another couple. The woman grabs a basket full of dinner rolls away (they gave them a lot of dinner rolls for just two diners. Also, shouldn't they take the rolls away once the meal arrives? Maybe that first guy is right and this restaurant does suck after all) and says "do you think it'll calm down?" "God, I hope so," the man, Scott, says, not-too-quietly muttering that the dinner-rolled man is "a bit of a blowhard." Then he also complains about his food, saying it's bland. His girlfriend, Annie, begs to differ, giving him a sample of her dish, which she says is spicy. He says he doesn't taste anything, and then the blowhard arrives at the side of their table, wondering why they keep throwing dinner rolls at him. Scott denies it, and unwisely stands up to shake the guy's hand. His left hand grabs a glass of water and dumps it on the blowhard's crotch. This makes the blowhard very upset, but before he can beat the crap out of him, Scott starts bleeding out of his eye and collapses.
And now we're in House's bedroom. He wakes up to find himself naked and alone ... and happy. Yes, that is indeed a genuine happy little smile on his face. He limps into the bathroom and sees lipstick smeared on his face, a tube of which was left behind on the bathroom sink. He picks it up and there are more smiles. Who is this guy?
We go to PPTH, where Taub is talking to Cameron in the ER about Scott. Taub doesn't think House will want the case and asks about what he should wear to the wedding. Cameron says there's been "a glitch" with the wedding and that House will definitely want to take Scott's case because Scott had surgery on his brain for a seizure disorder. The corpus callosum, which connects the two halves of the brain, was cut, leaving Scott seizure-free but with complications. Taub just keeps asking about Cameron's wedding. Why was he even invited to it, anyway? Aren't they just occasionally friendly co-workers? They approach Scott before Cameron can find another excuse not to answer Taub's questions, and he explains that his left hand has a mind of its own, and that mind is kind of an asshole. When he goes grocery shopping, it sneaks food that Scott hates in his cart and, as we saw, sets him up to get his ass beat down by throwing things at blowhard restaurant patrons. Taub says House will like this case after all.
The Cottages wait in the meeting room for their boss to get to work. He announces his arrival by singing up the hallway. He enters the room with a big ol' smile on his face and says that he's in a good mood. The cameraman is so surprised that he can't keep still, and keeps moving the camera around and going in and out of focus. Taub interrupts House's glee to announce that they have a patient with Alien Hand Syndrome, which sounds really cool until, again, you're about to get beaten up for dumping water on some guy's crotch. Taub explains that the right side of Scott's brain is controlling his left side (although not, apparently all of it, or else Scott would have kneed that guy in the crotch instead of the cold water treatment), and can't communicate with the rest of him. House guesses it's making Scott's life miserable because that's how the "non-logical" right brain rolls. Foreman the neurologist loves both sides of the brain equally and can't believe House would be so dismissive of an entire hemisphere of the brain. House says most people who have the split-brain surgery don't even notice their right brain is gone, since the left side is responsible for language, math, and rationality. Taub points out that the right brain is "more aesthetically oriented" and he couldn't have been a plastic surgeon without his. Well, maybe if he didn't have that right brain he wouldn't have cheated on his wife and lost his plastic surgery practice. Also, this is the lamest turf war ever. Cuddy interrupts by entering wearing her best funeral black pantsuit and a Puritan Goody Cuddy blouse that's buttoned up to her eyebrows. "We need to talk," she tells House. Uh oh. House leaves the Cottages to search Scott's home while he heads to his office with Cuddy.
House actually says something about her conservative blouse, saying it's a little late to hide those boobs from him. "I'm your boss. You're an employee," Cuddy starts with an angry edge to her voice. House doesn't get the hint and keeps making sex jokes. "People who get close to you get hurt. That's a fact," Cuddy says; "you're also a valued doctor in this hospital, that's another fact. From now on, we're gonna focus on the second fact." Oh, sounds like someone did the Walk of Shame back home this morning. House accuses her of overreacting about last night. She denies it, saying her decision is not an emotional one, which would be a first for her. She walks out, and House opens his hand to reveal the tube of lipstick that he was presumably about to return to Cuddy before she dumped him. He doesn't seem too upset, though. I guess he likes it when women play hard-to-get.
