Episode Report Card Sara M: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Illusionist
By Sara M | Season 4 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.19.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Kumar and Cole check out a magic show together, only to stumble upon a new case when the magician's heart stops in the drowning tank. House doesn't think it's anything serious, so he challenges the Numbers to bring him Cuddy's thong in return for immunity and the ability to choose two nominees for elimination. While CTB and PS try to get the thong with hot coffee and fire drills, it's Cole who ends up with the prized red bloomers. And then the magician falls victim to the MRI of DOOOM!! and his insides are ripped apart, thanks to the metal handcuff key he forgot to mention was in his stomach. After surgery to repair the damage, the magician starts bleeding everywhere and having seizures, leading Cole and 13 to think that there was something wrong with his blood transfusion during surgery, and House to believe he has amyloidosis. In the end, they're both sort of right; the magician has an autoimmune disorder (that's right -- someone actually has lupus!) that made his blood appear to be a different type than it actually was, so the blood transfusion was the wrong type. And that's what caused all the magician's post-surgery symptoms. Speaking of symptoms, 13 gets all defensive when she drops a folder, so House caffeinates her coffee and gives her the jitters to find out what her stupid mystery is. And it is that her mother died from Huntington's, and 13 doesn't want to know whether she's doomed to suffer the same fate. In return for those coffee jitters, 13 drugs House, knocks him out, ties him to a bed, and removes parts of his internal organs. And Cole chooses his two elimination nominees: CTB (no surprise) and Kumar (big surprise). House figures out that Cuddy gave Cole her thong in exchange for her selecting the elimination nominees. She chose CTB because everyone hates CTB, and Kumar because he keeps blowing stuff up and is a liability. For giving Cuddy a measure of control over his hiring and firing decisions, House ultimately fires Cole, immunity butt floss and all. And Cole loses his job, his friend, and his babysitter. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We open at a magic show hosted by some English guy and attended by one eager Kumar and a bored-looking Cole, the latter in a suit. I'm starting to think Cole doesn't wear anything but suits. Suits, and magic underwear. Speaking of magic: the magician asks for volunteers for his next stunt. Kumar dopily raises his hand, grunting like you did when you were in third grade and wanted the teacher to call on you so that you could show everyone you knew the answer. Dork. The magician calls on Kumar, only to dash his hopes by requesting the assistance of his tablemate Cole, who looks like he'd rather tear his own head off and eat it than participate in this show. Not improving his mood very much is Kumar, who slaps him on the ass as he approaches the stage. I'm...not sure why he did that, actually. It's not like they're playing a football game. An uncomfortable Cole is forced to attest to the realness of the magician's water tank and the handcuffs he'll be locking his hands in when he's lowered and locked into the water tank.
Once inside the tank, the magician lamely flails around for a second. Then he doesn't move at all. Cole asks the magician's lovely assistant whether this part of the act. "I'm new," she shrugs. Then the magician makes blood appear as he barfs it out of his mouth. At this point, I would've just assumed the magician was doing something really cool for this magic trick and probably accidentally let him die, but Cole figures out that it's not an illusion, and calls Kumar up to the stage. It's always convenient when the medical mysteries come to you. That was one thing Jessica Fletcher kind of took for granted in her mystery-solving days, when she would meet up with an old friend, only for said old friend to be viciously -- and mysteriously -- murdered.
After the credits, House is whizzing around on a Razor scooter from 2001, delighted at his current lack of cases. At this, Kumar pipes up that he saw a potential case last night when a magician's heart stopped while he was hanging upside down in a water tank. What about the blood barfing? Since when is that a symptom of a simple heart attack? House doesn't care about this case -- not even when Cole backs Kumar up that the heart attack was not a result of the magician drowning in his own trick. Instead, House makes fun of Cole for leaving work at 6 to take care of his kid while somehow making time for "man-dates." But House, you have to make time for man-dates. They're mandated. Homonyms aside, House kind of has a point here. The only magic a single parent should really have time to see is that asshole at his kid's birthday party who makes a bunch of handkerchiefs come out of his mouth.