- The team tries to diagnose a condition that leaves the patient saying anything that he thinks, no matter whom it hurts, and Wilson raises House's antennae when he passes up a monster truck rally.
- Publisher Nick Greenwald is diagnosed with a possibly congenital tumor, which suppresses his social lies ability. So he speaks the obnoxious truth as heartlessly as House, to staff and his family, but wants to be cured, at any risk. Taub is caught between Wilson needing a cover story and House's determination to find out what he's hiding. It proves serious and revealing about Wilson's fanatically considerate attitude.—KGF Vissers
- A number of books are on display at a luncheon, and the author, whose face stares out from the dustjacket as the scene opens, is sitting at a table with his publisher. He talks about his fear of public speaking, and his publisher informs him he's going to have to get over it before the book tour. She clinks her knife on her glass and announces the author has a few words to say. When it looks like the novelist is going to drone on for a bit the publisher cuts him off and toasts the book as a bestseller. Everyone raises their glasses and there are cheers all around -- except for the man to the author's left, Nick Greenwald (Jay Karnes). "Well, that's not going to happen," Nick says, adding, "Short stories weren't doing well in 1908. You'd have to be mathematically illiterate to think they'd do as well as a novel."
The publisher gently tells him to step away from the champagne. Nick looks puzzled at what he just said.
The author turns to Nick and asks why Northrup would publish the book if he thought it was going to fail. "Have you noticed you're our star author? Elaine didn't want to offend you," Nick replies. Then he apologizes, saying he has no idea why he's saying these things. Elaine, the publisher, suggests Nick must be joking. Nick turns on Elaine, saying "Do you really think that someone who goes through 10 assistants a year and doesn't return her own children's phone calls could give a damn about the state of the American short story?"
Nick wipes his nose -- it's bleeding. "I think something's wrong," he says. Then he turns back to the author and tells him the title was wrong too. "People are going to compare you to Salinger. Boy, are you going to come up short with that one." Then Nick falls out of his chair, passing out.
Cue TV's most incredible theme music! "Teardrop," by Massive Attack.
House (Hugh Laurie) walks in to the news that Cameron brought up a case from the ER -- one Nick Greenwald, who was diagnosed with frontal lobe disinhibition. Kutner (Kal Penn) likens him to Phineas Gage. House asks if he has a railroad spike through this head. Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) explains Gage became a different person after the spike - argumentative, explosive.
"Whereas our guy became a different person after chardonnay," House finishes. MRI shows nothing. Good -- what fun would that be? So, House, tells the team, the tumor's not in a cool neighborhood. "It's in a cool neighborhood, adjacent," he quips. Perhaps a tumor near the nasal cavity would do the same damage. And they're off.
Kutner and Taub (Peter Jacobson) greet Nick, who's in a hospital bed playing cards with his daughter Marika and revealing what he's holding. Kutner greets the patient with a smile and tells him he's sorry he's not feeling well, and Nick replies he doesn't look sorry. In fact, he looks cheerful. He tells Kutner it's creepy, how cheerful he looks. This guy's gonna be fun! Taub informs Nick he's going to put a probe up his nose to see what's going on and assures him they're completely unexcited about that. He says "excuse me, sweetie" to Nick's daughter. Nick's wife explains the little girl has an auditory processing disability. Nick gently leans in and tells her to get off the bed. Nick's wife says she's going to step out to make arrangements for a breast cancer walk she's coordinating, and Nick tells her he'll pretend not to freak out while they stuff the tube up his nose. Then he looks at Taub's nose and says it's too bad he's not getting a tube up there - lots more room to maneuver. The wife decides the breast cancer details can wait. Nick then asks why tying up traffic for six hours helps cure breast cancer and asks why they can't build houses for Habitat for Humanity, or if it's wrong to help two charities at once. The wife points out he was supportive last year, and he replies he had to be because she wouldn't have sex with him if he wasn't. She decides it's a good time to make her call after all, and leaves. TMI anyone?
"Make this go away," Nick quietly pleads, adding to Taub, "God, that honker really is huge, isn't it?"
In the hallway, House is trying to convince Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to accompany him to a monster truck rally, and Wilson admits not only does he not want to go, but he has never liked monster trucks. "I'm saying it loud and proud. Death to monster trucks!" Kutner comes out with the report: no nasal cancer, but the patient will have a divorce on his hands if they don't stop him from saying everything which pops into his head.
Wilson turns to House. "You always led me to believe that you were one of a kind," he says. Kutner points out jerkiness is a temporary condition for Nick, but House contends it isn't. They may be able to fix his impulses to say things out loud, but he's always going to think them. Wilson contends he'll also be the guy who doesn't say them, and surely that counts as his true persona. House tells Wilson of course he'd say that -- he's nothing but persona. Kutner interjects, saying he agrees with Wilson, likening Nick to Harry Potter. He explains the Sorting Hat wanted to put Harry in Slytherin based on his nature. He refused, so he ended up in Gryfindor. By choice. House snaps at Kutner, telling him to look for the damage in Nick's brain.
