House's latest patient is a woman suffering from vomiting, then heart issues and a fever. House's team, now with a special bonus Chase-hired female with a background in psychiatry, have trouble figuring out what ails her because she's living under a fake identity, the result, she says, of a abusive marriage. Chase's hire provides little help, leading House to assume that Chase only gave her the job because he wants to sleep with her, although when the patient's hallucinations and her symptoms disappearing lead Dr. Kelly to diagnose her with bipolar disorder brought on by her mystery illness, House realizes that it's actually the opposite: Margaret/Jenny's mental illness was what caused her symptoms. Yes, Margaret/Jenny somehow managed to hide the fact that she's schizophrenic so well that even her husband didn't know, but her anti-psychotic meds started giving her stomach problems as side effects, and then suddenly being cut off from them when she was admitted to the hospital created all of the other symptoms except the hallucinations, which was her schizophrenia coming back. Dr. Kelly quits after realizing that she's not good enough to be on House's team, but it's all good for Chase, because he gets a date out of it. And House and Cuddy's relationship reaches yet another stumbling block when she finds out that he's still seeing his massage therapist/former hooker and he accuses her of hiding her daughter from him. In the end, he agrees to stop seeing the massage therapist/hooker and she invites him over for dinner with the child.
It is a dark and stormy night. A woman, Margaret, is all alone in her big, old house when she hears a noise. She finds the front door wide open, but her husband Billy is nowhere in sight, so this is now turning into one of those horrible ADT commercials where some woman is all alone in her house and then a guy wearing a dark hoodie breaks in and almost kills her but then she's saved by her alarm system, which she turned on when she was just hanging out in her living room even though no one does that. Everyone I know who has one of those burglar alarms only turns it on when he's not home or maybe sleeping in bed. In fact, I was told that you aren't supposed to turn the alarm on when you're home. Anyway, none of this matters, as Margaret doesn't have an alarm system, so she calls Billy. He says he's only a few blocks away, so she says she'll be fine and hangs up. But the creepy noises persist, so, armed with some sort of trophy with, like, a gyroscope on it, Margaret heads upstairs to investigate. She finds nothing but another open door and runs down the stairs smack into the arms of her husband. She feels relief for a few seconds before barfing all over the place.
House wakes up the morning in his own bed alone, which he seems quite pleased about. He spreads out to take advantage of having the space to himself before arriving at work wearing that red T-shirt I think he wore last week. Ah, but there is a new face in the meeting room: Chase's new hire, Dr. Kelly Benedict. House refuses to shake the hand she offers, and you'd think Chase would've warned her not to bother being friendly to him. Dr. Kelly tells House that she just finished a psychiatry residency but thinks she can "make more of a difference" as one of House's fellows than as a psychiatrist. Yeah, that's what Taub thought, too, and he hasn't done shit. When he was a plastic surgeon, he was probably helping out burn victims and chimpanzee attacks and all kinds of stuff. But on House's team, all he does is get things wrong so his boss, who constantly makes fun of him, can get them right. House stares at Dr. Kelly's boobs for a while, then informs her that she's hot, like she didn't already know that. You know, one of these days, they're going to hire a not-hot female at PPTH. I just know it. And no, that sociopath drug-stealing pharmacist lady from last season doesn't count. Foreman tries to change the subject to their new patient, but House says Dr. Kelly looks like Cameron, so therefore Chase only hired her to sleep with her. She doesn't look like Cameron to me, but whatever. We're probably all supposed to have forgotten what Cameron looks like by now anyway. House tells Chase that this won't work because it's the "emotional connection" with Cameron he misses and not her looks. Because House is just that nice to his employees, he tries to lay the groundwork for an emotional connection between Chase and Dr. Kelly by asking her about things she might have in common with Cameron, like marrying a guy with a terminal illness or freezing his sperm for later use. Hmmm. When you put it that way, Cameron does sound like a loon. Chase insists that Dr. Kelly is nothing like Cameron. "Then why'd you make her wear Cameron's clothes?" House asks. "I'm wearing my own clothes," Dr. Kelly says, actually thinking that House believes Chase made her wear someone else's clothes and that she'd agree to do so. Also, those don't look anything like Cameron's clothes. For one thing, there's no vest.
