Not a bad episode. Having to get a diagnosis using the “20 Questions” method was interesting to watch. But I would have expected a little better than the ol’ “battling couple snowed in at the airport and wind up in the same hotel room” routine.
(Lesbian Prison Stories was the book House was reading in the airport, incidentally.)
As usual, I got distracted at the critical moment and missed, not the final diagnosis, but the leap that House made to get there. How did all those last minute revelations lead to the final diagnosis? Someone want to encase it in spoilers for me?
Lesbian Prison Stories was the best part of that episode. I laughed my ass off at that.
Oh, and it wasn’t the battling couple snowed in end up in the same hotel room… well, not fully. It was battling couple snowed in end up in the same hotel room, but the guy has more important things to do and that would only prevent him from that goal.
By doing the word relationship thing over the conference call House made the link between “Bear” and “Polar” and “Stain” and “Brain”. The Polar was what led him to learn that he was bi-polar. Once he knew he was bipolar all the symptoms and his secrecy about it fell into place leading to the risky foreign brain surgery where he got Malaria.
Got it?
I liked the episode, but I found that infuriating. Ridiculous treatment of aphasia, huge non-intuitive leap from “bipolar” to “incredibly obscure clandestine surgery leading to transfusion malaria.”
I liked the Annie Hall reference at the end. Nice oblique way of getting across that they’re on the same page, and more importantly that she doesn’t want House to change his curmudgeonly ways. (The old joke about the guy who complains that his brother thinks he’s a chicken. “Why don’t you get him to see a doctor?” “I would, but we need the eggs.” Alvie says “That’s pretty much how I feel about relationships – they’re totally irrational, crazy, and absurd, but we keep going through it because… most of us… uh… need the eggs.”)
The best part for me was 3 separate scenes, taken together:
I thought that the annoying child was going to provide the episode’s characteristic Event Unrelated To The Case That Nonetheless Gives House The Answer.
Just watched this last night. I was relieved - this was a much better episode than the previous one.
The Stacey/House interaction was very good. The last time they were nice to each other (the mouse episode) House was manipulating her and it felt icky. This time they were both off their guard and being themselves, and I liked it.
It was pretty stupid, and out of character, for the doctors to take that long to figure out that the patient-of-the-week was lying in front of his wife.
It’s become a game to try to figure out which person in the opening scene is going to collapse. They try to misdirect you sometimes, so I had my money on the editor lady instead of the guy giving the speech.
Except to put it in the plot, would anyone actually fly from Jersey to DC? Mapquest says 180 miles, a little over 3 hours. Seems to me that the waiting for the airplane/check in/hassle of air travel would make it silly to drive it.
I know they were in an MD airport, but being interviewed/grilled by a govt employee, so I have to assume they went to DC and flew in/out of BWI.
They did say Baltimore at some point in the show, and at one point showed House in front of a sign that said “Baltimore Liberty Airport”.
It is probably unlikely they’d have flown - most of Jersey is just as convenient to Amtrak as it is to major airports. Also, conveniently, BWI has an Amtrak station and they could’ve tried getting a train back home rather than staying overnight.