Chase is still limping after having been stabbed in the chest last week. You'll have to check last week's recap to make sense out of the biology involved. He doesn't want to come back to be on House's team because he's too busy having meaningless sex, but he's willing to carve out some time for clinic duty. There, he meets a young nun who's got trouble with her lymph nodes.
That trouble promptly spirals out of control and the symptoms include numb feet, abdominal pain and meaningless sex with Dr. Chase. Whoops! And then there are more symptoms, like blood pouring out of every hole in her face. Chase insists on operating on her himself, because why not be as unprofessional as possible? He also tries to talk her out of being a nun, but she eventually does it anyway.
Meanwhile, House is escalating a prank war against Taub, who defends himself with Krav Maga. I did not know that Krav Maga taught you how to block paintballs with a cafeteria tray.
Hey, did you hear that this is going to be the last season of House? Angel Cohn wrote a set of suggestions for how the show could end that I liked. If I get a vote, I'd like to throw my influence behind "Everyone dies of lupus."
Anyway, this episode. Chase wakes up in bed. The lovely young lady he's with tells him he's bleeding through his bandage. And indeed, he has a small bandage on his chest. There's a crutch in the background. His phone buzzes with a call from House, which Chase ignores. He walks away on crutches and takes a moment to tell his lady friend that he was stabbed by a patient. He checks his bandage and his phone buzzes again. It's a text that says "DING DONG." House is at the door. And I guess I should mention that Chase is in his underwear. House leers at the young lady and tells Chase, "If she likes crippled guys, I'm free for the six minutes." Anyway, House has a sick truck driver he'd like Chase's opinion on. Chase hasn't been answering the texts for the last three weeks. He doesn't know when or if he's coming back. Door shut.
Chase works his quads, I think. It's some kind of thigh-centric physical therapy. Foreman watches. He's glad to see Chase there. The arrhythmia's gone and he's getting back his fine motor control. Chase insists he's fine, but does not appear to want to get back to work. Foreman tries to force him to do 20 clinic hours, which Chase objects to. But then he does it anyway. This was an exciting scene, wasn't it?
In the clinic, Chase has two nuns. One has a pain in her left shoulder. Her enlarged lymph node makes breast cancer a possibility. The older nun leaves, so Chase can now ask the younger one about the possibility angina caused by a "major life change". The blue veil means she's a postulant and the brown habit means she's a Carmelite. Chase was a seminarian, see, so he knows this stuff. She admits that she's had second thoughts about becoming cloistered. Chase finds a little mass on her breast.
Wilson says it's a benign fat deposit. House enters and says that because Wilson was being cagey, he had Park follow him. Chase again reports that he's healing nicely. House is fascinated by the nun's case, which is a good sign for our attempt to have a plot tonight. He says that Chase blames him but shouldn't have learned anything new about him, since everyone already knew that House was a jerk. He stops Chase from leaving and tells him that the nun is suffering from a fungal infection brought on by unprocessed wheat. As Chase leaves, House snarks after him, "Thanks for all my help!"
Park runs after Chase and apologizes for spying on him for House. She asks him out on a date and then she denies doing exactly that. I have to say, I do not see much romantic tension there. She starts babbling, "Must be scary to be back! All those knives and needles... infected blood everywhere you look" Chase extracts himself.
The nun asks if Chase has surfed the Gold Coast. She knows he's Australian and she's from Maui, so naturally they both surf. Chase thinks surfers don't become nuns. He asks what she was doing before, and the answer is that she was a nanny. Also she moved around and had some failed relationships. Chase isn't that sympathetic as he asks, "And then what? God spoke to you? You heard the call?" Sort of, apparently. She asks Chase why he entered the seminary and it was just because he was stashed in Catholic school on account of a rough parental situation. She vomits a bit. "It's not a fungal infection," concludes Chase.
House fills a water balloon with Pepsi. Chase walks up. I see the pranks are continuing, which is kind of strange. I mean, last week, House was on the brink of going back to jail for the crime of dying Chase's hair. And now he's doing water balloons. Chase wants some help, but House won't help until Chase admits he's all screwed up. Chase says that House finds his interest in the case interesting. House allows as how that might be true and proposes something that doesn't match the bilirubin count. Chase goes back to check and the nun now can't feel her foot. She's progressing very quickly! Normally they at least get to start a treatment before a new symptom shows up.