Foreman says Margaret has had "severe vomiting" following three days of abdominal pain and slightly elevated liver function test results. Really? That's all it takes to become one of House's cases? Vomiting and a slightly wonky liver? Doesn't that happen to all of us after a night of drinking? House gives Dr. Kelly a shot to show them what she can do, only for Foreman to quickly shoot down her suggestions of Hepatitis A and appendicitis before saying it's hepatic fibrosis. Taub goes with lead poisoning, so House assigns half the team to test Margaret for hepatic fibrosis and the other half to search Margaret's home for heavy metals. Chase volunteers himself and Dr. Kelly to test Margaret, saying that breaking and entering is something that can wait until Dr. Kelly's second week. House makes sure to stare at Dr. Kelly's ass on her way out, and Chase again insists that she's nothing like Cameron. House agrees: "Cameron had much smaller breasts." This show is so mean to Jennifer Morrison. "By which I mean she was smarter," House adds. It's true, though; the larger your breasts are, the more blood has to be pumped to them and thus not to your brain. Also, big breasts get in the way when you're trying to eat spaghetti.
For no reason other than to use up some of this season's location shooting budget, House and Wilson go to a motorcycle store. Like, in the middle of the work day. Wilson, of course, asks House about Cuddy and whether or not House has spent the night at her place yet. House says he has not; she comes over to his house, they have sex, and then she goes home. It's great, House says. "Taking it slow, that could work," Wilson says. Hey, Wilson? You've been married three times and you had your first wife move back in with you after like two weeks of dating. So House should really take your advice with a grain of salt or two. "You are spending time with the kid," Wilson says. Does Wilson hate Rachel or something? Why encourage House to spend time with her? House says he spends the least amount of time with her possible: "that is one boring child." "You think you were a scintillating wit at two and a half?" Wilson says. House probably was, actually. "I wasn't trying to eat shoes," House says. Yeah, who eats shoes at two and a half? That's baby stuff. At two and half, she should be eating sand.
Chase and Dr. Kelly take a look around Margaret's liver and discuss how badly things went for Dr. Kelly in the meeting room. Chase assures Dr. Kelly that she was the best applicant for the job, but Dr. Kelly says it isn't just House who upset her -- Foreman didn't seem to like her, either. "He takes a little while to warm up," Chase says, adding that he's been working with Foreman for seven years now and Foreman is still an asshole to him. Seriously. At least Foreman didn't try to infect Dr. Kelly with a deadly disease or steal her article idea, like he's done to other co-workers. With that, Chase and Dr. Kelly find some scar tissue in Margaret's hepatic artery that appears to be left over from an earlier surgery, along with about five or six ribs with signs of breakage. Those were not in Margaret's medical history.
Meanwhile, Taub and Foreman have found no evidence of lead in Margaret's home, despite the fact that it's supposed to be old and those old houses are always covered in lead. Even the ones that say they aren't or claim the lead has been removed. Taub doesn't care about that stuff, preferring instead to look through Margaret's personal items and ask Foreman what his problem is with the new girl. Foreman claims he's just trying to give Margaret the best care as soon as possible, which means not coddling the stupid new girl, pretending her diagnoses are correct, and then "treating patients for diseases they don't have." Yes, because no one on this show has ever treated a patient for a disease he didn't have before. "Dude, is this about Thirteen?" Taub asks. Foreman objects to Taub's use of the word "dude." "It felt right," Taub shrugs. Foreman claims that he has no problem with Dr. Kelly taking Hadley's place temporarily and that his feelings for Hadley are purely friendship. Taub doesn't believe him, but that doesn't really matter since Foreman finds a receipt from a café in Trenton on the day Margaret told them she was working in Summit.
