Episode Report Card Sara M: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Scared Lovers Try Positions They Can't Handle
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.05.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The teenaged son of Romany travellers (excuse me, House staff, but "gypsy" is considered offensive these days for some stupid reason, and they're now to be called "travellers") starts having respiratory problems while making out with his non-traveller girlfriend in the backseat of his car. He comes to PPTH and tries his hardest to avoid telling anyone who his parents are or how to contact them, even when it means holding up essential treatment. Foreman takes a liking to the kid, because he's good at science even though his parents made him drop out of school, and also because when Foreman needs a storyline, this is the one he gets (see "Whac-A-Mole"). The parents finally show up and bring their entire extended family with them, because that's what travellers do. It makes for a crowded hospital room. They also refuse to allow House to try an experimental drug treatment on their son when everything else seems to fail and his internal organs start shutting down. That's a good thing, too, since House's diagnosis turns out to be wrong and the kid is simply suffering from a toothpick in the gut. A special magical traveller toothpick that doesn't show up on any scans because of something to do with water and wood. Meanwhile, House plots against a wheelchair-using co-worker who stole his primo handicapped parking spot. He loses his bet with Cuddy that he can go a week in a wheelchair, but somehow manages to get his parking spot back anyway. I hope that wheelchair lady complains her head off to the ADA people. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
In the snowy hills of New Jersey, a young couple makes out in the back seat of a car. They must be really horny if they're doing it in the sub-zero weather. The blonde girl pressures her boyfriend to make out with her, but he keeps acting hesitant and not really into it, probably because he's freezing to death. Suddenly, there's a knock at the window. It's a police officer, who knows exactly what's going on in there and says that he'll be back in ten minutes and will be calling parents if the kids are still there. The boyfriend looks about twenty-five, so I don't think his parents are going to mind too much. The cop leaves, and the girl keeps going at it, taking off her shirt and saying they've got nine minutes. Suddenly, her boyfriend starts gasping for air. The girl is so freaked out that she runs out of the car without her shirt on, crying for help. It's pretty funny. No help is forthcoming -- I guess since the cop peeled out of there to give them privacy -- so she gets in the car to drive.
After the credits, someone else is doing the driving. House pulls his car up to his usual parking spot, only to find a "J. Whitner, M.D.'s" name under the handicapped sign. He should be more concerned about the fact that his awesome Corvette turned into what appears to be the Reliant K my best friend inherited from her grandfather in high school, especially since experience tells me that that car is not to great in winter conditions. Nor does it have airbags. House might also want to be concerned about the fact that the PPTH parking garage, the existence of which has always been tenuous, has once again disappeared. But no, he's upset that his new parking spot -- reserved simply for "House, MD" -- is like ten feet further away from PPTH than his old one. He gets out of the car and steps into a snow bank and is most annoyed, since snowbanks apparently didn't exist in his old parking spot.
House's shoes squelch into PPTH, where they meet up with Foreman, who claims that their latest patient is sixteen years old and in respiratory arrest. House doesn't care, because he has a more important mystery to solve: who is J. Whitner and why does he have House's parking space? Cameron answers this question -- J. Whitner is a woman and a new researcher on staff. Cameron is also in the middle of drinking a huge thing of orange juice. Watch out, Cameron -- that's how you get tongue ulcers! Chase asks if J. Whitner is hot. She's a researcher, Chase. Come on now. But Cameron has a different reason for why J. Whitner can't be attractive: "She's in a wheelchair." "Doesn't mean she's not hot," Chase points out. Yeah, what the hell, Cameron? Looks like someone's going to be taking sensitivity training classes again, since she obviously used her last session to learn how to make people sensitive to her instead of how to make her sensitive to other people.