Weird Science

S06E15

A high school senior named Abby comes down with a pulmonary edema right in the middle of a boring planetarium lecture and is admitted to PPTH, where the Cottages find something wrong with her heart valve, necessitating emergency open-heart surgery. They suspect that she's allergic to her boyfriend's sperm, which is surprising news to Abby's mother and her boyfriend's dad, who is just as concerned about her welfare as his son is. SUSPICIOUSly so, in fact. Abby isn't allergic to the sperm, and when she begins to hallucinate and have near-fatal seizures, House is out of options, so he decides to do this experimental brain thing where her thoughts can sort of be seen on a monitor. Everyone finds this super cool except Foreman, who pronounces Abby's memories of her dead father to be boring. In the end, it does help them reach the diagnosis, as House's conversations with Taub remind him that people cheat on each other, and while Abby herself was never in a position to be exposed to their best diagnosis -- a parasite found in the Middle East -- her boyfriend's father was, and spread it to her via sex, which he hastens to point out he only had with her because he was drunk and his son and Abby were broken up at the time. So that makes it all okay, then. The parasite died, but left behind enough of a shell to give Abby a massive allergic reaction that caused all of her symptoms. As for her memory of her dead father, it was actually a memory of her boyfriend's dad, who may not be living for much longer after Abby's boyfriend (now fiancé -- so forgiving!) and/or Abby's mother are through with him. Also, House is able to get out of buying furniture for the apartment Wilson paid for by convincing Wilson that he needs to work out his issues with furnishing a home by buying it all himself.

You know this week's House is going to be on the boring side when we begin in a planetarium show, where a teacher lectures to his class of high school seniors. At least two of them aren't paying attention, instead talking to each other about how the girl, Abby, is going off to Stanford for college and will be 3,000 miles away from the boy, her boyfriend Nick. Nick promises he'll visit every weekend using his dad's plentiful frequent flier miles (SUSPICIOUS) as someone passes him a thermos full of vodka. He drinks and passes it Abby, who can't take a sip without coughing and making enough noise to get the attention of their teacher. Abby plays it off well, saying she knows they're not allowed to have food or drinks in the planetarium but she brought in a thermos of water because of her nagging cough. Nick is impressed with her lying ability (SUSPICIOUS), and says so loudly enough to again get their teacher's attention, who asks him a question to see if he's been paying attention to the lecture thus far. Nick's answer shows us why Abby was accepted to Stanford and he was not. And that's when foamy pink stuff starts pouring out of Abby's mouth.

And because someone is really into space this week, the planetarium show transitions into the opening credits. And yet, the credits themselves remain unchanged, so we still get to see Jennifer Morrison's name and image even though she hasn't been on the show in years.

House pours some milk into his cereal, which is part of a complete breakfast, including toast and jelly and what appear to be orange peels, all of which are sitting, plate-less, on the couch. Wilson objects to this, although I don't know why since the couch is so ugly that jelly smears and toast crumbs can only make it look better, and House says this is part of his protest against Wilson not owning a table yet. Wilson asks House to buy a table, seeing as Wilson has already spent plenty of money on the apartment itself. House thinks for a second and comes up with a way to get out of paying for new furniture: by turning the simple act of buying furniture into a life lesson for Wilson, who House maintains has never furnished his own home before. Rather, he depended on his ex-wives or dead girlfriends to do the decorating. Wilson sees through House's plan to get out of spending money and time on furniture, but not enough to threaten to kick House out if he doesn't do it. "Buy some furniture or admit you're empty inside," House says.

By the time House arrives at PPTH, the Cottages are already going over Abby's file, which says that pink foamy stuff was from a pulmonary edema, thus indicating a problem with either her heart or lungs. I note that the cameraman makes sure to move the camera from a birds-eye view of the Cottages down to eye-level as House walks in, probably so we won't see the top of his head and most likely some kind of hair restoration system going on up there. House immediately guesses that Cuddy assigned this case to them and that the patient is therefore a smart young lady. Hadley smugly tries to guess what context clues lead House to make this assumption, which ends with House calling her an idiot and saying he saw the picture of Abby on the ground and figured that she looked about 17 and smart. Can people really "look" smart? Denise Richards certainly couldn't when she played nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough.

