It wasn't the most exciting finale I've ever seen. It was subtle yet managed to surprise with a twist: House was left with no ducklings on his payroll. But even that move raised only my eyebrow and not my heart rate — as, say, last season's finale did.First of all, House fired Chase. Just when I started to like him. I blame Wilson. He's always buzzing in House's ear about this or that. Now it's about House and his fear of change. Next thing you know Chase has no job. Nice work, James. Then there was Marina (Mercedes Renard) and her mysterious illness. Roiling seas aside, Esteban (Omar Avila)and Marina's desperate voyage from Cuba to New Jersey for treatment at the hands of Princeton-Plainsboro's foremost diagnostician resulted in a case that flatlined pretty quickly. After all the focus on losing Marina's medical records at sea, this didn't have an impact on her treatment. Then Esteban, the husband shown to be extremely concerned about the love of his life, would only raise a l...
read more
Just ask him to stay already! Am I the only one who wanted to reach through the screen and scream this at House? Foreman wants to stay, House wants him to stay, but they are both too stubborn to make that happen without the other asking for that privilege. Men. The funny thing is, Foreman is leaving because he doesn't want to turn into House, yet here he is acting just like the man. Methinks it's time for a little self-reflection, Eric.How funny was this week's patient? Nate, played with finesse by Nick Lane was an obnoxious teenager suffering, it turns out, from hemachromatosis — too much iron in his blood — which had him in excruciating pain. Much to his beleaguered mother's (Colleen Flynn) dismay, Nate's personality problems were not a side effect of his illness. Nate's prickly style had Chase declaring him evil and Foreman sedating him purely to shut him up. Is it any wonder that House liked him? In the midst of figuring out Nate's problem, Foreman tried to solve a li...
read more
As you can imagine, given last week's resignation, this week's show spent a lot of time on the Foreman question. Will he or won't he stay, or does he just want House to ask him to stay? Then of course there's the "will House ask him to stay?" question. Enough already! I'm approaching House's level of annoyance with Foreman's existential crisis. "I want to be a really great doctor like you, but only if I can be nice, too!" I'm not knocking friendly patient care, but House is who he is and Foreman believing he has to lose his humanity in order to replicate House's level of expertise is just plain silly. Besides, it's clear that Foreman wants to stay and a simple request from House would get Foreman to rescind his own walking papers, but since when has House ever done anything the easy way? Here's a man who could have asked Wilson if he was on antidepressants but chose instead to spike Wilson's coffee with uppers and wait for a possible heart attack to answer that question. Hmm. Ma...
read more
Timing really is everything. Could Matty (Dabir Snell), on the verge of donating his life-saving bone marrow to Nick (Jascha Washington), his leukemia-stricken brother, have picked a worse time to get sick? Sure, it wasn't Matty's fault that his house was built on chicken droppings and that he played in dirt filled with gross bacteria that infected him with hystoplasmosis. But still, tick tock. Nick's got four days to live and Matty needs to be healthy to be a donor. What's worse is that it's taking his doctors nearly all of those four days to make a diagnosis.Maybe if Foreman, still reeling from the loss of last week's patient, wasn't, understandably, pussyfooting around his diagnoses, things might get done faster. You see, he's reluctant to kill again — and who wouldn't be? But this irks House, who, of course, has turned on the countdown clock to Foreman's dismissal. You only get so much time to lick your wounds in this hospital. With that in mind I'm glad that Foreman pulled...
read more
I think it's safe to say that tonight's show was a bit of a downer. If the unnecessary death of Lupe (Monique Gabriela Curnen), a young, economically depressed woman, doesn't convince you of that, then maybe the presence of Foreman's Alzheimer-stricken mother (Beverly Todd) will. Lupe entered the hospital exhibiting all sorts of worrisome symptoms that baffled the doctors. At Foreman's insistence they treated her to a dosage of full-body radiation to kill the suspected cancer. But only after destroying her auto-immune system did they realize that the source of her distress was an infection. Their treatment effectively killed her. So this time it was Foreman sitting at a dying patient's bedside. (Remember that Cameron is now emotionally unavailable for such things.) The situation provided for some fine moments from a wrecked Foreman who was already struggling with the effects of his visiting mother's dementia. Meanwhile, House struggled to identify the true nature of Wilson and Cudd...
