House — Episode 16 (Season 6): “Lockdown”
While I appreciate the writers’ desires to try something different, three low-medicine episodes of House in the first sixteen episodes of the season is too much. Generally, the episode was good, though the clichés were pretty thick.
Since this was really five mini-storylines in one, I’ll deal with each one separately.
1. Chase/Cameron
I thought it was well done and almost painful to watch (as in the “I’ve had relationships end badly, too” way), though the ending cliché sex cheapened the arc for me.
2. Taub/Foreman
While I ‘m not surprised that Taub, and even Foreman, would be snooping around personnel records, I found the whole “let’s take drugs so we can be like House” scene was hard to believe. That’s far out of character for them, especially uptight
3. Thirteen/Wilson
Enjoyable, but did we really learn anything? We already knew Thirteen was a good liar and Wilson is a pushover. Nice flash at the end.
4. Cuddy, P.I.
Is there nothing Cuddy can’t do? Doctor, administrator, mother, and now detective. She must have one hell of a resume.
If the baby was located just outside the maternity ward, then the staff clearly didn’t do a very thorough job of looking for the baby.
Based on all the hospitals I’ve practiced at (and had children delivered at), the proximity alarms should have gone off. They go off anytime anyone leaves the ward with a baby, and that includes stairwells and back hallways. In fact, the alarms are often so sensitive you are warned to avoid going near the doors at all when holding the baby
5. House
The concept of House having to watch a patient he turned down die was clever and the for the most part, well done. There was a little too much of the “wise dying man” cliché for my tastes.
So was House telling the truth when he said he was still mooning over Lydia, or did he obliquely mean Cuddy?
What is really causing this patient’s pain is his intestinal hypoperfusion. In other words, just like his heart is not getting enough oxygen, neither are his intestines and this can cause severe debilitating pain.
If the patient’s maintenance dose of Morphine was 2mg, I doubt boosting it to 4mg would be enough to kill him.
No medicine or mystery scores for this week as their wasn’t enough to evaluate. I’d give the soap opera a strong B+.
The review of the previous episode of House
A list of all prior House reviews
April 12th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I was fully expecting House to start talking about Cuddy as things have become (sadly) predictable at Princeton Plainsboro – I loved that he brought up the woman he met in the institution instead. Best moment of the episode for me.
April 12th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I think House’s intention in boosting the Morphine dosage was to put the man to sleep, not kill him outright.
April 12th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
It seems the writing quality of the staff has gone down in the past two seasons, and while they can still write drama, their capacity to create a compelling MEDICAL drama has diminished significantly.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Agree with you, Sam. Earlier in the episode, he suggested Dying Man take the morphine to go off into a happy daze, not to kill himself. Also, although I’m not surprised the writers feel they have to break the mold a bit, the show is definitely moving downhill at this point. First the season opener (with no medical drama at all), then the episode “Wilson” (with almost no medical drama), then Cuddy’s episode (with no real medical drama), and now this. This show is called “House” because he is the center of the show, and I watch it to see his flawed brilliance.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
FYI: Laurie directed this episode. I was hoping for something a little more exciting. Not being in showbiz, I don’t know if the fault lies with the low-energy script or with the director. I just hope it’s not the latter.
Foreman and Taub were hilarious. I’m not sure it was out of character for Foreman to get high. He did state that he says too much when he gets stoned and I don’t put anything past Taub. I thought it showed a cute side of them and a good side of Taub that has never been shown before.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Yeah, Sam’s right about putting the guy to sleep. I think House’s line was something like a “haze.”
As for the nurse’s regular actions, it’s a likely that the writers/director were thinking that the baby being wrapped in the towels made the seizing nurse think she was removing a dirty towel (hence dropping off the towels a second time).
At least that’s my best guess considering the context they tried to put forward. Of course, Detective Cuddy got all that the instance she saw those extra towels.
Also, seriously? You are supposed to have a lockdown and cops crawling all over the place looking for a baby (which didn’t cry for an hour or so even though it was in a basket full of crap… cries the moment Cuddy touches it… okay.) and nobody checks bins? But you touched on that. It just… good god, people. Don’t have a baby at Princeton-Plainsboro.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
The writers of House love what is known as ‘The Crucible’ when you force characters into a conflicted situation. Another example was when Foreman was locked in the room with the police officer after he caught the malady he had(which I can’t remember) today it was various other characters locked together with another where they were forced to challenge and analyze each other. It’s a good technique but I think a bit recycled in House. I do think the show is getting a bit cliche’d.
April 12th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Official Comment
House offered to put him to sleep in such a way that he would never wake up — and thus, die.
“You can put yourself in a narcotic haze, sleep blissfully to the end.”
April 13th, 2010 at 12:09 am
Starting to become really dissapointed with this season. Compare some of these episodes with seasons 1, 2 and 3. They don’t come close. The humor is totally different. Now it’s that whole modern comedy type, and it’s becoming like all those other stupid shows and movies. The best thing about House back when it started was that it’s humor was like no other show.
The baby’s re-union with her mother drew a parrallel with an episode way back, that one where the homeless couple found the baby and Cuddy returned her/him to her mother, (which was a young teenager) Remember that episode? Only that one was way more powerful.
I’m thinking they should quit while they’re ahead. Maybe give us one more powerful ’season 1 type season’ , and that’s it.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:42 am
Steve: the episode you’re referencing is when Cuddy adopted rachel.
Laurie said in an interview that this episode was a take on the ‘trapped in a stuck elevator’ story line. It’s admittedly recycled. No one is trying to get one over on us.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:39 am
I also believe that House did’t try to overdose him, he had only a few hours left, House states it when reads it’s file, and later when the Man ask him for the time. So: “You can put yourself in a narcotic haze, sleep blissfully to the end.” because he was about to die.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:55 am
Here’s a question… House mentioned when talking to the patient that his pain was moving, possibly into the arterial wall. If this is the case, what kind of effect would this have on him? Would he need to go back onto narcotic painkillers?
The main point of the fact was that House was afraid it wasn’t caused by a physical symptom but a psychological one. However, I am wondering if they’re building towards House having more medical complications as a result of his rehab.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:18 am
While not about this episode I have found at they will be doing an episode on one of my conditions. Arnold CHiari Malformation. I hope they do this well because its another of this mis understood very unknown and highly debilitating conditions that often get people sent to a psychologist before the find out their brain is herniated. Accuracy should be good on this because I know the person who went there and spoke to the writers etc about her/mine condition.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:22 am
“as their wasn’t enough” – there
April 13th, 2010 at 4:30 am
I liked the idea of the episode better than the episode itself – I didn’t find any of the multiple plots all that compelling, although I welcomed Jennifer Morrison’s guest appearance on a show where she’s still, officially, one of the stars.
I also had a mixed reaction to the preview for next week’s episode – I liked the idea of House and Thirteen dressing up in period costumes for what looks like a Renaissance fair in order to help a patient, but it also looks too cute for words.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:40 am
I hate myself for thinking this, but I have to ask. Regarding those proximity alarms in the baby’s ID bracelet…if someone really wanted to take a baby like they thought had happened, wouldn’t it be really easy to bring a pair of scissors and cut the bracelet off? Isn’t it pretty much common knowlege that those alarms exist?
April 13th, 2010 at 5:54 am
I was expecting to find out that either Taub or Foreman, or both, had not actually taken the drugs.
How premature was that baby supposed to be? Not very much at all, I assume, since she was in the room with her mother, with no apparent extra monitoring. And it would have been nice not to have the mother be the completely stereotypical semi-rational mother-with-a-missing-baby.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:02 am
Too many towels???? My husband was just in the hospital and towels multiplied all the time. Sometimes there were two in the bathroom but more in the armoire, sometimes there was a big stack in the bathroom. We used them all the time, also, thus decreasing the total temporarily.
