The CIA plot was not only intriguing, but there was a lot of humor in it. Wilson didn’t believe House when he was initially told where he was. And really who would? He’s at the CIA? Yeah, right! While House helps diagnose the mystery patient named John, he took the time to hit on one of the CIA’s doctors. She didn’t seem bothered by House’s relentless sexual advances, which surprised me. She just sort of brushed them off as though House didn’t say anything.

Initially, I thought the patient, John, was a victim of radiation poisoning. House’s first suggestion of alcohol poisoning didn’t fit one bit. It was a ludicrous suggestion in my opinion. It later turned out to be unintentional poisoning. John was in Brazil for an extended period of time, where he consumed an abnormally large amount of Brazil nuts which are loaded with selenium. Symptoms from selenium poisoning can look very similar to that of radiation poisoning… hair and skin loss, for instance.

Meanwhile, Foreman and the rest of the team try to diagnose the race car driver. She collapsed at a track and has had multiple seizures. Foreman’s confident she is suffering from a heat stroke, but some of the team isn’t so sure. Brennan, the doctor who worked with Doctors Without Borders thinks she has polio. This suggestion was laughed at by several of the fellowships. But as her symptoms progress, they wonder if it’s MS or lupus. Finally, when she lost feeling in her legs, it seems Polio may be the problem after all.

Foreman felt terrible for misdiagnosing the woman. He’s been struggling the past few weeks, but Cameron gives him a pep-talk. She doubts Foreman was wrong about everything. She and Foreman actually fought a bit in the episode. Cameron has been having a difficult time of letting go of her old position and has enjoyed meddling with the department.

Foreman’s original diagnosis of a heat stroke turned out to be accurate when the patient’s blood is re-tested. The blood which was tested was the sample taken from when she arrived to the hospital. Brennan poisoned her with polio in hopes of getting the medical establishment to put more money into polio cure research. Today, polio only affects the poor. This was quite a strange way to go about getting rid of this doctor. It’s hard to think a doctor would actually try this in real life though.

In between making sexual advances with Dr. Terzi, House offered her a job at his hospital. Though she said she was happy working at the CIA, we learned she was lying. At the end of the episode, she meets with House to see if the job was still available. Wow, with Foreman, Terzi, and the fellowships to weed through, I’m wondering just how the team will look at the end of the season. Cameron and Chase haven’t been mentioned as coming back. Cameron is having trouble moving on though. As for Chase, he was fired, so he’d have to have a hell of a good reason to get Dr. House to re-hire him.

House – Whatever It Takes
Original Air Date: November 06, 2007

Rating: 9.1

All of this is going on while a new patient is brought in with breathing problems. He collapses and comes to without any medical intervention. House correctly diagnoses him as having some sort of odd mirror syndrome. He and Foreman noticed he was mimicking other patients and symptoms.

This ended up being rather humorous because anytime one of the doctors got near him, the patient would mirror the person’s personality. Some people didn’t like looking into the mirror. Dr. 13 is still a bit of a mystery. We don’t know much about her and she tried to avoid looking into the mirror at all costs, but she was forced to in the end.

It wasn’t until very late in the episode that House was able to determine the type of infection his patient had. Determining the infection required some ingenuity. House put on the patient’s clothing and had the patient mimic himself, essentially. We learned he was in the area on business. he was from Ohio and sells farm equipment. He usually comes into contact with a lot of pig manure and he contracted some sort of infection from it.

When Foreman told House why he had to come back – no one else would hire him, you could see that House genuinely felt bad for him. He isn’t the one to open up about his feelings, but his facial expressions and body language spoke loud and clear. Moved by Foreman’s problems, House landed him a job at another hospital. And to only the surprise of House, Foreman declined the job. He seems happy to be back even though he hasn’t felt very respected at times. The fellowships respect House much more.

House – Mirror Mirror
Original Air Date: October 30, 2007

Rating: 8.2

The whole “seeing ghosts” plot was intriguing initially, primarily because it was a point of friction between Amber and Dr. 13. The patient claimed to see last week’s patient, the wheelchair-bound man. She said that the man went on and on about how incompetent the doctors are and how Dr. 13 killed his dog. I admit, that sounded very creepy, but typically, that was easily explained away: Amber planted that information to get under Dr. 13’s skin. The two don’t get along, and it’s Amber who’s the one who has been the one who is causing the problems.

When it came down to sending one of the fellowships packing, House made the obvious one. He sent Henry home (again). he’s been fired twice now, but he keeps coming back. But it looks like he’s gone for good this time. I really liked the character; surely House could have given him a personal assistant job.

