Alone
Updated 2008-04-18 19:20:07
And we're back for another season of tragic medical insanity and painkillers! But will there be Cottages? And will we even miss them? And am I even supposed to call them Cottages anymore, since the forums now officially endorse a different title? I don't know, I don't know, and, like House, I refuse to bend to the whim of authority! Cottages forever! Attica! Okay. We open on a couple arguing over the phone about whether or not the girlfriend is feeling up to seeing a movie tonight. She claims she's feeling sick and exhausted, and you can see how she might feel that way, what with her heavy workload of putting papers into file trays. Boyfriend quickly discovers that Girlfriend has a case of "I don't actually like Star Wars "-itis and was just pretending she liked it to humor Boyfriend Ben all this time. Boyfriend Ben makes a shocked sad face like he just saw Boba Fett get light-sabered. Does that joke work? I have no idea. I'm a Star Trek girl. Boyfriend Ben babyishly says he'll go to see Star Wars alone (like most of the audience, I'll wager) and hangs up on her. Then he calls back and they apologize to each other. Just as Girlfriend is saying she feels "woozy," making us think she's about to collapse from this week's Mystery Disease, the building starts to creak and shake. At first, she thinks she's just hallucinating like everyone else on this show does right before they end up at PPTH, but it turns out that the building really is, in fact, shaking. As Boyfriend Ben watches from the outside parking lot, the building explodes, knocking Ben into his Prius. When he gets up, he's looking at a pile of concrete.
I see that Cameron, Chase, and Foreman are still in the credits. Interesting.
House has decided to channel Every Annoying Person I Went to College With and is loudly playing his electric guitar with no regard for the people in neighboring dorm rooms who have to fucking read some dry history shit and this isn't making it any easier. House is also wearing a T-shirt that appears to support Africa somehow, which doesn't jibe with his character very much. I would have guessed House hated Africa. And Asia. And Australia. Also, Europe. South America. North America. Antarctica might be all right. His jam session is interrupted by Cuddy MusicHater, who informs him that a woman is in the ER after a building done fell on her. House punctuates her remarks with a guitar riff, but since it isn't the guitar riff from Jethro Tull's "Aqualung," I do not care. And doesn't Hugh Laurie have his own band to play with these days? Must this show indulge and showcase his every hobby? He doesn't need to prove he's amazing to me. To the Emmy voters with James Spader posters on their walls, maybe. Meanwhile, a hospital security guard walks past and pointedly glares at House but does nothing about the incredible disruption he's causing to the hospital community. Much like he did nothing when that guy shot House a few years ago. PPTH security continues to suck in Season Four.
House offers up a differential diagnosis of "building fell on her" from Cuddy's description of the patient's symptoms of fractures and burns. Cuddy adds that the patient also has a fever of one hundred and four degrees. House says he can't take the case, since he no longer has a team, nor does he have any desire to hire one based off of a ten-minute interview. Then...how did he hire his teams in the past? Fed up, Cuddy unplugs House's amp and tells him his two-week guitar concert/non-team-having vacation is over. Instead of following his boss's orders, House tries to make a deal, agreeing to take the case on the condition that if he figures out what's wrong with the patient today, Cuddy will leave him alone for the rest of the week. As Cuddy has tons of faith in her staff's abilities, she immediately takes the bet, sure he'll fail and she'll win. Which never happens.
Back in her office, Cuddy and Wilson are up to their typical conspiring ways. I think it's adorable that they still think their two heads together are better than House's one. Such optimism in these two, such hope. Wilson doesn't think Cuddy's plan will work, but she's sure House can't diagnose the patient in one day. "He needs a team," she maintains. Wilson points out that forcing House to hire a team because of a bet is not the way to make him truly see your point of view. The only way to do that is to have the exact same point of view House has.
House does seem to be missing his Cottages as he writes on the board and then asks three empty seats for their differential diagnoses. But there is someone there after all: "You talkin' to me?" a heretofore unseen janitor Travis Bickles.
