House on FOX

As House and his team work on the diagnosis of Vince, a man with a giant swollen tongue, disgruntled former patient Jack Moriarty (guest star Elias Koteas) walks into House's office and shoots him. House continues to treat Vince from his hospital bed in the ICU with Moriarty, shot by hospital security and handcuffed to his bed, as his roommate. Mysteriously since the shooting, House feels decreased pain in his leg. However, aftereffects of the shooting begin to affect him negatively and he starts to question his own ability to diagnose, while hostility increases between him and Moriarty. As Vince's body begins to deteriorate, House struggles through his own self-doubts and must trust his team to find a way to solve the case.

Obnoxious 16-year-old chess prodigy Nate is admitted to Princeton-Plainsboro suffering from intense head pain that came on after he attacked his opponent during a speed chess tournament. Nate's mother tells the team that Nate has been having behavior problems ever since he became a teenager, and House suspects the behavior is a symptom of cluster headaches. As House's team carries out further testing to see why he might be having the headaches, Nate manages to offend and annoy each doctor on the team. As Nate's illness progresses, his liver and kidneys begin to fail. To narrow down the list of possible diagnoses, House carries out a series of unconventional and eccentric tests of his own, including engaging Nate in a game of chess to try to beat him at his own game. Meanwhile, Foreman's frustration with House reaches a new level when he believes House sabotaged his job interview with another hospital, and Cuddy makes Foreman an offer she's sure he can't refuse in "The Jerk."

House insists he can handle things when Stacy (guest-star Sela Ward), the woman he once loved, asks him to diagnose Mark, the man she married. When Mark's tests come back normal yet symptoms show that his brain is dying, the puzzle may be one that even House can't solve. While Wilson worries about House's emotional well-being, the team is blown away by his over-the-top demands. As House struggles to put his emotions aside and solve the case, Cuddy adds to his dilemma and offers Stacy a reason to stay.

Wilson prepares his 14-year-old leukemia patient, Nick, for a last-resort bone marrow transplant from his younger brother, Matty. With Nick's immune system completely wiped out from chemotherapy, Wilson is extremely cautious about keeping him healthy before the transplant. However, when Matty sneezes during a pre-op visit to his brother, Wilson knows that Matty is not healthy enough to donate. House and the team race to find out what is making Matty sick so that they can treat him quickly and allow him to donate healthy, uninfected bone marrow to his dying brother. With no other matching donors available, the team knows that Matty is their best shot at saving Nick's life, since giving Nick bone marrow from a partial-match donor could lead to an excruciating death if Nick's body rejected it. House decides they must purposefully make Matty sicker and use his developing symptoms as a method of narrowing the diagnosis field. As both brothers' conditions worsen and Nick has only days to live, the team must diagnose and treat Matty before it's too late for both brothers. Meanwhile, Foreman is haunted by his mistake that killed a patient just one week earlier, and House only wishes he could incur similar misfortune upon his new pet and nemesis, Hector.

While Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital is rife with rumor and speculation about House's imminent date with Cameron, House apparently scares a meek clinic patient into having a stroke. The team must navigate their way through the patient's odd proclivities, overbearing "friend" and reluctant parents in order to stop the strokes and try to save the guy's life. All the while, Wilson, Cuddy and the team offer House dating advice and lay odds on the outcome.

The team takes on the case of 6-year-old Lucy, who collapsed at daycare. They discover that the tissues surrounding Lucy's heart have hardened and are strangling her heart, a condition usually found in much older patients. As the team searches for an explanation, Lucy's condition worsens and she suffers a stroke. There's a palpable tension between Cameron and Chase, and House intentionally assigns them tasks to do together, including a trip to Lucy's house to check for any possible environmental explanations for her condition. While there, they discover surprising evidence indicating that Lucy may have been abused. Lucy's 8-year-old brother develops a not-so-innocent crush on Cameron, and as he becomes increasingly aggressive, House suspects that whatever is killing Lucy has begun to affect her brother, too. As they try to narrow down what is causing Lucy's condition before it's too late, House and Cameron clash over how to treat her. Meanwhile, when Wilson takes Cuddy out to see a play, House puts ideas in Wilson's head regarding Cuddy's motivation for going with him.

A young woman, Hannah, hasn't been able to sleep for 10 days. She's brought in after she downed an entire bottle of sleeping pills and still didn't fall asleep. Meanwhile, Cameron accuses Foreman of stealing a medical journal article she wrote; he denies stealing it, insisting he wrote his own article about the same case and it was printed before hers was submitted. As Hannah's condition deteriorates, it becomes apparent that she will need a liver transplant to give House enough time to try to solve her case. Her girlfriend and partner, Max, is a perfect match and agrees to donate part of her liver, despite its being a very dangerous procedure. However, the team discovers vital information about Hannah and Max's relationship, forcing them into an ethical quandary that potentially eliminates Hannah's chance of survival.