House then focuses his deductive reasoning skills on the absent Taub, who is running late due to a flat tire (apparently Taub is incapable of replacing it with a spare and had to call a tow truck instead) but who House believes is really having a fight with his wife. Foreman tries to change the subject back to Abby, saying the 0.05 alcohol level in her blood might indicate that she's a heavy drinker and perhaps that set off a hypertensive crisis that caused her heart to fail. Chase doesn't think the one or two drinks Abby had constitutes a "binge," which he should know what with his alcoholic dead mother and all. House points out that Abby was drinking before 10 am, which is a good sign that someone has an alcohol problem (or is a high school kid on a field trip), and Chase is sent off to do an MRI (OF DOOOM!!) on Abby's heart to confirm Foreman's theory.

Meanwhile, Taub is, in fact, having an argument with Mrs. Taub, who complains that they never do things together anymore. Taub denies this, but, when presented with the evidence, has to admit that Mrs. Taub has a point. So he agrees to attend some couples yoga class with her. But now that he's made it clear that he's only doing it to keep his wife off his back and doesn't actually want to go, she doesn't want him to go, either. Instead, she just shuts down and tells Taub to go to work and says she's fine when she clearly isn't. Taub gives up and leaves for PPTH. He ends up in the same elevator as Nick and his father, who apparently had nothing better to do today. Nick starts asking random people about his girlfriend without even knowing if they're medical professionals or just fellow visitors. Fortunately for Nick, one of the people he asks is Taub, who checks Abby's chart and answers all of Nick's questions about her condition and location, reading off that they think her drinking damaged her heart. So they don't actually know if the drinking damaged Abby's heart or if Abby's heart is even damaged in the first place, but Taub feels perfectly comfortable telling everyone who asks about it, even when those people aren't family members who are allowed access to that confidential information? Did the fight with his wife make him forget about HIPAA? Now Nick is busted in front of his dad, who asks Nick to explain just how he knows that Abby isn't much of a drinker. Taub tries to get away from Nick, who asks him to tell Abby that he loves her and brought her homework to the hospital, because who doesn't want to work on Pre-Calc problems after almost dying on a school field trip?

Abby slides into the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) as Taub strolls into the booth and apologizes to Chase for being late. He then gets on the PA to pass Nick's message along to Abby, which was nice of him. Maybe now she won't sue him for violating her patient confidentiality rights. Taub tells Chase about his fight with Mrs. Taub and begins to ask Chase for advice, only for Chase to interrupt him and remind him that Chase is probably not the best person to seek marriage advice from, what with his ten-minute-long marriage and all. Chase then notices a spot on Abby's mitral valve. Mitral valves are getting a lot of play on House lately! It must be Mitral Valve Appreciation Month. For no good reason, we zoom in on the mitral valve spot on the monitor, which transitions into an image of some wormhole-looking space thing before we zoom back out into the heart image on the wall of the lightbox room, where House and the rest of the Cottages examine the film. Hadley guesses the spot is a fungus, but Foreman nixes that, saying the blood cultures showed no evidence of parasites or fungus. Oh, you mean those blood cultures that they never, ever do on this show because it takes too long to get results back from them? House finds a way to turn the conversation to Taub and his wife. Taub insists that he was late because of a flat tire, but House can tell from the expression on Chase's face that Taub is lying. As usual, Foreman turns the discussion back to the patient, and Hadley says they should do an echocardiogram to get more information on the mitral valve spot. Taub balks at this, since it could trigger a heart attack, but House can't think of anything better to do and orders it.

Hadley and Taub are doing the echo, which means it's Hadley's turn to talk to Taub about his marital difficulties. She doesn't understand why Taub would lie to House about fighting with his wife, thinking he can just tell House it's none of his business and that will be that. Right, because that's ever worked, Hadley. Come on. Once you get on House's snooping radar, he doesn't quit until he finds out everything he wants to know, gets bored with you, and moves onto someone else. "If only I could be as open about my emotional life as you are," Taub retorts. Hadley must know she's being annoying, as she then tries to make it up to Taub by giving him some unsolicited advice. She informs him that Mrs. Taub isn't angry with him because of the couples yoga class, but because she's worried that the reason why Taub isn't spending much time with her is because he's busy with someone else. Taub thinks his wife would ask him if she suspected he was cheating. "Because you would tell the truth?" Hadley says dubiously. Well, he would, actually. Eventually. Taub doesn't understand why this is has to be a problem since he isn't actually seeing anyone else. Duh, Taub. Hadley has to inform him that Mrs. Taub is allowed to be suspicious since her husband had an affair in the past. And then Hadley sticks a scope down Abby's throat and her aorta ruptures. Apparently this hurts quite a bit, as Abby begins to scream in pain. Taub and Hadley run Abby's stretcher to the OR and hope they can get her there before she dies. Unfortunately for England's King George II, this medical technology was not available to him when he suffered an aortic dissection from trying too hard to poop, which I learned while looking up aortic dissections on Wikipedia. And yet, that still isn't the most embarrassing or painful way an English monarch met his end, if the rumors about King Edward II are true.

