Tonight’s episode of Fox’s medical drama ‘House’ features a very sick con artist who can’t be touched, and lots of other fun drama with House and his underlings. Good stuff!
Things start off with Ryan Seacrest telling me about a fantastic, celeb-packed two-hour ‘American Idol’ on tomorrow…oh, whoops. Wrong show. It keeps cutting in on the ‘House’ goodness! Seriously, things start on the street, with a game of three-card monte. The dealer asks a young woman to step up and she starts things off pretty well, but on the second try, going for double-or-nothing, the woman finds it very hard to decide what to choose. Impossible, actually, even though the dealer (who’s obviously in it with her) pushes her in the right direction. Too bad she falls into his arms, cuing the credits.
The woman wakes up and is talking to Foreman about her thirty-second wipeout, telling him about her lengthy time of unemployment mixed with unemployment and some more unemployment. House deems it “loss of free will.” Chase, Cameron, Foreman and House discuss what the problems this woman has may be. Foreman believes that the woman isn’t worth pity, since she’s a drug-addicted con artist, but Chase feels for her since she lost her baby at a young age. House, letting these two complain, talks to Wilson about his divorce and where he’s moving. He then reveals that he asked Cuddy out to a play, but she said she was busy. House says he did so for a test, and decides that Cuddy’s interested in Wilson, who doesn’t want to get involved but happens to be taking her to an art exhibit. So, he’s not interested, but he’s interested. That makes perfect sense. He says he’s even keeping the receipt for tax purposes, but who buys that?
After House orders his team to some tests, we see Chase and Foreman heading out to investigate the young woman’s house, and runs into Foreman’s dad, Charles S. Dutton. Wish I had a famous father. Anyway, this time, he’s around to convince Foreman to see his mother, since he hasn’t been home for eight years. Mom, in the heavy stages of Alzheimer’s, it seems, should see her son before she completely forgets him. Eight years? He really is turning into House.
Foreman and Chase investigate the young woman’s house, and Foreman continues to argue that drugs are involved, especially when he finds a crack pipe, which would normally be damning evidence, but it’s ‘House.’ Meanwhile, back at the hospital, House needles Cuddy about her “date” with Wilson, and why she turned him down. Cuddy doesn’t get why he’s nuts about it, and says she just wanted a friend, and Wilson was a “safe choice.”
Foreman goes over to the hotel where his dad and mom are staying, and his mother seems to recognize him very well. This must be one of her good days, as she’s brought a picture of him as a young man; she’s very supportive and wants to remind him of where’s he come from and how he’s grown. It’s supposed to make us think she sounds cheerfully addled, but it makes sense. Kind of.
Foreman is in the room with the young woman, questioning her about the drugs that she must be using. She strenuously denies doing drugs, and then starts coughing up blood. Nice! After the break, Chase and Cameron are doing some tests on the young woman, and Cameron harangues Chase about him falling in love with her, and Chase shrugs it off, even though she’s obviously pissed about it. Chase then finds a mass on the woman, but it’s unsure how it’s come about.
House looks at the white blood cells taken from the young woman, but decides that it’s too boring, due to Wilson’s date with Cuddy. Instead of hanging out with them, he decides to crash with his ex-wife, played by Jane Adams. She seems nice enough, and House is just having fun with her. Meanwhile, Wilson and Cuddy are at the art exhibit, and Wilson is being very awkward around her, trying not to be a date, but it’s failing miserably, which is just where Robert Sean Leonard scores; humiliation is his game! Then, we find out why House is with Wilson’s ex…to see if Wilson is really trying to get some with Cuddy. Turns out things started with them under similar circumstances, except Wilson didn’t jump his ex, she jumped him. She goes on and on about how Wilson’s a great guy until he’s not, and so on and so forth, but House only wants to know how sex was with Wilson. Ah, good. Just what I needed to hear. Actually, this show is always very good at making me shake my head in disbelief. Thanks, ‘House’ writers.
Back at the hospital, Foreman’s talking to the sick con artist, and continuing to judge her for no good reason. The con artist points out that the only reason he’s so rude is because he got out of the projects and she didn’t. While she says this, she continues hacking and Foreman tells her to go back to school. Before we have enough time to laugh at Mr. Morals, turns out the new problem is with her eyes, which are turning yellow. Hey, isn’t it about time that someone suggested that it was lupus? It seems like that was the hot-button guess last season. Foreman says she needs total body radiation, but Chase and Cameron basically say he’s nuts, that it’s only autoimmune. Foreman argues that body radiation won’t do anything if it is autoimmune, so the radiation will go ahead. House goes to get consent, since Foreman says she doesn’t like him. Gee, wonder why?