A famous, 42-year-old, pregnant photographer, Emma Sloan (guest star Anne Ramsay), is brought to the hospital after suffering a stroke in the middle of a high-profile photo shoot with Tyson Ritter (All American Rejects). Although Emma's condition initially stabilizes, her health takes a turn for the worse when her kidneys inexplicably fail. As her health continues to deteriorate, Emma is more concerned about her baby's well-being than her own. With no other viable explanation for the kidney failure, House realizes Emma may have a rare condition called Maternal Mirror Syndrome, in which the mother's health mimics the distress level of her fetus. Meanwhile, Cameron and Chase's secret relationship is exposed to Foreman and Cuddy, and House makes extravagant plans to take a much-needed vacation. House calls Cuddy on the fact she's taken a special interest in the case as she identifies with Emma's struggle to have a child later in life, but her compassion for Emma may be clouding her judgment in the case. When Emma's liver begins to fail, House presents her with the heart-wrenching choice to terminate her fetus or die herself. But with Cuddy on her side, Emma demands they come up with another option – an option that may not exist. With Cuddy and House at odds over how to handle her case, Emma faces a life-and-death situation for both herself and her unborn child.

House is bewildered yet intrigued when he meets his newest patient, John Kelley, an ex-Marine who had saved House's life in a very realistic dream the night before. House is puzzled about how this man could have appeared in his dream before he met him. Recently returned from a two-year deployment in Iraq, Kelley is complaining of fatigue, pain and other non-specific ailments he thinks are the result of Gulf War Syndrome. Just like the V.A. doctors before them, the team is wary about the validity of Kelley's symptoms, but since his uncle is an important benefactor to the hospital, they continue to investigate his case. Meanwhile, House is suffering from ailments of his own – he is unable to urinate, most likely a side effect of his Vicodin abuse, and is sleep-deprived. Unable to concentrate on the case, he eventually turns to Wilson for an under-the-table prescription. While administering tests in the sleep lab, Cameron and Chase forego their clinical duties when they find each other (and a bed in the sleep lab) much more exciting. A foul infection shows up in Kelley’s mouth while Cameron and Chase were supposed to have been on the clock, and his condition only worsens as he begins to lose his hearing, sight and mobility. A brain scan reveals tumors in Kelly's brain that were not there a week earlier when the government doctors at the V.A. examined him. When traces of uranium show up in Kelley's test results, the team wonders if the government had something to hide.

House and his team take on a new patient, Bob, who comes to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital after suffering from a breathing attack while role-playing in the bedroom with his wife (guest star Samantha Mathis). All the symptoms point to heavy metal poisoning, but the tests do not. Meanwhile, as the team goes through its diagnostic process, House is wreaking havoc in the clinic, telling a patient that he got a sexually transmitted disease from his wife. When the wife confronts House about it, he tricks the patient and his wife into divulging the truth. In addition, Wilson has moved in with House and things are not going too smoothly. After House and his team treat Bob for a number of things, including food allergies and lupus, with no results, House is still sure it's heavy metal poisoning. When all the usual metals turn up negative, House confronts Bob's wife as to the origin of Bob's deadly illness, and all signs point to the wife.

It’s Valentine's Day at Princeton-Plainsboro and the ER is short-staffed due to a snowstorm. House encounters Foreman's latest patient, Hannah, who has sustained injuries from a car accident with her mother, Abby. House notices that despite her best efforts to act injured, Hannah is not feeling a bit of pain. House determines that Hannah has an incredibly rare condition that makes her completely insensitive to pain, and he takes a special interest in her case. He orders further testing to see if Hannah has any serious injuries from the car accident that she may not be able to feel, including an unnecessary procedure that causes Cuddy and Wilson to question his motives. Meanwhile, Abby undergoes surgery for her own injuries sustained in the car accident. Hannah refuses further examination and demands to see her mother, but House has little sympathy. She and House argue about which of their lives is worse, Hannah who is impervious to pain or House who suffers from pain constantly. When Hannah passes out and her temperature spikes, the doctors realize that Hannah is much sicker than they had thought. The team takes drastic measures in an attempt to inflict pain on Hannah to measure her pain threshold, but her condition only worsens. House adamantly pushes for a spinal nerve biopsy that could leave her paralyzed, a risky procedure in which few see the benefit, especially Cuddy and Wilson, who accuse House of pushing the test to get information that may benefit his own pain management. As Hannah's body deteriorates without her so much as flinching, House works through his own chronic pain to find out why this young woman cannot feel any pain at all.