Hadley and Taub are now cardiac surgeons, and they manage to cut Abby open, repair the tear, and get her heart started again. For some reason, Taub seems especially emotionally invested in Abby's survival. It's not like he'd get in trouble if she died. After all, he was the one who told them the echo was too dangerous to do on Abby, so if she dies now, he gets to say I told you so. Total win! At least Abby's open-heart surgery allowed them to get a good, long look at her mitral valve, where they found nothing wrong. Ha! Way to fool everyone, MRI (OF DOOOM!!). Foreman says the aortic dissection rules out their binge drinking hypertension theory, which House hastens to point out was Foreman's theory and no one else's. Foreman says that at least he had theories, unlike House. House shrugs and says he was too busy "judging Taub" to think of any. Good thing PPTH pays him to judge Taub and not to be a doctor. Taub says the dissection must have been because of a genetic abnormality, but Abby doesn't have any conditions that would cause one. Hadley speaks up to suggest that Abby could have had a massively severe allergic reaction that caused all of her symptoms, including the dissection. Chase says that's not possible since Abby has only gotten worse since arriving at PPTH, which is free from allergens. Hadley says Abby could have brought the allergen in with her if it's still inside her body.

By which, of course, Hadley means inside Abby's lady bits, and she then asks Nick to provide them with a sperm sample so they can test if Abby is allergic to it. "To my son's sperm?" asks Nick's dad, who is always around. Taub know-it-alls that it's actually Nick's semen that Abby might be allergic to, not the sperm. Nick says he uses a condom when he has sex with Abby. "You always use a condom? For ... everything?" Taub asks. Nick looks at his dad, who doesn't seem to know if he should be proud of his son for getting laid or lecturing him, then admits that no, he doesn't use a condom for "everything." And one of those "everythings" happened the night before Abby got sick.

And so, Chase uses the sample Nick so generously provided to test Abby for allergic sensitivity by dropping some of it on her arm and poking the area with a needle. Because if she's so allergic to Nick's semen that it's nearly killed her, than it's definitely a good idea to expose her to more. Abby's mom, meanwhile, stands over her daughter and sighs, as she's apparently just found out that her baby is sexually active. Abby tries to make her feel better by saying she and Nick have been together for three years. "I'm just confused," Mom sighs. Foreman attempts to explain things for her by saying that if Abby is allergic to the proteins in Nick's semen, then what should have been a mild reaction could have turned into all of this, triggered by "repeat exposure." Oddly enough, that doesn't seem to clear things up for Mom, who just turns to Abby with a sad "repeat exposure?" Before she can ground Abby, though, Abby complains of stomach pain which quickly becomes excruciating. Chase notes a catheter bag full of bloody pee.

Back in the meeting room, Foreman sums things up: Abby is not allergic to Nick's semen, but her kidneys are now failing. Taub and Hadley come up with quickly-dismissed diagnoses (Hadley's guess of a blood clot in someone who is currently on anticoagulant drugs was especially stupid. She's not even trying anymore) and then Chase suggests cancer, but can't be more specific about where it is. That usually doesn't matter to House, who hears "cancer" and signs his patients up for chemotherapy immediately except for that one time last week when his patient was too far gone for chemotherapy and then ended up not having cancer anyway. Perhaps having learned something from that, he demands that the Cottages find the cancer before they decide to treat her for it. Foreman says they could do a full body scan. "We hate full body scans," House says. No, the insurance companies hate full body scans. Why would House have such strong feelings about them? It seems to me like they could only help. Unless, of course, the machine doing the scanning is the same one that found a spot on Abby's mitral valve that ended up being nothing. Foreman points out that as bad as House thinks full body scans are, Abby dying would be a tad bit worse.