We cut to the janitor seated at the conference table while House attempts to put his case in a language the janitor can understand. And that language is cleaning products. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if this is the Weird Night Janitor Who Wears His Pants Backwards I've heard so much about. I'm guessing it isn't, since this guy's pants appear to have been put on correctly, it's daytime, and House and the janitor don't seem to have the kind of familiarity I would expect. Disappointing! House asks Normal Day Janitor Who Wears His Pants Forwards why his floor buffer would get all overheated after the janitor's closet collapsed on it. "From stuff falling on it?" NDJWWHPF suggests. From this, House comes up with a differential diagnosis of brain damage leading to hypothalamic disregulation. Except...didn't that happen to Pool Addison Man last season? NDJWWHPF says that perhaps "stuff leaked in the holes, messin' it up." House considers whether the collapse caused multiple lacerations that became infected, possibly by a parasite or fungus. "Or maybe lupus," NDJWWHPF suddenly says, and I'm starting to think he's not a janitor at all, but some random fan from LiveJournal who wandered onto the set and started ad-libbing. Since when did lupus become the new vasculitis, anyway? I miss vasculitis. "My grandma has lupus," NDJWWHPF explains off of House's questioning look. For one second, House thought NDJWWHPF was Cameron. Then he saw the lack of vest and knew it was not. House says he'll run a lupus panel, then grabs his cane and says they're going to have to do the least pleasant part of his job. Surprisingly, it is not picking through feces, but meeting the patient's family face-to-face.
The patient's family turns out to be Boyfriend Ben and girlfriend's mom, a Sally Field look-alike, although I suspect her face looked much different before her extensive plastic surgery. It quickly becomes apparent that Boyfriend Ben knows a lot more about Girlfriend Megan than her mom does. House tells his assistant, "Dr. Buffer," to take down notes, and we see that the janitor is now wearing a white coat and a stethoscope and totally going along with this. Hey, wouldn't you? Cleaning stuff up sucks sometimes. This is a lot more fun. House immediately starts in with the making fun of the patient's stupid family, suggesting that her feeling sick before the collapse may have something to do with her being sick afterwards. Meanwhile, we see post-building Megan for the first time, and, as you can probably guess, being buried under six tons of concrete has not done good things for her face, which is all bruised and swollen with one eye appearing to be sewn shut. ["They will have to turn her bionic! To the secret government underground lab!" -- Miss Alli ] Ben begs House to tell him his girlfriend will be okay, to which House says he doesn't even know if Ben will be okay. [ He's a doctor, not a crystal ball! -- McCoy ] Because someone has to, NDJWWHPF acts right and puts a comforting hand on Ben's shoulder. Gross. NDJWWHPF is so the Cameron. "We're gonna make her all better," he says. Yep.
Outside the room, House and NDJWWHPF bicker. NDJWWHPF tells House to be nicer to people. He's about two seasons away from planting a kiss on House's lips. House takes his advice under the careful consideration you'd expect and then orders NDJWWHPF to break into Megan's house. "I'm not breaking into somebody's house," NDJWWHPF says. Right, because impersonating a doctor is totally legal. "...for less than a fifty," he adds.
Apparently, House is too cheap for that, as the next time we see him, he's in the car with Wilson, who stupidly thought he was being driven to lunch and doesn't understand why they're driving around some New Jersey suburb instead. "Dibs on the cold pizza!" House singsongs as Wilson just stares at him in defeat.
House's lock-picking skills have gotten rusty over the summer, so he has to break a window instead. It's Ben and Megan's own fault for having windows so close to their front door. House allows Wilson to sit around while he inspects the kitchen for parasites and fungi. A few seconds go by until Wilson starts lecturing House about how he needs a team. At this, House uncharacteristically winces in pain from his squatting position underneath a sink. Then he groans, and Wilson feels bad for him and starts swabbing the area for him while House grins triumphantly and goes off to check the bedroom (perv).