Sixteen-year-old Stevie Lipa is admitted to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with a serious respiratory condition and internal bleeding. Oddities of his case land him under House and the team's care, but at the moment, House is irritated to learn that new hospital researcher Dr. Julie Whitner has been assigned his handicapped parking spot by the hospital entrance. Since she's in a motorized wheelchair (and he has to walk), he asks her to give up the parking spot, but she refuses. House, determined to get a parking spot closer to the hospital entrance, appeals to Cuddy, who dares him to prove how much he wants the spot by spending one week in a wheelchair ? a bet House takes on. As the team tries to get personal history information from Stevie, they can't seem to get a straight answer out of him, and it's revealed he's from a family of gypsies. Stevie's parents arrive with homeopathic remedies; they won't consent to House and the team's suggested course of action, and refuse all modern medical treatment. As Stevie's body continues to bleed internally, Foreman makes the risky decision to sidestep Stevie?s parents and appeals directly to the teenage patient, putting his medical license on the line while asking Stevie to lie to his parents.

When a young man comes into the hospital severely burned, but with some unusual activity going on in his blood tests, House and his team have a difficult challenge. How can you diagnose a burn victim when you are unable to use your normal testing methods? The team must get very creative to figure out how to test the patient before his body shuts down. To complicate matters further, House is intent on proving that a former colleague from medical school's new migraine drug doesn't work. Determined to prove the ex-colleague wrong, House makes himself the guinea pig of his own unofficial tests, with painful results.

Margo (guest star Julie Warner), a young housewife on fertility medication, is brought to Princeton Plainsboro Hospital when her inexplicable muscle flailing causes her to crash her car. As Margo's symptoms progress, House and the team think she might have Huntington's disease but when Margo descends into paranoia, they must dig deeper to figure out the cause of her illness, and the team is once again reminded that everybody lies. Meanwhile, House and Stacy return from Baltimore with a rekindled relationship, Wilson is worried that House is setting himself up for another emotional letdown, and Cameron is refusing to get the results of her HIV test.

It's Christmas at Princeton-Plainsboro and Wilson has a present for House – he and Detective Tritter have struck a deal and House has three days to accept it. Wilson will testify that he didn't sign the prescriptions House used to illegally obtain Vicodin, and House will receive two months in a rehab clinic for pleading guilty, avoiding jail time. Even though the deal apparently would make the whole nightmare go away, House is furious at Wilson, will not admit he did anything wrong and immediately goes looking for Cuddy. Barging in on Cuddy in an examining room, he meets her patient, Abigail, and Abigail's mom, Maddy, both dwarfs. Abigail has a number of symptoms and is recovering from a recently collapsed lung, but Cuddy doesn't recognize the gravity of her illness and House takes on the case. As House and the team get to work, Cuddy finds out about the deal offered to House, pulls him from the case, suspends his treatment privileges and refuses to dole out any more Vicodin until he takes the deal. As Abigail's condition worsens, House begins to detox and the team tries unsuccessfully to solve the case without him. When Abigail reaches a critical point, Cuddy begs House for help one last time, but they play a game of chicken to see who will flinch first as he holds out for his pain medication before he'll offer any more of his insights into the case. Cuddy is forced to make a difficult and potentially life-threatening choice between her patient's life and House's life.

Off-track betting gambler Anica (guest star Cynthia Nixon) collapses in front of House while they're both following horse races at the site. Confused by her symptoms and what he witnessed after she collapsed, he instructs medics to take her to Princeton Plainsboro and takes her case. After the team discovers she's been seeing a number of doctors for a variety of supposed illnesses, everyone but House thinks it's Munchausen's, a disease that causes people to fake symptoms for the medical attention. House butts heads over Anica's medical care with his former team member and current supervisor Dr. Foreman. Standing by the Munchausen's diagnosis, Foreman sends Anica home over House's objections. Convinced she is legitimately ill, House draws a confession out of Anica that may save her life.

House's newest patient is 18-year-old Jack (guest star Patrick Fugit, "Almost Famous"), brought to the hospital after experiencing a heart attack and massive vomiting. Barely an adult himself, Jack has been the parent to his younger brother and sister since their parents died. After a brief perusal of Jack's file, House thinks he's got the diagnosis, seals it in an envelope and turns the process into a game, challenging Cameron, Foreman and Chase to figure it out on their own. When Jack is given an option that would lead to a possible reprieve from his worsening illness, he's faced with a decision that could break up his little family forever. Meanwhile, in an attempt to extract a confession, Tritter (guest star David Morse) makes it almost impossible for Wilson to practice medicine, driving a friendship-ruining wedge between House and Wilson.

Kyle comes to the hospital regularly to visit his father, Gabe, who has been in a coma for 10 years. Noticing something "off" about Kyle, House conducts a mini-experiment that leaves the boy unconscious. When symptoms point to a possible genetic condition, House and his team must glean a family history from Kyle's only living relative – his comatose father. Meanwhile, Wilson confronts House about stealing his prescription pad, and Tritter (guest star David Morse) questions Cameron, Foreman and Chase, dividing the team and revealing where their individual loyalties lie.