Chase enters House's office and says he needs more help. First, House needs to shoot paintballs at Taub. House explains that Taub has taken Krav Maga classes and he objects to someone defending himself. He wants to prove that no class can protect him and that Taub is idiotic to try. He attacks Taub with a foam sword, but Taub disarms him. Adams suggests basal spasm for the nurse, which explains everything but the lymph nodes. Chase goes off. By the elevator, he and Adams have a scene about whether he's okay. He says he is. Adams points out that he's still mad at House. "Just knowing you're there for me is enough," says Chase. That's also what he told Park to get out of going on a date with her. Sorry I didn't mention it when it happened.
The nun has borrowed an iPod from a nurse. Chase is skeptical about the depth of her commitment to being a nun, since he hasn't seen her use rosary beads. He starts quizzing her with pretty basic Gotcha questions: "What day did Jesus die?" "How many times did the cock crow before Peter's denial? Once or twice?" She says she can't be argued out of her faith. Because what she's really after is the silence and the contemplation, not the religious aspect. Chase suggests earplugs. She rejects the outside world. Chase continues to be inappropriate as he insists that she stop being a nun because she won't be able to talk or touch people. She's heard about his affinity for touching people. He guesses that someone broke her heart. "No. I'm just looking for something more." "So am I."
Chase returns to the clinic, where Taub is waiting. He's hiding until House leaves the cafeteria. Taub explains that he's thinking three steps ahead because House is doing that with his surprise attacks. He recommends that Chase accept House's apology and come back because even though he's crazy. House makes them better.
Chase prepares to discharge the nun. He makes a lame "I'm in the book" reference. She tells him that six years earlier she was a nanny in Honolulu and the baby she was watching got hit by a car when she looked away. She wants to remake her life, which she describes as "running to God." Sad music. She eventually leaves and gets into a wheelchair. I originally typed that she got into a "wheelbarrow," which seems unlikely now that I'm looking at it.
House tells Chase that the nun was a hottie, which, as far as he's concerned, explains that Chase was grasping for an emotional life raft with someone unavailable. Chase insists that he has a date. At dinner, Chase is not interested in his date, who is blathering on about how she's an actress. She is boring. Chase tells her so. The date is over! Was that really worth having a separate location?
Chase goes home and the nun is outside his door. He tells here she's not supposed to be there. Or anywhere. She admits that she was running away and takes his hand. They kiss twice. Chase throws his crutches away as they enter his apartment. He's cured! It's a miracle! It's like "laying on hands" except, um, not with the hands. If you see what I'm saying.
The morning, she puts on a t-shirt. I know that doesn't sound that fascinating, but I am committed to telling you what happens in this episode. She tells him that she had a life planned but then she met him. She assures him that she knows he's not the relationship type. Her new plan is to find a place to live and get her old job back. Then she can't hear him. He notices something weird about her neck. Her ears are ringing and she coughs blood on him. Exciting! In the car, he tells her an artery is causing problems. Problems that might include a stroke!
In the ER, Park is there, but Chase makes her stop doing whatever she's doing and follow his plan instead. The consent form is briefly a problem because the nun is babbling. Into the Operating Room!
Chase yells some medical stuff, and part of it is about a clot stopping her from bleeding out. House spots the dried blood on his scrubs and realizes that he was sleeping with her. The awkward scene is interrupted when Chase is called out to look at the blood flowing down her face. Taub and Adams insist that Chase shouldn't do the surgery since apparently there's a rule against operating on someone you're sleeping with, but House says Chase should do it. Not because he's trying to score points with Chase but because he's the better surgeon. Somehow House is in charge of this decision. I guess.
In surgery, Chase insists on doing the procedure even though Adams insists he can't think clearly. He's in her neck. They take some goop out. We're watching the clock because he needs to be out in five minutes to avoid neurological damage. He's over five minutes! Chase calls for an ultrasound. He says to lighten the anesthesia, even though he hasn't closed the wound yet. The nun coughs and can sort of hear him. Chase wants her to repeat "No ifs, ands, or buts." She does so. So everything's fine!
Park catches up with Chase in the hall. She apologizes. He asks what she's scared of. "I'm scared of everything." Chase tells her that she'll get over the stabbing. "Like you have?" She says it was pure luck that she wasn't there to get stabbed. He says it was pure luck that he was. Then he says he doesn't have time to teach her to act like a doctor.