House is pretty relentless with his torturing of his team, so it came to no surprise when Cole, the African-American Mormon, would be on the receiving end of it again. House is really brutal attacking Cole’s religion. I was quite pleased to see Cole actually lose his temper and slug House. This actually cost House $100 because Cameron bet Cole could kick House’s ass. I love seeing Cameron meddling in House’s affairs. I just wish she would get rid of the blond hair.

Last week, we saw Dr. Foreman get canned from Mercy’s. Things didn’t get any better for him this week. He had a few interviews with hospital administrators, but it was clear that Foreman was radioactive in their eyes. As one administrator put it, Foreman didn’t leave House soon enough. Getting desperate, Foreman made a deal with Cuddy to get him back to the hospital. She knew that he was being blackballed, so although he tried, Foreman didn’t get the raise he wanted. It’s really the most logical fit for Dr. Foreman.

House – Guardian Angels
Original Air Date: October 23, 2007

Rating: 7.8

As far as the other fellowships are concerned, the field is getting reduced significantly. However, much to my surprise, the man who isn’t an actual doctor was back tonight. He did get fired by the end of this episode, but I was really struck that he was back in the first place.

And Amber continues to show how much she is like Dr. House. And it’s getting annoying. There’s only room for one of these personalities. I hope she isn’t kept for any length of time.

For some time, we’ve known that House is an atheist. He’s very dismissive to those religious characters on the show, but a patient made him try something very foolish. After hearing that a patient nearly killed himself via electrocution, House followed suit. He was told by the patient that he saw that there is really something else out there. Presumably, the patient is referring to some form of Heaven, but no details are given. House didn’t say what he saw when he spoke to Wilson, so it’s not clear what he experienced.

Elsewhere, Dr. Foreman is working with a new diagnostics team. The way he treated a patient raised a few eyebrows with his employer. It’s clear that Foreman is very aggressive with his treatments. He’s behaving just like he was trained to when he worked for House. This caused Foreman to be fired. I don’t think Foreman will do very well outside of Princeton-Plainsboro.

House – 97 Seconds
Original Air Date: October 09, 2007

Rating: 8.6

We knew going into this episode that House would be demeaning to some of the candidates. He really didn’t wait very long for it to begin. When one group of candidates didn’t have anything to do, they were asked to wash House’s car. One of the fellowships, Amber, proved to be quite conniving and reminded me of Dr. House. Because her personality is so similar to that of House, I doubt she’ll be hired for any length of time.

Because NASA couldn’t find out about Greta’s hospital visit, House and his fellowships were restricted by what they could actually do. They couldn’t use many of the traditional hospital machines to help diagnose the patient because it would leave an obvious paper trail for NASA to find. I always like seeing how resourceful House can be at times. Seeing the same MRI machines, for instance, every week gets a little stale.

The writers did a very good job at introducing Chase, Foreman, and Cameron in the new season. They were each initially shown walking through the hospital. House would get only a glimpse of them and would report these “visions” back to Wilson, who played along and lied about what he knew. Wilson told House he thinks he feels guilty about losing his team and is now having visions of his old team. It is still pretty early in the season to figure out what’s going to happen to House’s old team.

House – The Right Stuff
Original Air Date: October 02, 2007

Rating: 8.6

This week’s medical mystery wasn’t that surprising in my opinion. The case was complicated by the fact that the identity was mistaken. An office building collapsed, crushing all of the employees beneath tons of debris. It’s not uncommon for victims in situations like this to be mistaken. Employees who look alike can easily be confused for one another, and such was the case in “Alone.”

We have always known Gregory House to be manipulative, and true to form, he created quite a rift between the supposed mother and boyfriend of the victim. The symptoms displayed by the patient were completely contradicting what House learned from the boyfriend. It seemed he didn’t know her at all. Almost as though his girlfriend had a double life somehow.

Although Dr. House didn’t have a traditional team to turn to, he managed to get the janitor to help him. Oh, was this hilarious or what?! Speaking of funny, House and Wilson had another fight which was really worth watching again and again. It was rooted in House’s insistence that he didn’t need a team. To “convince” him of hiring a team, Dr. Wilson kidnapped House’s favorite guitar and mailed him clues and even a broken piece of it. Not the one to give in, House fired back by sneaking into Wilson’s apartment and deleting a number of shows from Wilson’s TiVo. Sure, it’s not the worst thing he could have done, but it was good for a laugh. This comedy helped balance out what was a fairly dramatic episode. The crying from the family members was rather depressing, but I can always count on the writers to try for a balance of drama and comedy.