Chase is both confused and displeased when Taub shows up beside him in the cafeteria line. "I hear the sperm is very good today. I mean, the salmon," is Taub's opening line. "Go away," is Chase's appropriate response as Taub tries to sit with him. Taub claims there are no other open tables to sit at, which is clearly not true but does make me notice how nice PPTH's cafeteria chairs are. They're covered in fabric! How does a hospital with a free clinic afford such things? Chase asks Taub if he would really let his wife keep another man's sperm on tap just in case their marriage broke up. Taub probably would, since it's not like he's so great at the marriage and commitment thing. Chase says he doesn't want to marry someone who clearly isn't ready to commit. Taub: "did you know that male fruit flies have toxic chemicals in their seminal fluid that inhibit the sperm of other males?" Chase: "..." Yeah, Taub sucks at advice.
When Cuddy enters her office, she finds House sitting at her desk holding some kind of video camera-gun-device. He says Wilson said they should talk. "We talked," Cuddy shrugs. House aims the video camera thing at her and says he agrees that talking isn't necessary. As Cuddy takes her seat and he leaves the room, he turns back and shoots her with the device again.
Scott's girlfriend stops by with some items from home, which is conspicuous since this is the first time we've ever seen a patient have items from home brought in except for that patient from the Romani family. Annie failed to find Scott's generic "Mp3 player" (I think it's because Hadley stole it for herself when she was at the apartment), but she does have a bag full of toiletries and a small cactus. Scott says she didn't have to bring so much, and Annie says she's trying too hard to get Scott's alien hand to like her. With that, the hand grabs the deodorant she brought and throws it against the wall. Hadley enters with some oral anti-fungal meds for Scott to swallow since his left hand won't let them put in an IV and apparently no one in this hospital knows how to put restraints on, which is ridiculous but allows Scott's alien hand a full range of motion when Annie bends over the bed to kiss him good-bye and get slapped across the face. Scott apologizes over and over again, but Annie is pretty spooked and takes off. Scott tries to run after her, only to find that he can't walk.
While House twirls the lipstick tube in his hand, the Cottages get to differential diagnosing, as their bathroom fungus theory has been ruled out. House suggests a slow-growing meningioma that is somehow causing Scott's brain hemispheres to communicate again. They're sending messages to each other, but it's too early in the process for Scott to be aware of it. Foreman is happy to report that they are still able to test for it.
House has run a test of his own. He reports to Wilson's office with "proof" in the form of two pictures of Cuddy, taken by the camera device. They're thermal imaging photos, and House says Cuddy's face becomes heated after less than a minute in House's presence. Wilson says that could mean love ... or rage. House orders Wilson not to get involved by doing something like talking to Cuddy to manipulate this relationship into being. House needs to find out which Cuddy is telling the truth -- the one that slept with him last night, or the one who dumped him this morning. Wilson says that House is approaching this like a medical case when he should really just "be an adult." Yeah, House doesn't look too eager to do that.
They've got Scott set up in yet another one of PPTH's silly rooms. I really want someone to make a map of PPTH based on what we've seen in the past five seasons. I'd do it, but I'm still burnt out from that flowchart I made in the beginning of this season. It's probably House, Wilson, and Cuddy's offices, the locker room, the Clinic, the ER, the OR, the lobby, the cafeteria, the huge doctor's lounge, and then ten giant single-use rooms and a basement full of pianos. Oh, and the janitor's closet. Anyway, this silly room contains a chair, three huge flat-screen TVs, and a booth up above for the Cottages to hang out in. Scott will sit in the chair and look at the plus sign on the screen in front of him. This will mean that whatever comes up on the screen to his right will only be seen by his left brain and whatever comes up on the screen to his left will be seen by the right. He'll only be able to tell them what comes up on the right side unless that tumor is allowing both sides to communicate. With that, a few words flash on the right screen that Scott reads out loud. When the word "candle" pops up on the left side, he claims he doesn't see it. But his alien hand is able to draw a picture of a candle. It even drew a lit candle, just to be sassy. The Cottages find this "cool" or, in Hadley's case, "freaky." House enters, and Foreman reports that they've found no evidence of communication yet. "Stand up" appears on the left screen, and Scott stands up. When Foreman asks him why he stood up, Scott says he's cold and wants to get a sweater. Foreman says he can go when they're done, and House says they just saw the left brain in action -- obsessed with finding answers, it found a way to make the order the right brain saw make sense to the rest of the body. Taub steps up for his right brain peeps, saying that it can make connections that the left brain cannot. House's insight comes from his right brain, not the logical left. House continues to hate on his right brain, and Hadley doesn't really care. She says that Scott's brain hemispheres are not communicating, so House's theory was wrong. Also, Scott is squirming in his chair and scratching the right side of his torso. When House goes to investigate, Scott says it itches. "Ammonia breath!" House announces. Geez, House -- Scott is right there. That's kinda rude. Just offer the guy an Altoid or something. Oh, I see -- ammonia breath is a symptom of liver failure, which we can also see in the rash on the liver area of Scott's body.