Did Cuddy sit down and discuss with the head of housekeeping exactly how many towels would be delivered, and the policy for adding more if some had been used or if none had been used, in order to keep the total of fresh towels available to each patient at four, no more, no less?
April 13th, 2010 at 6:33 am
Judy > “My husband was just in the hospital and towels multiplied all the time”
Gosh, how many babies did you lose?!
April 13th, 2010 at 6:34 am
A medical question: Was the dying patient’s malady something that could have been fixed had it been found earlier (i.e. had House taken the case)? If so, it seems like an odd take on House. He actually made the error of not realizing that this was a patient whose life he could save through his superior diagnostic skill?
The weakest part of the episode was the segment that set it off, the disappearance of the baby. That Cuddy would notice extra towels and think to make something of it….that the woman would go into her seizure at just the moment where Cuddy is there to notice her…that Cuddy would somehow know exactly how many carts are supposed to be in the room…that the baby wouldn’t cry in all that time…that no one checked all the laundry carts.
The Taub/Foreman part struck me as the strongest by far. The actors clicked; there was a feeling of real connection. And for the first time I actually sorta liked Taub. The other segments were rather thin…though nicely directed, Mr. Laurie.
Ah, now if only we could get a good medical mystery with a compelling patient and some sharply funny jibes among the medical staff….
April 13th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Lisa > House did say that he took one case on twenty, and that most of them died ; this suggests that this is not the first time he is forced to face the fact that his choices are extremely arbitrary (interest of the case, of course, very often something strange about the patient, sometimes the fact that the patient is hot, although I think he was mostly joking on these ones).
I find it extremely interesting that he did not bail or try to escape the accusation when the POTW told him he was probably dying because of him (Scott, would he have died, had House diagnosized him earlier?).
People on the show often tell House that he afraid of accepting the truth, hence the drugs, or his solitude, but I find him the most lucid character : he knows the consequences of his actions, and he accepts them. It doesn’t necessarily means that he lives it well, but he certainly doesn’t run away from them, nor does he seem to say himself that they are the best decisions. Not once did he try to justify his decision to the dying man : he had to make a decision, and he did, it doesn’t mean his criteria are more valid than another.
We have often seen him refusing a case because others doctors would diagnose it as well as he would, but I doubt that every week, there is just ONE case that he himself is able to tackle.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:35 am
There was a strong implication at the end of the House/dying man scene, that the woman the dying man was calling was the student he’d had the affair with, rather than his daughter. She was “the cutest six year old you’ve ever scene.” Why would having an affair with an adult student ruin his relationship for life with his 6 year old daughter?
It wouldn’t. The implication being that the guy was a child molester, who’d either molested his daughter or another 6 year old that now, years later, he’s calling to get one last sadistic comment on her answering machine in before he dies, just for the sick thrill of imagining her reaction.
The other piece of evidence supporting this is that he waited until she was gone – he knew she didn’t want to hear from him. I just don’t buy a six year old holding a grudge against her father for her whole life, or the dude’s being excommunicated from his entire family forever, for a non-violent consensual affair, without his “affair with a student” having a darker element to it.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:16 am
I am getting ready to ditch this show, and this episode is the worst I’ve ever seen. It was full of mopey clichés, and there was no compelling reason to keep watching. You knew that David Strathairn’s character was going to die, and that the baby would be found, and that Chase and Cameron would have a long boring conversation about their relationship. No surprises, no drama.
It kind of reminded me of the last season of the X-files.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Uptight who? I assume you meant Taub.
Not a medical nitpick, but a plot hole: Cameron approaching Chase to sign divorce papers. I was divorced in New Jersey in late 2002 (it was final in January 2003) and I never had to sign anything. My then-wife and I went to court a week before Christmas of 2002, I met with my lawyer on the day after Christmas to look over the papers, and I received the final papers sometime in March, 2003. To be fair, I was divorced in Middlesex County. Princeton is in Mercer County; maybe things are done differently there. I doubt it, however; the signing was just a pretty naked excuse to bring Cameron back to the Princeton-Plainsboro fold.
I would also think that Cuddy would have more important things to worry about than the number of towels in a patient’s room. Is she running a hospital or hotel? I was hospitalized three times last summer; the last thing I worried about was how many towels were available.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:51 am
It did strike me that this was very much an actors’ episode. Every major character plus two POTWs got five minutes of top-notch soap-opera soul-searching. This is so different from the usual rhythm of conference room with bit of soap-bedside-scanning machine with crisis-conference room-bit of soap in the halls-bedside with crisis…..
Definitely not what one would want every week. Obviously Laurie enjoyed directing it, though.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Official Comment
Yes, House probably could have saved the patient’s life had he taken the case. A proper diagnosis by House would have identified the problem before the patient suffered his multiple heart attacks, which are what likely caused his cardiomyopathy and subsequent bowel problem.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Sierra, I have to disagree. I got that the man ruined his relationship with his wife by having an affair with a student. They separated, and the wife got custody of the child. He doesn’t miss his wife because, as he says, he only married her because she was pregnant. I got the impression that he just didn’t see his daughter much after that, possibly out of guilt or maybe the wife didn’t want him to see her. Either way, he was not there for her growing up and he feels guilty about it, and thus doesn’t want to talk to her directly.
The point is, this isn’t a six year old holding a grudge, nor a man completely excommunicated from his family because of one affair. This man let his guilt over hurting his family, especially his daughter, isolate him from everyone else.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:28 am
I thought the Taub/Foreman scenes were the best part of the episode. It felt like they kindled a real friendship there. Interesting that Taub sees himself as in a downward trend and admires Foreman for what he’s accomplished and will accomplish. The drug taking was kind of a stretch but something was necessary to break down the wall between them in the short amount of time allotted and drugs were probably the only option. I like what Taub did with the report. He became a much more likable character this week.
Good to see Jennifer Morrison in any episode. I like them as a couple even if for the simple reason that it makes Chase more interesting.
House’s part was good too. I wonder if it alone could have been expanded to a whole episode. It’s good to point out that for every lost cause House saves hundreds (thousands?) go undiagnosed and untreated. House knows that his method of choosing patients is essentially as arbitrary as Zeus hurling lightning down bolts. For every compelling story he accepts as a case, there is another equally compelling story he ultimately rejects. To mere mortals, the gods and House’s actions are ultimately unfathomable.
Cuddy finding the baby was preposterous on so many levels. What? Has she picked up detective skills from Lucas? Seems like that scene could’ve been originally written for Lucas and then changed. While laughable, it didn’t ruin the episode.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:34 am
this episode had some funny moments… loved foreman and taub… even though it was kinda unbelievable… and the flash at the end was really nice…haha…. but i agree that House should get back to more “medical stuff”, after all, that’s what got me addicted in the first place… also why i think it’s stronger than other medical dramas like grey’s…
April 13th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I know this isn’t the popular opinion, but i actually quite liked this episode, it was fun, light-hearted and silly at times, a nice departure from the usual “i’m a miserable doctor and nobody loves me” tone that dogs house, which is necessary for the character but can get a little depressing.
No i wouldn’t like this every week and yes the whole trapped in an elevator thing has been done before, so has “someone with a drug-addiction who solves problems no-one else can” but it was fairly chilled and i have been getting a little fed up with the formulaic catastrophies before every advert break which seemed to be the bread and butter of the show. and yes i know the wilson and 5 to 9 haven’t really had that either. I think the writers have realised that the regular format for the show has become a little stale and that they’re simply trying a few new things. Saying return to how it was in season 1 is all well and good but that would ignore character development (yes there has been some.
The drug taking;
foreman’s taken drugs before, taub was in a mischievous mood (and might have taken drugs before too)
and i’m fairly sure foreman suggested it because he wanted to prevent taub from looking at HIS file, i was watching to see if foreman took the pills too and that prevented him from removing the page/hiding his file before taub thought to open it.