Chase meets up with House to guess what could be wrong with the nun. House vaguely suggests lupus and then admits that he assigned Taub obviously fraudulent lab work to make him act paranoid. Chase wants to talk about the nun, but House has a super soaker. Taub has stopped to talk to the janitor, which House thinks means that Taub suspects the janitor. House now proposes syphilis. "Hope you practiced immaculate contraception." Chase accepts it and goes off to do whatever you do when a nun has syphilis. House jumps around the corner and discovers that Taub has jimmied the super soaker so it shoots him in the face. Taub shouts, "BOO YA!" and fails to interest me.
The nun tells Chase she hasn't had sex in years. Then she says she saw the boy who died when she was on the operating table. "He just held my hand. It was like he forgave me." Chase tells her it should give her solace. Foreman is outside, looking angry.
"You SLEPT with your patient? You're off the case." I was right! Foreman really is angry! And Chase is unrepentant: "I saved her from brain damage." Chase is also mad that House got a pass for getting him stabbed last week but now he's kicked off a case for not hurting anyone. It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone who works on this show that they didn't make a good case for blaming House for the stabbing. Adams apologizes for running to Foreman, and Chase blusters, "I took that scalpel for you!" She feels that, three weeks ago, Chase would never have done this. And that Chase is trying to get away from House by turning into him. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Enough interpersonal drama! Back to the medical drama!
Practically the first traditional differential diagnosis scene of the episode. Chase is there, but shouldn't be. The liver failure has to be a symptom of whatever she's got. Wilson said it wasn't breast cancer, but other cancers are available. House tells Chase it's not something they can cure. So everyone's assuming some kind of cancer now.
Now that Chase is off the case, he can hang out in the patient's room. He tells her that chemo might extend her life. She's not psyched about it. He tells her, "I'll be here as much as you need." She wants to know why he left the seminary. The answer is: he was caught with the groundskeeper's wife. He's embarrassed that it was a shallow reason instead of him grappling with deep philosophical questions. She thinks that the groundskeeper's wife was probably a symptom of his deeper struggles with faith. She's talking suspiciously slowly. She explains, "I can get the words out. It just feels heavy when I do." It's her chewing muscles.
Chase passes Taub in the hall right before Taub gets tackled.
The latest problem is jaw claudication. House suggests giant cell arteritis. Time for steroids! It seems like they give out steroids a lot on this show. Chase is delighted: "She's gonna live!" House is unimpressed: "Yeah. And then what?"
Her liver is functioning better. Chase promises to take her to a Mexican surfing spot. She looks sad at him. She's going back to the convent. She felt God's love when she saw the boy. Chase tells her it's not real. It's just oxygen deprivation! He didn't tell her that before because he wanted her to feel better. "And now you don't?" "Now... I think I love you." Oh, brother. On the other hand, I can't wait until we're closer to the end of the series, because at that point, I'll be a sucker for every alleged plot twist. Heck, maybe House and Wilson are going to go live on a ranch in Wyoming. It's the end of the world! Anything could happen! But not yet, though. Chase isn't going anywhere.
Chase is reading an article called "Noradrenaline and Near-Death Experiences" and House calls him an idiot. Chase insists that her feelings are based on chemical processes. House says Chase's are, too. He got stabbed and then had a lot of sex, which are a pair of things that fill the brain with chemicals. Chase says that House doesn't like that he's reassessing his life: "You're incapable of human connection, so you want everyone to be like you." House says that if that was true, he'd be urging him to make a bad decision that leaves him lonely and miserable. "You reassess your life when you make mistakes. You didn't. You just got stabbed."
Chase sees the nun playing with rosary beads. Well, probably not "playing." You know what I mean. She's using them for their intended purpose. He throws away his article. Then he goes into the room as the standard emotional music plays. They hug.
As the music continues and Chase wanders the hospital, he sees Park and tells her not to look at the book to tell the difference between the jugular and the carotid. By quizzing her, he demonstrates that she knows where everything is. You know, I'm not a medical professional, but I'm pretty sure I know the difference between the jugular and the carotid. It's all that training I had in vampire role-playing games in my youth.
Chase tells the nun, "I'm happy I knew you. Me too." He starts down the hall, but she calls after him "Robert." Long look. She takes his hand. The lyrics of the music right now are, "Just maybe, I'll come home." She leaves.
Chase walks down the hall without crutches so we know it's an unknown amount of time later. Incidentally, the stabbing took place on February 3, 2012 (we learned that last episode at the beginning of the hearing) so we're now watching a show set about a month in the future. It's a science fiction show now! Chase sees the team (plus Foreman) in House's office. He walks in and Foreman slides him the file. They start throwing around "abscess" and "diphtheria" as they do.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @montykins and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations. He's seen a LOT of the Oscar-nominated movies.
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