Margaret has an explanation for all of this, telling Chase, Foreman, and her husband that she simply mixed up the days and told them she was in Summit when she was in Trenton. As for those broken ribs she didn't tell them about, she claims that she fell off her bike and landed on a s
prinkler back when she was on her college cycling team. That was ten years ago, so Margaret didn't think it had anything to do with her current stomach problems and thus didn't mention it. Again, why is she at PPTH for "stomach problems?" She isn't barfing non-stop or anything like that. She doesn't even look like she's in pain. Chase says they'll need to look at Margaret's medical records to see if that stuff in her hepatic artery is fibrosis or just scar tissue from the surgery. She tells them which hospital they can find them in.Later on in House's bedroom, Cuddy puts some clothes back on. Wow, we are seeing a lot of Lisa Edelstein these days. And yet, we see so very little of Chase. "Come back. Just one more time. You love it," House says. "My wrists are tired," Cuddy says. Oh, but House is just talking about videogames! I'll bet you thought it was something else, but I was not fooled, due to House saying "one more time," thus indicating that he'd be able to perform more than once (he's a forty-something man. Come on now), as well as "you love it," thus indicating that the activity was something Cuddy would find as enjoyable as he did. Also, we get a glimpse of the videogame they're playing (on House's flat screen, which is precariously stacked on a bunch of books at the foot of his bed), and it's totally the game from an episode last season. Nice continuity, although I thought that game was supposed to played in, like, a virtual reality environment? But House is just playing it on an Xbox. Or maybe that's a Playstation? I stopped keeping track of what the controllers looked like after the N64. Anyway, Cuddy says she has to go now, because the babysitter is due to leave. Wow, so Cuddy hires a babysitter every night and then goes to House's place for a few hours? That's, like, expensive and neglectful. Not that parents shouldn't leave their kids with babysitters ever, but Cuddy is gone all day AND all night. When does Rachel ever see her? House sees what time it is and agrees that Cuddy needs to go, or "scram," as he so kindly puts it, as his massage therapist is coming in five minutes. What time is it supposed to be? Is it a weekend? Why is it light outside but they're supposedly hooking up after work for hours, so it should be nighttime? And what massage therapist comes to your house at night? Cuddy goes to give House a tender kiss good-bye, but he's too distracted with his videogame to respond. Why does Cuddy put up with this? He is the worst boyfriend ever. So many questions. And then Cuddy opens his front door to find House's "massage therapist," whose uniform is the slutty Halloween costume version of a massage therapist. She is carrying a massage table, though, so I guess she's legit.
Back at PPTH, Dr. Kelly informs Foreman that she couldn't find any records for Margaret at the hospital where she claimed she had her surgery. Also, there are no records of her attending that college with the cycling team. Nor are there any records for her in any area hospitals, and also, her social security number has no credit history until the past three years. It also says she was born in 1945. Whoever their patient is, Margaret is a stolen identity. Also, PPTH's mystery guest is currently having a heart crisis and will need a pacemaker.
"Margaret" wakes up to House hovering over her. He says he has good and bad news: the bad news is that her stomach problems have spread to her heart. But the good news is that she is one young-looking sixty-five year old. Margaret's face says "oooh ... busted." Husband Billy has no idea what's going on. Margaret comes clean: she was married five years ago to an abusive drug addict. Despite running away from him and getting restraining orders, he kept tracking her down, breaking her ribs and poisoning her dog with pesticides. So she bought a new identity and moved to New Jersey. This even explains why she lied about being in Summit when she was in Trenton, as she attends a battered women's support group at Trenton General. There's no battered women's support group closer to home? Weird. Billy wants to know who this guy is so he can go beat him up, but all Margaret will reveal is that his name is Carl. Margaret's real name, she claims, is Jenny.
