Episode Report Card Sara M: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Everybody Hurts
By Sara M | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.19.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.House returns from its month-long absence with a lackluster episode in which a patient in chronic pain is determined to kill himself in front of (and, in one case, with the assistance of) his son rather than wait to find out what's wrong with him and whether or not it can be cured. Even House has to admit the guy has a point when it looks like they're out of diagnoses, but just when he's being discharged to off himself, House realizes he has a magical form of epilepsy that somehow made its way into his balls and laid dormant until the guy was in his late twenties.
In the meantime, House also sort of finds parallels in his situation and the patient's, even though they have very little in common except for the pain. House's pain is tolerable with painkillers, has a known cause, and could be taken away if he had his leg removed. The patient's is intolerable with no known cause or cure. See? Much different.
Meanwhile, Cuddy gives motherhood a try, only to find out that it takes work and time and energy and stuff. So she takes Wilson's advice very much the wrong way and offers her job to Cameron. From lowly fellow to ER Queen to Dean of Medicine in five short years -- way to go, Camster!
And on the Foreman/Hadley front, Hadley doesn't want a relationship with Foreman because she's terminally ill, but Foreman is a glutton for punishment and insists on it, even scheming behind her back to schedule her after Janice so Hadley can see how Janice's symptoms have improved since she started the trial. It works, but then he finds out that Hadley is getting the placebo and not the real medicine. So even if the medicine did work, it won't help Hadley.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!House is back and it's on a new night! I was so excited that I stayed up all night to write this. I hope the episode is worth it! We begin on a dark, stormy night, which are the perfect conditions to write a suicide note, as this man, named Jeff (unless he signed his note with a fake name, which, why would you do that?), is currently doing. He looks at a cheesy family photo of himself with a wife and son in front of the Grand Canyon (they're all giving the camera the thumbs up. Who does that? If my family was that lame, I would kill myself, too) and takes his wedding ring off. He grabs the keys, and I see that I was wrong -- he's not writing a suicide note, but an "I'm abandoning my family because I'm a selfish dick" note. He grabs a few shirts from the closet, because he does things all backwards. When I left my wife and son, I totally packed first.
Meanwhile, the wife and son are driving home unexpectedly early because son Zach forgot to bring a hockey stick to his hockey game. Idiot. Zach is convinced that he's the worst player on his team. Don't worry, Zach! In a few minutes, that will be the least of your worries. And the least of mine, as I just recognized the wife as Sarah "Plot Contrivance" Glass from my 7th Heaven recapping days and now I'm having all kinds of horrible flashbacks. Fortunately for me, this doesn't happen very often because people who worked on 7th Heaven rarely get acting jobs. Zach enters the garage, only to find his father in his car, the exhaust running. He took the shirts out of his closet to use to seal off the garage door, so I was right the first time. Jeff is killing himself after all. I guess he took the ring off to spare the mortician from having to saw it off his bloated dead finger. That's amazingly considerate for a man who is happy to kill himself where his young son can find the body. Mom acts immediately, grabbing her cell phone while telling Zach to get back in the car. Zach doesn't obey, so he gets to watch his mother do CPR and bring his father back to life.
House spends some time in his bathtub wincing and rubbing his bad leg. We even get to see a shot of the scar just to make the ladies swoon. He then heads into work, followed by Cuddy, who still has those terrible bangs. House immediately blames her uncharacteristic tardiness on the new baby, but Cuddy explains that she was up all night working on finance reports and reveals that her baby is named Rachel. House calls her Mowgli. I call her Unnecessary. With that, House tries to get out of handing in his department budget report, only to be informed that Cameron already did it for him. How is she allowed to do that? And why? House also wants to know the answer to that last question, and Cuddy says she's guessing that Cameron needs a favor from House. House doesn't like this at all, but Cuddy says she's too busy with her baby to get in the middle of this.