read more
Hi everyone,I’m so sorry to have missed recapping this week's house but as Angel posted I was flat on my back reenacting my very own NyQuil commercial complete with nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing and aching. But I'm back at work now with a recap in hand and though it's a couple of days late hopefully you won't find it to be a dollar short. Thanks for keeping the discussion going in my absence.-RhodaSeriously, what show am I watching? From the daycare-teacher-doing dad (Erich Anderson) to the off-again Cameron-Chase pairing to the Wilson-Cuddy-House triangle I am on relationship overload. Add Wilson's should-I-shouldn't-I-does-she-doesn't-she back and forth and there is too much relationship stuff swirling around this show. I half expected Chase to drop a 'McSurly' on House. I know there are a lot of 'shippers' out there rooting for a Hameron sandwich or a Huddy huddle, but I'm telling you now, we need to keep that stuff in Seattle. In its own over the top manner Ho...
read more
Tonight House and Cuddy are trapped on an 18-hour flight when a mysterious illness breaks out and passengers start up-chucking their dinner and breaking out in curiously artistic rashes. Even Cuddy succumbs and if her worst fears are correct it's bacterial meningitis and they'll all be dead by the time the plane lands. Thank goodness there's a board certified infectious disease specialist on the plane who can save the day or at least declare that there's nothing really wrong. And that was my problem with tonight's eagerly anticipated episode. Conversion sickness or mass hysteria as House explained sparked by the onset of the bends from one scuba-diving passenger (who apparently spoke no known language). To sum up: There was no airborne virus as the episode's title would have us believe. No need to turn back as Cuddy would have the pilot do and no real need for House to do anything more than toss off some snarky one-liners. Aside from those, I was wildly disappointed. Luckily the B...
read more
It is often the scenario on House that there is no middle ground for doctors between complete objectivity and total emotionalism, though in real life I think such a place exists. When celebrity photographer Emma Sloan (Anne Ramsay), self-diagnoses a stroke and ends up in Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital under House's care, you immediately notice a spark between doctor and patient and just as quickly House finds himself struggling to stay unmoved by his patient and her unborn child.Emma, 42 years old, is single, pregnant and suffering from Mirror syndrome. She would rather risk death than terminate the long-sought-after pregnancy that endangers her life. House falls back on reason, insisting that Emma abort "it" and that Cuddy support his stance on the fetus' fate, but Cuddy, seeing herself in Emma, leaps squarely into the other camp and throws herself headlong into the quest to save the baby and the mother's life. We end up with one doctor trying desperately not to care and th...
read more
Does it ever happen to you that when someone asks, What's your favorite movie… song… whatever, you cannot arrive at an answer? And though you had one moments before, their questioning has left you completely blank? Happens to me all the time. But I have a feeling that were one now to ask me if I had a favorite episode of House, I just might have an answer. Tonight's smartly told episode was so embarrassingly full of the good stuff that I fear I'm on the verge of gushing. From beginning to end — Marines blown up by a roadside bomb to House discovering Cameron and Chase's indiscretions — the show was both riveting and jarring. John Kelley (Marc Blucas), nephew of a hospital benefactor and one time date of Cuddy's, complains of Gulf War Syndrome. As the skeptical team searches for his true ailment, John loses his hearing and the use of his legs and develops an infection in his mouth. His prognosis is not promising and as his symptoms accumulate, John becomes more i...