Wilson is trying to do some kind of boring busywork with Cuddy, who quickly tires of doing her job and interrupts Wilson to say that she figured he was here to talk to her about House. "There's nothing to talk about," Wilson stammers awkwardly. House enters the room and is none too pleased to see Wilson in there, too. Poor Wilson -- he isn't doing any meddling, but he's still being accused of it. House asks Cuddy for permission to do a liver biopsy on his patient, who he suspects has sarcoidosis. Cuddy takes a swig from her prop coffee cup. In fact, the cafeteria must have been having some kind of crazy coffee sale today, because all three people in the room have identical coffee cups. Cuddy approves the biopsy, saying it's not a risky procedure she should have to be asked about in the first place so House is obviously just trying to waste her time to get a reaction out of her. House puts his coffee cup down to Cuddy's and says that's exactly why he's here. Cuddy tells him to do the biopsy and his Clinic hours, which she hasn't mentioned since, like, the fourth episode of the first season. House refuses, of course. "Let's see how that goes," Cuddy says sweetly, refusing to let House make her angry. Wilson just watches everything unfold in front of him, looking mildly amused. When House leaves, he takes Cuddy's coffee cup instead of his. Wilson notices, but doesn't see fit to tell his boss that she might be drinking something dosed with copious amounts of laxatives and/or Spanish fly.
After the break, Hadley prepares to do the biopsy. Scott apologizes for his apparent body odor problem, saying he's always been a "sweaty guy" when Hadley, hoping this is another symptom, asks if this is a recent development. The alien hand pushes the ultrasound wand away, and Scott apologizes for that, too. Well, at least it didn't slap her. Although, can someone tell me why they haven't tied that hand down now that they know it has a history of violence? It pushes the ultrasound thing away again, and poor Scott has to try to hold his own hand down. Hadley glares at Taub, who's standing by with the large biopsy needle and says he doesn't want to get anywhere near Scott with that thing based on how the hand has reacted to just the ultrasound wand. Scott has an idea.
Wilson followed House out of Cuddy's office to lecture him that he's using his relationship with Cuddy as a substitute for drugs, pointing out that if he is clean, he should be in more pain. House asks Wilson if he's suggesting that House stop letting Cuddy distract him so he can be in pain again, which is a good point. "Cuddy is not a Vicodin substitute," Wilson says. "Quite the opposite!" House says cheerfully. What would the opposite of a Vicodin substitute be? Wilson urges House to "wait" for Cuddy to come around even though before he was telling House to go talk to her. House has no intention of waiting. Wilson persists, saying that House just made two major life changes and so might not have the best judgment right now. House rightly points out that Wilson always said that House's judgment would be better once he was off drugs, and that Wilson really just wants to know why House wants to make Cuddy angry and what he found in her coffee cup. Wilson denies it, and finds out anyway: oxytocin. "The chemical involved in emotional bonding?" Wilson says as they enter House's office. House says Cuddy might be saying no, but her hormones are telling a different story. I just want to know how the hell he even got that information -- did he test the rim of her coffee cup? Did the presence of coffee molecules not taint the results at all? Wilson asks House how he got a "baseline" to compare the test results to, and House says he paid some guy at Cuddy's gym to fetch her water bottle out of the trash. Um, excuse me, but wasn't Cuddy telling us just a few weeks ago about the importance of recycling and saving the earth? And now she throws her used water bottles in the trash? What a hypocritical bitch! It might be one hour in the gym for you, Cuddy, but it's forever in a landfill for Mother Earth, according to those Brita commercials! Then again, it's very possible that the guy in the gym just took a random bottle out of the trash and told House it was Cuddy's to make an easy $50. House now figures he has to make Cuddy angry in order to get under her skin and make her admit that he's more than just an employee to her or something. This sounds like a stupid horrible plan. Wilson decides that this is a good idea, since House is committing himself to someone, albeit in an extremely childish way. And then Alan Brady shows up at House's office door (for those of you who don't know classic TV, that's Carl Reiner). He introduces himself as Eugene Schwartz and says one Dr. Cuddy directed him to come to this office from the Clinic. House hopes the fact that Cuddy is trying to push him means something, and Wilson decides to take off.