Ben and Megan's bedroom looks like Pier One threw up all over it. House looks around and sees one book out of place on the shelf that might as well be a neon sign that says "SOMETHING IS AMISS HERE." House finds a small moleskin diary behind the book and immediately sets about reading. He walks into the kitchen and tells Wilson about his discovery. "She had a secret diary," he says. "Is there any other kind?" Wilson asks. Ask Anne Frank. By the way, Wilson has given up on trying to find mold and is clipping coupons for liquid Tide, which is probably what Robert Sean Leonard actually does all day on the set when he is being woefully underused. Curiosity soon gets the better of Wilson and he asks House what's in the diary. House says it's a bunch of scandalous sex, but Wilson says House would be "quoting, not summarizing" if that were the case. Or jackin' it. Or both. House reveals that the diary is just a "parade of sad banalities." But is there a column from James Brady? Starting three months ago, though, Megan suddenly seems much happier and more optimistic. House wonders if this is due to a secret stash of anti-depressants. Or Wilson as a barista. If the ER didn't know she was on MAO inhibitors and gave her Demerol, that could cause her current symptoms. Only if those symptoms are "good times." Wilson doesn't think convincing Ben that his girlfriend had a secret life of depression and MAOIs will go over well and thinks it could lead to fisticuffs, but House says he only has to reason with the mother. And she hits like a girl.
Cut to Dr. Buffer (apparently, PPTH's floors are all clean today) asking Sally Field to sign the consent forms for dialysis while Ben protests that he knows his live-in girlfriend well enough to know that she wasn't taking anti-depressants. Sally Field doesn't know what to do and begs Dr. Buffer for advice. Dr. Buffer's hands are full with clipboard and pen, so he doesn't have one free to put on anyone's shoulder and is therefore at a loss. So he keeps repeating his request to Sally Field to sign the consent form. "What aren't you telling us?" Sally Field asks.
And now we see Ben and Sally in Cuddy's office being apologized to profusely. House is there too, whining that Dr. Buffer is a "blabbermouth." Cuddy is so pissed at him that she almost knocks her Dell flat-screen monitor off her desk to yell at him. She calls House's janitor fun "completely unforgivable," and you can feel secure knowing that a true professional is telling you this while you look all the way down her cleavage, exposed for all to see from almost any vantage point. Of course, she has to add an "...unless he's right," going on to explain that the dialysis will filter Megan's blood and take out all those MAOIs they're assuming are in it. Ben denies this, saying she wasn't depressed. House quotes an entry from February 12 in her diary that reads, "I'm miserable around Ben." Ouch. The decision is left to Sally Field, who balks at the fact that the diary never specifically says Megan was taking anti-depressants. House asks her if she wants to risk her daughter's life on how well Ben knows her. It doesn't appear that she does.
A triumphant House returns to his office, only to find that his guitar is gone. In its place is a ransom note, the letters made from a cut-out newspaper. The note orders House to "await my instructions." The phone rings. "Wilson, you idiot!" House answers. A disguised phone voice ignores this and tells House not to tell anyone about the guitar-napping, not "the FBI, or law enforcement agencies, or...Cuddy." House puts the phone down and walks into Wilson's office, where he finds him holding a voice disguiser over the phone. Wilson tries to cover up by putting the device down and ordering a large coke with no ice, because Wilson's teeth are sensitive, just like the rest of him. House dispenses with formalities and orders the prompt and safe return of his guitar. Despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary, Wilson feigns innocence and admits to nothing, although the newspaper he's holding full of holes where letters used to be betrays him. Maybe he just got overly ambitious with his coupon clipping. He suggests that the guitar-napper must want House to interview five to seven qualified fellowship applicants. House insists that he solved the case without a team and will not give in to the guitar-napper's demands.
Megan's awake, and Cuddy tells her to blink her eye (the other one is still swollen shut) once if she can hear her. Okay, but...what if Megan had to blink anyway? This isn't a very sound method, Cuddy. Why don't you make a bet with Megan that if she wakes up you'll leave her alone for a week? Cuddy tells a confused Megan that she was in an accident and had a fever, but that's gone now and she's recovering nicely. Ben sidles up and says he won't leave her side. Cuddy continues using her blink-once technique to ask Megan if she was seeing a psychiatrist and on MAOIs. Megan's blinking indicates that she was. Or that her eyes are dry. Same diff. And then her heart starts racing and Cuddy has to give her the paddles.
