For the first time in months I have warmed to 13, and enjoyed the upfront and apparently uncomplicated connection with Foreman. Nice change of pace from another extended, over-angsty relationship build-up. It can end happily or splintered, and still be credible. (I’ve always liked Kutner and Taub.) I liked Foreman’s self-sacrificing decision to pass on the crucial information that his unethical actions had uncovered and take the consequences, and was relieved that the scriptwriters allowed him to do it without being written out.

I liked the Taub subplot, and agree with the poster who saw the multiple storylines as in keeping with an episode examining ‘the Big Picture’.

I liked House’s response to Cuddy’s PMS response to her frustration with him and saw it as a potential development of the increasing pain thread, in nice parallel to the Foreman plot – House came close, a few eps ago to adopting Dana’s viewpoint by deciding to live painfree via health- and intellect-compromising use of Methadone. That he consistently rejects ‘happiness’ in favour of his distinctive need to be effective is part of his questionable unique charm. I also liked that Cuddy felt the pangs that many new professional mothers experience, who had expected it to feel easier to leave their babies. That felt real. I assume the elevator prank continued past its sell-by date because House figured it out before Cuddy thought to update her accomplice (and for what? House knew). Before someone says PMS – not to mention baby-related sleep-deprivation – doesn’t make you foolish, out-of-character and downright violent, I can only say that, in my experience, it can.

I had the same initial reaction as others to Kutner’s chest-jab but can accept typical TV licence. As for the scratching-through-her-skull incident – for me the silver lining was finding that fascinating article on the RL parallel. So no complaints there, either. House and Foreman operating on 13 alone – I took that to be shared guilt/fear of discovery over the compromised trial/13’s health/Foreman’s career. But Foreman was the man who actually did it; thus Foreman got the plum job of directly handling the nuke-stuff.

123: I like your take on the patient, whom I did not dislike. (I wish we had seen more of her boss!) But you could look at it this way: if everyone sacrificed their personal happiness for everyone else, then everyone would be happy. If I were religious (or a career Socialist) I would point up a sermon that posits Hell as a banquet at which the diners have eating utensils attached to their hand that are too long to let them feed themselves and everyone starves. Heaven is a banquet at which everyone has eating utensils attached to their hands that are so long that they can feed the people around them – everyone enjoys dinner. (Oops, I’m neither, and did it anyway.) Nevertheless, I accept that she made her choice and was comfortable defending it. The problem that other characters had with it was both understandable and unfair. Make that call for yourself, not someone else, guys …

Scott, thank you so much for 100 reviews – it has made the House experience more informative and even more enjoyable.

I found an article talking about this type of endometreosis. Pretty fascinating stuff, IMO.

http://discovermagazine.com/1995/mar/thearethafrankli483

Though I am also pretty sure that every article written to the Vital Signs column in Discover Magazine will eventually become an episode of House.

Lets suppose she actually could do that with her finger nail. The “itch” was not a “true itch”, ie there was no real skin iritation(yes I know there are meds that cause ppl to itch), so if scratching through too her brain would have helped her releive this itch, wouldn’t it have quickly come back and she would have started digging again? At least until she either A) suffered a seisure possiblely causing her to thrust her finger deeper into her skull where Foreman, or a nurse would have found it, or B) She emptied her skull of any gray matter her finger would have been able to reach.

Come to think of it, the writers may have suffered from the same condition the patient had, and actually succeded in option B. Then they wrote that scene.

Oh, and about brain tumors: Don’t know about tumors induced by a mythical trial drug, but my dad’s glioblastoma multiforme killed him within 6 months of diagnosis. Even with the chemo and radiation. In fact he died within weeks of “graduating” from the regimen. He went to the hospital suspecting a stroke because one morning he woke up and was uncoordinated on his left side. By the time he left the hospital, he was completely paralyzed. Of course by then the necrotic tissue was already the size of a golf ball and probably had been growing for a while.

So yeah, a tumor that starts up and causes blindness within a week is still pretty far-fetched, when even a grade 4 cancer takes months.

Oh, and for radiating a localized tumor: Have they ever heard of a gamma knife?