So what is wrong with Eugene? He "squawks." He tries to show House what he means, but finds it difficult to squawk on command. He says this has been going on for a few months. "Nice pants," House says. He can see them pretty well since Eugene has the typical old man pants hike thing going on. House leaves the office. Eugene follows.
Scott's idea was to play music. "China Grove" by the Doobie Brothers, to be specific. We played that song once in my middle school jazz band and thought we were so cool. We were not. Scott's left hand busies itself playing chords on the air guitar, and it's sufficiently distracted enough to allow Taub to take the biopsy. This is all fun and good, but they could've accomplished the same thing with a lot less effort (although, sadly, less classic rock) by just tying the damn hand down. Ah, but then Hadley wouldn't get a good look at Scott's left hand and notice the splinter hemorrhaging under his fingernails. Scott wonders what she's talking about briefly before being otherwise engaged in throwing up blood.
"So much for sarcoidosis," Taub says. That's going to be the name of my album. Foreman thinks there's a clotting issue, then wonders why they're meeting in the locker room and not, say, the office. It's to avoid Eugene, of course, not like Cuddy wouldn't figure out in three seconds that House was hiding in the locker room or have any problem sending Eugene in there. Since House's mind is obviously on other matters, Hadley fills in that they gave Scott heparin and scanned his heart to look for clots. Hilariously, some random extra walks into the scene, sees a meeting going on, and then walks right back out, all "sorry to disturb you, I'll get my things from the locker some other time." Everyone in this hospital is afraid of House. Taub says they ran a series of tests on Scott until his hand got annoyed and stopped cooperating, at which point they knocked Scott out instead of TYING THE FREAKING HAND DOWN ALREADY. Why won't they just do that? Hadley wonders if Scott's sweatiness is a symptom, saying that some kinds of cancer can cause night sweats and clots. House suggests pancreatic cancer and orders them off to check it.
Cuddy is receiving a huge donation from a couple who are grateful to PPTH for saving one of their lives after a burst appendix. Hmm. Obviously they were too traumatized by the event to remember which hospital they were in, because there's no way anyone made it through a stay at PPTH without being so insulted by House that he wouldn't dream of giving the place any more of his hard-earned money. And who should walk right on into Cuddy's office without so much as a knock? No, not House. It's Eugene! He's here to drop off the stool sample House requested from him, and the fact that Cuddy's office door says she's the Dean of Medicine and she's obviously in the middle of a meeting meant nothing to him. Eugene goes on and on about his poop while the big money donors look all scandalized. That's what you get for not taking your burst appendix over to St. Sebastian's.
House is not off to Scott's room to convince him to stay, as he's cleverly figured out that he has to leave the interaction and personal stuff to someone much better equipped to handle it -- Wilson. House seems to think he'll be able to get Scott's brain hemispheres talking again.
After the break, Scott is in the MRI of DOOOM!! getting his pancreas scanned while Wilson tries to play brain psychiatrist. He asks Scott what he thinks his right brain wants. Scott has no idea, saying it does things Scott would never do. Wilson guesses that the right brain is frustrated because it can't communicate with Scott and Scott won't communicate with it. He suggests that Scott announce that he's going to the grocery store so that his right brain won't be all surprised by the trip and get revenge by putting gross food in Scott's cart. At this point, Scott starts to suspect that Wilson isn't a therapist and House grabs the mic to tell Scott that his right brain seems to like what Wilson is saying, since it's stayed still this entire time. It's all a waste in the end, though, as Taub reports that Scott's pancreas is tumor-free.