read more
I'm listening to Dave Matthews as I'm writing this commentary and I’m the teensiest bit disappointed that his role on House tonight was so limited. However, since he is a professional musician and not an actor, maybe it's best that he not stray too far afield. The only other acting I've seen him do was in Because of Winn-Dixie, a movie I recently viewed at the behest of fellow TV Guide blogger Jennifer Sankowski. Honestly, the role was similar, and Matthews was quite good in both. How could you not be touched by the story of Patrick (Matthews), a musical savant whose hand suffers inexplicable muscle contractions while performing in concert? Patrick's incredible musical abilities manifested themselves after he survived a bus accident that killed his mother. Now, at 35, Patrick is a child-like adult cared for by a father (Kurtwood Smith) who sees Patrick's ability as a gift rather than the medical abnormality it is. But when you pair Patrick's condition with a depressed House who...
read more
What do you get when you put a man who's in constant pain with a girl who can't feel any? A great episode. It's only natural that House would be drawn to Mika Boorem's Hannah, a teenage girl who suffers from an insensitivity to pain. To House, she is like the Holy Grail — a thing of unattainable beauty and not just because she's a cute blonde but because within her lies a potential cure from constant agony. If only his conscience, also known as Wilson, would let him biopsy Hannah's spinal nerves so that he can grow his own set of pain-free ones. This is why we have Wilson, to keep House from going over the edge.... Although squaring off with Hannah to see whose condition is worse is a bit much. House seemed to win by virtue of having been shot, but I say that Hannah's having to perform daily self-inspections to see that she hasn't scratched off her corneas in her sleep trumps House's bullet wound. Having a 25-foot tapeworm living inside you is a close second. And thanks to the ...
read more
The parade of young patients continues this week as Foreman leads the charge in treating a teenager whose Romany heritage impedes his medical treatment. Secretive and suspicious of the world, Stevie (Jake Richardson) and his family refuse unproven treatment — their kind have been experimented on before — choosing instead their own homeopathic treatment for Stevie's ailment. Seeing a bit of himself in Stevie, Foreman takes a special interest in his scientifically inclined patient, even offering to get Stevie an interview for an internship. But culture and science clash. Stevie, with insight beyond his years, chooses family over promise. As he sees it, Chase, Foreman and Cameron are all successful doctors, but none of them wears a ring. Family: that's what it's all about.House wasn't around much for such touching sentiment. He was too busy angling for a better parking spot. You see, it seems that wheelchair trumps cane and the addition to the staff of Dr. Julie Whitner (We...
read more
I tried. I really did try to like this episode. Having narrowly escaped jail time due to Cuddy's perjured testimony, House is on clinic duty big time. He, of course, hates it. After a parade of uninteresting patients, most of which fear they have an STD but don't, House finds himself in close quarters with Eve (Katheryn Winnick), a chlamydia-ridden, pregnant rape victim. Feeling out of his league (and bored by this straightforward case), House tries to remove himself from the situation, but Eve won't let him go. And thus begins our quest to see House find a heart. Others may find it touching. I find it to be trite.Eve wants to talk. About anything — the weather, maybe. House wants to disappear, as much from clinic duty as from this patient. Hiding out at the jogging park, a place Cuddy would never think to look, or even in an exam room with a paid-off patient, House avoids connecting with Eve — for to connect with Eve is to find oneself. Gah! I’m not much for cloying ...
read more
If you've watched tonight's show but have never seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then don't bother to rent the DVD. Though it did the whole lobotomy-to-erase-memories-of-love thing much better. At least in that movie, the love was mutual. Here, poor firefighter Derek (Tory Kittles) has a heart attack whenever Amy (Meagan Good), the object of his affection, is near. What's worse is that Derek believes her to be in love with his brother (Jason George). Such is the curse of Broken Heart syndrome. Coupled with male menopause, it's no wonder Derek tried to strangle Cameron. I wish he'd try to strangle Tritter. That no good, self-righteous, smug cop is full of it. He gets House to apologize and then throws out the old action-versus-words speech. So House takes himself to rehab, and Tritter still does not relent. "Even your actions lie." Whatever, Tritter. Get over yourself, I'm so over you. Good thing, too, because it's all over with this guy. David Morse, we love ya, but buh...
