Episode Report Card Sara M: A+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Smile Time
By Sara M | Season 4 | Episode 16 | Aired on 05.19.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.House and Wilson snatch an unconscious CTB from Princeton General and bring her to PPTH. En route, CTB's racing heart goes into V-fib and she has to be shocked -- except that Wilson decides to lower her body temperature and put her on a bypass machine instead, which will give House more time to remember her symptom and save her. Even though House is still trying to recover from his heart attack and skull fracture, he manages to recall the bar he was at with CTB, but a visit there only gets Wilson all jealous when the bartender recalls House and CTB looking like a couple.
CTB's liver starts to go, joining her kidneys which were damaged in the crash, and House has to decide whether to treat CTB like a normal patient and take potentially fatal risks or defer to his friend's pleas to actually wait and get test results back before treating her. When he decides to override Wilson and do his job, Wilson begs him to first do some dangerous electrical brain zapping thing to access his memories so that they're sure House knows what that first symptom was. Since House's brain has problems of its own, Wilson is basically asking House to risk his life to possibly save the person he loves more: CTB. Ouch. But House goes along with it, and has electrical probes drilled into his brain.They work and he finally remembers what happened at the bar.
House went there alone and got wasted for some reason. When his keys were taken away, he called Wilson for a ride home. But Wilson was at work, so CTB decided to be a pal and pick House up herself. He wound up taking the bus instead, and she followed him on to give him his cane. That's when he saw her take some pills for the flu she was fighting off. And therein lay the problem: those pills have a secret ingredient that, if not properly filtered by one's kidneys, will kill you. And since CTB's kidneys got knocked out in the crash, she has no chance. Not even dialysis will work, since the drug maliciously binds to proteins. And then House has a big old seizure and his fracture gets worse and he's in a coma. So now Wilson has lost his girlfriend and possibly his best friend. Nice one, Wilson.
He wakes CTB up for their last moments together and it's really sad and Robert Sean Leonard is amazing. And then CTB dies, only to pop up in House's coma dream, where he says he doesn't want to wake up and face real life, where he's in pain all the time and now his best friend will hate him for putting his girlfriend on the bus ride that killed her. She's not very sympathetic, but that's probably because, you know, he killed her and these things take a while to get over. House wakes up and Cuddy will still be his friend, but Wilson won't even come into his ICU room. By the way, we learned more about Kumar's background and Hadley decided to finally test herself for Huntington's because of how poorly she handled CTB's possible death. And I have to say, I was shocked when her test came back positive. How can I hate her now? I'm sure I'll find a way in Season 5!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Last time on House: read the recap! Or the recaplet if you're in a hurry. Better yet: watch the episode. It was awesome.
Not much time has passed since we last left our show; it's the same day, and Wilson and House have made it to Princeton General, a.k.a. Craphole General. Look at that place! Old ceiling tiles, gross beige curtains separating patient beds, dull blue-gray walls -- hell, it has walls! PPTH has only windows and a cool fountain that looks like a waterfall. And that mural. Surely Craphole General can afford that stuff, too! After all, they don't have House on their staff to cost them in legal fees and accreditation committee fines. Then again, perhaps it is House and all those expensive and unnecessary tests he runs on his patients that have given PPTH such fat pockets. Anyway, CTB probably doesn't mind the hideous outdated décor she's surrounded by because she's in a coma. Her doctor, who is not pleasing to the eyes like almost everyone at PPTH (I'm so sorry, Taub), says that they've fixed CTB's crash injuries, but now her heart is racing and they don't know why. "Sure it wasn't the bus that landed on her?" House asks, phrasing it as crudely as possible even though poor Wilson -- and, for the matter, CTB -- are in the room. Craphole General Dr. Ordinary McBoring says that heart has nothing to do with the trauma, as it started well after she arrived at the hospital and had whatever surgeries she needed. Meanwhile, Wilson is kind of upset at the sight of the woman he loves looking all broken. He asks the Dr. McBoring why no one called him, which would be a stupid question were he thinking clearly. CTB has been unconscious the entire time and had no ID. And even if she did, why would anyone know to call Wilson? Does her wallet have a "in case of emergency, call Wilson" card in it? Is it tattooed on her unmentionables? House focuses on the case, finding out that CTB's leg wound was repaired in surgery and she's on dialysis for her damaged kidneys. He asks about some heart test to see what's up with CTB's heart, but Dr. McBoring says she's in line behind three other, more critical patients. WHAT! A line? For equipment? This place sucks. Are those vertical blinds I see? Nasty. Get CTB out of here! Dr. McBoring protests moving CTB to PPTH while her heart is like this, but her husband has the power to overrule his decisions, and Wilson is perfectly happy to lie. Either that, or if this season hadn't been cut short by the strike we would have seen CTB and Wilson get married.