Abby returns to the MRI (OF DOOOM!!), which can't possibly end well for her. She somehow managed to emerge from it unscathed once, but that will not happen twice. In the booth, Taub talks to Foreman about his marital problems, specifically asking how he can prove to his wife that he isn't cheating. I don't think anyone in the entire world (or, in keeping with this week's theme, the universe) cares less about this than Foreman, whose suggestions that Taub not cheat or take Mrs. Taub with him everywhere he goes all the time so she can see for herself that he isn't cheating aren't very practical. Foreman then says that Taub should be happy that his wife is worried about whether or not he's faithful because it means she "still cares." Yeah, that's one way to look at it. The other is Taub's, who says he just wants Mrs. Taub to be happy. Foreman rolls his eyes and decides that Taub only wants Mrs. Taub to be happy if it makes Taub happy, too. Well, Taub, that's what you get for going to Foreman for relationship advice. Why not try Multiple Marriages Wilson , or Forced To Settle Cuddy?

House returns home to find the entire apartment furnished. Not just furniture, but art pieces, vases, and like 10,000 lights, all of which are on. Their electricity bill is going to be nasty this month. Also, despite the fact that every square inch of the apartment is covered in either light fixtures or sofas, it's not even very bright in there. Way to put 20 Watt bulbs in all of the lamps in an obvious attempt to set the mood, Wilson. Wilson emerges from his bedroom and asks House what he thinks of Wilson's clear ability to purchase furniture. House does not seem happy to be wrong. Maybe it's because he knows how difficult it's going to be for him to maneuver around all of those couches and lamps with his bad leg. By the way, speaking of Wilson's bedroom, doesn't he have furniture in there? I know we've seen his bed, so obviously Wilson has been able to purchase furniture in the past. Or maybe he took CTB's bed with him, but left the rest of her stuff behind? Whatever.

Ah, but you didn't really think Abby escaped the clutches of the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) again, did you? For when we return to PPTH, she's still in there and complaining that it's taking so long. On the PA, Foreman tells her to keep still. Suddenly, the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) shakes. Foreman returns to the PA to apologize for the disturbance, explaining that there's an earthquake. Well, obviously something's not right in Abby's head now, although I prefer to think that it's the ground opening beneath the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) to suck it back down to hell. As Abby watches, a cart and an IV pole roll around of their own accord before smashing into the wall, which then tears away as it, the cart, and the IV pole are all sucked into this cloud swirly space thing I totally saw in an episode of Star Trek: The Generation once. Or, at least, I would have if I watched that show. But I didn't, because I was cool. Abby watches in horror as other items in the room are sucked into the black hole, trying to brace herself against the walls of the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) as if that's going to do anything to save her. Hell, it probably summoned the black hole to PPTH in the first place. Abby tries to resist the black hole, but soon it becomes too much and she is sucked into it. The MRI (OF DOOOM!!), on the other hand, stays put.

Back in reality, Taub and Foreman slide Abby out of the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) tube and find her looking very out of it. "She's hallucinating," Foreman says. "I certainly hope so," Taub replies. Absolutely. Hallucinating > being sucked into a black hole. I wrote a paper for a college physics class once on what would happen if you were sucked into a black hole. No one knows for sure, but there are a bunch of theories based on theories based on theories. But all of those theories were proposed by really smart people, so you can take them to the bank. I think my conclusion was that you eventually wind up as part of the infinitely dense and infinitely small singularity of the black hole. Of course, that's after you've been stretched apart at such force that it breaks your body down at a molecular level. But if someone were to watch you fall into the black hole from a safe distance outside of the hole, he would only see an image of you right before you crossed the event horizon (point of no return) because time slows down as the gravitational pull of the black hole increases and the speed of light itself slows down to nothing. Something like that. Um, it's actually really cool if you're a nerd. Probably not very cool if you actually are sucked into a black hole, though.

The Cottages return to the meeting room for more diagnosing. Hadley says that if Abby is hallucinating, then the problem must be in her brain. Chase begs to differ, saying that a brain problem can't split an aorta. Clearly, Chase doesn't believe in the awesome power of the mind. Foreman suggests it's something vascular (perhaps vasculitis?), but House stops paying attention to him in favor of Taub, who is texting his wife. "Whatcha doing?" he writes. That is grounds for divorce right there. I'd rather have my husband cheat on me than write like a teenage girl.

