Cat death, airborne trauma, drug mules and a meningitis outbreak? All in a day's work on the Fox medical drama 'House.' his week's episode features two patients to deal with, but Dr. House is only around for one of them, because he's flying back to New Jersey from Singapore with Cuddy, after a medical conference.
This week's episode features two patients to deal with, but Dr. House is only around for one of them, because he's flying back to New Jersey from Singapore with Cuddy, after a medical conference. The case back in the States focuses on an older woman who is first seen about to get down and dirty with a prostitute. While paying the woman in her bedroom after interacting with her cat, who's stooped on the entertainment center (surprisingly, this is important), she faints. She's brought to the attention of Dr. Wilson, who believes it was just a random blackout, but it turns out that the old woman is seriously ill, because she faints again as she's about to leave.
Up over the world, House and Cuddy are airborne when, in first class, a Korean man begins to vomit (for vomit-phobes, this is not a pleasant episode) and gets a rash on his back. Cuddy goes into first class to investigate, and she believes he may have a form of bacterial meningitis. House scoffs at it, but things get worse when other passengers begin to get the symptoms the Korean man has. House is adamant that it's not meningitis, but the evidence is hard to ignore.
Back in Jersey, Foreman, Chase, Cameron and Wilson do their best to figure out what's wrong with the old woman, while the prostitute, who eventually reveals herself to Wilson, stays around for a while, as she's begun to care. At first, Wilson thinks it's breast cancer, and is barely operable, but it must be done. The focus in the episode is mostly about how Cameron and Chase are continuing to have lots of sex in inappropriate places, such as the patient's bedroom, with her cat watching them. Later on, as Foreman's about to go through with a highly dangerous procedure of drilling into the patient's brain, Chase figures out that something's wrong, and the cat has something to do with it. He goes back to her house and finds a random toxin that was let in accidentally and went into the woman's brain. She's saved just in time.
As more and more passengers on the plane, including Cuddy, get sick, House has to try and prove that it's not meningitis. He has to take a test on the Korean man and once he gets it, he's shocked. Cuddy believes the outbreak is real, and House speaks to the passengers: it is meningitis. Everyone gasps and begins to have the symptoms. House then admits he's psyched them out. It's not meningitis, and the only disease they have is hysteria, in that their minds have betrayed their bodies. House, after some deliberation, decides that the Korean man, who's the only real sick one, is a drug mule, hence his pain. During a test to figure out where the drugs have been, House realizes he's wrong, again: the man isn't a mule. Instead, he went scuba diving the day before, and the pressurized flight has caused all of his symptoms, thus insuring he'll live.
At the end, House and Cuddy land safely, Wilson decides to call the prostitute (because...why?), and Chase tells Cameron he wants a relationship, not just sex. And she, since the writers have decided to make her completely ridiculous, breaks it off, saying it was just sex. Overall, a good episode, though the Cameron/Chase thing was kind of odd. Tune in next week to see if they start fighting each other in the office! Let's hope so.