In the meeting room, House doesn't want to let go of the pancreatic cancer diagnosis, saying that the tumor might be there, but too small right now to see. Then he gets a phone call and actually answers it, only to hear Eugene's voice saying he just squawked again and is calling House's phone to let him know, as per Cuddy's instructions. "I'm about to lose you because I'm about to drive through a tunnel in a canyon on an airplane while hanging up the phone," House says. Hee. I hope Cuddy's not sitting in her office thinking she got one over on House, though. Old man poop delivery > phone call. Taub suggests they look at lymphoma, but House wants to focus on pancreatic cancer although he can't put his finger on why. Taub jokes that he's having right brain/left brain issues, and only Foreman thinks this is funny. With that, House suggests that they open Scott up and expose his pancreas and give it a coat of some new experimental paint made out of scorpion toxins and infrared. It'll cause the cancer cells to light up and make them much easier to see, but it's ridiculous since the pancreas is fragile and shouldn't be messed with, let alone bathed in freaking scorpion toxins. Come on! Foreman and Hadley point out that this is ridiculously dangerous, especially for someone in Scott's condition, while Taub chooses to look on the bright side. If the pancreas manipulation causes a clot to be thrown into the narrowed blood vessels of Scott's brain, the resulting brain damage might conveniently kill off one hemisphere and leave Scott with one mind again. Way to find a silver lining in the cloud of brain damage, Taub.
And so, they paint. While Foreman and Chase wait for the cancer cells to light up like a grim reaper Christmas tree, Foreman talks to Chase about Cameron, sincerely saying he's sorry that it didn't work out. Or did it? Because Cameron is standing just outside the OR looking like she has something to say. Chase abandons his patient and goes to her. "I don't wanna be homeless!" she says. This makes no sense to Chase, so she clarifies that she wants to marry him and she's ready to destroy the sperm to do it. Chase is thrilled, but he can't hug Cameron since then he'll have to re-scrub to go back to the OR. Just when he's about to do it anyway, Foreman yells that Scott's BP is dropping. And there are no glowing cancer cells to be found.
Wilson finds House on the lobby balcony railing. He asks him if he really wants Cuddy, or is just immersing himself in the challenge to take his mind off of other things. House accuses Wilson of not wanting him and Cuddy to be together because it'll mean less time for them, as if alone time with House is some kind of prize. Wilson says he's happy for House and Cuddy if their relationship is genuine, and says that if House is really serious about Cuddy then he needs to treat this seriously as well, or else one or both of them will get hurt. And then we see why House is even hanging out at the lobby balcony -- to get a front-row seat when Cuddy kicks the pirate stripper he ordered out of the Clinic. She walks him past a couple of PPTH security guards, who let a man dressed in a breakaway pirate costume into PPTH in the first place. They suck. House asks Wilson if Cuddy looks angry. Wilson tells him to stand back before Cuddy sees him. "Oh no," House suddenly says. I'd just like to know why Wilson keeps switching out his ties, but I'm sure that won't be important later.
House runs from one balcony to the other, appearing in the OR balcony to tell Chase and Foreman, who are busily trying to save Scott's life, that the clots aren't cancer at all -- they're coming from Scott's heart. The scans showed that his heart was fine, but that's only because they weren't looking at the right time -- it's an intermittent arrhythmia, and can only be seen when it's happening, which House is guessing, based on Scott's vital signs, is right now. He tells them to do some kind of echo to confirm it. Fortunately, they have the necessary equipment ready to go in the OR and are able to see it before Scott dies. House says they have to fix the heart, then find out what damaged it in the first place.