With House and the dying man;
@Scott, i don’t think house was saying he was mooning over i think he was saying the relationship he had with her created the realization that he wanted a real relationship,(with cuddy, though that was deliberately not said) as opposed to choosing to be alone (driving away his lawyer love interest, i forget her name.)
@Missi, i agree completely.
@Sierra, him saying; “she was the cutest 6 year old you’ve ever seen” was the words of a dying man thinking of his daughter and trying to convey something of her to House as his mind became more incoherent with drugs, nothing in there suggested paedophilia, i don’t know what show you were watching.
Cuddy’s detective skills;
she didn’t know what the extra towels meant, just that it was something out of place, (House’s standard phrase is; “It doesn’t fit.”)
I did have to check this next bit;
She goes to check the houskeeping records straight after that, seizure nurse comments on it (lit: “ok…”) then goes into a sezure while cuddy’s checking the houskeeping records, THEN she doesn’t respond when cuddy says her name and asks for her arm.
She’s the chief administrator who decides the budgets for everything, so she’d have probably made the decision on how many towels go into each room at some point so the information would have been knocking around in her brain and it took her a while to figure out the cart was missing. I assume she figured out the budget for carts as well.
Dunno why the baby never cried but it could have been very comfy/muffled in the blankets (i was wondering how it didnt suffocate) as to why no-one saw the cart and looked in it… who knows,
April 13th, 2010 at 10:57 am
I’d love to hear about House’s pain because this is obviously leading somewhere. At this point, there’s not much keeping House off of vicodin–other than hallucinations. but as an addict, he’d likely rationalize it and say he’ll only take a small amount of the drugs.
Wilson: They’re turning him into more of a buffoon with each episode.
Sierra: are you projecting …. ? That’s some sick interpretation. And completely off.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:00 am
There is no way Taub’s full name is Christopher Michael Taub. Jews do not name their children any name utilizing “Christ” who made this boo-boo.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Two (completely unrelated) thoughts:
My father had an affair and my mother left him over it when I was a small child. He died some years later. I can only wish that his dying thought was to hear my voice once more. But generally I find the “man who screwed up his family life and feels regret at the end” more credible than “child molester wanting to get in one last thrill”. Besides which, where does a college classics professor encounter 6 yr. olds?
With at least two of our three children (all born in the same hospital), it was trivial to slip the alarm anklet off their ankle—the staff just couldn’t seem to get the anklet snug enough. I didn’t have especially small babies either. I think the system is more to help parents feel safe than to offer any real protection.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:05 am
I did not find Cutty’s scenes to be unrealistic. I’ve worked for powerful, brilliant women who are attentive enough regarding what all of their employees ought to be doing that they notice the discrepancies. It was those bosses who immediately came to mind when I saw what Cutty was doing.
A good episode, and as well-done as the scene was, I hoped that Chase and Cameron could have parted ways without a final hookup. Their closeness and intimacy made the divorce seem childish.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Could upping the dosage of morphine for the patient be what some call, “palliative sedation” – sedation with the intent of alleviating pain when no other recourse is possible, which brings the unfortunate but not primarily intended side effect of hastening death…
April 13th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I thought Taub’s given name was a deliberate anomaly. He is quite the most secular of secular Jews, it would be unsurprising if his parents were too. Maybe they named their son Christopher out of contrariness?
According to http://www.jewfaq.org/jnames.htm, “names like Christopher, Christine and Jesus are almost unheard of among Jews.”
” Almost unheard of,” as House might say, is different to “completely unheard of.”
April 13th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
@Chuck
I found myself thinking the same thing about the bracelet.i wasn’t so distracted by how cuddy found the baby (it was a streatch but it could happen) but more by the fact that when she found it, its face was covered by a towel. Wouldn’t it have smothered??
also, to whoever writes thes reviews (im a new poster sorry i dont know your name) what was your take on Taub and FOremans reactions to the vicoden? several people said they wouldn’t act that giddy but i think they could. one of the sideeffects of rereational use of the drug is eupohria
April 13th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I have to agree with the others, Dr. Scott. House simply wanted the man to be unconscious while his body died naturally, not have the morphine be the cause of death.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I thought this episode was ok, although I thought the whole “nurse took the baby and gave eight towels while seizing” bit was somewhat of a stretch. Although I honestly thought “WTF” when Cuddy put the whole hospital on lockdown just to search for a baby. There could’ve been better things to write that could cause a whole lockdown situation.
I thought Foreman and Taub poppin’ Vicodin was really more comic relief, which was needed because a good chunk of this episode was really a downer.
The House and the dying patient I thought was good, maybe it shows that there are consequences to his Holmesian nature when taking cases.
I also kind of agree with Crik, Wilson has been getting dumber with each episode especially starting with the episode Chase had his Bachelor party.
IMO this episode was way better than 3 weeks ago’s episode with the whole “we’re gonna look at this girl’s thoughts for a diagnosis” thing.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
@gadfly: Taub’s name has been Chris Taub ever since he entered the show.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
FlowerPower: Morphine is “increased” in terminal patients ostensibly for the patient’s “comfort” (and is indicated as such in the patient’s chart); however, in reality, when enough of the drug is introduced over a period of time, it depresses the respiratory system leading to cardiopulmonary failure and death. Bottom line: it’s euthanasia and it happens more frequently that most people realize.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
The ending was interesting, Why would any hospital have
“OMNES TE MORITURI AMANT” on it’s wall?
Is it some inside joke by Laurie? Sounds very oxbridge anyway.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Thirteen’s flashing boobs in front of Taub – awesome! I laughed from Taub’s face expression for few minutes.
And yeah – “Everybody loves You on their deathbed” is a weird motto for a hospital that should save lives, not make the passing to the other side easier.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
The dark lighting ruined any credibility of the epi for me, why did it have to be dark? We’re searching for a tiny baby, everyone shut the lights off. Ridiculous.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Really enjoyed the episode. Lots of lighthearted moments, though it did get a little predictable and melodramatic at points.
And Foreman was an Osler Marine before he worked for House? He must really be a masochist.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
This episode had a lot of potential. The lockdown really made a solid ground for some character development, but it was split into too many pieces. Perhaps, if it were a two hour episode, it could’ve offerd enough time to actually get something new out of the characters. Especially Taub and Foreman in the archives was a promising setup. I really thought they were going to find something surprising in Houses’ file and speculate with that for the rest of the episode. At the same time House would’ve confessed this to the dying man and we would’ve understood why he did the seemingly horrible thing mentioned in the file. But then I realized that Davin Shore didn’t participate as a writer in this episode and all hope was instantly gone since he’s the only one who has the authority to revel something new about House. He has written all the major House episodes like “Three Stories” and “One Day, One Room”. So now Foreman and Taub just goofed around and took some vicodin to increase the comic effect. Houses’ segment wasn’t anything special either. The usual transformation from denial to remorse to redemption he experiences almost on a weekly basis. The writers seem to have this highly romanticized idea of apology anyway. Beginning of this season House redeemed himself by apologizing to the guy whose delusion he encouraged and almost got him killed in the process. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t think apology does anything to lessen the guilt over crippling someone. It just forces the other person to forgive you because that’s the social contract. Houses’ sense of responsibility is, in my opinion, rather something to look up to. Accept the suffering you cost and don’t try to wiggle your way out of it by saying you’re sorry. It doesn’t fix anything, at best, it lessens the punishment of the deserving.
There was also another recurring theme that bothered me. There’s often a scenario in which two people argue over a certain topic and at the end both become convinced reversing their original positions. Last time Cameron and Chase did this over the dictator and now Taub and Foreman did it over Foremans’ file. First foreman want’s to destroy some of it and Taub is against this. In the end Foreman decides to leave it as it is and Taub destroys the unflattering parts. The argument seems solved but it really isn’t. It also makes it look as though no-one ever thinks anything through since they always change their minds when confronted by the most obvious counterargument possible.