Foreman (Omar Epps) and Thirteen are readying Nick for another test, and Nick takes the opportunity to tell Thirteen she's a pleasure to imagine naked. Then he apologizes. That's when Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) walks into the room and Nick goes to town, telling her what he'd like to do to her with the assistance of fudge and a cherry on top. He talks about what he's imagining in a king sized bed with a mirror on the ceiling, but tells Cuddy if he couldn't have her and Thirteen together, Cuddy would be his first choice. Cuddy correctly surmises House wouldn't have called her up there if there wasn't a way for him to watch this exchange for his own entertainment and -- ta dah! He's watching in a nearby observation room. As she stalks out Nick offers, "Your tush is like the pistons in a Ferrari."
House follows her and she asks why he did that. He points out she's 40 years old ("38," Cuddy quickly corrects him) and a man with no inhibitions informed her he prefers her body to that of a smoking hot twentysomething. Surely she must have gotten a kick out of that? "Don't be ridiculous, House," she says, getting into the elevator. As he walks away, Cuddy cracks a satisfied smirk as the elevator doors close.
Meanwhile, Foreman asks Thirteen if she was hurt Nick found Cuddy more attractive, and she insists that's not the case, telling Foreman she prefers men with brains, who admire the whole package. He points out even men with brains say one thing but think something completely different. On to the test. They ask Nick something personal but inoffensive, if he votes the same way as his wife. He snarkily admits he doesn't vote at all. Thirteen asks how he can be 46 and never have voted, and he tells her the disapproval in her voice makes her less attractive, "although I'm sure that will pass." Foreman notices on the monitor a section of his brain isn't lighting up and thinks it could be neural sarcoidosis, treatable with a round of steroids. Thirteen gets up to leave, and Foreman watches her, or a part of her specifically, go. She stops and asks what he's looking at.
"I find your strong attachment to a working democracy to be extremely sexy," Foreman says.
In the cafeteria, Taub asks Kutner if his nose is too big. Kutner tells him to relax, reminding him the guy said his bedside manner was a little off, and asks Taub if he agrees with that. Taub pauses before saying, "No." Kutner asks if anyone's ever said anything about Taub's nose before, since he is a plastic surgeon, and Taub replies they say it suits his face. Kutner assures him it does, and Taub replies, "Maybe. Or, maybe it's the social contract." In other words, he tells Kutner his bedside manner is fine, and Kutner tells him his nose suits his face. Kutner offers he could ask for the truth. Taub leans in to the lunchlady and asks her what she thinks of his nose, asking her to be honest. "It's fine," she deadpans. "It's a nose." Taub thanks her and adds, "Just proving a point."
House asks Wilson if anyone is sitting with him and he offers, "Just my persona." House wonders why people cling to insults, or what they think are insults. He wonders if more people aren't like our patient, hiding a dark compulsive core under a candy coating of niceness. Wilson says he's not nice all the time, and House corrects him: Wilson isn't nice to him, because nice bores House. House then suggests Wilson has no core, that whomever he's with determines what he needs to be. House admits that could be an insult, but then asks, why? "Because when my parents put me in a rocket and sent me here, they said, 'James, you will grow to manhood under a yellow sun,'" Wilson jokes. House asks why Wilson lied about monster trucks, saying he checked his appointment book and saw Wilson had plans already. Wilson tells House he's playing racquetball that night with Taub. House asks why Wilson would lie about that, and Wilson reminds House he thinks the world revolves around him, and if he found out anyone else had Wilson's attention, he'd end up stalking and harassing that person. "You say that as if it wouldn't be fun," House tells him.
Wilson then admits he didn't want to rub House's face in the fact he was doing something with someone else House could no longer participate in...because he's a nice guy. He gets up and walks away, leaving House to ponder this cruel coup de grace over his lunch.
Foreman runs to check on Nick, who is sweating and breathing heavily. He realizes the steroids aren't working, but something's wrong with his kidneys. They put Nick on dialysis.
Later, Taub's checking out his nose in a spoon's reflection. House, calling him Cyrano de Berkowitz, tells him to let it go. The team bounces around theoretical diagnoses, shooting them down one by one. House stares down Taub and asks him innocently (but not really) how long he's been playing racquetball with Wilson. "First of all, Wilson played tennis on his college team," House says. "And you...are a Jew." He tells Taub he's not athletic. Taub points out Sandy Koufax was Jewish, and House pooh-poohs him, saying that Jews always go on about Sandy Koufax, and the Holocaust. "It gets old."