A 600-pound man, George Hagel, is admitted to the hospital after he is found in his apartment in a coma. While they conduct the necessary tests, the team runs into several obstacles due to the sheer mass of the patient, and while sedated and undergoing an MRI, George suddenly awakes in a panic and struggles to get free. Upon awakening, George decides that he is fine and requests a discharge. Afraid that George's problem is bigger than he believes, Cameron takes extreme measures to stop him from leaving. George believes his problems are unrelated to his weight and instructs the team to come up with other theories. Unconvinced by George's reasoning, House discovers the root of his illness during a physical altercation. Meanwhile, House has spent the night in jail after being arrested by Officer Michael Tritter for a number of violations, including resisting arrest. Tritter, putting the squeeze on House, searches his home to find more evidence of his drug abuse and puts House's team on the spot when he questions each of them about House and his relationship with Vicodin, and it becomes evident that House may need to get a lawyer.

House takes on the case of 20-year-old female patient Tracy Dawson, who is rushed to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with breathing difficulties and unexplained intense abdominal pain after she and her husband, Jeremy, are victims of a robbery. During Tracy's stress test, Jeremy collapses in the hospital viewing room, with test results leading the team to believe the couple's illnesses are related. Their strained relationship with Jeremy's father causes Tracy to hallucinate about a past incident when her father-in-law tried to hurt Jeremy for seeing her. The traumatic dream leaves Tracy in a coma and House wants to conduct a very risky biopsy on her brain stem, but Jeremy refuses to consent. House enlists Wilson's help to explain the potentially dangerous procedure and secure Jeremy's consent, but all does not go as planned; House discovers a new symptom that takes the case down a shocking new path and changes the course of the couples' lives forever. Meanwhile, House and clinic patient Michael Tritter (guest star David Morse) have a touchy altercation, leaving Tritter appalled and furious at the way House treated him.

House takes the case of Adam, a 10-year-old severely autistic boy who screams loudly for no apparent reason, at least not a reason his three previous doctors could diagnose. The team wonders why House is taking the case – the boy's not sick; his symptoms seem to be a product of his autism. House claims he just wants a patient who can't lie, but it seems he relates to this kid: the social aloofness, the obsession with detail, the lack of social graces. In fact, House actually envies him; living in a shell has its advantages. But when Cuddy makes a minor change to House's office and House refuses to use the office until it's returned to its original state, he finds himself wandering the hospital in need of a temporary home, crashing in Cuddy and Wilson's offices. Meanwhile, teenager Ali from the previous episode still has a crush on House and is becoming a nuisance around the hospital. As Adam becomes more ill and the torturous diagnostic procedures yield nothing, House realizes he needs an answer, and his patient just might be the only one who can give him one. House finds he has to break through the very shell he admires in order to get anything out of the boy.

The ketamine has worn off and House is back to using his cane and doesn't want to talk about it. His new patient is Ezra Powell (guest star Joel Grey), a renowned pioneer in the field of medical research, who collapsed in his lab. House puts Ezra through diagnostic rigors, but the team is unable to come up with a conclusive diagnosis, and Ezra's health continues to deteriorate. Becoming increasingly debilitated, Ezra ultimately demands that the team stop the litany of medical tests and help him end his life. The team members have divergent opinions on the morality of helping Ezra die, especially since the possibility of a cure is still in question. The moral dilemma of whether to assist in his suicide and abide by Ezra's wishes, or to ignore what their patient wants drives the team in very different directions. Meanwhile, the teenage daughter of a clinic patient has developed a crush on Dr. House.

House and the team fight to save a young boy who claims he’s being experimented on by aliens, while Cuddy and Wilson withhold the truth from House that he really was right on his last case.

House has recovered from multiple gunshot wounds and is back at work, taking on two cases simultaneously: Richard, paralyzed after brain cancer surgery eight years ago, who drove himself on his motorized wheelchair headfirst into a swimming pool; and Caren, a young woman paralyzed from the neck down after a yoga session. As House begins to diagnose and treat them, the team notices a distinct change in his attitude toward the patients, and Cameron even catches Richard's wife thanking House for his sensitivity to her husband's situation. House suspects that Richard could possibly walk again, but he has no specific medical proof to back up his hunch and the various treatment avenues he pursues lead nowhere. Cameron and Foreman refuse to indulge House and his theories, which they feel he's pursuing merely to make the case interesting for himself. Cuddy and Wilson also are convinced House is creating a mystery out of Richard's case to cure his own boredom, but he denies it and becomes more frustrated when his theories do not point to a cure for Richard, forcing House to face an unpleasant truth.