read more
Viewers have been vocal about their dislike of the Tritter ( David Morse) story line, pointing specifically to his seemingly unlimited powers. "It's unrealistic," they scream. In real life, there's no way a cop would be able to freeze bank accounts and impound cars and whatever else Tritter has done. But that's the kicker, isn't it? And that's why I haven't been all that bothered by Tritter's boundless powers. If we are going to hold dramas to the standards of reality, then we'll all end up watching documentaries. I’m open to suspending reality in my entertainment viewing. It's what kept me tuning in to shows like 24 and Alias. However, I am growing a bit tired of the Tritter arc, mostly because it forces me to recognize the unrealistic elements that are the cornerstone of this series. I have to step back and say, like so many others, that's so unrealistic! Tonight's episode, featuring Abigail (Kacie Borrowman), an apparent dwarf with multisystem failure, and her actual dwarf m...
read more
Six-year-old Alice (Alyssa Shafer) develops gallstones and then a nasty rash that defies any medical explanation that the team can discover. On the brink of an arm- and leg-amputation, Chase makes the diagnosis that Alice is allergic to light — only to get a right hook to the nose from a cranky House. So now our drug-addled hero is attacking his staff. What does this mean? House is no longer a functioning addict. He couldn't even make the diagnosis. Granted, he is technically undergoing withdrawal. But with Chase figuring things out, House has lost the one thing he had going for him and the one thing that allowed everyone else to overlook his problem.When I first started watching this show, I found the idea of a drug-addicted doctor somewhat disturbing. As time passed, House's sarcastic wit and implied genius made his habit less menacing — endearing, even. Like the doctors closest to him at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, we viewers have all become enablers of House's addi...
read more
We felt his presence, though we didn't see him at all this week. Tritter has put the squeeze on House through his friend and colleagues. Being the friend, Wilson got the worst of it. He's had his car impounded, and the DEA revoked his prescription-writing privileges — to which House responded, "Who's going to prescribe my Vicodin?" That's just the tip of House's self-absorbed iceberg. Wilson is no longer of any use as a pusher, so of course House hit up his staff for Vicodin. Quick: Who would rather lose his job than lose his license? If you guessed Chase, then you were ahead of me. Boy, did I love seeing Chase stand up to House, as well as the Midol-throwing Cameron, who also did not cave under House's pressure. There were so many great scenes that showed the effects of House's ill-advised pissing match with Tritter: Wilson not being able to treat his patients. Cameron sitting in on Wilson's appointments rather than blindly prescribing medication for his patients. House's new...
read more
Stunt casting. Vegetative-state man awakes and wants a steak. Ah, yes, it must be sweeps. I'm a little bit disappointed that it wasn't Coma Guy whom House roused from sleep. But given the way the show ended — John Larroquette's character dying to save his son's life — I was relieved that our long-standing friend is still with us. Wilson summed up the show best: "Caustic Guy was waking up Coma Guy." To be more specific, House injected Gabe (Larroquette), against Cuddy's wishes, with experimental drugs that would temporarily release him from his vegetative state in the hopes of getting a detailed medical history for Kyle (Zeb Newman), the dying patient who, it turns out, is Gabe's son. Guilt is a heavy load to bear for 10 years. Imagine doing so while unconscious. Gabe's guilt over not being able to save his family resulted in a road trip for House and Wilson, who struggled with their own issues — namely Wilson's lying to the police to protect House for forging presc...