Suddenly, we're in a grocery store, where Mrs. Taub is checking out a sale on Windex. She texts back "groceries" to her husband, who immediately texts back "what r u wearing?" So clearly, this is not Taub anymore. "U don't want to know" Mrs. Taub texts back, like, if you have the time, energy, and desire for the apostrophe in "don't," then can't you spell out "you" as well? Come on. "Take off your shirt," says the text. "R u nuts" says Mrs. Taub, who apparently has no time for question marks. Also, does she really need to buy a bottle of every single thing in the cleaning aisle? Their home didn't look that dirty. "Touch yourself," is the response, at which point it finally occurs to Mrs. Taub that someone got control of her husband's phone.

Sure enough, back in the meeting room, House holds Taub's phone up high where Taub can't reach it while he texts Taub's wife, promising him that this will only help his marriage. Foreman grabs the phone away from House and ruins his fun while at the same time forcing him to actually do his job as he says that a vascular-problem-caused brain aneurysm explains the hallucinations. Taub frantically texts his wife to tell her not to touch herself in the middle of the cleaning supplies aisle. House tells him that he can't force his wife to trust him, then asks the Cottages what Abby's hallucinations were of. Hadley doesn't understand how that can possibly help them, but House maintains that the brain knows what's wrong with our bodies before we do. For instance, he says, if you get an ulcer, you don't know it, but your brain does, and "increases mucin secretions" accordingly. Foreman says House is making quite a leap here, but Chase defends House's theory, pointing out that when you have to pee while asleep, you tend to dream about various forms of running water. Is that true? I don't think it's ever happened to me. I wish it would though, because I am really sick of that dream where I go out in public in my pajamas because I somehow forgot to put clothes on and then everyone in the mall stares at me because I am wearing boxer shorts, no shoes, and a giant T-shirt with no bra. Taub decides to entertain House's theory enough to tell him that Abby was hallucinating about being sucked into a black hole. "We should look for a tumor in her anus," he concludes awesomely. House ignores him and says they should hook Abby up to PPTH's Cognitive Pattern Recognition Program to get a peek at her subconscious. Foreman would rather check Abby's brain for aneurysms through the use of proven medical technology because he has no imagination. House tells him to do that, and when it comes up negative, they'll give the mind-reading machine that PPTH just happens to have in the basement a try.

Wilson arrives home from a jog to find an apartment with no furniture. Well, except for the flat-screen TV and a desk and chair in the kitchen area, which I guess House liked enough to spare from his furniture-removal spree. Oddly enough, even though there are 9,998 fewer lights in the room now, it's better lit.

Wilson finds House in the PPTH cafeteria, a magical place people put their food on tables when they eat, unlike House and Wilson's apartment. Wilson sits down and stares at House, who pretends to be clueless until Wilson demands to know what he did to the new furniture. House says he called the place Wilson rented the furniture from and told them to come pick it back up. And Wilson didn't even go to a nice furniture rental place, but "Economy Furniture Supply." Really, Wilson? Renting furniture? Really? You couldn't at least pop on down to the nearest IKEA and buy one of their living room sets? They make it so freaking easy! Wilson says he'll hire a decorator, then. House says he's just letting another woman tell him who he is. "I'll hire a male decorator," Wilson says, not getting it. Although, really, I think House is one who doesn't get it. He lives in Wilson's apartment for free. He wants a place to put his toast and Wilson rented one for him. Why complain? He dares Wilson to buy one thing from a furniture store. Preferably off-camera, because I don't care to watch other people buy furniture. No one does. That's why they got rid of the shopping segments on Wheel of Fortune in the '80s.