When House reports to work the next morning, he finds Cuddy in his office playing with a rubber-band ball. She smilingly tells him that he lost the bet after all, since Megan totally almost died. What great news! Congratulations, Cuddy! Your trophy can be an urn with Megan's ashes in it. Geez. House splits hairs and says he explained the fever. Megan's heart problem is another matter entirely. Cuddy says the only confirmation they got that House's guess was correct was a wink. "Maybe she saw a cute guy across the room," she says. Well, now we see the folly of our blink-once plan, don't we, Cuddy? House is more concerned with a note from the guitar-napper on his desk that contains a Polaroid of his guitar and the words "I'm not dead. Yet." Kind of like Megan. Cuddy dares him to solve Megan's heart problem or else admit he can't solve cases on his own, and he springs into action by walking her over to the Whiteboard O'Symptoms, giving her a pen, and leaving.
"You win," he admits to Wilson. The stunning admission is not met with the gravity it deserves. I don't think House has ever admitted defeat before. Wilson doesn't quite believe it, and refuses to give House his guitar back until after he's actually done the interviewing. He teases House by saying he heard some "plangent strumming" under his couch, but when House lifts the couch to check (with one arm, in what appears to be an effortless gesture -- someone's been lifting weights over the summer!), there's nothing there. "Wow. This kidnapper isn't just bold -- he's diabolical!" Wilson says admiringly. A resigned and not at all amused House takes the applications from Wilson, who is starting this season off well for me.
House finds Cuddy staring at a blank Whiteboard because she kind of sucks at being a doctor. And an administrator. But we love her anyway! House takes pity on her and also realizes she won't leave his office until she gets him to do his job, so he suggests that Crush Syndrome caused Megan's heart problem. Cuddy orders him to do an echocardiogram to confirm this, and she leaves. Damn, House! Wilson's making you do interviews and Cuddy is making you do work! Without the Cottages around to do your bidding and make you feel superior, you kind of have to take other people's shit.
"Is Crush Syndrome good or bad?" Ben stupidly asks while House does the echo. House is puzzled to see that Megan's heart is fine, while Ben notices that Megan is sweating -- her fever is back. House has a theory, but he won't say it without witnesses around, because he's sure it will cause Ben to hit him, and that can't happen until we're seven episodes deep into the season.
Hopefully, time is not of the essence for Megan, as the whole crew piles into Cuddy's office before House, standing behind Cuddy The Human Shield, says Megan has the DTs. Alcohol withdrawal caused her second fever. Ben refuses to believe this, thinking he might have noticed the person he was living with was a gigantic alcoholic. Liver enzyme tests would confirm the diagnosis, but the results won't be accurate because of Megan's building-related injuries. So House thinks they should just go ahead and treat her to see if it helps. "Hair of the dog," he suggests. Well, if it doesn't help Megan, at least she'll be feeling no pain as she shuffles off this mortal coil. Ben doesn't want to do this, but it's Sally Field's decision. And she says yes.
Night falls on PPTH. House reads through the applications. He calls one applicant, who answers the phone with "Yo yo, it's Trev, what up?" Apparently, House's phone can dial back to 1997. That's cool. House asks Trev to come in for an interview tomorrow, so Trev gets all excited and brags to some nearby friends, who make fun of him. House hangs up on the entire group.
A sleepy Wilson reports to a nursing station, where a non-Evil Nurse Brenda, but still angry and sarcastic, nurse says that Wilson's emergency page didn't come from PPTH. Wilson phones his hotel room, where House is busily searching the hell out of it for his guitar. He hasn't found it yet, and Wilson says he's "in awe of the kidnapper's tactical brilliance," if not oncology skills. House counters by turning on Wilson's hotel TV, which has TiVo, and erasing all of Wilson's favorite telenovela episodes, including the season finale. "Bring. It. On," House says for the benefit of the promo-makers.