Anyway, her heart problem rules out their hepatic fibrosis diagnosis, so it's time for another differential diagnosis session. This time, House promises to be fair to Dr. Kelly and not make her nervous, like Chase accused him of doing last time. House accomplishes this by having Dr. Kelly sit directly opposite him in a setting that should remind her of her psychiatric residency days. That, or an episode of $100,000 Pyramid. Dr. Kelly's new diagnosis suggestions are quickly ruled out, although they don't sound any worse than what the other Cottages give. Foreman, however, thinks Dr. Kelly is stupid and will never come close to a good diagnosis and that this is a waste of time. Chase asks him if he has a better answer as House guides Dr. Kelly to connecting Margaret's abusive ex, the open front door, and the fact that her symptoms began after she ate. When she still can't figure it out, he gives her a final hint: it rhymes with "moison." I must be dumb like Dr. Kelly because my first thought was that this was leading to some kind of hoisin sauce allergy and not poisoning. Dr. Kelly is also incredulous, using her psychiatry knowledge to say that Carl would follow his pattern and beat Margaret, not poison her. House points out that Carl totally poisoned the dog, so that kind of is his pattern now. "Oh ... right," Dr. Kelly says. Foreman wants to start treating Margaret for pesticide poisoning. House agrees. Dr. Kelly wants a hole to open up beneath her so she can fall in there and die.
Foreman and Chase share an elevator so Foreman can accuse Chase of hiring Dr. Kelly to sleep with her. Chase says if Foreman is so interested in his life now, they should go bowling. Chase loves bowling! He says he interviewed Dr. Kelly and she was smart and qualified. Foreman doubts this, saying that she got only decent grades at an only decent med school. Yeah, and Foreman was on academic probation when he was in med school. So what? Chase says that Dr. Kelly was the editor of the Rutgers daily newspaper as an undergrad, which really isn't as impressive as Chase thinks it is. But I guess it shows that Dr. Kelly is well-rounded? "You saw what you wanted to see," Foreman says, not convinced.
Billy is not happy to hear the latest theory on what's wrong with his wife, as it involves the ex-husband he didn't even know about breaking into their house and trying to kill her. Margaret apologizes again, but Billy leaves.
Cuddy finds House in the Clinic and asks him about his masseuse. House says her name is "Brandi." He didn't say if it was spelled with an I or a Y, but I think I'm right on this one. Cuddy says that Brandi seems "a little bit slutty." Why, because of her outfit, Cuddy? Because you wear stuff like that at work, too, so you probably shouldn't judge. House says that makes sense, as Brandi is a hooker. "Did you have sex with her?" Cuddy asks. You probably don't want to know the answer to that question, Cuddy. House says he didn't last night, as he is in a committed relationship with Cuddy now. Before that, though, House used to receive a "massage plus happy ending." EW. I mean, I know it happens, but you don't admit it to your girlfriend! That's such a turn-off. I don't know if House is just clueless or pretending not to notice Cuddy's horrified expression. He says Brandi is the only massage therapist he's ever had who actually makes his leg feel better. I'll bet. Cuddy demands that House call her physical therapist and get all future massages from her. House doesn't want to, because he's an asshole and seriously the worst boyfriend ever. Well, except for Carl, although he isn't real so he doesn't count (spoiler alert!). Cuddy says she will not see House until he agrees to stop seeing Brandi. Way to get poor Brandi fired in this tough economy, Cuddy. She could at least give her a job on her team of nannies.
Chase gets ready to leave for the night and finds Dr. Kelly hovering over several medical textbooks in the meeting room. She says she's feeling a lot of pressure. Chase says she should be okay with that, since she was the editor of her school paper and all. Oh, yes, the pressures of getting that school paper out. That's totally the same. Dr. Kelly kind of forgot that she put that on her résumé, apparently, as she quickly tells Chase that she was not, then explains that she wasn't the "editor-in chief," but just an "editor," which is apparently what all the writers on the Rutgers undergrad paper call themselves. Really? Because my school's paper didn't do that. There were editors for certain sections, but not every writer was called an editor. Then again, this is House, where almost every writer and even some cast members double as producers. Dr. Kelly asks Chase if he only hired her because of her undergrad newspaper creds and he's now having "buyer's remorse." Chase denies that he is, but tells her to review the second volume of an infectious disease textbook. And then he gets a page telling him that Billy is in the ER.