In the middle of getting her consent, House wants to know why she doesn’t like him, and she says it’s because Foreman thinks he’s better than her. Nothing too deep there. However, she can’t give consent, because that whole lack-of-making-decisions things is back, and she can’t even decide if Sean Connery’s a better James Bond than Daniel Craig. She faints, and frankly, it’s too early to say that Craig’s worse. He was only in one movie.
Wilson and House meet up in the cafeteria, and Wilson wants to know why his ex and House met up. House wants to save Wilson from a relationship with Cuddy, or even sex, which is ironically what House says he should do to end things with Cuddy, since then it’ll be easier to break things off. Meanwhile, in the radiation room, Cameron and Foreman are talking with the con artist and doing some tests, when she starts shrieking about the patch on her arm to test heartbeats, begging it to be taken off. Much like almost everything that happens to people on the show, it can’t be good.
After another break, Foreman, Chase, Cameron and House wonder why the con artist is in so much pain for so little. House says she’s septic, and everyone is talking in very low tones, because this is a Very Serious Episode. There seems to be nothing left to do but admit that the group made a mistake, which will leave the woman dead. And, with 24 minutes left…yeah, I’m guessing she’s not dead yet. Later, House is in his office when Bonnie, Wilson’s ex, comes back, hoping to see if House is still interested in the condo she wanted to sell him. Of course, he’s not and she realizes that Wilson was right. So, she talks about the dog she wants Wilson to take, but it turns into her revealing that she’s resented him for a long time, and that he made the end of the marriage worse.
Meanwhile, Foreman has become very guilty about telling the con artist he’s essentially killed her. Wilson tells him to be straight about it, and to not hop around the issue, and to let her know he’s freaking out. Then, Foreman goes to the con artist’s new room, a self-contained place. He tells her she’s dying of an infection, and she has less than a day. Where’s Jack Bauer when you need him? He’d save her in less than 5 minutes by sacrificing himself, or something equally preposterous. Anyway, Foreman explains that the infection was spread because he made the choice to kill off what was fending it off. Despite her begging, he says that there’s nothing they can do. And, there are still 18 minutes left, so I’m still not buying it. Foreman tries to be consoling, but she’s too pissed. Then, he gets out and does the next logical thing: punches a wall, and it hurts.
Cameron helps bandage Foreman’s hand up; his fingers are probably broken. He then finds out that House is prepping for a surgery. Foreman wants to know why he’s doing this, and House wants to figure out what was missed, and wants to save her. Well, I did not expect that. Foreman wants the con artist moved back to her room, to give her privacy, since nothing matters now, so the surgery’s off. Foreman visits her in her room, and he asks for her forgiveness, even if he doesn’t expect it to happen. She goes on about she really doesn’t have anyone, but Foreman is willing to stay with her. And what a bedside manner, too. He opens up to her about she was right, that he had a bad past, but he did go to college to better himself, and that he always worries that he’ll be sent back to the projects. She admits that he’s right about her, that she could do something to better herself. Pretty well-acted stuff, right there. Foreman’s not leaving, even though she’s not getting any better. That’s an understatement: she’s dead, and Foreman tells House he can do whatever he wants to solve the mystery.
Chase offers to go out with Foreman and get drunk, but it doesn’t work. Chase then says that he sometimes talks to God about things, and that at the end of the day, it wasn’t just Foreman’s fault: no one was right about what was wrong. Wilson visits House in the patient’s room, and before the consent to go deep into the con artist is given, House reveals what went wrong: she scratched herself on her bra hook and let a staff infection in. House goes to his office, and sees a quiet Foreman there. House tells him to go out and get absolved in some way, but Foreman says he killed the woman. House tells him that he’s not going to forgive Foreman, because mistakes happen. House and Wilson leave together, and House says he’s got a dog waiting at home. Finally, we see Foreman with his mother in her hotel room, saying that he killed a woman. She forgives him, saying he’d never do something like that, hurting a person, on purpose. Then, he realizes that she doesn’t know who he is, but still hugs her, crying into her shoulder. I love these uplifting episodes of ‘House.’ Of course, someone always dies once or twice a season, and it always bring lots of emotion. And, now we go into May sweeps, leading up to what should be a cool finale.