House – Alone
Original Air Date: September 25, 2007

Rating: 8.5

Anyway, the team initially thought she may have a fever, since she was from a tropical climate (Cuba), but Foreman put out the theory that she may have MS. House gave him the go-ahead to treat the woman with interferon. While tending to Marina, Foreman accidentally snaps her wrist like a twig. Whatever she has is causing her to have brittle bones. She’s too young for osteoporosis. Could it be bone cancer? No, she seems to have a blood clot near her heart. When the team tries to get rid of the clot, Marina suffers ventricular tachycardia and flatlines. House and his team keep her alive by giving constant CPR but are unable to revive her. Amazingly, three hours go by and Foreman is told by Cuddy to put the woman on a heart bypass machine.

The writers get a little lazy with the way they handle this medical story. Or it could be creative, depending on how you look at it. We had another House Vs God moment here. House couldn’t believe how Marina’s dead heart began beating on its own when the bypass machine was turned off, and neither can I. It doesn’t make any sense! It’s silly to believe this sort of thing would happen. Call it a miracle or whatever you want, but this is just lazy writing in my opinion. It’s easier to write something with such mystery/fantasy than it is to turn this into an interesting piece of TV apparently. Either way, I got to see House show off his excitement about his surgery. He was able to save the woman’s life and for once, he expressed his joy in doing so.

The drama with Foreman takes a big step up when the team falls apart. Dr. Chase is fired and Cameron quits. So much for House’s crack diagnostics team. Although many are going to see this as a great cliffhanger, there’s no way they will all be leaving the show, and however they bring them back, it’s not going to be very believable in my eyes. We shall see, however.

House – Human Error
Original Air Date: May 22, 2007

Rating: 7.8

Although we didn’t get to see the chess match in its entirety, it was enough to demonstrate the young man’s personality. Very arrogant would be one way, but the term “jerk” works as well and goes along with the episode title. Once Nate was in the hospital, his behavior continued. He was rude and sarcastic to everyone. In fact, Dr. Foreman had had enough verbal bashing from the youngster that he decided to give him a sedative, just so he could perform his job.

Speaking of Dr. Foreman, his future at the hospital has been very much up in the air of late. He doesn’t like the fact that he’s becoming more and more like House and is ready to leave. Soon after he leaves to go for a job interview, Foreman returns and accuses House of canceling the interview. House denied the accusation and turned it into a witch hunt. Every main character on the show was at one point or another accused of being involved. Chase finally figured it out and correctly pointed the blame at House.

If you’re a fan of House, then you should be familiar with the way some of correct diagnoses are determined. As in this case, Dr. House picked it up from his interaction with Dr. Chase. The way Chase was playing with the chess pieces reminded him of the way Nate held them in competition; he didn’t use his thumbs to hold the pieces. The reason is his body has too much iron. He has hemochromatosis, an ailment used in a previous case.

While Foreman toiled away in the lab, working on a theory of his, House neglected to inform him that he had already solved the case. Since Foreman was going to have to re-run the tests, he would be pulling an all-nighter. This shows that the episode title not only was a fitting description of Nate but Dr. House as well. I wasn’t very surprised by House – he’s getting predictable in his behavior. But at least Nate gave him a bit of a run for his money. I liked the character. He was funny at times, which helped balance out his rudeness.

House – The Jerk
Original Air Date: May 15, 2007

Rating: 8.0

It involves a young female boxer who suddenly drops to the ground and excessive amounts of blood come rushing out of her body. The doctors do the normal tests to rule out possible explanations, but they couldn’t figure out what was killing the woman.

While House visits Wilson in his office, House is surprised to see Wilson is yawning. He immediately goes into doctor mode and tries to diagnose him, but Wilson explains that he was up late last night.

After learning of Foreman’s resignation, Chase asks Foreman about it, but Foreman’s not willing to discuss it. Things get a little weird when Chase decides to analyze Foreman’s reactions and determines Foreman is ashamed about something. In a separate scene, Foreman tells Cameron why he’s resigning and she assures him he’ll not turn into House… he’s just too good of a person to do that.

Over in the clinic, House meets with a male patient who has noticed his bowel movements have been floating. He and his girlfriend are vegans, as it turns out. House comes to the conclusion that he’s been cheating on her… with a burger. While the boyfriend confesses, House takes a liking to the man’s girlfriend, an attractive nutritionist.