read more
While the opening joke in tonight's show left me with the distinct feeling that I was watching a performance in an acting class, it did lead into a clever entrance for the show's main patient: George, a 650-pound comatose man thought to be dead and who, while in the process of being cut out of his apartment by a crew of wisecracking firemen, involuntarily alerts them to his true status with a built-in alarm.Quick to champion the cause of the underdog, Cameron immediately empathized with the now-conscious George; however, Chase could not see past George's excess flesh in order to treat him. As a matter of fact, he disappeared from the case. What's up with that? We know Chase has issues. I just want to know what they are. Occasionally we get a clue that there is something bubbling under the surface with him, and I patiently wait for the big reveal with the faith of a viewer who just knows we're going to get that powerhouse episode that brings all of Chase's disparate parts together. ...
read more
I knew it. I find myself saying that a lot when I watch this show, and I don't think I'm alone. It is very satisfying to be able to correctly declare what's going to happen before the show reveals it. You end up feeling like House, who himself spends most of the show declaring the answer before he has the research to back it up. So join me in some self-congratulatory back-patting if you, like I did, correctly called the identity of the officer who pulled House over before he stepped out of the car and also if you called the brother/sister twist to tonight's medical mystery. In case you are wondering, hell yes, I would want to know if I had inadvertently married my sibling, as Tracy (Jurnee Smollett) and Jeremy (Raviv Ullman) did. I'm somewhat disturbed that the sympathetic Foreman thought this situation was something his ailing couple of patients could get past. I appreciate Foreman's wanting to look at the big picture, but let's narrow the focus. Some things you just can't get over...
read more
This week House tried to discover the source of a severely autistic boy's distress while protesting the replacement carpet in his office and dodging the advances of an underage crush. The autism story line had potential and presented an opportunity to shine some light on an often-misunderstood condition. Unfortunately, it stalled discussing the disappointment of having an "abnormal" child and let House disparage parents who change their lives to care for him. House was at the most childish I've seen him in a while. He spent the episode whining about his new carpet, preferring instead his old bloodstained one. In protest, he refused to work in his office, which led to mildly amusing brainstorming sessions in the clinic, Wilson's and Cuddy's offices, the chapel and a conference room, which gave us the much teased "You can't stop our love!" moment. It worked better in the promo than in the actual show.Overall, the team was unenthusiastic about the case, approaching it with a close-mind...
read more
I'm no fan of the rat, but the opening scene on tonight's show was just gross. I'm not usually squeamish but I had just finished dinner. Was it really necessary to see Ezra Powell (Joel Grey) cut into a live animal and then later learn that the remaining rodents had gnawed on him? Despite that, I liked this episode directed by Laura Innes of ER (and might I add that I am anxiously awaiting that hospital show's premiere on Thursday).[Editor's Note: Due to a technical difficulty the rest of this column is currently unavailable. Please check back later. Thank you for your patience.]
read more
Years ago, my brother saw a movie that he's never forgotten and that he likes to remind me of every now and again. Though I can't remember the details, it involved a man whose unborn twin had grown into an angry talking boil on his neck. While at the zoo this past Labor Day, we observed a sick giraffe with an obvious growth on its neck. Once again, he reminded me of this classic film. It could be that the writer of tonight's episode is also a fan of this movie. Either way, it must have been on my mind because I jumped to the unborn-twin conclusion pretty early on and wondered why it took the fancy-shmancy doctors of Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital so long to figure it out. Maybe they were all too busy telling House that he was wrong. Of so, enough already. Yes, House can be wrong, but can we stop with the torturous whittling away of his confidence? At least Cuddy has been feeling guilty over hiding last week's truth from him but ? and I hesitate to say this ? thank goodness for Camero...
read more
Meaning
Season 3, Episode 1
A pain-free House is on the run. Literally. After eight weeks of rehab from the shooting, he's running to the hospital, where two patients await him. One is a mute quadriplegic (the result of brain cancer) who drove his wheelchair into a pool. The other is a paralyzed young woman who injured herself in a yoga accident. But there's no evidence of spinal damage. House wants both cases because, he says, he wants to help the patients. Arlene: Kathleen Quinlan.
read more