More diagnostic banter, which House interrupts with a trick sports question for Taub. Taub answers correctly and, returning to the subject at hand, suggests diabetes. House agrees, saying diabetes makes more sense, and says they should test for peripheral nerve damage. Thirteen says if he has brain damage, he's likely to have peripheral nerve damage, and House agrees, and suggests Kutner test the daughter for it. He tells Taub to run the glucose test -- oh, and let the nurses take the night off, he can do the blood draws. Taub accuses House of punishing him for spending time with his best friend. "That would be petty," House says. "I'm punishing you because now you've joined my best friend in lying to me. Let me know when you're ready to confess everything." Class dismissed.
Kutner sets up the daughter for testing, strapping nodes to the daughter's hands and feet and telling the little girl with a smile the better she does, the better her daddy does. He sits in the monitoring room with Nick's wife, who admits what he's been saying is disconcerting and she can't believe he's thinking all of those horrible things. Kutner remarks Marika should be feeling something by now, and the little girl screams. He runs in and asks why she didn't tell him that she was being burned and she repeats what Kutner said to her -- the better she does, the better her daddy does. Kutner apologizes to the wife.
Nick is chatting with Taub and admits he has ignoble thoughts, but that's not who he wants to be to people, especially to his wife. "My real choices are my actions," he says, saying he's never done anything to hurt her and he's never cheated. Taub looks down. Nick is surprised, saying, "You're kidding me -- you've cheated?" Taub adamantly says no, and asks why Nick would say that. "Because you look guilty as hell," Nick answers, adding everyone probably knows. Taub walks away, and Nick yells after him everyone might not know, they might be idiots.
House is in the morgue, tossing a racquet ball in his hand, and Taub enters, asking House why he was paged. House tells him he wants an update on the patient while Taub hits the racquetball against the wall. He says he expects the people who work for him to rise to a challenge, unless they don't expect to work for him. Taub picks up a nearby racquet and hits the ball off of the wall, updating him on Nick's bloodwork until the ball crashes into a cabinet, knocking down supplies. Taub confesses everything -- he never played racquetball with Wilson, he just thought it would be a good idea if a department head owed him a favor. House commends him on putting on a good show, but points out a real racquetball player would have noticed he was hitting with a squash racquet. House, you cagey so-and-so! He has Kutner do a thyroid re-uptake scan, and goes to grab a nap.
Kutner goes to explain the test to the patient, but Nick interrupts and asks why Marika, who is sitting in the room, has a bandage on one of her hands. Kutner explains since the kid has a neurological condition the team thought testing her could help diagnose his condition. Nick explains she has no disability, her issue with auditory processing is code for, "I don't want to admit that my daughter is not perfect." The tests they ran on her were inconclusive. She gets below average marks in school and she daydreams. They don't know what's wrong with her. He prattles on about parents refusing to admit their children are below average, then tells Marika he doesn't think she's stupid -- her mother isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and she does just fine. Marika runs out of the room, and Nick's upset and starts coughing. He's burning up and his lungs are full of fluid.
More diagnostic banter around the meeting table -- they've decided it's an infection. House sends Kutner off to quiz the patient again and again until they figure out what caused the infection. Then he tells Taub he has a different task for him.
Cut to Taub in the doorway of Wilson's office, asking him if they can have lunch. Wilson notes this is unusual, and Taub tells Wilson he's been made, House is sending him back to Wilson to act as a double agent. Wilson groans and holds his head in his hands.
Kutner is bedside with Nick and advises his wife to get some rest. Nick agrees. The wife is upset, wondering if there's something even worse he hasn't said to her yet, and Nick says no, but he has no idea how he's going to hurt her next and he'd rather they were around each other as little as possible. "This is pathetic," the wife says, and gets up to leave. Nick says, "Tell Marika I love her very much." The wife says Marika understands, but Nick doubts she does.
Kutner walks past House as he's staking out Wilson's office. Kutner tells House the guy leads a boring life. His wife, however, rescues dogs. Among others, a big Rottweiler that's taken over their place. The patient hates this. "Was his wife there to hear that?" House asks. Kutner says no. "Too bad," House says, "go on." The dog marks all over the living room, where the guy eats and drinks. One night he put a glass of juice on the floor while he was fixing the television. The patient's eyes are red. It's a bacterial infection. House orders a round of antibiotics.