Abby wakes up to find Nick at her bedside. Her mom is in the cafeteria getting breakfast, and left her daughter alone with her boyfriend even though she now knows that they're having sex. I don't care that Abby is having trouble breathing and hurts all over and her room has windows instead of walls -- kids will still find a way to have sex! As Taub and Foreman watch from the hallway, Nick bends over and kisses Abby, then stands back up and starts talking. But she's having trouble hearing him because he's doing that thing in the movie Contact (which was probably intentional, since Abby loves science. Although that shouldn't necessarily mean she likes Contact. No one should like that movie. It is the worst) where she sees two versions of his face. And then there's just a little girl standing at the edge of her bed being all creepy and talking to her about secrets. In reality, Nick gets down on bended knee and proposes to her, which is sweet but probably not the greatest timing. The little girl tells Abby to tell Nick her secret, and Abby finally says "something's wrong" as Foreman and Taub, sensing danger, enter the room. "Your secret is killing you," the little girl says, and then gets all annoying and starts shaking Abby. "You deserve to die," she says, because it's not bad enough that she has to get all up in Abby's mind and interrupt her precious moment with her proposing boyfriend; now she has to be mean, too. In reality, Abby is still shaking, but as a result of a seizure and not because of some nasty little girl.

After the break, Foreman exposits that the scan found no aneurysms. House just wants to know what Abby saw when she was having her out-of-body experience/seizure. Taub says a younger version of herself hung out by her bedside for a while, but Abby claims she doesn't remember what they talked about. Foreman knows where this is going, and tells House that his little Cognitive Pattern Recognition obsession is about 50 years away from being a useful diagnostic tool. Chase adds that it will take hours to do the initial reading, and Abby could be dead of a seizure-induced stroke any minute. But House doesn't care because he thinks this is all very cool and wants to try it, patient welfare be damned! He sends Foreman out to convince Abby's mother to consent to the ridiculousness.

In the hallway, Taub spots Mrs. Taub de-elevatoring and leaves his co-workers to do work while he spends time with her.

Foreman explains the Cognitive Pattern Ridiculousness to Abby, her mom, her boyfriend/fiancé, and his dad, who, again, has nothing better to do. For the six hours, they'll show Abby a bunch of images and the computer will map out how Abby's brain processes them. Then they'll sedate her and monitor her unconscious thoughts and hope the Cognitive Pattern Ridiculousness can show them a "very basic video" of what's going on inside Abby's brain. All this so that they can "hopefully" get an idea of where Abby's brain thinks her problem is. So they're hoping her brain will spit out a video of a pancreas? This is obviously only being done because one of the writers read an article about this technology and its potential and decided it just had to be squeezed into an episode of House, no matter how unnecessarily. When Foreman says this is pretty much their last hope, diagnosis-wise, Abby's mom signs the form.

Meanwhile, Taub is making out with Mrs. Taub in his car. Because having sex with your wife during a work day in the work parking garage won't get you fired or anything like that. Mrs. Taub soon ruins the mood by asking Taub if he's done this kind of thing before -- as in, with another woman. Like the woman he cheated on her with. How is it that she is only now having trust issues with her husband? Wouldn't this scene have been more appropriate like last year? Taub assures her that this is the first time he's ever done this and he loves her and wants her to trust him. Before they can start making out again, House's cane knocks on the Taub's window. Well, it wasn't like the PPTH security guards were patrolling the parking lot or anything like that, since they are the worst security guards ever. House tells Taub to stop making out and start working.

Abby sits in a chair with things hooked up to her brain and watches a bunch of images on a TV screen. She's been doing that for six hours? How boring. They could have at least shown her a marathon of Criminal Minds or something. Taub notices that she's wearing a new ring, so apparently she accepted Nick's proposal after she was done having that seizure. Because Nick is a poor high school senior, it is not a diamond. Nor did he go for cubic zirconia (when you can't afford to show how much you care). No, this ring appears to have a very small red pebble for its stone. But at least Abby can know that it isn't a blood diamond. The images turn off and Chase asks Abby to think of a single image. A scrambled image appears on the monitor in the booth. The image gets slightly more focused, revealing what appears to be the form of someone swinging a baseball bat. Hadley asks Abby what she's thinking about, and Abby says she is, indeed, thinking of Nick playing baseball. The Cottages erupt with "holy crap!" and "that's amazing," very much impressed except for Foreman, who says he still doubts Abby's subconscious will be this rational or give them any clues whatsoever. The Cottages all turn and stare at Foreman, and Chase finally asks him if anything gets him excited. Hadley turns away at this, because she probably knows the answer.

