Episode Report Card Sara M: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Lobe It Or Hate It
By Sara M | Season 7 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.20.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We pick up right where we left off last season, which means we have to see House and Cuddy's sex montage, set to way-too-serious piano music and even including Cuddy kissing House's leg scar because this episode was apparently written by a high-school girl. The next day, House refuses to let Cuddy go back to the real world of her job and her daughter, so instead they both stay in and have sex a lot and play scrabble. House proves to be, like, a dream boyfriend, cooking up gourmet breakfasts, planning French getaways, and drawing baths for his lady, albeit ones that unintentionally burn her ladyparts. It's all very… well, strange. And not what I expected from this. But Hugh Laurie and Lisa Edelstein are good enough at their jobs to keep me hopeful about where it will end up.
Back at PPTH, the Cottages have their hands slightly full trying to keep the ER and ICU open without a health-regulations-mandated neurosurgeon present. You see, PPTH's only neurosurgeon went home puking. Chase and Hadley make a housecall, and Hadley administers a drug that makes the neurosurgeon feel much better. Perhaps a little too better, as he starts seeing auras around the light and removing his clothes. The Cottages figure out that he's actually suffering from toad egg poisoning, thanks to a seafood festival he snuck out of PPTH to attend and, clearly, suffered great karmic retribution for. PPTH's ER and ICU are opened before Cuddy is ever the wiser. As she finally leaves House's apartment after reassuring him that their new relationship is not going to crash and burn as soon as she gets home and realizes what a mistake it was, both she and House are clearly concerned that that's exactly what will happen.
Oh, and Hadley tricked everyone into thinking she was going to some drug trials in Rome, only to take off for parts unknown without leaving a forwarding address. Hooray!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We pick up right where we left off last season, which was kind of surprising to me because I just assumed we'd jump in, like, a week or three months later, with Hadley already gone and House and Cuddy's relationship having been consummated and semi-established and left to our imaginations. But no, we instead get to spend this entire episode watching it, kind of like when House went to a mental hospital last season and we had to watch that for two hours. And it was all very out-of-character and deviated from the show's formula in a way that left a bad taste in my mouth. Although a lot of people liked it as much as I didn't, so ... enjoy!
House is still slightly injured from having a building fall on him, so Cuddy's first act as his girlfriend is to check on his shoulder wound. "It's gonna get infected," she whispers. Sexy! She grabs some wound care items as House just stands there, stunned by the turn his life has taken as well as, possibly, how it's suddenly daylight outside. Apparently in the one minute that passed between last season and now, the sun came up. Cuddy takes off House's shirt and cleans his wound and then his still-dirty face with a washcloth. Excellent -- a warm washcloth dabbed a few times on a gaping wound full of, like, concrete dust, asbestos, and bacteria is definitely the best way to treat and prevent further infection. If you're a doctor in the 1800s. Or a doctor who kind of sucks at doctoring, like Cuddy. Then she starts taking off his pants, to which he puts up slight resistance. She feels up his leg scar. "Don't. Don't," he says; "isn't this the show where we have sons die from radiation poisoning accidentally caused by a gift from their fathers? Where parents lose their newborn babies due to a sickness spread by a stuffed animal given out by an ill hospital volunteer? Where people barf shit? What's with the weird cheesy sentimental stuff?" "It's okay," Cuddy says; "I love you." She kisses it. So that's how this episode is going to be. They make out and House carries her into bed and a sex montage. The next morning, he asks: "so ... now what?"
Well, first, it's time for some new opening credits, now with Peter Jacobson and Olivia Wilde and no Jennifer Morrison. And it only took them four seasons to properly update. I'm dating back to when Cameron died her hair back to blonde but was still wandering through the opening credits as a brunette, and then, of course, how Taub and Hadley have been permanent regular characters for the past two seasons.