House returns to the lobby balcony and raps on the railing with his cane to get the attention of everyone below. "I have an announcement. As you go about your day, I'd like you to be aware of the fact that I slept with Lisa Cuddy!" And thank you, THANK YOU to whoever's idea it was to then cut to a prolonged reaction shot from all the extras below, because that was freaking awesome. Even though Evil Nurse Brenda is no longer on the show to have the best one. Actually, she would have thrown an egg at House before he had the chance to start talking, so I guess it's for the best. Anyway, we get some eyebrow raises, some dubious looks, and then one nurse who's all like: 8-O. Could that be the Bobbin Bergstrom I keep seeing in the credits but have no idea who she is on the show? I also love the receptionist with the blank stare, who put a no-doubt important call on hold to hear this. With that, Cuddy comes running out of the Clinic to find the entire lobby staring at her. One nurse whispers in her ear. Behind her, two employees run off like "shit's about to go down right here! I am outtie 5000. Peace!" The look on Cuddy's face when she gets the news is kind of scary, but House just walks away calmly, satisfied that he got the reaction he wanted. And then it goes to a commercial so we can all realize why people work at PPTH, a place with no standards and no security, where doctors are shot and/or taken hostage on a regular basis and important clinical trials for revolutionary drugs are ruined. It's because of moments like this and the awesome dinner table discussion they provide for months to come.
House is on his way to his office when Cuddy comes screaming down the hallway, just to make even more of a spectacle of herself today. Why not? She really doesn't have any dignity left to lose at this point. "THIS IS BEYOND ASSHOOD!" she says, catching up to him. Oh, but she's really upset. She's crying. "I can permit a lot of crap, but an employee shouting about his sexual exploits with me? NO! That is zero tolerance. So congratulations, House. I am angry!" House's response? "I was wondering if we should move in together." He is terrible at this. Cuddy laughs, but not really. There's no joy in that laugh. House smiles, thinking his plan worked even though he made Cuddy cry. "You're fired," she finally says. That wipes the smile off his face pretty quick.
And there's Eugene, watching from the door of House's office. "I think she likes you," he says. House just says if he's fired, then he certainly doesn't have to do any more Clinic duty. Eugene follows House to the elevator, and House says he has acid reflux -- the acid hits the vocal cords, causing them to tense up and Eugene to make a squawking sound. He knew that from the beginning, but still used Eugene to get to Cuddy. And yet, Eugene thinks House is a great doctor. He writes Eugene a prescription (I guess he's allowed to write prescriptions even if he's fired, right? He's still a doctor), then notices Eugene moving his belt around. Eugene says if his belt buckle is in the same place for too long, he gets sore. House feels around Eugene's large belly, then tells him that he has a tumor. Eugene apparently has pancreatic cancer, which House's right brain figured out before the rest of him did when he kept thinking that Scott had pancreatic cancer. His left brain got it a little mixed up. Meanwhile, Eugene just got some really bad news. Pancreatic cancer caused acid reflux. The reflux caused the squawking. "So it's not good. Even for cancer, it's not good," Eugene says. "No, it's not," House says. And when your doctor says it's not good, it's really freaking not good. At this point, Taub comes running up to inform House that they found some chemical in Scott's deodorant that caused one kid in Singapore to develop a heart condition and seizures. Scott may have never needed his brain cut in half after all. Whoops! Eugene is still standing there, reeling. House tells Taub to give him a pancreatic scan, "and stay with him," he adds kindly, forgetting in his concern for Eugene that the man is impossible to get rid of.
Cuddy is crying in her office. House walks in, still looking spooked from when he realized that his right brain knew about the cancer. Cuddy steels herself for insults, but only gets this: "do you have more than one lipstick in the same shade? Maybe one that has a sealing agent and one that doesn't?" I guess that's better than asking her to move in, but Cuddy is very confused. House gives up on that mystery and asks Cuddy if she isn't overreacting to "the other night." Cuddy says she probably is, since it's not like House hasn't said mean things to her before. Like the time he said she'd be a terrible mother. That was way harsh. She continues that she's happy she reached her last straw because she now knows that they never had a personal relationship and never could.
Now it's House's turn to be confused. Of all the things he and Cuddy did the other night, whatever he said to her was the last thing he'd expect her to hold on to. "You insulted me, I walked out," she says. Oh really? We go back to the last episode, when House went to Cuddy's office to beg for her help but first said "go suckle the little bastard child who makes you feel good about yourself." And then Cuddy said "screw you" and walked away. In the present time, House turns around and looks at the doors to Cuddy's office. Cuddy starts thinking there's something wrong with this picture. In the flashback, Cuddy opens the door and walks out. "No, no, that -- that's not what happened," House says. Could the camera perhaps back off his face a little bit? I know we're trying to do something creative here, but come on. "I told you that I needed you -- you helped me," House says. Here's where the chills start to run up and down my spine and I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. How does this show still manage to do that? "Are you okay?" Cuddy asks. House reaches into his pocket to pull out the lipstick tube. But it's not lipstick. It's a pill bottle. Horrified, House drops it on the floor and staggers back. Cuddy forgets her anger and runs to him.