In order to get Wilson to stop yawning, House decides to give Wilson some meds. Of course, House can’t go up to and hand them to him. Instead, House crushes up three amphetamine pills and puts them into Wilson’s coffee. What happens afterwards is pure comedy. Wilson’s acting very oddly. He’s incredibly jittery and hyper. When he’s called away for a breast exam, Wilson accidentally hits on the young woman he’s hitting on and is embarrassed. When he checks his heartbeat (185 bpm), Wilson comes to one conclusion: House slipped him meds.

Wilson confronts House at his home and House confesses to slipping him the “speed.” Wilson then yawns, which confirms something House had suspected: the yawning is a side effect of something. You shouldn’t be yawning after taking speed, for pete’s sake. After some prodding, Wilson admits he’s taking antidepressants and the yawning is a side effect.

Back to the sick young woman, Addie, we learn she’s getting worse. Her kidneys are shutting down and will likely be dead soon. House thinks she’s got a certain protein deficiency, but the test is a little difficult to watch: inserting a needle into the eyeball. Yikes!

Some time has passed and Addie goes into ventricular fibrillation, but Foreman is able to bring her back. House goes in and tells Addie and her parents that she’ll die soon and there’s nothing they can do. Strangely, Addie doesn’t want to know what’s killing her. This really sets House off; he just can’t believe it. In this time, he learns he’s been smiling while telling Addie she’s going to die. This doesn’t make sense, unless Wilson slipped him some antidepressants.

Once House leaves Addie’s room, he talks to Wilson and during this time, he comes to an entirely different diagnosis: she is depressed. House makes his way back to Addie’s room and talks to her alone (after asking the parents to leave). She tried to kill herself with drain cleaner, but instead of drinking it, she placed it in a gel cap and swallowed it. This way, it didn’t start to dissolve her GI tract until it hit her intestine. where it ate a hole. Scar tissue covered the hole, so the bleeding stopped, but the damage caused an vein and artery to grow together, and this mixing of venous and arterial blood is causing infections throughout her body. A surgery will be able to repair everything, but Addie will definitely need to seek therapy for the psychological problems.

By the end of the episode, we find House in a bar, chatting with the young female nutritionist. He’s blatantly honest with her about all of his character flaws, but she doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

It was quite an episode. The case wasn’t the center of the episode, in my opinion. Instead, there was much more to do with Foreman’s resignation and all the little stuff between House and Wilson. I didn’t mind it so much, as the House/Wilson comedy was great. Seeing Wilson hyper was hilarious. It must have been a blast on the set when Robert Sean Leonard (Dr. Wilson) had to be so… out of character.

I did have a few problems with the episode, however. Usually there is a search of a patient’s residence, but this wasn’t done in “Resignation.” Surely they would have found drain cleaner and empty gel caps somewhere!? Also, the floating bowel movement diagnosis is wrong. Only excessive amounts of gas can make them float. The amount of fat someone consumes doesn’t play a big role in this matter.

House – Resignation
Original Air Date: May 08, 2007

Rating: 8.7

Foreman, the doctor most responsible for the passing of a recent patient, is nowhere to be found when all of this is going on. House tracks him down in the hospital’s church. Trying to move on, Foreman helps House with the patient, but even with Foreman’s help, the doctors cannot find the problem. A scan of the young man’s heart reveals a loose flap or valve in his heart, which they believe may be infectious. A biopsy reveals it’s not infectious and forces them to look elsewhere.

All the while, House is busy dog-sitting for Wilson’s ex-wife. She cannot have pets at her new place, so House is forced to watch after the little dog after being an ass to Wilson and his ex.

There are times in this episode where the parents of the boys are faced with some very difficult choices: do you risk one boy’s life to save the other? These sorts of questions are not easy to deal with for any family.

By the end of the episode, the doctors are able to find out what is causing one of the boy’s ailments and uses this information to save one of the boys. Foreman also gives House his two week notice and Wilson takes his dog back from House.

I didn’t reveal every detail, scene by scene, as I usually do, but I think this recap will suffice. The terrible questions the family in tonight’s episode were faced with aren’t entirely out of the ordinary for this show, but you still wouldn’t have wanted to be in their shoes.

I wasn’t surprised by Foreman’s two week notice to House. I sort of felt that coming as the episode went along. I’m not sure how this storyline will conclude, but I doubt he’ll actually leave.

My major complaint was the lack of Cuddy. She wasn’t shown much, substituting Wilson for much of the show for a change.

My favorite part of this episode was the scene where Wilson took his dog from House. What was so funny was how the dog had spent so much time with House, he “picked up” House’s limp. I found this behavior to be absolutely hilarious and rather cute.

House – Family
Original Air Date: May 01, 2007

Rating: 8