The Wilson and 13 segment as well as the Cameron and Case part probably were there to set up some bigger storylines. My guess is that Wilson and House are going to have a huge conflict over Wilson getting back together with his ex wife since he now has his consciences’ pemission to go for it. At first House will try to sabotage the relationship, but eventually he’ll grow to “take the high route”. I really wish it won’t turn out that way, but predictability is one flaw in the whole concept of a series. There can never be any major changes unless it’s the last season, which it isn’t or it involves a fading character, which in this case, it doesn’t.
As for Cameron and Chase, they’ll probably get back together and then something tragic happens, because now there is a fading character. Cameron is basically out the door anyway.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
@MadMedRx Just because it happens doesn’t necessarily mean that it was House’s intention in this case. While it’s plausible that House meant to euthanize the man and the writers assigned an arbitrary dosage increase, I think the scenario that FlowerPower (and others) presented is equally plausible. I don’t think we’re given enough information to know for sure one way or another in this particular episode, though it’s possible that I missed some big hint somewhere.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Whoops, got the name totally wrong – I meant @MedMavRx not @MadMedRx, lol.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
small quibble – House told the dying man he could unlock the regulator so he could spend his last few hours in a “narcotic haze”. He was trying to get him high enough to dissociate from the pain – not kill him
other than that – LOVE the reviews!!
Meg
April 13th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
I have actually enojyed this episode a lot, though one must ask – are all people a PP, including patients, such experts on behaviour? Wise dying man indeed but the thing is – everyone that talks to House for more than 30 seconds suddenly becomes this (both wise and dying). This was always the thing that jarred me about House as show the most, the ability for everyone to be so wisely aware what every gesture and thought means and while I can accept this from House, EVERYONE doing it just annoys me. Sometimes a cigar is really just a cigar.
A cynical part of me though, expected that the daughter would show up 30 seconds after the guy dies/goes to sleep. Glad they didn’t go that route.
Taub and Foreman were hilarious and so was 13/Wilson.
Chase and Cameron had never had even a trace of chemistry for me and their scenes just confirmed that. I just don’t buy them as a couple.
The solution who took the baby seemed completely unrealistic, even for House – no one checked the bins? I thought mum did it, clearly, I’m not Cuddy.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
@Skye and Meg: Why do you buy into the idea of Cameron “euthanizing” a patient (”Informed Consent”), but not House? Cameron is considered by some to be an ineffectual weeny, but she clearly had the stones to put a dying man out of his misery. Yet you believe that House, who doesn’t really give a s**t about anybody, especially patients, is incapable of such a deed?
On another note, 4mg of morphine is not really enough to put anybody in a haze, or even a light snooze. It would, however, make watching an episode of Star Trek much more interesting.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
I thought the idea, while interesting (if not overdone) just didn’t carry through in the way I would have wanted it to. Somewhat suprisingly (to myself) I actually found House’s scenes with the dying man by far the dullest of the episode. Maybe it was just because I found myself rolling my eyes at yet another discussion of House’s feelings/lovelife (okay, now we’re back to Lydia. Can we just get OVER it already).
I sort of enjoyed Wilson/Thirteen’s scenes, although we didn’t really learn anything. Taub/Foreman was relatively funny, if not childish. I actually really liked seeing Cameron back – I really think she’s an integral part of the show, and do miss her. Although I’m not a Chameron fan – I definitely just miss her presence and opinions. I’d love to see her back on the team, especially interacting with another female on the team. Now that could be much more interesting. And maybe we’d actually get to see them solve a MEDICAL case once in a while.
Although no case will compare to Cuddy’s quick and smart thinking this episode. I mean, jeez. No wonder she’s the head of this hospital. Every towel in the room is specifically documented, but babies can be taken and dumped in towel bins right outside the room. Someone earned the big bucks for that solution. Yet another point for Cuddy’s brilliance.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
@Emma: Well said!
April 14th, 2010 at 12:50 am
I liked the whole idea they worked on. I believe House is the only show that is not jumping shark after 6 seasons.
April 14th, 2010 at 1:43 am
Maybe in the next episode, Cuddy will be doing all the surgeries instead of Chase!
I was never a fan of the way Chase/Cameron ended, this actually made it a little better. And yes, Foreman…wow. House’s allegations of boredom must have finally gotten to him!
I thought it was implied that the guy was going to die anyway, House was just going to get him stoned for it.
Except for 13/Wilson, the rest of it was as disappointing as all the other touchy-feely overdramatized crap…here’s hoping next week’s medical mystery is back up to standard. They’ve not been doing so well this season, have they?
April 14th, 2010 at 3:35 am
Some of my favorite episodes of House are the ones that deviate from the norm – like the “Airborne” episode (when they’re on the airplane) and “Wilson.”
Still, the show needs at least some medicine and at least some wittiness. This episode lacked both. House is not a show that should be using slapstick-style comedy to draw laughs (Foreman and Taub punching each other).
I loved the idea of putting House next to a patient whom he rejected, and while I feel it was well done, I thought it might’ve benefited from more time – House is the star, and so I feel like his arc should have predominated. Honestly, Cuddy’s story arc wouldn’t have lost much if it just included the beginning, when they realized the baby was gone, and the very end, when the “towel discrepancy,” made everything clear (to Cuddy).
April 14th, 2010 at 5:43 am
When House was talking about the “woman”, I was only thinking about Stacy and Cuddy, I didn’t even remember Lydia.
April 14th, 2010 at 7:58 am
When someone is dying and in pain, the standard at least in Finland (and I hope in US too) is to give enough opioids to keep the pain away. Normally it doesn’t hasten death, but at least I don’t care even if it does if the patient is already terminal (has hours or days, max a few weeks). Treating pain or shortness of breath in a terminally ill patient is not euthanasia even if it did (rarely) eventually expedite death by few hours.
As I see it, Euthanasia is planned killing of someone before they are terminal. Completely different from what happened here; morphine was given to treat the symptoms and even if it did kill him, it wouldn’t be euthanasia, or against basic medical ethics.
Not giving enough morphine to make him pain free would be bad medicine IMO.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:25 am
To MedMavRx : I don’t think House has any problems with assisted suicide, nor do I think he would skirt the issue if that’s what he intended. My statement was simply that the dialogue did not suggest that was his intention but Dr Scott made the point of dinging the episode’s medicine by saying that it wasn’t enough morphine to kill him. Now if you’re saying the 4mg wasn’t even enough to make him comfortably numb, that would be a valid complaint.
April 14th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Did my eyes deceive me, or was the baby’s bracelet nowhere to be seen when Cuddy found her in the cart?
I thought it was an okay episode, but I too am getting tired of so many non-medical shows this season. I do love character development, but let’s do in the intended context of the show, m’kay?
One other thing, while I’m glad that Chase and Cameron got to finally get a fairly peaceful resolution of the whole “marriage down the tubes” thing, it still IRKS me that Chase can’t admit what he did with Dibala was wrong. He always deflects, saying “well, you thought about doing it, too!” but can’t ever admit that it even *might* have been wrong.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:39 am
@Benign
Couldn’t agree more.
I like the nonmedical episodes, but I think they could have left out 5 to 9. It would have made this one a little more appreciated
April 14th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Hi!
Great episode with a different pace from the previous ones. BTW, “omnes te moriturum amant” means everyone loves you on your deathbed…perhaps an inside joke from Hugh Laurie? Or maybe referring to his subplot with the dying man…
April 14th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
No medicine again, but quite good fun to watch! Taub and Foreman getting high, LOL. Thirteen lying to Wilson, interesting. Chase and Cameron together again, what? I was guessing they would break up like people. Cuddy knowing how many carts the cleaners have, wow!
