Episode Report Card Sara M: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ballbuster
By Sara M | Season 2 | Episode 24 | Aired on 05.22.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A guy walks into House's office and shoots him. Two days later, House wakes up in the ICU with Cameron on one side of his bed and his shooter on the other, thanks to PPTH not having anywhere else to put the guy. PPTH being totally incompetent and not-so-good at patient care is nothing new, but House having no leg pain and full use of his right leg is. Turns out that Cuddy took advantage of his injuries to put him in a ketamine coma that somehow reset his brain and his nervous system, making his leg pain magically disappear. Unfortunately, it also seems to have had some side effects, such as hallucinations of House's shooter calling him names and psychoanalyzing him in various boring monologues. The hallucinations make it difficult for House to do his job, which is diagnosing a guy with a hugely swollen tongue whose mystery disease progresses into other swollen things that also explode. Like his eyeball. And one of his balls. House decides to use a robot to perform a necessary surgery on the patient, and demonstrates his new toy's powers by making it sort of get it on with Cameron, who doesn't mind one bit. While the Cottages go off to do the robo-surgery, House gets more psychoanalysis from his shooter and hallucinates himself into the car the shooter's wife committed suicide in. And then he has the diagnosis. He runs into the robo-surgery lair and informs the Cottages that he has been hallucinating this whole time and the only way to snap out of it is to do something totally unrealistic. And that something is using the robo-surgeon to rip the patient's stomach open and spill his intestines all over the table. Because the eyeball and ball-ball explosions weren't horrifying enough. It works, and House wakes up just as he's being wheeled into the ER suffering from gunshot wounds to the abdomen and neck. Yes, everything that happened after he was shot was all a dream (I think. This episode was such a mindfuck that for all I know, he hallucinated everything and wasn't even shot in the first place). House asks for ketamine now that he's learned that the possibility of losing his mind is worth trying to fix his leg, passes out, and the season ends. I'm not sure how I felt about this episode yet, but I definitely can't wait for next season to start. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The standard warning graphic reads, "Due to some graphic content, viewer discretion is advised." This time, it ain't dicking around.
Case in point (although there will be much worse cases with much worse points later on): we open on a close-up of a man's incredibly swollen tongue. House tells the Cottages that their new patient has a high fever, but he only cares about the case because he finds speaking to "Harpo" (so named because he resembles Harpo Marx, the curly-haired Marx brother who never spoke. Like Teller from Penn and Teller, except original) to be a hilarious and fun experience, because the man has difficulty speaking. House demonstrates this for everyone, and then we cut to him asking the patient what his favorite dessert topping is, saying that even the most seemingly insignificant detail can be the thing that saves his life. True; I can think of a few times when Oreo crumbles have saved mine. I am surprised to see that the man playing Harpo is Chris Tallman -- incredibly talented improv performer, very generous cocktail waitress tipper, and all-around nice guy. He's also good at talking, although you'll have to take my word for that one. Anyway, Foreman doesn't want to bother with a case that is purely for House's amusement and starts packing up to leave. Although...where is he going? Does he have his own office? Is he only called into work when there's a case and gets to hang out at home when there isn't one? In this case, Foreman says that he's going to the movies. A word of advice, Foreman: don't see RV.
It turns out that there's no need to go anywhere for action-packed drama, as a man walks into the room and asks for Dr. House. House immediately points to Cameron, the "skinny brunette," but the guy already knows her, as he was a patient of House's. This also explains why he doesn't know House. Now that he does, though, he whips out a gun and shoots House in the gut. House goes flying backwards into the Whiteboard, which, for the first time, has nothing to offer him in return, and then to the floor. The only sound is Cameron gasping and clutching at where her pearls should be. Foreman and Chase make moves towards House, but the shooter yells at them to stay back. Which they do, because, despite Foreman's recent brain damage and House's frequent allegations that Chase is an idiot, they aren't stupid. The shooter turns back to House: "Shocking, isn't it? Who'd want to hurt you?" And with that, he raises the gun and shoots in the direction of House's face. Credits!
When we return, House's face is looking remarkably intact, meaning that the shooter spent more time on his little pre-shooting quips than on actual target practice. His admission bracelet gives him the same date of birth as Hugh Laurie and violates continuity. It also says that his doctor is Cuddy, which makes me happy, even though I know she's not a very good doctor. House wakes up to find a two-day beard growth on his face that looks the same as his regular two-day beard growth and Cameron reading by his bedside. "You're pathetic," he informs her. The "oily buildup" in Cameron's hair, House says, indicates that she's been sitting by him since his admission. "Pardon me for caring," Cameron says. "Did I lose any organs?" House asks. I don't think I can take any more of their flirty talk. No, Cameron says; the bullet hit a couple things, but didn't destroy anything. He was also hit in the neck, but that one just went through it, severing the jugular. Fortunately, House was in a hospital when this happened, which is probably the only way he could survive all the blood loss. Cameron starts talking about the shooter, but House immediately says that he doesn't care about him or why he shot him: "I assume his reasoning was faulty." And while no one deserves to get shot, House might be one of the more convincing cases for such treatment, so I'm not too sure about that. Anyway, House wants to get back to work and asks Cameron what happened to the tongue guy.