House walks into Wilson's apartment both for some love advice and to make use of that set they spent so much money on. He presents Wilson with a hypothetical situation: what if Wilson had a really great handyman who he also had sex with in the past? Would Sam make him stop using that handyman? Wilson already knows what House is talking about, though, as Cuddy is a tattletale. His suggestion to House is to just give in to Cuddy's demands, whether he thinks she's right or not. "This is a point of principle," House says. "Right. You're the Rosa Parks of hooker massages," Wilson says. Well, better that than being the Claudette Colvin of hooker massages. House thinks that if he lets Cuddy be "irrational" (which she isn't being, by the way) now, then she'll be that way for the rest of their relationship. Wilson says that's what relationships are about. "Relationships are hard. You have to make sacrifices," he shrugs, "go get her a gift and apologize." House brightens at this suggestion and takes off, which tells Wilson that House is going to do something ridiculous.
Chase and Dr. Kelly make their way down to the ER. Chase tells her to start "thinking" like House and see whatever's wrong with Billy as something related to whatever's wrong with Margaret. Dr. Kelly says that could be it, but it could also just be a coincidence, thereby not thinking like House at all. In the end, what's wrong with Billy is that he got his face smashed in. He says he found an address in Margaret's book for a guy named Carl in Brooklyn and went up there to confront him, assuming he was the evil ex. He then learned a valuable lesson about why you shouldn't confront someone from Brooklyn. Carl ended up not pressing charges, but he convinced Billy that he was never married to Margaret, had no what she was talking about, and only knew her because they used to work together. And then Billy apparently drove back home to New Jersey while bleeding from various face wounds and went to the PPTH ER. Meanwhile, Foreman calls Chase to inform him that Margaret is now running a fever, which means she wasn't poisoned after all.
Back in the meeting room, House entertains the group with a joke about Carlsbad Caverns and how Billy would try to beat that up if he found it in his wife's address book, then moves onto the slideshow portion of the differential diagnosis of Chase's mental issues. "Meet your doppelganger!" House says to Dr. Kelly, only to show her a slide of a foot with something horrible going on. House apologizes for putting the wrong slide on, and switches it to the correct one: a picture of one very young Chase and an older woman who must be his mother. And whose face has been photoshopped to resemble Dr. Kelly's. "That's baby Chase and his mum! That's adorable!" Taub says. It is, until you remember that Chase's mother drank herself to death when Chase was still a child and then it becomes kind of sad.
Taub says there is a startling resemblance between Mama Chase and Dr. Kelly, and House says he can see why Chase would want to have sex with his mother, because she is hot. Foreman tells House to stop, because he's wrong about this. "You're wrong," Chase says, referring to his and Foreman's earlier conversation in the elevator. House, though, takes this to mean that Chase is admitting that he does want to have sex with his mom. Dr. Kelly finally speaks up to say she's going to assume that Chase hired her because she's good at this job, and proves it by confidently guessing Legionnaire's disease, citing the nasty old air conditioner Taub saw in Margaret's house as the cause. Foreman says that's impossible, since Margaret's lungs haven't been affected. But Dr. Kelly has an explanation for that too, saying that if Margaret was dehydrated enough it would somehow mask the symptoms of pneumonia. House likes this and sends them off to pump Margaret full of fluids and treat her for Legionnaire's. Oh, but wait -- Foreman notes that Taub never wrote anything about that air conditioner in his notes, nor did he tell Dr. Kelly. He did, however, tell Chase about it. Dr. Kelly admits that Legionnaire's was Chase's idea. When Dr. Kelly makes a sad defeated face, House says you can really see how much she looks like Chase's mother.