Well, well, well! It looks like Megan's feeling much better after the alcohol infusions. But wait -- Sally Field reports that Megan is "doing this thing with her mouth" and has been for the last two hours. Cuddy checks out a gasping Megan and says she's screaming. Maybe she's screaming in joy at having more party juice flowing through her veins, but I doubt it.
The next morning, House is actually at work before Cuddy, who tells him that his little alcohol treatment idea was wrong and Megan has pancreatitis now. House says it could have been caused by the IV alcohol treatments. Cuddy pretends not to care, as she's now using reverse psychology to make House care. She says House needs a team to bounce ideas off of, and that's final.
Instead, House bounces ideas off of his Magic 8-Ball. Cuddy comes in, her resolve to stop enabling House by being his person to bounce ideas off of completely crumbled in the face of Megan's impending death. She can't wrap her head around the idea that Ben wouldn't know about any of Megan's problems. House is more concerned with a box on his desk, which he opens and then takes into Wilson's office. He tosses the box on Wilson's desk with a stony glare. Wilson looks inside the box and finds disassembled guitar parts. "Oh...my...God!" he says perfectly. "This guy means business...this reeks of boldness." Wilson loves how bold the guitar-napper is. Humorlessly, House says he is not hiring a team, no matter what. Wilson says that when you tighten guitar strings enough, they scream. Then he makes a guitar-string-screaming sound, which sounds a lot like Megan's screams. So bold.
House is stuck giving Megan an MRI of DOOOM! all by his lonesome. Wilson enters and says House is showing a "startling lack of humor" about this whole thing and doesn't understand why House could hire a team three years ago, but refuses to do so now. He thinks it's because House actually connected with his previous team and was stung by losing them, so now he doesn't want to feel that way again. I am not so stung by the loss. Has anyone noticed the Cottages are gone? Are there any gaping holes in the show without them? Not really. And boo to Wilson for reverting back to his not-so-fun psychoanalysis mode. House concentrates on his job and notes no abnormalities in Megan's pancreas but an "increased T2 signal in her hepatic capsule." Too bad it's not an increased T-1000 signal. That would have been an awesome crossover event. "You got hurt. Get over it," says the man who's been living in a hotel since his divorce like two years ago. House takes his leave of Wilson, saying his patient is about to start bleeding out of her mouth and anus, as happens to everyone who enters the MRI of DOOOM!
Megan's intestines get all stitched up to repair some internal bleeding. House finds Cuddy in the OR balcony, but she thinks he's just there to bounce ideas off of her, and she refuses to enable him. All of three seconds later, Cuddy gives in and asks what could have caused the internal bleeding, which in return was what caused the pancreatitis -- not the IV alcohol after all. House tries to blame the building collapse, now four days ago, but Cuddy points out that Megan is bleeding from five different places at the same time. She thinks Megan's problems are all related and that House's theory that they're the result of three separate, coincidental things makes Megan ridiculously unlucky. "You're wrong and you're gonna kill this woman!" Cuddy says. House notices something in Megan's internal organs on the monitor and says if he had a team, Megan would be dead, since they'd be in the OR balcony instead of him and never would have noticed what he just did. I think Chase would have. He got pretty good at that by the end. Also, House may want to stop by the balcony more often if he has so little faith in his fellows' abilities.
House barges into the OR, immediately pissing off everyone else there. A nurse tries to put a mask over House's face, but he waves her off with a "Stop that!" House gets under the covers and starts looking at Megan's womanly bits, much to the disgust of the surgeon who thinks House is trying to get cheap thrills. "Can you get him outta here?" the surgeon asks Cuddy, who just stands there looking helpless. I'm guessing the answer is no. House shoves a camera up Megan's deal to check out her enlarged uterus, which indicates she was recently pregnant. Sure enough, the camera shows evidence of a secret abortion. The surgeon doesn't see how that has anything to do with the internal bleeding unless the abortionist used a shotgun. "Stop enabling him!" Cuddy orders, and no one in the OR knows what she's talking about, and they probably lost all respect for her a long time ago anyway. House says the abortion is proof that Megan didn't want kids. The secretiveness of it indicates that her boyfriend did. To prevent another accidental pregnancy, House decides that Megan was on the pill.
