Heavy (29 Mar. 2005)

A morbidly obese ten-year-old girl has a heart attack, and her mother insists that House and his team look past her weight to find the diagnosis. Meanwhile, Vogler pressures House to fire a... See full summary »

Director:

Fred Gerber

Writers:

David Shore (creator), Thomas L. Moran

Stars:

Hugh Laurie, Lisa Edelstein, Omar Epps

Cast

Episode credited cast:
Hugh Laurie	...	Dr. Gregory House
Lisa Edelstein	...	Dr. Lisa Cuddy
Omar Epps	...	Dr. Eric Foreman
Robert Sean Leonard	...	Dr. James Wilson
Jennifer Morrison	...	Dr. Allison Cameron
Jesse Spencer	...	Dr. Robert Chase
Cynthia Ettinger	...	Mrs. Simms
Jennifer Stone	...	Jessica Simms
Susan Slome	...	Mrs. Lucille Hernandez
Ramón Franco	...	Mr. Hernandez (as Ramon Franco)
Karen Starc	...	Mrs. Ayers (as Karen Goberman)
Chi McBride	...	Edward Vogler
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rose Colasanti	...	Cashier
D.J. Evans	...	Classmate #2
Bryan Fabian	...	Classmate #3

Storyline

A morbidly obese ten-year-old girl has a heart attack, and her mother insists that House and his team look past her weight to find the diagnosis. Meanwhile, Vogler pressures House to fire a member of his staff. Clinic Patients: Unidentified man with an infected pierced scrotum; overweight woman with a 30-pound tumor on her ovaries who refuses to have it removed, because she worries she will be unattractive.

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Plot Keywords:

tumor | heart attack | obese | body piercing | insult | 

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 March 2005 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Stage 10, 20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Heel & Toe Films, Shore Z Productions, Bad Hat Harry Productions

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

The writing on the white board over House's left shoulder switches between being circled and not circled between shots.

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Quotes

Dr. Eric Foreman: 10-year-olds do not have heart attacks. It's got to be a mistake.
Dr. Gregory House: Right. The simplest explanation is she's a 40-year-old lying about her age. Maybe an actress trying to hang on.

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Connections

References What's Happening!! (1976)

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Soundtracks

"Got To Be More Careful"
Performed by Jon Cleary

User Reviews

A ground-breaking role for Jennifer Stone

I hate to admit it, but I'm one of the many who sought out this episode after Jennifer Stone became famous from "Wizards of Waverly Place." As for the show itself, I always saw the rapid-fire insults of Dr. Gregory House as something that looked funnier in the promos than the actual series is. I still do, but that doesn't mean I hate it. After checking out a few or several episodes and missing this one, I finally got to see it.

This episode is hardly kiddie-fare. It's not supposed to be, and none of them are anyway. Stone plays Jessica Simms, an obese 10-year-old girl who suffers a non-fatal heart attack during gym. Any reasonable person would conclude that this girl simply ate too much junk food, and is paying the price for it, but this isn't the case. Her mother wants House and his staff to consider another cause besides her weight. They do, and it doesn't work the first two times. During one procedure, she become impatient when she gets too thirsty and freaks out. In another she develops huge bleeding scars on her body out of nowhere. Because she is 10 years old, she's worried about her prospects involving friends, boys, etc., and eventually reveals that she had been stealing diet pills. Finally the staff concludes that the only treatment available for this poor girl might be a double mastectomy before she's even old enough to have breasts... or is it? Another one of House's patients who appears to have put on some extra weight is a middle-aged woman with a massive tumor in her torso who fears that if she has surgery she'll have a huge scar, and her husband will leave her for another woman. The doc handles the crisis in his usual crass manner that we all love. All this happens while the hospital board tries to force House to fire some members of his staff.

This wasn't the only non-kid-friendly role Stone was in. In an episode of "Without a Trace," she had a brief role as a girl who was brought to a sex-abuse party by some dirty old men who had an encounter with a missing girl. Unlike that role, she was the main subject here, and is certainly a surprise for anybody who knows her as the happy-go-lucky, fashion-eccentric sidekick she plays today.