A Special Halloween-Flavored House
Episode Recap: "Guardian Angels"
What a weird way to introduce this week's medical mystery. For a minute there I thought maybe
Bones had run long or something - our POTW, Irene, was seemingly attacked by the corpses at the funeral parlor where she's an aesthetician. It was definitely a spooky start.
Cut to the Wannabes waiting in the empty classroom for House. A phone rings - a phone none of them had ever noticed there before - and lo and behold, it's Charlie, uh, I mean House, with an assignment for his "Angels." He even has his own Bosley, in the form of
Carmen Argenziano, who had a great episode tonight - which is fortunate, since we will see him no more, alas. When House turned from workplace
Survivor to
The Bachelor, there was no rose (or peony, actually) for the old fella. But at least he made the most of it, offering up keen medical insights and the kind of creative leaps usually reserved for House himself - which turns out to be exactly his problem. He's too
much like House - he can't provide anything that the doc himself wouldn't already think of.
It's too bad, really. I was sorry to see him go. Bosley, aka Father Time, was also cultivating a sizzling professional tension with Plastic Surgeon Guy (
Peter Jacobson), which I'm going to miss. And I can't believe that Generic Other Guy (
Andy Comeau) got to stay over House's non-doctor doppelgänger.
One Wannabe who's still in it, despite slugging House for insulting the founder of his religion, is "Big Love," aka "Dark Religious Nut," as House calls him (
Edi Gathegi). Interesting evening for him, too - a still-blond Cameron made a bet with House that "Big Love" would stand up to him, and boy did he ever. We also discovered that "Big Love" is a single dad.
Meanwhile, "Cut-Throat Bitch" (
Anne Dudek) is trying to bring down Number 13 (a still uninspiring
Olivia Wilde), because she clearly sees her as a threat, and because she realizes that House can't resist a mystery. CTB planted the idea of a wheelchair-bound "ghost" to the hallucinating POTW, who then repeated to Number 13 that the man blamed her for killing his dog (which was upsetting enough the first time, thank you very much). She even went so far as to leave a dog's collar in the procedure room to screw with Number 13's head.
Which brings us back to the POTW, whom I nearly forgot with all this Wannabe-talk. In addition to her mother, whom she sees by her bedside throughout the ordeal, she tells House she sees an old man in a jaunty three-piece suit, hat and cane named Walter - which leads House to stomp off to Wilson's office to "pretend to be spooked" by a fake Grandpa Walt, so he could convince the POTW that he believed her hallucinations were real. Based on his "interview" with the POTW's mother (who died when Irene was a child), House diagnoses her with Parkinson's disease. But when the neurological symptoms only get worse after they begin treatment, the team is left to come up with another explanation. Resulting in the requisite gross-out shot(s) of the night: the eye-procedure close-up and the open-body-cavity surgery after Irene starts throwing up blood.
It was only after Irene, now a disturbing shade of yellow, tries to grab "Big Love's", um, big love and starts foaming at the mouth that the real diagnosis comes to CTB: The POTW has been tripping, basically, thanks to eating organic bread made from moldy grain. The scene of her saying goodbye to her long-dead mama as the medication starts to work was actually quite touching.
The Foreman subplot was also compelling; despite excellent credentials and qualifications, the guy can't get a job because he's... too House-like. Which led me to wonder: What
would become of him, and the other Ducklings, out in the wide world of non-Princeton Plainsboro? His obvious genius aside, if House has such a reputation for being a loose cannon that it would taint the CVs of anyone who worked for him, why would the candidates be lining up - and robbing graves in the middle of the night - just for a chance at that? Regardless, Foreman's back! But only because he was blackballed everywhere else. From the preview for next week's episode, it looks like House is going to try to aggravate him into quitting. Sounds like good fun to me!
What did you think of this episode? Which Wannabes are growing on you the most? Leave your comments below!
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