As Kutner walks away, Taub emerges from Wilson's office and reveals he told Wilson that House sent him to spy. He's also printed out his e-mails -- the ones he wanted House to see, and the deleted ones as well. The top one is an ongoing message to a J Gonzales at New York Mercy. House looks up the hospital directory and finds a Joan Gonzales, an oncologist. He thinks it's a date and Taub tells him no, it's a consult. There was a file attached, but it's password protected. House knows the only person Wilson would password protect anything from was House, which makes no sense, because there's only one patient House is interested in. Taub wonders if Wilson has cancer. It doesn't make sense to House why Wilson would ask an outside doctor for a consult if he were indeed sick, since he can pull strings where he is to get the best treatment. House takes a closer look at the doctor's work and sees she's written several papers on managing suicidal ideation accompanying diagnosis. Taub asks if Wilson has ever exhibited signs of being depressed. House turns around and says no, then brusquely says, "Get out of here."
Nick's fever is down and his lungs are clearing. Foreman tells him he has to live with the damage the infection did. Dude is not happy. He wants some better doctors at a better hospital to go into his brain stem and do some hacking. They promise him he won't get any worse. He kicks them out.
House catches Wilson coming back from a walk, and, Spidey sense tingling, he knows something is up. Taub has ratted Wilson out, calling him another graduate of the House school of being a dick.
"Private dick," House corrects him.
House tries to figure why Wilson would go for a walk even though it's 45 degrees out. Clearly, this must mean Wilson hates himself, House reasons.
Nick confronts House, not excited about the prospect of a life where he might continually drive away anyone who might care about him. House tells Nick he might die if they operate. "So I'm either better or dead?" Nick says, "I'm OK with that." He just wants to get back to the life he had, the one where he made his wife and daughter happy. Anything else, he says, is no life at all.
House presents the case to Chase. He wants him to convince his neurosurgeon boss to operate.
Chase wants to know why House would care. House says the patient has a quality of life issue. Chase points out it's not unique to the patient. House explains if they don't take care of this, he'll lose his family, alienate anybody he'll run into and if he finds a friend who can put up with him, he'll be lucky. Clearly House sees parallels to himself in this patient. Chase agrees to look into it.
Chase is in surgery. House watches. Wilson joins him, suggesting he might have over-reacted. House has sussed it out, admitting he found the e-mail but dug deeper and found another J. Gonzales at the hospital, a nurse in the psych ward. Wilson found his brother sleeping in the lobby of a building and now he's in treatment. Wilson says he should be in shape to talk to him tonight. Wilson's going to New York. House wants to know why he wouldn't tell him, clearly not being terribly self-aware.
Wilson says he's worried about how his brother Danny will react when he sees him, and House, as expected, says Wilson is worried it might go horribly wrong. In which case, House says, Wilson might want company.
After surgery, Nick wakes up. He knows he's a "former SOB." He addresses his wife. "Maybe she'll stop whining and cut me some slack now that I've risked my life," he says. So, maybe the surgery didn't work.
Foreman and Taub try to figure out what went wrong as Nick tells his wife what he really thinks about his wife's job ("I think people who publicize important things are people who can't do important things themselves. Honey, stop.") Does he regret marrying her? ("Sometimes," he says) She asks if he really loves her. (Yes on that last one, right as Nick goes into ventricular tachycardia which, even if you don't know what it means, is clearly bad.)
The team, sans House, tries to figure out why Nick's temp is dropping. Lungs, heart and kidneys are mentioned.
They argue what House would think, but he's not there.
They run Nick through a scan.
Wilson and House wait in an austere lobby. Wilson hasn't seen his brother in 13 years, on the street outside a deli near Princeton. House ignores the team's call. He thinks Wilson walked without his coat in the cold to punish himself. The schizophrenia started when he was in college, Wilson says of his brother. His brother called every day and talked for hours. Wilson didn't have hours. He was tired of being the guy everyone counted on. One night Danny called and Wilson had to study. So he hung up and went to the library.His mom called the next day. Danny had run away and left his meds behind.
House suddenly understands where Wilson's people-pleasing talents came from. Danny over-reacted, too, House says, and then pauses in that House-ian way. It has to do with glucose. He calls the team.
Nick has a complicated-sounding syndrome no mere mortal can spell. But it involves a fibroma that can be removed. All will be well.
Nick, better now, packs up his things. He apologizes to Taub for, you know, the things he said. Taub asks him if he really thinks his nose is too big, and Nick kindly replies, "It suits your face."
Nick's wife arrives. She has good news. She's been offered a better job as a coordinator. Nick congratulates her with a sincerity that might not be doubted if he hadn't just spent the last few days speaking his mind. She doesn't seem to buy it.
Wilson follows House out. Wilson will be seeing his brother next week. He wants House to meet him. House agrees. Wilson says he thought seeing his brother would be either terrible or wonderful, but in reality, the two are simply strangers. He called the visit "anti-climatic." "Which is better than terrible," House says.
House asks Wilson if he minds they have no social contract. Not really, Wilson says using a lot of words to say he appreciates House's forthrightness.
"It is kind of fun, watching you torture yourself," House says.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content