Chase confronts Foreman on the stairs, asking what his problem is with Dr. Kelly. Foreman says he just doesn't want someone on the team who's unqualified, especially since Foreman will be the one stuck with the brunt of carrying her deadweight since he's sort of kind of Chase's
boss. Chase points out that Foreman really isn't -- his title, salary, and responsibilities aren't much different than anyone else's. In fact, he didn't even get to pick the new Cottage -- Chase did, which he thinks is the real reason for Foreman's problem with Dr. Kelly. "You're courageously picking on Kelly 'cause you're scared to take on House. Congratulations. You're a real leader," Chase says. Oh, Foreman just got told. Not that it will make a difference in the way he acts around people, but still.A man with some kind of Hispanic accent enters Cuddy's office wielding a portable massage table. He looks familiar because he's totally that annoying spokesman (sans the accent) on those State Farm commercials. Between him and Progressive Flo a few weeks back, I guess they're hiring for this show from insurance commercials? I can't wait to see the episode where House treats a cartoon gecko. Filipe says he's here as a gift and an apology from House to Cuddy. Cuddy can't think of a good excuse to get out of this that House hasn't taken care of already, so she ends up getting a massage. Topless. In her office. In the middle of a workday. She is the worst administrator ever. But Filipe is apparently very good at his job, even though he admits that Cuddy is his first client. When Cuddy asks how her boyfriend found him, Filipe seems surprised that House is dating a woman. Aw, Cuddy should have asked these questions after the massage. Now she has to stop him because she knows he's a male prostitute.
Chase finds Dr. Kelly in the ambulance bay. She says she's okay with messing up, but not with cheating and lying, which is what she just did in the meeting room. Chase apologizes but urges her not to quit, saying she's "smart" and "hard-working." Dr. Kelly knows that she's not on the other Cottages' level. Chase says she should use her differences -- as a psychiatrist, she should be able to read people better than anyone else, for instance. Is he serious? House is no psychiatrist, but he's obviously better at reading people than anyone else. They don't need Dr. Kelly's expertise in this area. And so, Dr. Kelly decides to check up on Billy instead of Margaret, apparently figuring that he could use a psychiatrist right about now. He says Trenton General doesn't have a support group for abused women. It doesn't? That's lame. They really should. All hospitals in the area probably should, except for PPTH, which shouldn't have any support groups at all just in case House decides to stop by and ruin everyone's life. Billy says he's starting to wonder if Margaret was lying about being abused, too. But Dr. Kelly says Margaret's behavior is consistent with an abuse victim. She encourages Billy to be gentle with Margaret and not hostile and aggressive like she's used to getting from men. This might help Billy, but it doesn't really help Margaret any. But, uh, nice try, Dr. Kelly.
Cuddy confronts House about his male hooker massage gift. House pretends he had no idea that guy was a hooker, and then says that the fact that Cuddy got a massage from a hooker doesn't bother him one bit, and therefore the fact that he gets massages from a hooker shouldn't bother her. As if those are in any way the same thing. Cuddy points out that she never had sex with Filipe and probably never would, seeing as how he's gay. House sighs that it's really difficult to find straight male hookers. Cuddy says that there's nothing House can say or do to convince her that his getting a massage from a hooker he used to have sex with is okay, and he must know that and is doing this to try to sabotage their relationship. He tries to sabotage their relationship like every week. It's getting kind of silly. She thinks he can't handle their relationship getting any more serious. House says she's doing the same thing by not letting him sleep over at her house or introducing him to Rachel. Cuddy says she didn't think House wanted to spend any time with her, nor did she think it was good for Rachel to keep being introduced to and forming attachments with people who might "go away." Rachel's probably having a hard enough time forming an attachment to Cuddy. House says that mentality shows that Cuddy has reservations about them, too. Oh, come on. Rachel is probably still wondering whatever happened to that Lucas guy who was basically her father for about a year. Also, House should never be around children. I don't think Cuddy's doing anything wrong here.
Margaret wakes up to find Billy at her bedside. As recommended by Dr. Kelly, he calmly asks her why there's no abuse support group at Trenton General. Margaret is unable to answer due to the fact that there are snakes in the wall and on the floor as well as bugs. And Billy's eyes are now all black and he's telling her she's going to burn. And then her bedside table is on fire. So, that's new.