Back in the flashback, House is hovering over his toilet. Cuddy's sitting on the floor with him. Then we see what really happened -- she disappears, and House sitting to the toilet with the lid down, twirling a pill bottle in his hand. He takes a pill and throws the bottle on the floor. After that, he probably goes to chase after it while hallucinating that Cuddy stopped him. Creepy! Cuddy and House make out all over the living room. A wasted-looking House staggers around by himself. In the present, Cuddy is stroking House's chin. Back in the flashback, House limps to his bedroom by himself to have sex with a hallucination. The morning, he looks at his face in the mirror. The lipstick isn't smeared on his cheek. He looks down at the sink and smiles. But it's not a tube of lipstick. It's the pill bottle. House opens the tube of lipstick. House opens the bottle of pills. And takes them over and over and over again. And then there's CTB!!!! Yes! They managed to surprise me with her not once, but twice! She gets nice and close to House's ear and whispers "so ... this is the story you made up about who you are. It's a nice one." Yes, it was. Except for the part where he got himself fired. That was kind of upsetting. And then standing in front of House? "Too bad it isn't true," Kumar says. Kumar! I'm glad the last we saw of him wasn't half of his body lying in a pool of blood. CTB backs off so that Cuddy's hand can return to House's face. "No. I'm not okay," he whispers. Well, there you go. It turns out that all the problems I had with last week's episode weren't problems at all. House's rapid detox, Cuddy leaving her baby behind to some instant overnight baby-sitter, Wilson disappearing -- all the plotholes and weirdness was intentional. I doubted the writers, and I shouldn't have. This little twist was pretty cool and, like most of this show's season finales, I never saw it coming. Too bad we had to lose the House/Cuddy sex to get it, especially after seeing how much House might actually care about her.
A distraught-looking Cuddy enters Wilson's office. Wilson, who may or may not have been real during this episode. Most likely, he was real in some scenes and not in others. Check his tie. House walks in after her, looking totally lost and scared, and now Wilson is very concerned.
Let's get some Rolling Stones! "As Tears Go By" plays as some random child throws flower petals on the aisle. Everyone's there to see Cameron and Chase enter a life together of crappy communication and general insanity. Even Mrs. Taub showed up! Cameron walks up the aisle by herself. No dad to walk her down the aisle? Did they blow the entire guest star budget on Mrs. Taub or something? There are lots of smiles as she walks towards her soon-to-be husband.
There's no smiling in Wilson's car, which has driven so far away from the wedding scene that it's raining outside. Wilson drives House up a long driveway towards a very scary building.
Cuddy shows up late for the wedding with Rachel. She smiles at people and sits down. When no one is looking at her, she sighs and looks very sad.
Wilson and House get out of the car.
Chase puts a ring on Cameron's finger.
House gives Wilson his wallet. I hope it has enough money in it to pay Wilson back for all those lunches he bought House.
Cameron puts a ring on Chase's finger.
House gives Wilson his watch. Possibly the one that Kumar gave him.
Cameron and Chase say I do.
House gets his suitcase and his cane and looks at Wilson before stepping around him and towards the building, which Wilson parked inconsiderately far away from.
Chase may now kiss the bride. Will I have to start calling her Chase 2 now?
House walks towards the building in dramatic slow-motion.
The newlyweds get a standing ovation and walk down the aisle, hand-in-hand. The crowd applauds except for Cuddy, who is clearly having a hard time keeping it together.
And House climbs up the stairs to the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, which looks like a sanitarium out of the late 1800s. Seriously, is there a less foreboding and creepy building they could have used instead? I wouldn't leave my crazy worst enemy at this place, let alone my crazy best friend. A woman and two men in white coats help House inside. He takes one look back at Wilson and the door closes. And that's the end of the season! As usual, another happy ride ending on a truly hopeful and positive note. And also as usual, I have no idea where the show will go and am looking forward to finding out in the fall.
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.