Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Results-Oriented Thinking
By Monty Ashley | Season 8 | Episode 11 | Aired on 02.06.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Most of this episode is told in flashback because something so horrible has happened that House has finally been dragged in front of a disciplinary hearing. Sure, that happens like four times a year, but this time it's for serious. Honest. Oh, and it's because Chase got stabbed partway through. I think it's probably Chase's fault, but I wasn't asked to testify.
The main case is a chemistry teacher who collapsed while jogging. This is why you shouldn't accidentally cause explosions that break your tumors apart. And Chase also has a case to be diagnosed, but since everyone saw him get stabbed, it's not as much fun. He's briefly paralyzed and ends up having to learn to walk again. And he gets an apology from House, so maybe it was all worth it?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!This room is a mess! There are drugs and blood everywhere. A hypodermic lies unattended on the floor. So does a scalpel. There are neglected balloons AND flowers. And everything's in slow motion and oversaturated so we know this is a very important episode we'll remember forever. "Remember that episode that started with a bunch of junk thrown around in a patient's room?" we'll say. And then we'll laugh and laugh.
Elsewhere, in a world almost devoid of color, House looks up at his reflection in a bathroom mirror. He splashes water on his face and limps off to the office of a guy running a disciplinary hearing. The guy clicks on a teeny recorder and exposits that we'll be talking about the events of February 3, 2012 in patient room 209. House has a question: "Who the hell are you?" The answer is, "I'm Walter Cofield. Chief of Neurology, Mercy hospital. I'll be deciding your fate today." That's a lot of exposition, but I appreciate the effort.
House suddenly knows everything about Cofield, including the fact that he's Foreman's old mentor. He thinks it's interesting that Foreman selected his old mentor to judge his new mentor. He declares that the facts are in the folder and gets up to leave. Cofield says the facts would lead to House being suspended, which is a revocation of his parole. House sits again, because this entire season is about House being forced to do things by the threat of going to jail. House rushes through the patient intro for Cofield. It's a 32-year-old high school chemistry teacher who collapsed while jogging. He had paralysis in all four extremities.
Flashback! Foreman is begging House to help him solve this thing. House is bathed in an angelic glow. In the modern day, Cofield doesn't buy the glow. House pops a Vicodin, which Cofield looks askance at. House cheerfully admits that he took Vicodin during this case. And the other nine years of cases. He claims that his process is proven, and that good things usually happen and bad things rarely happen. Cofield wants to find out why bad things happen, and House accuses him of just trying to assign blame. "It's nobody's fault."
House insults the patient, and we see Cofield interrogating Adams. He doesn't think House was really so casual about his patient. Adams says she doesn't think it was House's fault. Now Taub is talking to Cofield, and apparently this is going to be an episode in which a lot of different people are describing events. This presents a challenge to the recapper, and I am going to solve the problem by ignoring it. From now on, I'm either describing the case (shown in flashback) or the disciplinary interviews (shown in the present) and it's up to you to figure out which. Each interview is one-on-one, if that helps.