House wakes up in his bed alone again, but this time he's not happy about it. He goes to work and studies a scan of Margaret's brain, which her hallucinations tell them is now being affected by her mystery disease. There's an "opacity" in her left temporal lobe, which Dr. Kelly speaks up to stupidly suggest could be nothing. House says that since Margaret is having brain problems right now, it's probably best for them to assume there's something wrong there. Chase says they'll have to biopsy it to find out more. Dr. Kelly sticks to her original plan, though, saying that they shouldn't assume all of Margaret's problems are connected. Her recent hallucinations, Dr. Kelly says, are more indicative of a mental illness that's only just showing up now. "Her brain just happens to fall apart right after her body? And I thought I was having a bad week," House says, rolling his eyes. He tells Chase that he now thinks he hired Dr. Kelly because she's a "dumb" version of Cameron that Chase can fire to get revenge. "Give her a break," Foreman says, adding that the more pressure House puts on Dr. Kelly, the more she's going to screw up. "It's irresponsible of me to let that happen," he concludes. Oh. I thought Chase's lecture was telling Foreman that he's not above anyone. But I guess he took it to mean that he needs to step up his superiority complex. House seems to like Foreman's new backbone, and leaves Dr. Kelly alone. Chase gives Foreman a sincere yet cheesy "nice job, sort of boss!" nod.
Chase is revving up the CGI drill to dig into Margaret's brain. He's just punctured the surface when Taub suddenly stops him, which Chase doesn't really appreciate since he kind of has to keep a steady hand while drilling into a brain. Taub points out that Margaret's temperature is back down to normal, and she's been off the cooling blanket for an hour. If a fever was still her symptom, it would have come back by now. It didn't, so it must have gone away. The team meets outside the OR, where House wonders why Margaret wasn't colder, since she'd been on the cooling blanket for so long. Dr. Kelly says she adjusted the blanket's temperature as Margaret's fever went down. Oh, and the blanket has been at its lowest setting since yesterday afternoon, which House would have liked to know sooner. No matter what Dr. Kelly does, she totally sucks at it. Taub says since Margaret's fever was gone so soon after it appeared, it could have just been a reaction to the antibiotics they gave her for something she doesn't have, although that would have been accompanied by vomiting. Actually, come to think of it ... Margaret hasn't barfed in a while, either. So that's two symptoms down. House heads into the OR to see if they can make it a hat-trick. He unplugs her pacemaker after a weak protest by Dr. Kelly (by the way, pacemakers should really be harder to stop than simply unplugging a cord, don't you think?), and lo and behold, Margaret's heart is fine. So now all they have to worry about are the hallucinations, although they might be gone too when Margaret wakes up. Dr. Kelly once again suggests bipolar disorder for the hallucinations, and even Chase is like "you've got to stop doing this." But Dr. Kelly persists, saying the bipolar disorder could have been trigg
ered by whatever caused Margaret's physical symptoms. House makes an epiphany face. But Dr. Kelly hasn't nailed it and proven herself. In fact, he says "you couldn't be more wrong. You got the cause and effect backwards."A few hours later, Margaret is awake but still hallucinating. In fact, as House approaches her bedside, we see that her table is still on fire. She informs House about this, and he puts his hand down firmly on it to show her that the fire is just a hallucination. Okay, but ... if those hallucinations were trying hard enough, then couldn't she just hallucinate House's hand flesh burning off? Or that his hand isn't burning because he's a CIA experiment who is listening to her thoughts? And yet, that seems to work for Margaret, mostly because, as House explains, she's on "happy pills." He tells them that Margaret lied about her medical records because she knew what was really wrong with her and figured that she'd be better and back home before House's team got a chance to contact the other hospital. She did not lie about going to Trenton after all, House says, although she didn't go to any support group. She went to see her doctor, who was prescribing Risperadone. Dr. Kelly knows what that is, as she's a psychiatrist and Risperadone is an anti-psychotic used to treat schizophrenia. Yes, Margaret is schizophrenic but didn't want anyone to know, so she lied about the ex-husband and created an entirely new identity because apparently her real name is in the Schizophrenic Database that doesn't actually exist. Seriously, it makes sense that she'd change her name to escape an abusive ex-husband. Not so much that she'd do it so no one found out about confidential medical information. Nor does it really make sense that she'd lie to House and his doctors about it, since it's not like they can tell Billy. And it really doesn't make sense that she could be freaking schizophrenic and able to hide it that well that her own husband didn't suspect anything when I think we all know that there is no drug (not even this magical Risperadone) that can completely eliminate all symptoms of schizophrenia without causing serious side effects. Although I guess it did cause some side effects, but only after she'd been taking it for years. That's what caused the stomach pain and barfing that brought her to PPTH as well as the other symptoms that came after it. Even though she had stopped taking the drug by then. And I'm not really sure how you can take a drug for years without any side effects and then suddenly come down with three serious ones. Wouldn't it make more sense if the post-PPTH admittance symptoms were caused by sudden withdrawal from a drug she'd been on for years?
