The show starts with us looking through another man’s eyes. We can hear other people talking, including someone who says “great heart for transplant”. House, however, stands up for the patient and says that it’s breaking ethical laws for the doctor to take the organs out of a guy who is still alive.
We don’t see House, but we do see his shirt and some blood. The doctor says that House is there because he crashed his motorcycle, not because he’d ordered a consult. House points out brain waves on the monitor but the doctors says that they’re minimal – even though the guy is screaming in his head that he’s okay.
As the doctor walks off, House bends over the patient.
“I also know about Locked In Syndrome. Blink if you can hear me.” The guy blinks (we see through his eyes still. “Oh this is gonna be fun.” House says.
House brings the doctor back and shows him what’s going on. The doctor says that the patient needs to accept what has happened, while House says that the accident (which apparently was caused when he rode his bike into a car door) may have been caused by his problem, which could be a fixable condition.
Unfortunately House isn’t a teaching doctor in the hospital so the doc doesn’t want to listen to him. So House calls his team in.
House: If you can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed. Meet my team – hot, dark, and darker.
Thirteen thinks that maybe there is a brain tumor, and House tells them to go find it. Kutner finds MRI goggles which are supposed to “put you into a relaxing place” (like a virtual world). They put them on the POtW and he finds House sitting next to him on a beautiful beach. He says that he thinks that his wife was right (she visited him briefly at the hospital) and that House was sent there to make him get better. House replies “I think so”.
When he wakes up again House comes walking into his bedroom late at night and shows him an MRI with a strange spot in his brain. The “real” doc thinks that it’s an infection. House thinks that it’s cancer. So House wants the viral drugs that they’re giving him to “almost kill him” so that the doctor would let them do whatever he needs to do. Sure enough, he goes into a seizure.
When he comes to House is talking to the doctor and the wife and she asks the POtW if he wants House to treat him. He blinks once. House look at the other doc.
House: Can you send up a couple of bell boys?
The POtW is now at Princeton Plainsboro. Cuddy is worried about House and touches his scrapes. She asks House what he was doing so far north, and he replies.
House: Antiquing. I got you a lace Victorian corset. Come by later and I’ll tie you up.
The POtW says that if Cuddy turns back around after that conversation, she’s into him. She, of course, turns around.
Taub shows up and House tells him that he accepted his resignation, even though Taub now wants to be back. House looks at the POtW and says:
House: Save the cheerleader, save your world. (nice Heroes dig there, writers)
Wilson catches up with House and wonders exactly what Cuddy wondered. He says that House crashed 10 miles away from a pain clinic. House says that he was there to tell the ex-ex-ex wives that Wilson is getting extra money from the lecture circuit so that they can adjust their alimony.
Wilson: You wouldn’t do that.
House: Yeah, I wouldn’t do that (sarcastically).
Kutner and Taub are with the patient and Kutner says that they need to entertain him so that his brain doesn’t atrophy. Taub and Kutner notice something and rush off. House comes back and it’s decided that he needs to undergo an operation to check the lesion on his brainstem.
His wife and children come in for a few minutes – both adorable and heartbreaking – and Thirteen makes them leave because he was crying.
Chase counts down to put him to sleep for the surgery and he’s suddenly back on the beach with his children. And House. He asks House if he’s going to be all right still. House says that he doesn’t know.
He wakes up again and needs to answer some yes and no questions. He tries to answer some questions but by the third one can’t blink anymore.
Now we actually see the patient for the first time. He’s laying still, in a coma-like state, without blinking. House isn’t sure what caused the problem now, as he can’t tell why the patient is suddenly unable to see.
House isn’t sure what they can do when Taub has an idea. We see him in the patient’s room with a machine on the patient’s head – a brain interface machine. When he thinks “up” enough, the machine will move the computer arrow up. So Taub waits around for the arrow to go up.
Wilson goes into House’s office again and he admits that he was at a correctional facility where Foreman’s brother is being held.
We’re back with Taub again and he talks to the POtW about how he feels. Suddenly the arrow moves up. His wife comes back in and is crying, and asks if he’s in there. The arrow moves up.
House and the crew come to diagnose him and he’s able to answer up for yes and down for no. The wife says that he went to St. Louis, but he says “no”.