April 14th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
@Benign: The way this season is playing out, this show has not only jumped the shark, but the shark jumped up and bit it in the ass. Another year like this one, and it’ll be history.
April 14th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
My only complaint about this season compared to previous, is that the show can`t seem to build momentum. I`m not sure if it`s completely to blame on the writing or the month breaks in between new episodes.
I do like the fact that there are a lot of loose threads this season. Could lead to an interesting season finale.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I don’t think House was trying to kill the patient. He was just boosting the morphine to numb him out, and make his last hours easier.
April 14th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
I think the problem with this season…(and last one for that matter) is there is no bad guy….No villain for House to go up against. We need a Vogler or the cop that was trying to arrest House. Something to get the juices flowing dramatically again.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Biff: Wouldn’t you say that House is going up against himself this season? He’s facing his own demons.
April 15th, 2010 at 2:37 am
I have written a long and detailed opinion on this episode monday but my boss entered the room and I had to shut down the browser before sending it. Since most of the stuff that needed to be said is already said, I’ll just mention that this episode was light and enjoyable to me and the “mistakes” made by the autors in terms of “In char” or “out of char” were ligh and decent enough. I prefer to pick the bones of something which might have been deliberately left out or may be just mentioned or may be the writers screwed it up again (who knows?) Somebody here mentioned the fact that Cuddy finding the baby was unbelievable – I found it completely belieavable because with every passing episode it is well and firmly established that Cuddy is probably almost as smart as House – they differ by savoir faire and methods of acomplishing their goals not by IQ. One interesting side effect is that as Cuddy is becoming happier and a bit more House lake she managed to get the drop on him on more than one ocasion – while he seems to have lost his edge on manipulating her lately (may be because he just can’t cold heartedly do it any more? But I got sidetracked… what I really wanted to mention was Cuddy’s behavior towards Lucas during the whole baby crisys. Let us think – a missing person, a baby, a problem, so big, it requires a hospital lockdown and calling the police. Yet Cuddy doesn’t even fathom the thought of calling her boyfrind the person that (theoretically) she trusts the most for help. She doesn’t even bother to tell him why she’ll be late? Either A) She called him and told him what the problem is in which case I find it strange that the caring and trusty Lucas who just so happens to be a P.I. whould not come and help with the search (seraching people is one of his job requirements right?) or B) She did not tell him because….here is the point where it becomes interesting. Why whould she not tell him? She forgot: that means that she doesn’t really love him or cares for him or even thinks about him enough to call him for help or for information purposes even. She did not want to bother him: that means that she does not trust him important issues so he is just a convinience for her. She thought it is not important or not of his business: another sign that their relationship is not what it is suppose to be. Or may be she told him and than convinced him she does not need help? Wellll kind of out of charachter for him right? We already saw in the “Cuddy” episode that he doesn’t allways do what she tells him and takes chances for her well being (as any caring boyfriend whould do). So we have a mystey here: why was Lucas absent? Is this just a mention of future trouble in dreamland or did the autors just made another serious mistake without even noticing?
April 15th, 2010 at 8:45 am
About the nurse:
not too much of a stretch really. As pointed out by Cuddy, she would be drifting in and out of normal concious function, so she might do tasks more than once, not realising or not being aware of the fact that she had already done them. Seizures can last only minutes at a time, meaning its possible she might make mistakes.
And while pilomotor seizures are rare – I’m just glad they presented and named it correctly!
Narcotic haze:
House put him on a higher morphine dose to make his dying process bearable (he only had a few hours left according to House).
Taub’s name:
I caught this too and am pretty skeptical. It is not unheard of, especially with Taub being fairly secular (like in the photos of him dancing at his wedding – totally taboo!)
April 15th, 2010 at 8:59 am
@ D-r Bulgaria,
I am always quite interested and appreciative of your comments.
I would like to point out however that:
a) She might have called him off camera
b) Even though he is a P.I. he would probably not be allowed to participate in a police investigation.
Also in reference to people talking about the number of towels in the room – Dr. Cuddy is the big kahuna in the hospital, so it’s not unlikely she’s able to notice when twice as many towels are there. A (private?) state-of-the-art hospital like this one probably *does* have a specific towel to room number.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:17 am
“OMNES TE MORITURI AMANT” is an inside joke – its the motto of Cambridge Footlights where HL started his career.
What’s with the Lucas wank? If Cuddy’s at work & she’s this all amazing powerful woman that you claim, the last thing she’s going to do is be a woobie & call her boyfriend for help. She’s got the hospitals own security & police on hand & rather than swanning around worrying about towels what she should be doing is dealing with the risk of a lawsuit from the parents, the bad publicity of yet another crisis sat PPTH. Dragging her personal life in to it in the form of Lucas is actually a bad professional move – a lawsuit would claim (rightly) she’s not focused on her job. A better storyline for the episode would have been to show Cuddy actually doing her real job which is oversight, House tracking down the baby with his mad detective skillz while eluding the security folks & lock down just to be contrary & then have 13 stuck in a room with the patient, so they could both deal with their parenting & death issues.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:11 am
I think some of the criticism for this episode is unfair. First off, Hugh Laurie did direct this episode so it was probably planned that he have fewer scenes so that he would not have to do double duty. He has also expanded into the role of executive producer, and maybe the powers that be are looking into continuing this show or a spinoff on that sad day when Laurie decides to hang ‘em up.
The show has to balance between several competing needs. It has a large cast, so it must either maintain a balance of screen time between the characters or give someone short shrift. Also, it either has to be consistent and risk being format or experimental and risk going in bad directions.
House is in its sixth season and is has over 120 episodes under its belt – the vast majority of them elite. Don’t be so relentless harping on its relative and graceful decline.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:05 am
So, Bulgaria, your thinking is that Cuddy’s hospital goes into crises and the first thing that comes to her mind is call her boyfriend to save PP and Cuddy? There’s a reason that never even crossed the writers’ minds. And it’s not even an inside joke that Lucas is a bit of a clown. A little insightful, but a buffoon none the less. (think back to the scene in the diner when House found out about the relationship and Lucas went on about House’s hospitalization. Cuddy was completely humiliated.)
April 15th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I liked much of this episode as well. But I think it helped me figure something out. I’ve thought all along that Olivia Wilde was the 13/Foreman relationship problem. But I’m starting to think it’s Omar Epps instead. I really liked the interplay between 13 and Wilson in this episode, and I thought Olivia Wilde did a nice job with her scenes. And I really, really liked the Taub portion of the Taub/Foreman scenes. (And LOVED Taub’s reaction to 13 flashing him.) But Foreman left me completely cold. I used to think it was just the way the character is written, but Epps’ attempt at comedy was a lot like his attempts at drama – very flat. So maybe he should be the one to go.
The other thing I really liked about this episode was Cameron – not only her being there, which was great, but also that Chase called her on her failings. I’ve thought all along that the idea of murdering Dibala would not have occurred to Chase had Cameron not first said something about it. And I don’t think she was ever really honest with Chase – or herself – about their relationship. So good for him for calling her on a lot of that. And I think they had sex just to encourage people like me who keep hoping that she’ll be back. Maybe there is some kind of relationship there. And god knows, I’d have trouble resisting him. :-)
April 15th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Br Bulgaria,
I always enjoy your posts..you are so far out! But the idea that Cuddy would call Lucas doesn’t hold water. She needs people who are familiar with the hospital and that’s not Lucas. She already has the cops looking in every room (why some here complained that the cops should be leading this…don’t get that complaint…they were doing their jobs). Also, I assume Lucas has a job?? The way she used Lucas to get that disgusting employee in “5 to 9″ was the way he should be used.