He explains this to Ben, who's hanging out in a hallway with a totally obvious PERSON WHO WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER in the form of a grieving boyfriend of one of Megan's co-workers, recently deceased. The combination of blood thinners they gave Megan after her hip surgery and the birth control pill no one knew she was taking have led to the internal bleeding, says House. The good news is that Tamoxifen will heal her right up. The bad news is Ben's life. All of it, at this point. Ben refuses to believe this is true, but House says that, in a rare attempt to verify his diagnosis, they tested her blood, and either Megan lied to Ben about wanting kids or Megan's blood lied to House. Every blood cell lies! Ben decides he's done caring about his girlfriend and leaves the hospital.
House barges into some old guy's hospital room and asks how he's doing. "I've got cancer!" the old man replies. House turns the "duh" moment back on the patient, though, by pointing out that he is on an oncology floor. Everybody here has cancer. House just wants to know how much cancer the old guy has, because if he's doing okay, he's about to get patient-napped. What a clever way to get your guitar back, House! As well as a conviction for involuntary manslaughter if anything happens to that old guy. House does take precautions against this, telling the old guy to give him a call directly if he starts feeling sick and not Dr. Wilson, but if the old guy has a heart attack or something, that won't necessarily be an option.
Back with Megan, her monitors are beeping wildly and there is a flurry of activity over her. Cuddy tells House that his little Tamoxifen stunt has just about killed Megan. "That doesn't mean I was wrong!" is all House says before the commercial.
As there are no janitors around to bounce ideas off of, House limps down to the ER, where a group of med students are getting their hands dirty. He makes a general announcement to the room asking for a doctor to help him with a differential diagnosis, and he's soundly ignored. "Am I in an M. Night Shyamalan movie?" House wonders. I hope not, because then this show would suck. One bright spot: Wilson would be played by Joaquin Phoenix. One spunky young lady tells House that Cuddy issued a memo to the entire hospital telling them to ignore House and not enable him. Megan thanks you for her death sentence, Cuddy.
House gives up and leaves, but he's followed out by that spunky young lady, who impresses House by deserting her patient, a meth-head who shot herself in the leg, to be his bitch. House guesses she's angling for a job with him, but she says she just "cares about people." Unless they're meth addicts with leg wounds. Shouldn't this spunky young lady be wearing a vest? Perhaps not, as House dismisses her diagnoses and then says her caring about people makes her ineligible for a job with him. Good to see he's learned from some past hiring mistakes. Spunky young lady immediately says she was lying and hates people for real. She puts out a few more theories, and House responds by telling her that her eyes are lopsided. "And by eyes, I mean breasts," he adds. Spunky young lady can't help but glance down at her apparently nonsymmetrical chest. House asks her why she won't guess that Megan has both Crush Syndrome and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, to which she replies "because then there's nothing we could do." "Boy, you remind me of someone," House says. "Send me your résumé."
House returns to Megan's room, where he finds Ben, who says he couldn't leave Megan after all. "I love her," he says. Somewhere, a Cameron is singing. House asks Ben how he can love Megan when he didn't even really know her. I think he answered his own question. Sally Field comes to Ben's defense and asks House why he's antagonizing Ben. But House isn't done yet: he tells Ben that not only was Megan a completely different person than the woman he thought he fell in love with, but she's also got Crush Syndrome and Acute Respiratory Syndrome and is dying soon. Oh, but wait...what's this? House spots a lump on Megan's arm. He says there might be hope for her after all, and goes off to get a biopsy.
