House: Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Ka-meeedicine
This week on House, we learn family is more important than being wealthy, a good job is no compensation for a lousy relationship -- oh, and also, karma's a bitch. Thanks for the advice, House writers! This was an okay episode, but it seemed like they sorta lost the funny. There were just too many loose ends being tied up. What's happening with Thirteen, what's happening with Foreman as head of the department, what's happening with the dead dictator? Our heads were sorta spinning by the end.
Still, House the character was incredibly compelling to watch, and his team was the same old set of characters we've always loved -- just dumped into the deep end with responsibilities they weren't really ready for. So yeah, there was still some good television here. More after the jump.
Still, House the character was incredibly compelling to watch, and his team was the same old set of characters we've always loved -- just dumped into the deep end with responsibilities they weren't really ready for. So yeah, there was still some good television here. More after the jump.
So the patient of the week this time was a kid/preteen/teen. It was kind of hard to tell how old he was since he was supposed to have been sick, losing weight for quite a while. He's got a mystery illness that presents with a high fever and abdominal pain. His ultra-rich father has had a ton of doctors try to cure him and eventually brings him to House. Once in the hospital, the boy has seizures, internal bleeding, and breaks out in spots. Can you imagine being the actor for this job? "Okay, hun. Today you have to flop around violently on the bed, like this...great! Now, tomorrow we're doing this trick where it looks like we're drilling a hole in your head. It's going to look like you're bleeding and everything. Don't worry, it won't really hurt. But that means the next day you get more tubes stuck on you while you lay very still like you're nearly dead."
We hope they paid this child actor very, very well...and we hope his real-life parents don't invest the paycheck in the stock market. Not after we watched the on-screen billionaire father intentionally bankrupt himself because he was pretty sure karma was screwing his family in return for wealth beyond his wildest dreams. House profited from the sale of some stocks (can we say insider trading?) but it sounds like a lot of other people were screwed as this guy bribed karma by making his entire personal -- and corporate -- fortune disappear.
We're a little confused as to why he thought this might work instead of... say... giving the money to the poor or something. He was a multibillionaire who could pull House out of semi-retirement. He could have avoided screwing a bunch of people out of their 401(k)s and still made himself poor.
Maybe karma wants us all to be poor, facing huge medical bills to pay after our adorable kids recover from a long, complicated stay in a hospital... okay, maybe we're reading too much into this.
Last week on House...
In other news, Foreman has to present the completely screwed up case from last week at a conference in the hospital -- apparently it's so rare that House's department loses a patient they have to defend themselves in front of rabid wolves.
House, of course, figures out what really happened and then gives the worried boys the plausible deniability they're looking for. Yay for House completely saving their sorry butts. Boo for Chase not being upfront with Cameron. We like her. We like them as a couple. Don't screw this up, Chase!
Thirteen goodbyes
And finally, Thirteen says goodbye. Multiple times. She's trying to "get away from it all" and someone (ultimately Wilson confesses to Thirteen, but then gets House to admit privately that he did it) hacks her email and cancels her reservation. Foreman seems pretty zen about it all, which we think is pretty sad. We want Thirteen to be happy. And we want her to come back somehow. Thirteen! Just because you broke up with Foreman doesn't mean you have to break up with us! Come back!
Best Lines:
Cameron: We need a barium enema and biopsy to confirm.
Patient: Let me guess. It tastes really bad, but it's gonna make me feel a lot better.
Foreman: Actually, you're not going to taste it.
Patient's eyes get big.
House: People don't get what they deserve, they just get what they get.
Chase: Whether you want to be in charge or not -- you are, and always will be.