I don’t think this was a great episode, but not totally stinko either. Why do folks here and on other “House” threads always complain about non-realism…this is TV…it’s fiction…enjoy!!
April 15th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
I really enjoyed this episode. For me, House is not just a show about medical mysteries, it’s a show about characters and I enjoy seeing the interaction between those characters, which usually takes a backseat to the medical mystery of the week.
Missing baby & Cuddy: I thought the storyline to be very gripping, having had two babies in the past 4 years. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, to have your baby disappear while you’re sleeping. I knew the half-brother was a red herring from the start, since it was too obvious. I too suspected the mother, this being House and all! But as soon as Cuddy noticed the towels, I thought… oh no, baby’s been thrown away with the dirty towels… I thought Cuddy was showing extraordinary knowledge of the hospital policies when she knew exactly how many towels should have been in the room, though that was not unbelievable, because she is supposed to be quite competent. I did raise an eyebrow when she went into the laundry room and said there should be another cart. I mean, PLEASE. This woman is the dean of medecine at a large hospital, and she knows how many laundry carts should be in that particular room? Also agreed on the futility of the alarm, since the bracelet can be easily cut off. And don’t even get me started on the stupidity of this baby not making a peep all this time… Being a newborn, she should have woken up after at best 2-3 hours for a feeding (and that’s being optimistic, assuming she didn’t wake up when being hauled off and thrown in a laundry cart, with a bunch of towels on top of her – none of which seemed, conveniently, very dirty!).
House & dying patient: it was OK, not great. I liked that House’s arrogance wasn’t over-the-top, like it can be sometimes. You could see him actually feeling guilty about not taking this man’s case. Also, on a personal note, since this seems to be such an issue, my grandma died about a year ago. She was in excruciating pain and on a moderate morphin regimen. Her dosage just wasn’t enough anymore, she was 93 and specifically said she was ready to die… the doctors then switched her over to a “comfort” regimen, which basically meant, give her as much morphin as necessary to keep her comfortable, even if the dosage is sure to accelerate the dying process. It’s not euthanasia, it’s compassion in the context of the inevitable.
Taub & Foreman: it had a few clever moments, but my utter indifference to Foreman kept me from truly appreciating that storyline. I am so BORED with that character. Taub was really funny though, the crowning moment being the look on his face when 13 flashed him. Priceless.
Wilson & 13: I think the main point of that exchange was to set up the introduction of his ex-wife, but the whole thing was pretty funny on its own. I too liked 13 better with Wilson than I ever did with Foreman, so that only solidifies my conviction that Foreman kills any story he’s involved with,
Chase & Cameron: Finally! Finally, we got a decent conversation between those two to get closure on their relationship. I had kinda lost hope on that when they wrote Cameron off, but I think it was very well done. I think it was entirely believable that they would have “goodbye sex”. Theirs was never a passionate hate you/love you type of relationship, it was more of a frienship kind of relationship. Which is why it fizzled, in the end, because Cameron was never in love with Chase the way he was with her. I did have a problem with him not adressing the fact that he completely shut her out after he committed murder. He didn’t come to her and confess or express conflicting feelings about the whole thing, he just put the blame on her for judging him FOR KILLING A MAN! There was a really complex storyline to extract from that, but I guess the writers just wanted a quick way to write Cameron off, and so they took the quick way out. But I loved that Chase accepted the fact that Cameron didn’t love him as much as he did her, and that their affection for each other prevailed. Unlike others, I didn’t see this as “getting back together”, but as a bittersweet farewell. Since this is a TV show, I guess if they want Chase out next year, they could have Cameron get pregnant from their last tryst… That sould be very soapy.
So those are my thoughts. Not an earth-shattering episode, but I was so happy that Jennifer Morrison got to have a decent send-off that it really made the episode very enjoyable for me.
April 16th, 2010 at 12:18 am
Contare: You’d have trouble resisting Chase or Jesse Spencer? Either way, you’re a guy, I assume?
Bulgaria: You did give me much food for thought today. I could be wrong, but this is just an idea. Is it possible that a security firm with any true credibility would suggest that if anything **anything** is out of the ordinary, it could be a clue that something is wrong. In this case more towels = something out of the ordinary. Yes, I’m grasping, but if it fits … it makes the story work, right?
April 16th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
I’m betting Cameron shows up in nine months with the world’s single-most complicated pregnancy ever.
April 17th, 2010 at 1:20 am
May be I am losing my edge here… I did not expect SO many people to disagree with me. We can safely assume Cuddy did call Lucas – if not for other reasons for the reason “Hey I have a baby too and the nany needs to go and somebody needs to watch her and please be a dear and run home boy toy!” So let us take form granted she called him and move from there. Why was he not there? If she told him the problem he would have come running – a joke or not he is really into Cuddy (who would not be?!?!? That woman is SMOKING hot!) Police or no police he would volunteer to help (am I really that far off?) So the only reasonable explanation here that comes to my mind is that Cuddy lied to him: she said there is an emergency and she can’t get home in time (so what else is new in her life? :) but she did not specify what the emergency is – or lied about it and blamed it on House :):):). Now that is in char for Cuddy (dealing with problems alone) in char for Lucas (not meddling in her professional life unless asked to) and everybody is happy right? The only downside is that there is no trouble in Cuddyland – apart from the fact that Cuddy does not trust Lucas with her problems so we may assume that she is not THAT much into him. What a surprise :):):)
April 17th, 2010 at 5:35 am
I agree with gadfly … whether it has been the case from day 1 or not, realistically there is NO WAY that Taub is named Christopher. Even the most secular of Jews – and Taub does practice some ritual and identifies himself with the religion – would not use the name Christopher, particularly since children are traditionally named after dead relatives (never living ones) and this level of secularity is relatively new.
jewfaq.org would likely have said “almost” because they cannot actually verify the name of every Jew, and those who have converted might carry their name forward (but I doubt it). It is possible that a child of a mixed marriage might use the name, bit would probably not identify with or be raised in Jewish tradition. Despite what others might try to impose. according to Jewish practice status is a strictly matrilineal attribution; a child is only considered a Jew if the mother is Jewish.
April 17th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Hmmmm…. I have been at a loss this week for how to express how I feel about this episode.
THE GOOD:
Hugh Laurie’s directorial debut on House. While I’m sure he did the best he could with the script he was given, that script IMHO was pretty weak.
The House sub story was vintage House and one of the bright spots. It is always refreshing to see House confronted with the consequences of the actions he sometimes so casually take that affect people, so it was a sobering reminder to him (and to us) that for every one he saves, the 3 others he turns down each day probably die as a result.
THE NOT-SO-GOOD:
- Chase/Cameron:
The Producers DID say we’d see Jenifer Morrison back in at least two cameo’s after she left, so if this one was any indication of what to expect, please leave her gone. It was almost too painful to watch as it was there only for the whole “Chameron” story arc to have closure and the ending cliché sex also cheapened the arc for me as well because she walked out on Chase because of her supposed principals, yet she is ready to flip flop those after it is way to late because she feels bad for what she did to him.. she really is messed up. Glad she’s gone.
- Taub/Foreman:
Totally out of character for “Mr. Stick in his ass” to get loaded while at work, no matter what the reason because he’s so neurotically driven to succeed. Now Taub I can totally picture being a med-school partier… :D. I think it would have been better to switch Wilson & Foreman & play up the ‘Foreteen’ angle a bit & have some fun with it if Remy had dared Foreman to steal the dollar knowing his past criminal behavior.
I think the writers missed something here with that.
- Thirteen/Wilson:
Nothing enjoyable about this, no character revelations, it’s just Wilson letting another in a series of strong women manipulate him…..BORING..