Anyway, once she'd been off the drug for a while, the schizophrenia returned, thus the hallucinations. Margaret admits the truth to Billy, who is absolutely shocked. Okay, but ... how did she explain her family to him? Or were they perfectly happy to go along with her fake identity? I mean, they're married, so either Margaret's family attended her wedding and kept up the charade (oh, and gave themselves the same fake last name that she had) and no one got too drunk at the reception and spilled the beans, or she cut herself off from her family entirely and told Billy that everyone she knew from like five years ago was dead. House, meanwhile, rubs it in to Dr. Kelly that she totally missed a schizophrenia diagnosis Well, to be fair, she didn't really miss it. She knew something was off before anyone else did, and probably could have gotten it if this show didn't have such a strange idea of schizophrenia and how it's treated. But I guess if this show made everything medically accurate, we wouldn't really have a show.
After the break, Billy confronts House alone and asks what he's supposed to do "now." House pretends not to know what he's talking about, and says they'll just put Margaret on a different anti-psychotic and her mental symptoms will magically disappear. "This is not who I married," Billy says. House says that it actually is. Billy doesn't think he wants to stay with a wife who's schizophrenic. I'd be more concerned about the fact that she was able to totally hide that from me, and what that says about me and how much I pay attention to my wife. House says that's not his problem. "It's too hard," Billy whines, although I'm not sure if he's saying it's too hard to be with Margaret now or to leave her. Maybe both. "It's always hard," House says. He tries to take a solo elevator ride following that statement, but Chase jumps in with him.
Chase admits that hiring Dr. Kelly was a "mistake" and she's just not up to Cottage standards. House says it's up to Chase -- he's cool with Dr. Kelly staying on since she did help him get the right answer, and he's also cool with Chase firing her now. Chase says he'll give her another shot. House says that's a good idea, since it'll make it that much easier for Chase to sleep with her. Chase again denies that he hired her for sex.
Music montage!! Billy decides to suck it up and be there for his wife ... for now. Cuddy finds House in her office on her computer. He says he's looking up the name of that physical therapist Cuddy recommended. Cuddy invites him to spend the night at her place. House accepts even though she doesn't have cable. "We'll have to have more sex," he says. "Okay!" Cuddy says.
Chase finds Dr. Kelly cleaning out her locker. She says she's quitting before House fires her. Before Chase can tell her she has another chance, she says she's not that upset about quitting because now she can see Chase socially, which she would never have done if he was a co-worker. Wow, Dr. Kelly hates cheating and she won't date a co-worker? She really wasn't meant to be a Cottage. Chase decides he'd rather date Dr. Kelly than give her another chance.
And finally, Cuddy and House enjoy a romantic dinner for three. Yes, Rachel is there in her high chair checking out her new daddy. Poor, poor child. Cuddy heads to the kitchen to get House a second helping, and he looks over at Rachel to find her chewing on his cane. He manages to keep himself in check enough not to scream at her and call her stupid when he takes it back. "Aren't you adorable?" he says, although I can't tell by the expression on his face if he means it.
Also, are they really sticking a National Alliance on Mental Illness tag at the end of this episode? After portraying schizophrenia so unrealistically? Ha! Anyway, go to www.nami.org to find out more.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at
href="http://www.saramorrison.blogspot.com">L.A.me, follow her on Twitter, or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.Meet the new fellow, Dr. Kelly, below, then discuss this episode in our forums. Then see why we hated Season 6!
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