Episode Report Card Sara M: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Skin Is Deep, Balls Are Deeper
By Sara M | Season 2 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.19.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A teenaged supermodel is predictably addicted to heroin and collapses on the runway after slugging one of her fellow models. After magically curing her of her drug problems, the House team is left with an amnesiac, twitching, heart-attack-prone patient, meaning that she's got something else wrong with her. House thinks her problems are psychological, since he refuses to let anyone be in worse pain than he is, now that his leg is acting up. When it turns out that the girl's dad has had sex with her ("just once!" he's quick to point out, as if that makes it any better), the scales start to tip towards a PTSD diagnosis -- until a lumbar puncture and a failed placebo experiment show that she really has something wrong with her brain. Also, she likes to seduce men all over the place for no good reason, including her drunk dad, which invites the question of who's grosser: the girl who gets her dad drunk for the sole purpose of having sex with him, or the dad who sleeps with his daughter as soon as his inhibitions are lowered? (It's the dad, by the way. Come on now.) House is sure she has paraneoplastic syndrome, but no one can find the cancer that's causing it until a clinic patient (remember those?) leads House to realize that the supermodel is all estrogen -- because she's immune to the testosterone her hidden testicles are producing! She's a chromosomal he! Her dad had sex with a GUY! Ha! S/he also has testicular cancer. Bummer. After figuring it all out, House returns to Cuddy for another shot of morphine for his leg, after convincing her to give him one earlier by taking his pants off and acting very pained and vulnerable and desperate. And that's when Cuddy tells him that she never gave him morphine at all -- it was saline. After being so certain that his patient's problems were all in her head and being wrong, House realizes that his own problems actually are mostly in his head. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Not only did Fox decide to put House on a different day and time this week, but they appear to be showing America's Next Top Model instead of my show! I look for Djb in the audience of this fashion show, but he is nowhere to be found. Instead, it's just tall, shiny-faced girl after tall, shiny-faced girl strutting down the catwalk. Backstage, a sweaty blonde girl (is there any other kind?) complains that she feels like puking, but gets little sympathy for an older gentleman (the designer? Her manager? I have no clue, and we never seen him again so it doesn't matter), who tells her that she's already two years older than thirteen-year-old Kate Moss was when she was doing shows, so she'd better buck up. Yes, because Kate Moss turned out so well. Let's all follow her drug-laden example. He walks off, only to be replaced by another guy, who's holding a glass of champagne and is revealed to be the model's father. He's not very sympathetic either, as the girl complains that her shoes make her feet hurt. At least he has a solution: he leads her behind a rack of clothing and gives her some pills for "anxiety." She washes them down with a nice gulp of her dad's champagne, and then runs off to the catwalk. "Knock 'em out!" her dad cheers presciently.
Alex the Model makes it down the catwalk, but starts getting dizzy and having double vision on her way back. She staggers around, showing poor catwalk form indeed. Miss J would rip her arms off for this! A fellow model kindly asks her if she's okay, and is rewarded with a slap across the face, followed by a punch that sends her off the catwalk and into the audience. The modeling business sure is competitive! Alex collapses on the catwalk. She lies there, unmoving, her eyes wide open. The photographers huddle around her body to snap as many pictures as they can. Janice Dickinson snorts in disgust, making sure to get some coke up there while she's at it.
House's alarm clock goes off at 9:19, which is an odd time. Maybe House just likes the number 9, though. He wakes up and rubs his bad leg as Ryan Adams sings. I love Ryan Adams. He and House should get together and fight over who is more self-destructive. House tries to walk, but his leg gives out and he falls backwards onto the bed. It's not going to be a good day for House.
Nosy Wilson demands to know why House didn't ride his motorcycle to work today. I think the fact that it's pouring outside would be a good enough reason, but not for Wilson! He thinks it has something to do with House's leg, and theorizes that it's hurting too much for House to ride. He urges House to try rehab, by which he means rehab for his leg, not for his drug habit. House says that he tried that for about five minutes before deciding it wasn't for him. Well, as long as he gave it a fair shot. Wilson asks him at least to get an MRI of his leg; House downs a couple of pills and says that they are the only solution to his problem that he needs. The solution to my problem of not seeing enough Cuddy on this show walks up and tells House that his newest patient is a teenaged supermodel. "Supermodel"? Really? I guess you really do just need to be tall and not built like a Williams sister. Cuddy starts to list off Alex's symptoms, but House doesn't need to hear them: getting to treat a hot underaged girl is reward enough for him.