'House' and Cuddy, sitting in a tree, F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G

Because Jessi is off getting a fancy pants masters degree while I'm destined to die a couch potato, I'll be your guide to the world of the childish and immature on House tonight. Who knows? We may get around to discussing some medical mysteries, too.

POTW: Our POTW is a (non-creepy) DVD fitness trainer who collapses and falls down a set of bleachers while filming a commercial. Aaaand now I'm afraid of bleachers. Ouch. Turns out, she's had secret gastric bypass surgery, which leaves her open to any number of side effects. Among the theories: intestinal bacterial infection, sleep apnea, toxins, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and prion disease. Her symptoms escalate from fainting to nerve numbness to hallucination that her obese clients, infuriated at her hypocritical gastric bypass, visit the hospital and attack her. It's terrifying.

The tests range from running on a treadmill in the morgue to floating poop in water to a good old-fashioned MRI. However, before they confirm anything, she's miraculously cured by eating a piece of cake. I KNEW CAKE HAD HEALING POWERS!!! The deliciousness is our bodies' way of telling us that it's really, really healthy! Totally makes sense. Turns out, the patient has hereditary coproporphyria, which is treated with a high-carb, high-sugar diet. ...Best disease ever? Aside from all the neurological problems, of course.

However, our dear POTW refuses to reverse the gastric bypass, choosing a less effective drug instead. House respects her decision...sort of: "There's [sic] not many people who have the guts to admit that they'd rather be pretty than healthy." Taub, having been taken in by her talk about how she's in the fitness game to make people healthy, rather than for money, is pissed. And I find it hard to believe that a cynic like Taub wound up buying her act.

House and Cuddy (don't make me say "Huddy"): Well, folks, what we've got here is a classic escalating prank war. Immature? Yes. Absurd? Yes. Illogical? Yes. Entertaining? Well...yes. But it's highly possible that my judgment is clouded by my shameful shipper tendencies. If so, my apologies. Because Cuddy's office was destroyed last week and she holds House responsible (and because he has the biggest, most patient-free office), she'll be sharing his office while hers is repaired. And can I just say that all crazy pranks aside, I totally loved Cuddy piping in on the differential. Yay, DoctorCuddy!

House throws the first grenade by insisting that they share his desk, and then holding differentials in his office while Cuddy's on the phone. Supposedly he's just trying to make her miserable so she'll leave, but it kind of seems like he's just trying to be around her, no? Wilson, the big fat meddler, suspects the same of Cuddy and tells her as much. Cuddy, striking back at House, spills some smelly hydrogen sulfide in the office right before she leaves for the day, leaving the team stranded in the hall for the night. And now, things get less sensible.

House first responds by destroying her office's toilet, which, as Wilson later points out, simply guarantees her presence in his office longer. She responds by removing all the furniture from his office, and he responds by having a bidet installed in her office instead of a new toilet. Yeah, it's pretty absurd. But then, a breakthrough! Maybe! When Cuddy interferes with his attempted brain biopsy, House accuses her of stopping him because she "has the hots for [him]" rather than for medical reasons. Cuddy in turn points out that he's still in the office because he's got the hots for her.

After arguing for a moment, House accuses Cuddy of screwing with him. After she asks if he's screwing with her (I sense a pattern here), House simply says, "That depends on your answer." They step toward each other, and all of America begs them to just make out already and stop pulling each other's pigtails so we can move on with our lives. Cuddy agrees, getting all meta: "Everybody knows this is going somewhere. I think we're supposed to kiss now." House: "We already did that. [Grabs a boob.] ...Seemed like the logical next step." Okay, that's pretty hilarious. I'm glad he's still House. Poor Cuddy, though, says that she's an idiot for being surprised, and walks out as House tries to convince her to leave her boobs with him. Oh, House.

In an interesting little scene, House asks Taub about his philandering days, trying to rationalize that he's really saving his relationship with Cuddy, I suppose. Cuddy, in the meantime, tells Wilson that it's all over because House is "an unemotional child incapable of intimacy or romance." BUT, it turns out House tracked down her desk from med school and got it put in her new office. Awww! But as quickly as we're lifted up, the show beats us back down.

As she's happily going to find House, Cuddy sees him through the glass of his office talking with another woman (see below) as she fixes his jacket. Totally innocent(ish), but Cuddy looks crushed and a little pissed, and walks away. No! Though to be fair, knowing House, it could have been a LOT worse. And that's why you don't fall in love with House. Or you just get it over with and bang him already (are you listening, TPTB?).

Kutner and Taub: Wow. So...wow. Kutner is seriously, seriously stupid. We open the episode with Cuddy mentioning that requests for House have dropped by half, and quickly find out why: Kutner is running an online medical advice clinic in House's name. This is just unrealistically ridiculous, entertaining though it may be. Unfortunately for Kutner, a problem patient from online shows up in the real world demanding help from House. With the promise of being cut in on the profits, Taub and Chase help Kutner with the patient (and with keeping the secret). Cameron, of course, helps for free. Unfortunately, the woman dies before they can cure her. ...Or does she??? Yes, yes she does.

House busts 'em in the morgue, calling Kutner and Taub fraudulent, idiotic killers. Yup. He says that the patient was easily treatable. In fact, it may still be possible! After House hops up on the table and gives the woman's corpse chest compressions, she comes back to life, scaring the hell out of the idiot twins. Ha! Apparently, she wasn't even sick - just a paid "thespian" (i.e. prostitute, whom Cuddy later spots chatting with him in his office). House planned the whole thing, even getting Chase and Cameron to play along. And rather than shutting down the site, he demands 50%, because making money and pissing off Cuddy are probably equally awesome in his book. 

Thirteen: Thirteen is participating in Foreman's drug trial for Huntington's patients, guilt-free now that she knows her nerves have already started degenerating. We discover through flashbacks that her mother was very far gone at the time of her death, unable to control her body's movements, much like the other patients in the study who Thirteen is forced to confront every time she shows up.

Foreman, nosy and insistent as always, forces her to continue showing up and gets her to admit that the patient in the waiting room reminds her of her mother, and how Thirteen hated her and wanted her to die by the end. The disease had made her scream at Thirteen and act really horrible, apparently, and so Thirteen refused to say goodbye before she died. Rough. Touchingly, Thirteen tries interacting with the waiting room patient, helping her with her jacket. I'm definitely looking at Thirteen a little differently (and more forgivingly) after this episode. Knowing something and seeing something are two different things. 

Favorite House quotes:

While looking at a photo of the fitness trainer: "Wow, muscles and curves. My penis is so confused!"

After overhearing Taub saying that Kutner is going to destroy his career: "What happened? You call Foreman 'clean and articulate' again?" Ha, nothing like a nerdy (and somewhat outdated) political joke to make me happy.

Um, insert inevitable House/Cuddy question here? What did you think about Kutner's brush with extreme idiocy? Is Thirteen becoming more sympathetic to you?          

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