House is questioning the POtW and is trying to figure out if he was sleeping with someone else while he wasn’t in St. Louis. He keeps saying “no” about not sleeping around on his wife. He was within just a few miles of his house. Suddenly we see House and the POtW doing yes or no questions and they finally figure out that he was not in St. Louis but was within 2 miles away from their house at a friend’s house. They narrow it down to Dave, his friend’s, house.
Kutner and Taub check out the friend’s house and find that he’s been working on his resume and trying to find a new job. He owns his own business but it wasn’t going good and he was looking for more work. Kutner finds that he temped a few times as a janitor, so they check the factory, which is where they make rechargeable batteries. Taub thinks that heavy metal poisoning explains everything from the dirt found on the floor.
Taub explains that it’ll take about a day for the medicine to work. Now all of the doctors/wife are taking turns talking to him while he’s waiting for the meds to kick in. He keeps saying that his eyes are killing him.
Now we’re back to House. He’s in his office and Taub comes in and tells him that he wants to keep his job. Taub tells House that he realizes that what they do in House’s office terrifies him, but that overcoming that is the only way that it can matter. House says that Kutner found the factory and came up with the diagnosis, so maybe Taub doesn’t matter.
We’re back in the patient’s eyes and Dr. Hadley says that she’s going to shut his eyes to let him get some sleep. But she notices that there is a problem in his eye and puts some stingy drops in it. There is a problem in his eye which means that it’s not heavy metal poisoning.
Back to House and Cameron comes into his office to fix his dressing on his arm. She gives House some vicodin and asks him to take 2 now, 2 later (because she’s going to scrub road rash out of his arm) and he swallows all 4 at once. She suggests that he does an LP to try to solve the case.
House: Why did I fire you again?
Cameron: You didn’t. I quit.
Wilson corners House with proof that he wasn’t visiting Foreman’s brother. House says that the reason he was visiting upstate was because he was checking out the one who Wilson was dating – the woman who is taking care of Wilson’s brother. He somehow found out even though Wilson has only been dating her a few times.
Foreman is explaining the LP procedure when the patient goes into a cardiac arrest. He’s back on the beach with House and says that there is no God, because he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.
POtW: Am I dead?
House: Not yet. But you’re about to be.
And his eyes close.
They shock him back into rhythm and he says inside that they should let him go. That he’s been there for three days and that he can’t do anything for his wife or kids. House notices that he’s trying to talk through the machine. They isolate that his right foot is itching, which House says means his liver is failing.
House believes that the liver was dying which caused the locked in syndrome. They are getting ready to do a test and the discussion about the bracelet Foreman bought Thirteen is brought up. He bought her a bracelet and hasn’t seen her wear it, so he assumes that she doesn’t like it. She says that she’d rather have it at home, save in the jewelry box, than getting peed on at work.
The POtW had peed on her accidentally while she was putting the catheter in and she’s got a rash where the bracelet was. Kutner believes that a rat had a disease that somehow got into the patient’s body. They find a paper cut on his finger and the rats in the basement tested positive for the disease.
Kutner treats the patient and asks him to move one finger. He does.
In the locker room Taub claims the credit for the rat pee situation, but House knows that Kutner is the one who solved the case. He also says that the simple fact that Taub lied about the treatment means that he cares enough for a job.
Wilson snags House again and says that he stole House’s phone and redialed the number on the phone, and it was a psychiatrist. He follows House into the patient’s room where House retrieves a recorder from under the patient’s pillow – he’s been spying on his crew!!
Wilson follows him out and says that he thinks House went to a psychiatrist because he wants to change so that he can be with Cuddy. House, however, says that he’s not going back to the psychiatrist because it doesn’t work.
We go back into the “locked in” camera mode, this time out of House’s eyes, and he’s looking at Wilson. Wilson says “You’re going to die alone.”
actually said today, after we received the McDonalds Happy Meal and he found a Ginormica toy (dang, not Dr. Cockroach yet) that he would like to go see Monsters vs Aliens, so I think we’re going to head out tomorrow to go catch it in the theater. Have you seen it yet? Was it worth spending money to watch?
