'House' Cold hearted

Tonight, House could perhaps best be summed up by T.S. Eliot :
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Of course, if I left my recap at that, my editors would be quite upset with me, so I shall expound upon it. I think we were all shocked (and some of us gratified) to learn that House still has a heart. Numbed by Vicodin, perhaps, but there.

The Patient:
We meet our patient out in frozen expanse of the South Pole, though at first we may think it's Seth (played by Jeffrey Hephner) who gets his femoral artery severed by a wayward windmill blade. But, he is saved by Dr. Cate Milton (played by Mira Sorvino), who patches him up, then collapses and vomits up what looks like yellow mucus. She tells him to get help and he replies "Who am I supposed to get?" in a bewildered tone. Who indeed? Luckily, Dr. Cate is an adjunct at Princeton and Cuddy gets House involved. Which is surprising once he hears that Dr. Cate is a psychiatrist and we all know how he feels about those. They bandy about several diagnosis, but it's hard to test given that their patient is stuck in South Pole with limited medical equipment. In a scene straight out of Apollo 13, House dumps a cardboard box out onto the conference table, telling his team that this is what they have to work with. It's not much, and Kutner asks what else they have - noting that if she has kidney stones, there is existing geological equipment that uses sound waves to break up stones in the ground - and stones is stones, right? The test of this theory - an egg in a jar - proves very wrong. An additional barrier to treatment is the fact that Dr. Cate doesn't want to waste the few supplies they have, in case one of the crew gets seriously sick and need antibiotics more than her possibly incorrect diagnosis suggests she needs it.

FAR more interesting than all of this, however, is the interplay of Dr. Cate on House and Wilson as she uses her psych smarts to delineate the most dysfunctional relationships on television. It makes for fascinating watching, especially when House is web-conferencing with her from his home and she asks him to show her where he lives, which he is reticent to do. However, since he's trying to get her to undress to do a self exam while he watches, he eventually gives in - not before saying she should have bartered for nudity on his part as well. To which she comments that she knew that would never happen, that he would rather show her his soul than his leg. Even House is stunned speechless after he quips back to her "You gonna try to fix me now?" and she replies "Who said you needed fixing?" - that's as intellectually steamy as it gets. Wait, am I projecting?

Dr. Cate does a lot of self-testing, but eventually she falls (literally) into a coma and Seth takes over testing duties. Which really sucks for him when House and Foreman ask him to drink Dr. Cate's urine and tell them what it tastes like (concentrated urine will indicate one thing, watery urine will indicate something much worse). When Seth doesn't bat an eye at the idea of drinking someone else's pee, House knows he loves Dr. Cate. Which he passes off as good, because it means he will do anything to save her - but he also gets a little touchy about it too.  Seth almost chickens out when it comes to drilling a hole in Dr. Cate's skull, but with just the tiniest bit of coaxing from House, he agrees. Seriously, even House comments "That was easy". Of course, that's what he says after imploring Seth with "I'm not going to let you hurt her...please...this is our only chance" and Foreman has to pick his chin off the floor.  In the end, the key to it all is in Dr. Cate's socks - which she wouldn't remove during her self exam, because her feet were too cold and there are no lymph nodes in feet. Seems she had a broken toe, which didn't hurt because it was too cold, and it was leaking bone marrow and it's accompanying fats into her blood stream and wreaks havoc by causing blockages and clots and whatnot. One set toe and a splint later and she is on the road to recovery.

The Side Stories:
There is no clinic patient tonight, but we have a couple interesting side stories.  One involves House trying to get the hospital to turn the cable back on in coma-guy's room, so he can lunch and watch. He sends his team out to annoy Cameron, who is on the budget committee. They warn her of what they are going to do, hoping she will fold, but instead she resigns from the committee. House is undeterred, figuring if she can resign, she can un-resign, and he tells his minions to step up their evil. Cuddy approaches him at one point to tell him she is firing Cameron for nearly killing a patient by accident - which is actually due to the minions involvement - but House sees through the ruse and holds firm.  Instead, he confronts his team and tells them they got Cameron fired and implies they are all fired too. Which, of course, freaks them all out and that was exactly his point. It seems this was all an elaborate point he was trying to prove - that they need to stop worrying about their jobs and stand up to him when they think he's wrong. Which Kutner does by the shows end, and it is his theory that sparks House on the track to the cure.

The second side story is Wilson, who is dating someone and trying to keep it from House. Predictably, this sends House on an investigating binge, stealing Wilson's wallet to get his receipts and trying to follow him - which creates the funniest scene of the evening. House is attempting to follow Wilson to lunch, while grilling him about where he is going and who he is meeting. Finally Wilson stops to confront House and says "Look, the reason I haven't told you is -" and then takes off at a full run, leaving House standing there holding his cane. Nice metaphor, ya think? Of course, the big reveal of who Wilson is dating is the most shocking moment :
House: Cutthroat B****?!"
Wilson: I call her Amber.

The Funny:
House: Studies in my apartment show that TV makes people happy.

House: I can't get cable, but I can get the South Pole on hi-def.

Dr. Cate: I was wondering when you were going to stop by.
House: You think Jagger shows up for sound check?

House: You realize only one of us is a real doctor, right?
Dr. Cate: You realize only one of us can control what I do, right?

House: The more you interrupt, the longer my grandstanding will take.

House: You are wearing that shirt for someone.
Wilson: The Health Department. They frown on topless oncology.

Dr. Cate: How bad is the insomnia? Let me quantify that for you, do you have 2 or 3 scotchs before passing out in front of TV?
House: You are so wrong - it's bourbon.

Dr.Cate: You are respectable, nice, human. Yet you are House's best friend.
Wilson: You think he is nicer than he seems.
Dr. Cate: It makes me think you're not as nice as you seem.

Dr. Cate: (to Seth, on setting her broken toe) Will you do it?
House: He drilled a hole in your skull after drinking your pee. I think he's up for it.

Seems to me that if Dr. Cate is an adjunct - we might see her return in future episodes. How would you feel about a romance for House? One that doesn't take place with his remarried ex-wife and all the past drama that entails, that is?  Did you think Dr. Cate seemed like a good match for House? And how in the world is Cutthroat B**** a good match for Wilson? Other than the fact that when it comes to personality types, she might be a female House, of course.

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