Comments on: House — Episode 3 (Season 6): “The Tyrant”

By: ecoli

ecoli — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:03:02 +0000

I really lowe this blog and the comments on the medicine, but I feel that Scott was a bit fast on the cardiac scenes here: “In order to fix the hearth, you have first to fix the bleeding” makes sense at first, but how can they fix the bleeds? Should they supposedly cut open Dibali’s chest, cut off the pulmonary artery to prevent further bleeding, re-route it to a “bypass” or some sort of artificial lung, and then make CPR (or, since it’s House, “shock the flatline” ore even the hearth)? I am not a doctor, but it seems rather far-fetched to me and more like a good way to surreptitiously kill Dibala.

By: ilya

ilya — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:27:24 +0000

Lassa infection should not have been considered, since it is only spread person-to-person by contacting an infected person’s blood etc:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/lassaf.htm
not through the casual contact (including handshaking) that occurs at a conference.

By: Chic

Chic — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:45:26 +0000

@Alexandra – on the off chance that you return and see this :)
IANAD, but I think it was really simple: she could have injected an air bubble, and Chase was alarmed that Dibala’s taunting might have made her do so. Especially as she seemed to reach a decision abruptly, with a grim expression on her face. But the decision she made was to treat after all, not to kill him. That’s why she said what she said.

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:35:37 +0000

On the off chance that someone’s reading the comments for this old episode, I’m curious about the scene where Dibala…threatens/encourages?…Cameron to inject his IV with an air bubble. I thought that was what she was doing, the first time I saw this. Certainly Chase seemed alarmed by…SOMETHING…in the scene (he startles a bit and says “Allison!”) But then the next line of dialogue is “I guess I didn’t want you dead.” What would she have done if she did?

By: Andrew Maltani

Andrew Maltani — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 05:39:05 +0000

I was watching this episode on my Season Six DVD… the subtitles indicated that he was retching at the start of the episode. Any idea or clarification on that?

By: Alek

Alek — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:18:02 +0000

This episode was when i stopped watching House seriously. Chase kills a man based on what CNN said, for love of Cameron, for mankind. Really Chase? Weren’t you the weaselly aussie last time we saw you? My, how you’ve grown. Such americanism to off people as you see fit. For great Justice! And Oil! Tulsa Doom was at least fighting for something real, Chase was doing a killing for a chick. Such horrendous witless onesided writing. Flying Spaghetti Monster, whenever ideas become scarce it’s all about god, babies, sex, oh the humanity, the strange foreign people fighting for something other than moneyz that must be judged, oh and a lot of forced acting and makeup. The fuel is spent, the gimmick is dry, the medicine ludicrous, even more so than the rapper. More importantly – boring.
The illnesses are no longer interesting, and patients are pushed deeper into the background. It’s all about the crew’s inter-relationships and their issues and worries now. Badly written worries at that.
I no longer cared about any character other than House, the only one still somewhat well written.
They did S4 so well, that they killed the rest of the show. Hate Olivia Wilde. Even more than Edelstein’s forced hotness. Good Invisible Pink Unicorn, Blue the janitor was more of a hottie.
They need to kill-off Remy, fade Cuddy and Wilson back into background noise (and write that noise well), dump Chase, keep Foreman and hire some carefully written fresh meat. No forced hotties this time.
Some brown-haired Franka Potente-alikes, but less German, that borderline intellect and fuzziness.
So, keep Laurie, Epps, and add two dorky dudettes that can act. Unlike Wilde.
House is far too mainstream now, it is bound for average-city of Grey’s Anatomy, or beer volcanoes forbid, Chicago Hope. Brrrr.
But, some idiots are bound to still watch it well into S9, compelled by Greg being a jerk, even a badly written one, and medicine is magic. Right?

By: Dick Hertz

Dick Hertz — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:17:35 +0000

Were I Chase, this is how I would have handled the Dibala situation:

Dibala, my patient, revealed to me, his physician, that he intended to harm others. While I would normally be bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, that wouldn’t apply in this situation. In fact, quite the opposite is true: As a physician, I am a mandated reporter and would be required to notify the relevant authorities. That way, my conscience would be clear and I’d still get to bang Cameron on a nightly basis. What’s not to like, eh?

By: med-student from germany

med-student from germany — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:45:29 +0000

what i don’t understand is why didn’t the neighbour try the mirror-box-therapy before? surely some doctor must have mentioned it to him in these 30 years that he was in pain?
but anyway..i think this was one of the best parts of the episode.
and i loved to see the old team again!

By: kafeen

kafeen — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:55:23 +0000

The amount of contriversy this episode caused proves the House writers have done a fantastic job here :) They sure didn’t let the moral dilemma slip into a monochromous one-dimensional mode! Look at how they heated up the anti-Dibala feelings by the blood scenes – the dictator’s caughing out blood, spilling blood, sucking the blood out of his people … a perfect verbal metafore, making viewers believe in Dibala’s evilness irrationally. Amazing!

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:53:27 +0000

You said:

“Dibala had some significant bleeding in his lungs just a day or two before — is using streptokinase really a good idea?

and

You’d think they’d use a newer thrombolytic at a cutting edge hospital like Princeton-Plainsboro”

Maybe that’s why chase used the older thrombolytic? He used a medication that’s probably less effective because he didn’t want to use the show’s past combination of heparin and warfarin? I guess the writers only draw on a small amount of what their consultant doctors tell them about the medical field and have to improvise with old material like this.