And then, we're in a furniture store with Wilson, because who wants to watch cool mind-reading technology on a medical mystery show when we can watch an awkward guy try to buy a freaking table? He asks a saleswoman for more information about a particular table, and she says "it's made of wood and you eat off it." Well, she needs a new job. She works in a freaking furniture store and she's acting like she's never been asked a question about a piece of furniture before? "It's furniture. Find something you like, let me know," she says, and takes off. Wow, she is less attentive to her customers' needs than everyone who works at IKEA. I'm not saying they're all inattentive. But the ones working in the office furniture section when some guy stumbled through there in diabetic shock, knocking over desks and cutting his leg open on a particularly sharp corner before collapsing on top of some girl twirling around in an office chair and slumping to the floor, smearing blood all over the place because no one from the store was around to make sure customers weren't dying all over their furniture -- yeah, they could have done better.

Then it's time for a Wilson-trying-out-furniture montage. I don't know why he isn't buying the giant woven circle chair thing. It's my personal favorite. After struggling with a leather couch that is too soft for his liking, Goldilocks Wilson seems to have settled on a dining table that is just right. Unfortunately, as the kinder and more attention saleswoman Gabriella points out, he's in the patio section. Gabriella seems to find Wilson's love of patio furniture as indoor furniture daring and appealing. I think she needs to tell the store's suppliers to stop making outdoor furniture that looks like indoor furniture, because I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference either.

Back in the Cognitive Pattern Ridiculousness chamber, House has arrived to check out what Abby's subconscious has to say. Foreman offers his opinion that it's "boring." House glares at him. "Did anyone ever tell you that you can be a real buzzkill?" he asks. "Yes," say Taub, Chase, and Hadley at the same time. Meanwhile, what's up with that notice on the bulletin board behind House about a CHARITY AUCTION? That looks like it could be fun. Abby's subconscious starts to spew forth some images that Taub guesses are stars. House agrees, and Foreman says that's not so special, since Abby is going to Stanford to study physics so of course she'd be thinking about outer space a lot. The image changes to that of a man walking hand-in-hand with a little girl. Hadley guesses it's Abby's dad, who died when she was eight years old. House asks what he died of, hoping that it's something genetic that Abby now has, too. Even though he should have already ruled that out in a medical history, where he would have learned that Abby's father died in a plane crash. "She likes school and she has daddy issues. Neither of which help us," House sighs. Good thing we spent all that time on that, then!

In the meeting room, House and the Cottages are at a dead end. "What about her liver?" Hadley suggests. "What about her left toe? Oh -- sorry, I thought we were randomly picking out body parts that had nothing to do with her symptoms," Taub responds awesomely. Foreman takes another look at Abby's brain scan and notes that her pineal gland is calcified. Apparently, that's normal for pineal glands post-puberty, but Foreman says if there's a tumor in there, the calcification would prevent them from being able to see it. House sends the Cottages off to do a super-special type of MRI (OF DOOOM?) on the gland to look for a tumor.

Oh look! It's Cuddy! Just because she got that one episode all to herself a few weeks ago, they think they can give her almost no camera time now. It's unacceptable. Even worse, she's only on this week to give Wilson furniture advice. Doesn't she have more important things to do with her work day than tell the head of oncology which table to buy? Awesomely, though, she feigns innocence and asks Wilson why he needs furniture for CTB's apartment, since it came with all of CTB's furniture that she wouldn't be needing anymore since she was dead. Wilson makes a quick "oh shit!" face before Cuddy puts him out of his misery, saying she knows he bought the apartment she wanted. "You're a jerk, let's move on," she says, giving him the name of her decorator. Wilson whines that he's supposed to be finding himself in his furniture purchases. "Backpack through Europe," Cuddy suggests, rolling her eyes. But don't do that if you're a woman on her own! Then it's dangerous. You might find yourself AND that serial killer Interpol has been looking for. Without even looking up, Cuddy laughs at Wilson for being more concerned with what the furniture he buys says about him than he is about what letting House tell him how to buy furniture says about him.

House watches the images from the Cognitive Pattern Ridiculousness machine, but they're still not telling him anything. Foreman walks in and says the MRI (OF DOOOM!!) didn't find a tumor and was apparently too exhausted from sending Abby into that black hole to do anything else to her, so she's still alive. They did find heightened levels of some enzyme that indicates an allergic reaction, but that doesn't help them since they already ruled allergies out. Foreman starts to suggest some parasite found in the Middle East, but House snaps at him, saying that's pretty much impossible since Abby's never been anywhere near the Middle East and all of their scans and tests for parasites have come back negative. House starts to make his Epiphany Face, but it turns out to be false, as he admits to Foreman "I got nothing."

