Episode Report Card Sara M: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Cuddy's Living Nightmare
By Sara M | Season 4 | Episode 14 | Aired on 05.05.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.House decides that the star of his favorite soap opera has a brain tumor based on the way he reads his lines on TV, and kidnaps the actor to try to prove it. He manages to keep him at PPTH long enough for new symptoms to show up, like a paralyzed foot, kidney failure, a high fever, and then a coma, but he can't figure out what's wrong with the guy and the Cottages have an annoying way of demanding proof for his diagnoses through tests that keep coming up negative. Meanwhile, Cuddy has an accreditation inspector on her hands and wisely assigns Cameron and Foreman to House-watching duty to make sure her favorite employee behaves himself. House uses the situation to get the doctor's lounge flat screen put in his office, all the better to watch his soaps and call it research with. As for Wilson, he doesn't have to worry about the inspector as he's with CTB all episode, bickering over a new mattress. She wants him to pick out whatever he wants; he wants to give her whatever she wants. In the end, what he wants is a waterbed -- until he actually has to sleep on it, and realizes he hates it. Oh well! At least he got a sex scene out of the deal. As for the soap actor, House figures out he has an allergy to the flowers in his dressing room, and shoots the patient up with steroids before getting the test results back to prove it, risking the patient's life and Cuddy's job. When the results do come back, they realize that Evan the actor isn't allergic to flowers at all -- and yet, the steroids worked. It turns out Evan was allergic to the quinine in the tonic water his character drank. Cuddy is fined $200,000 for House's life-saving actions and takes back the flat screen TV. And Chase ran away from this episode in the beginning and was never seen again.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Dr. Brock Sterling prepares for an upcoming surgery by drinking from a flask. Nurse Marie is troubled by this fact, as Brock's patient is not only his fiancée, but also her sister. You've probably figured out by now that this is not a real hospital with real doctors, although they do bear a certain resemblance to House and his crew: An addicted doctor who doesn't play by the rules. And that's about it, unless Cameron and Biana end up being siblings rather than carbon copies of each other. Turns out, Brock and Marie are characters on the soap we saw House enjoying just last week. From what I've seen of the show thus far, it's just Brock getting close in the camera and drinking from a flask while some nurse in the background bitches at him. So that's pretty cool. The nurse decides that right now is also a good time to let Brock know that she's pregnant -- with his baby! What! Brock, you cad! How could you cheat on your fiancée? And with her sister, no less! And without using protection! Brock responds to the news by keeling over, and Marie tends to him. When she sees that his mouth is bleeding, she breaks character and starts freaking out. But Brock is just fine -- the blood is fake. Brock then launches into a speech that, from the reaction of everyone on the crew, he's made many times before: "The fans are crap, I'm crap, this whole damn show is crap!" He makes his way outside, where he's mobbed by, like, two crappy fans. He signs a few autographs and gets in his car. I wasn't aware soap actors got their own car and driver, but Brock is a superstar so maybe he does. He quickly notices that his driver isn't going in the right direction to his apartment and that all the doors are locked. We notice that his driver is House, who tells Brock he's about to save his life. Brock doesn't seem happy about this news, though. I guess he doesn't like surprises.
Meanwhile, outside PPTH, Cuddy is being annoyed by some official-looking guy who wants her to reposition the hospital's crosswalks so they're closer to the entrance. The man is an inspector from the accreditation committee, and he, too, is an unpleasant surprise: He wasn't supposed to be there until next month, when Cuddy no doubt had an all-expenses-paid vacation planned for her star employee to get him the hell out of there. Inspector starts talking about hospital accreditation requirements, only to be interrupted by a town car roaring up to the entrance. House gets out and tips his chauffeur cap to Cuddy, who tells Inspector that she has no idea who this man is and would Inspector like to come inside right now please? Meanwhile, House is freeing his hostage from the car. Brock (real name: Evan) is understandably frightened, but House assures him that he's not a psycho fan but a concerned doctor, and Evan has a brain tumor. Evan seems to think he's both: "You're that nut-job doctor that keeps calling my publicist!" he says. House clarifies that he's the nut-job head of diagnostic medicine. And he won't let Evan die because then Anna will never find out he's the father of Marie's baby. Oh, House, don't be silly; If Evan died, they'd just recast the part. That's what Guiding Light did ten years ago. (Star Michael Zaslow had an undiagnosed illness; they fired him and recast the part. Zaslow's illness was later diagnosed as ALS, and he died like a year later. I haven't watched Guiding Light since.) House informs Evan that, in the last month, his average line reading has slowed because he's pausing every seven to nine words, which House believes is because Evan is having trouble reading one side of the teleprompter due to a tumor. Clearly, House has a lot of free time on his hands. He asks Evan to grant him one test to prove it, and if it's negative he'll drive Evan back home himself. Evan agrees to this as long as House gives him cab fare instead. "I don't want you near my house," he says.