THE BAD:
- Detective Cuddy:
I understand the reasoning behind trying to portray her as the savior of the POTW (Problem Of The Week) but they tried to make her act too much like House which is out of character for her by giving her the weekly “Ah-Ha moment” after looking at the # of towels in the patients room and the number of laundry carts being off in housekeeping and deducing from that the orderly in charge of the linens had some rare seizure disorder that caused her to treat the missing kid like dirty laundry….
I *REALLY, REALLY* hope that the season ending episode arc is a good one because for the last several weeks we’ve suffered through a series of very sub par episodes which is out of character for this show… at least in seasons past it would have been but now with this, I’m starting to wonder if this level of quality is now the new norm or just the last gasp of the current staff of writers who can still write decent character drama but are running out of Medical Mysteries to tie that drama in to…
Time will tell I guess.
April 17th, 2010 at 7:31 am
I missed Bryan Singer’s presence this episode. Remember his extraordinary sequences? This time it was like any other soap opera. With may be the only exception of Foreman and Taub getting high – I liked that scene.
I guess the producers are testing the chemistry between Thirteen and the other male characters. Two episodes ago it was a hint for something between her and Chase, now – her and Wilson. I liked her and Wilson better.
April 17th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I’m jewish, both my parents are jewish and I have a brother whose middle name is Kristopher. Granted, it’s with a K, but chist and krist are the same person. I don’t have a problem with Taub’s name. His mom may not be jewish, he may have a non-jewish grandparent, he may have been named after a friend, etc etc etc. What I wonder is if he was intentionally named Chris because if not, then his name is a distraction. Are we supposed to think about his name? and what about James Wilson? That doesn’t scream jewish to me and yet his character is supposed to be jewish. And Cuddy? That’s not very jewish either.
Bulgaria: Why are you so hooked on this towel thing? I just think it’s a very weak string that ties the episode together. They needed a reason for the lockdown that wasn’t a distraction. If there was a kidnapping, the focus would be on a crazy person in the hospital. And again, whether Cuddy called Lucas is such an uninteresting question. I wouldn’t be surprised if calling Lucas didn’t even occur to her as a character. She’s been running that hospital long before Lucas came around. There are policies in place for this kind of situation. And we can’t discount the fact that fans do not like lucas, so for the writers to leave him out of a few episodes while they lead up to the House/Cuddy hookup makes sense.
Finally: this was not Laurie’s directorial debut on House. It was his first credited direction, however. A few season’s ago a director was sick — or something — and Laurie directed a few segments.
April 17th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
@Dr. Bulgaria: A lockdown means no gets out OR in. A baby gone missing from a hospital nursery is considered a kidnapping and is a police matter. The boyfriend of the Dean of Medicine would not have been allowed to enter the hospital in such an event, in spite of the completely implausible story line and its ridiculous resolution.
Re: Foreman/Taub – Knocking back three or four Vicodin (especially if you’ve not taken it before) would not make you silly and playful. It would make you woozy and sick. They would have spent most of the next several hours trying very hard not to upchuck. It does not have the same psycho-pharmacologic effect as alcohol or marijuana.
April 19th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Crik –
Nope – I’m a girl. Although that is an interesting question about whether it’s Chase or Jesse Spencer I’d have trouble resisting. I kind of hate to admit it, but the episode a few weeks ago where they went to the speed dating thing and stupid Chase got all the numbers may be more true than we’d care to admit. It’s all physical. :-)
April 19th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Didn’t like this episode. I want a medical mystery and sarcasm from House. That’s why I watch the show.
Sappy relationship stuff and looking for a lots baby? Not the show I tuned in to watch.
April 19th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
You are really amazing doctor…btw you should apply to direct MD House and apply the real medical stuff there so we get a better show which will be closer to truth and people will be able to learn something as well.
April 20th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
One thing that I wondered about, and kinda expected to come up in the Truth or Dare scene, was whether Hadley still thought that Wison had hacked her e-mail to keep her from going to Thailand.
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:04 am
Let’s face it. House without his drugs isn’t as interesting as a House taking his Vicodin and swallowing them without water. I think they made a mistake in taking House off drugs in the first place–or making him into such an addict that it was necessary to do so.
I have pain every day but I don’t drug myself to get RID of the pain; I drug myself to the point where I can STAND the amount of pain I have. I am very aware of the fact that I could get hooked on painkillers and [knock on wood] that hasn’t happened.
Now, as to this episode, I laughed my ass off at Taub and Foreman. I didn’t like Taub in the beginning; now he’s one of my faves.
I never saw a ‘real’ chemistry between Chase and Cameron and was sorry to see them get married because I figured someone would probably be leaving and they were both awesome characters.
Thirteen is a hoot, although I thought it was lame the way she and Foreman broke up.
Wilson is wonderful. Sorry, but he can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. There’s still a lot of potential to developing his character, and I’m looking forward to it.
Cuddy. Sheesh. I don’t understand why House wants her so much. I think she and Lucas are adorable together. But I think she takes her job seriously and have no doubt she knows how many towel carts are needed by housekeeping to do their jobs. And some people may have forgotten that Lisa Cuddy IS a doctor, too.
This wasn’t the worst episode ever. I just really believe that the writers are having problems with House being off drugs. That was a big draw in this program. But perhaps they are trying to be politically correct, so they are ruining the show.
I had a sociology professor in college. He was half black. The KKK set his house on fire when he was just a young child; his mother [white] was killed along with his brother and only he and his father survived.
He once said to me, “Some people can do with a little bit of killing.”
I understood what Chase did because of this. It’s like “If you could go back in time would you kill Hitler?”
This doesn’t mean that *I* could do something like that; it’s just that I can understand the motivation. I try not to make judgments until I can walk [well, hobble] in someone else’s shoes.
And when we get right down to it, we have to remember one thing:
IT’S JUST A DAMNED TV SHOW.
April 24th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
@Jenn
If Taub were the product of a mixed marriage, that doesn’t make his identification as jewish in doubt in the slightest. Mixed marriages tend to be a mixed bag, and adherence or not depends upon the convictions (or lack thereof) of the parents. Or just plain laziness in my parents’ case (”If you want to raise them Catholic, you have to teach them and take them to church.” “Umm, no, let’s make them jewish.”)
I think overall, the episode was balanced. If anything had to go, I’d say it was the 13/Wilson scenes: that’s an awful long time to spend just to tell us that Wilson’s going to be dating his ex next episode. It didn’t do either of their characters justice and no new information was learned.
I too wondered about the lighting in the episode. The last time I recall a similar use of lighting was in the pilot episode. Everything was darker and quieter in that ep as well, and maybe they were trying to recreate that mood.
April 25th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Just a clarification: some commenters have referred to the woman with the seizures as a “nurse”….she’s just a housekeeper.
My CEO didn’t even know our ICU still had TVs older than I am. Why would Cuddy know anything about the housekeeper routines/cart quantities? Plus I love the nurse standing around in the background of all these scenes slackjawed. We generally know a hell of a lot more about the housekeeping staff than the upper management does.
April 27th, 2010 at 2:12 am
This is probably a stupid question, but don’t hospitals have security cameras or something?
May 11th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Christopher Taub, Jewish? Well, i think it’s one thing to debate the medical accuracy/inaccuracies of these shows, but when it comes to the characters themselves, you need to take them as the writers present them. He’s a Jew whose first name is “Christopher.” False? Because it’s un-Jewish in MOST Jews’ minds? Many Christians think it’s sacreligious to name a child “Jesus,” but a number of Christians actually do. There are probably kids somewhere named, “God.” (Apologies to Grace Slick.)
People name children for many reasons. An important relative. Someone they admire. Even an ex! Perhaps Taub’s parents’ marriage was interfaith. Or, perhaps they were Jews for Jesus! The J4Js have VERY strong (some would say fanatical) and positive feelings for Christ. I could easily see a J4J couple naming their “Jewish” child, Christopher.