House heads for the light box room for a Thinking Montage. He still comes up with nothing, so when Taub enters the room to ask if he can leave for the day, House asks him if he's having an affair, and then if it bothers Taub that House can ask him that directly but his wife apparently can't, probably because she's afraid of what Taub's answer will be. Taub claims he isn't having an affair. "But you want to," House says, apparently obsessed with being right about something this week. Taub says he doesn't and he's happy living a life of monogamy. House guesses it's because the women Taub would want to cheat on his wife with are now just too young and he's old enough to be their father. Yeah, because older men are always saying how they don't want to be with really young hot women. But this, of course, leads House to a genuine Epiphany Face. "The dad," he mutters. DUH, I knew something was going on with the boyfriend's dad the entire time. They'd never pay a guest star to appear on the show unless he had something to do with the plot. "He's the one in her visions," House says, still trying to justify that stupid Cognitive Pattern Recognition thing.

House conveniently finds Nick's dad by himself outside Abby's room. House asks him if he travels often, specifically to the Middle East. Dad says he does for work. House says he exposed Abby to a parasite, which Abby's immune system was then able to kill off, leaving a tiny microscopic shell that didn't show up on their scans or tests but did set off an allergic reaction, a.k.a. Cerebellar Schistosomiasis Hypersensitivity Allergy. The good news is it's curable. The bad news is that Abby could only get the parasite from Nick's dad by having sex with him. OOPS! Another sexual encounter ends in serious health problems on this show. House says that if Nick's dad doesn't tell him the truth that he slept with Abby, then she will die. Unfortunately for Nick's dad, both Nick and Abby's mom choose this moment to check out what's going on in the hallway. House stands back to enjoy the moment as Nick's dad admits that one time, when Nick and Abby were broken up, Abby came to Nick's dad upset and crying and Nick's dad was drunk, so that makes it all okay. Nick takes off, leaving Abby's mom standing there looking homicidal. As she should. Go ahead and kill him, Abby's mom. PPTH Security won't stop you, because they're terrible.

House arrives home to find an apartment full of furniture again. He immediately knows that Wilson used a decorator and threatens to return the furniture so that Wilson can learn a lesson about retail therapy or something. But then he spots something covered in a sheet by the window. He removes the sheet to find an organ. It's the kind of organ used to play Dracula's theme, which House immediately does. He smiles and says that the decorator didn't pick the organ out, which means that Wilson did, in fact, buy a piece of furniture. And what it says about Wilson is that he is a pushover who lets his friend walk all over him and take advantage of his doormat-ness. House then proceeds to play "A Whiter Shade of Pale," because it's either that or the wedding march. Also, it leads nicely into another montage, as Abby gets brain surgery to remove that microscopic parasite shell that didn't show up on any scans but they still somehow knew where it was. Nick and his dad talk, but it doesn't seem to be going very well, as Nick leaves in a huff. Which makes sense, since I don't know what Nick's dad can really say or do to make any of this better.

Taub flips through his wedding photo album. Judging by the pictures in there, he and Mrs. Taub got married, like, last week. They look exactly the same as they do now! They could have at least given Taub a wig or something. Mrs. Taub sits to him as the music fades. Taub closes the photo album and proposes to her on bended knee, with a ring and everything. "We're already married," Mrs. Taub says, confused. "I want to be better at it," Taub says. Well, just don't kill any genocidal dictator patients and it should be smooth sailing. Back at PPTH, Taub urges Nick to talk to Abby, telling him that just because Abby cheated on him with his dad doesn't mean she doesn't love him. House strolls up and asks Taub if Nick actually believed him. "It's true," Taub says. House then asks Taub if Mrs. Taub said yes to his proposal, which he guessed Taub would do to copy Nick. Taub says she did. "Good for you," House says, actually not a jerk for a change. Nick and Abby kiss and apparently make up. House turns away, his work here finished, only to see Taub chatting up a pretty young blonde PPTH employee, who laughs and places her hand on his arm in a gesture that screams AFFAIR.