Cuddy walks into the Biopsy Lair and finds some lab tech working on Megan's lump. Cuddy is furious; her memo specifically told everyone at PPTH not to do anything for any of House's patients, which is not at all irresponsible or in any way endangering patient health. The lab tech says she got Cuddy's second memo ordering everyone to ignore her first memo. Cuddy never issued such a memo. I wonder if it was signed "Cuddy, who used to be a man hahahaha." She's curious as to what the tech discovered, though. It's a whole bunch of tumors.
"Not exactly," Cuddy explains to Ben and Sally Field. They're eosinophilic granulomas, not tumors. You get them from an allergic reaction, but they have no idea what Megan could possibly be allergic to. The only thing it could be is the medication they're giving her, but Megan took that medication for strep throat just two months ago and had no allergic reaction. Sally Field is starting to realize that PPTH is a hellhole of sickness and despair. Megan was better off under that building.
House is also puzzled. He stares at his Whiteboard, but it doesn't tell him anything.
Wilson goes to check on his old guy patient, only to find the sarcastic nurse sleeping in his bed. Realization spreads across Wilson's face.
"You stole my patient!" he yells at House, interrupting his non-train of non-thought. House says he won't give Wilson his patient back until Wilson gives back his guitar, who, by the way, is a female, since House ain't no homo. Wilson says there's a big difference between stealing a guitar and stealing a person, but he's talking to the wrong guy here. As far as House is concerned, guitars and people are of equal value. If anything, guitars are worth more. House assures Wilson that his abducted patient is safe, but Wilson yells that if the nurses give him the wrong meds, "Who knows what's gonna happen?!" And now it's House's face's turn to have realization spread across it. He tells Wilson where to find the old guy on his way to Megan's room.
House throws a file on Megan's bed and gives her some amphetamines to wake her up. While they wait, he says that her allergic reaction can't be explained unless the chart is lying. In Season Four, even nonliving objects lie. House asks about a woman named Liz Masters, the co-worker of Megan's who died the other day. Liz Masters, according to her chart, was on MAOIs and the pill, had an abortion last month, and is allergic to the drug they were giving Megan that she can't possibly be allergic to today. And by "Megan," he means "Liz." We flash back to the scene before the collapse, when Megan gave Liz a piece of paper. Liz looks a lot like Megan. Ever more so when her face is all swollen from injuries. The family members incorrectly identified the women, and no one thought to second-guess them. Ben, of course, won't believe it. Sally Field is starting to. The amphetamines wake Liz up, and House asks her for her name. "Liz," she gasps. Sally Field and Ben are understandably upset. House tells Ben that the good news is that Megan never lied to him. The bad news is that she never will lie to him again, since she's dead. And Liz, the depressed alcoholic baby-hater, gets to live another day. Just so we aren't completely destroyed by all the sadness, Liz's boyfriend enters the room later and is happy. And then Ben and Sally Field visit Megan in the morgue.
As for House, he's waiting for Cuddy to enter his office so he can crow about his amazing lone-wolf patient-saving skills. The janitor enters the office first, though, and is summarily dismissed. Tattletale. Cuddy enters next and tells House that he may have solved the case eventually, but he would have done it a lot sooner with a team. Cameron would have fought House on his assumption that Ben didn't know his own live-in girlfriend. Foreman would have gone out of his way to prove House's multiple-conditions coincidence theory wrong, and then Chase the suck-up would have gone out of his way to prove it right. Somewhere, somehow, they would have solved the case days ago. And maybe Megan wouldn't have died, or at least her mom and boyfriend could have been with her when she did. "You need a team. I don't care how you do it," Cuddy says. Famous last words right there, Cuddy. She unloads a pile of applications on House's desk.
House plucks at his out-of-tune, though returned unharmed, guitar as he addresses a crowd of fellowship candidates. He tells them they're about to embark on the longest job interview of their lives and will be tested in ways that are unfair and illegal. By the end of that, twenty-nine of them will be gone. "Wear a cup," House says. Especially if you have lopsided eye-boobs.
What ails the staff at PPTH? We've got the diagnoses.