The Taub/Foreman scene taking Vicodin didn’t bother me so much in terms of the side effects they showed. What dosage did they take? We don’t know exactly. “Drowsiness, dizziness, lightheadedness, fuzzy thinking, abnormally happy or abnormally sad…” per nlm.nih.gov. Their behavior was close enough, I thought.
That segment, I liked. I thought the Thirteen/Wilson segment was a waste of time. To invest time and emotion (well, not a lot) in her story and then find out she lied was just a waste of screen time.
Security cameras? The hospital has to weigh the needs and benefits to others that security cameras would provide against the privacy needs of the patients. There, the cameras would have had to be in the mother’s room, above her bed, to reveal what actually happened to the baby. How many times out of a thousand would the benefit of having a camera above a pregnant, etc. mother outweigh her privacy needs? No one would want to have their babies there, I don’t think! :)
May 13th, 2010 at 2:21 am
There could have been cameras in the hall that would have caught the nurse leaving or walking towards the laundry room.
May 20th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
I’m Jewish, and I personally know a Jewish woman named Christy. I delicately inquired about it once, and she looked embarrassed and said that she thinks her mother was just drugged up after her delivery and didn’t realize! Having said that, my sister named her daughter something not quite as explicitly goyish (non-Jewish), but nearly so — and she wasn’t drugged. So it happens all the time. Not everyone thinks deeply about the roots of names before choosing them.
May 25th, 2010 at 8:06 am
WRT to Taub being Jewish with the name Chris, my brother-in-law was born on December 25 and his parents – both secular Jews – gave him “Christopher” as his middle name.
My brother-in-law is now a religous Jew and is a bit embarrased with his middle name…
June 20th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
This is the episode where I became 100% convinced that House has jumped the shark. ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. I’ve never seen Grey’s Anatomy, but that’s because I expect it to be made of stuff like this.
And then before this episode, there was the one where Cameron leaves Chase for helping kill a mass murderer. WTF was that? The show is lying in a gutter covered in its own piss and vomit. It’s really sad to see.
There was a glimmer of hope when both Taub and 13 were gone for a few episodes. But alas, it was too good to be true.
July 6th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
It’s a bit off. I could kind of see a person who had a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_partial_seizure taking the baby. I have a friend who suffers from these, and his affect his temporal lobe. So you can talk to “Mike”, but you’re NOT talking to “Mike”. The personality is different. He functions like a normal person, will talk to you, but will suddenly do odd things like tell you this movie is his favorite thing, or hang onto a wall and act like it’s really important that he hold this wall for a while. He generally doesn’t remember what happens afterward. The best way we’ve found to get him to deal with one of these episodes is get him watching something.
August 28th, 2010 at 7:22 am
This was much,much better than the last episode.A bit unconventional,but pretty solid overall.House’s track was ok,nothing too good,but I guess Laurie was busy directing the episode and wanted House to be a minor character.Taub/Foreman was pretty good.Chase/Cameron had a good,sensible and solid ending.Considering Jennifer Morrison left the show,it was good of the writers to write off her character in a sensible way and give a logical conclusion to her character.13/Wilson was plain stupid.13 is an interesting character,very secretive and a master of many talents.I don’t understand why they don’t exploit her traits more often.
I was just going through the credits for season 7 and it seems that Dr.Samantha Carr is going to be a regular guest star.This is sure to cause some tension between House and Wilson,particularly if Huddy doesn’t work out.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:39 am
If Hugh Laurie directed this episode, I would like to think that, in the not too distant future, maybe he could take a stab at writing an episode or two. There’s no doubt about his wonderful writing (scripts AND a novel) so he could probably pull a couple of truly superior stories out of that gifted brain of his (maybe even with Stephen Fry! But that’s probably too much of a long-shot.) OTOH, we’re already in the 7th season, and he’s directed just one episode ever, and when interviewed about his directing he implied that he really didn’t enjoy it that much, so perhaps I’m just fantasizing.
December 11th, 2010 at 8:32 am
I know compared to all the big arguments going on its not a vital point, but I just wanted to make a note that no one -even a doctor- can simply open a narcotic PCA (patient-controlled analgesic) machine like how House did for the patient. I think you can all imagine what sort of trouble could happen if that was real life. Reality is that only nurses and doctors can open it and only if they have the right keys and be in presence of another nurse/doctor.
I know they want to make it easier for the audience to understand but seriously, how hard is it to give Laurie some keys?
January 14th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
WRT terminal/palliative sedation: it`s a totally appropriate end-of-life treatment option for terminal patients who feel their distress is unbearable, where relief cannot be found any other way; drug doses are carefully titrated to achieve relief of all symptoms of distress (not only pain), WITHOUT compromising respiration or hastening death. I speak as one opposed (not for religious reasons) to medicalised killing, commonly referred to as `euthanasia` (incorrectly, in my view; an unnecessarily premature death is surely not a `good` one).
Recent surveys in the UK have shown that many doctors don`t understand what terminal sedation involves, and haven`t received the palliative care training (inexplicably not compulsory for all UK doctors) which might help them perform it appropriately and effectively. Unfortunately, it seems that too many doctors, as well as lay people, wrongly imagine that `double effect` has a place in palliative care, that hastening of death/medicalised killing happens more often than it does, and/or that it`s the aim of terminal sedation. Doctors and laypeople alike fail to realise how wide a safety margin there is when opioids and sedatives are used correctly; a much wider one, in fact, than when using paracetamol (acetaminophen). Such misapprehensions lead to bias in favour of the legalisation of medicalised killing.
Surveys showed that doctors in hospitals and old people`s homes who lacked palliative care training were actually MORE likely to use continuous deep sedation than those in hospices and palliative care wards, and were highly likely to attempt to provide sedation with opioid painkillers alone, despite in fact that they`re not effective sedatives. The palliative care specialist`s sedative drug of first resort is midazolam, a short-acting benzodiazepine. Its effects are sedative, anxiolytic, anti-convulsant, amnesic, and muscle-relaxant. Pain relief, if the patient requires it, is continued until sedation is achieved. Other drugs used might include the anti-convulsant phenobarbital and the anti-psychotic haloperidol.
I was amazed that the writers thought that a patient such as Strathairn`s character could be maintained pain-free on a dose as low as 2mg per hour, or anywhere near sedated on 4mg. I would have hoped that House would be more knowledgable about the uses and limitations of opioids than his comments suggested, but he can`t possibly have thought 4mg per hour would hasten death. For example, my boyfriend bust his ribs recently (9 ribs in 2 places each, plus pneumothorax); he was on 12mg per hour for 48hours, in order to keep him pain free so that he COULD breathe deeply (so as to reset the ribs and fully re-inflate the lung).
House shouldn`t have been able to get inside the PCA device without a key.
It`s too much of a stretch to hope that this was an attempt to highlight the ignorance of doctors other than palliative care specialists in the area of end-of-life care, given the idiotic attitude the programme and its characters have maintained towards House`s chronic and legitimate need for analgesia. He should have had a proper drug regimen arranged years ago, and been prescribed something less toxic to the liver than vicodin, especially with his fondness for alcohol. Patients with chronic pain frequently receive lower doses than the ideal, but I don`t think Cuddy`s neglect in this area is believable.
I look forward to finding out just how long the writers are going to have House controlling his pain with ibuprofen, before he starts experiencing gastrointestinal problems?
It seems Taub and Foreman dropped two or three vicodin each; they should have been sick and dizzy for several hours.
Glad to see the back of Cameron; I think she’s a self-righteous whiner. I`m loving 13 and Taub!
February 1st, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Best part:
Taub: Look at this one: Patient lost 4 liters of blood from a botched penisectomy.
Foreman: On a patient named Lisa Cuddy?
LMAO
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