I suspected he might have been hallucinating during his conversations with Moriarty. The guy knew too much about how House’s mind worked, and knew just what to say to freak him out.
Re: House not getting the leg chopped off.
He doesn’t want to.
In a first season episode, “Three Stories”, we see the incident that resulted in his condition, and he was ADAMENT about keeping his leg. He preferred the possibility of chronic pain to not having a leg. And his (then) wife actually almsot had it amputated during surgery because House had to be put into an artificial coma for a few days before because the pain was so bad, and that alloed her to be in charge of his medical decisions. (His wife, BTW, was the third of the hot brunettes that House has the hots for (I’m assuming Cuddy counts. I mean, c’mon, you’re telling me there [iisn’t* sexual tension betwen them?))
Oh yeah, I meant the conversations with the shooter after the actual shooting.
Everything in the episode is absolutely a hallucination after House gets shot. Remember, when he wakes up, they’re rushing him to ER to deal with his wounds from being shot.
Another interesting thing on the shooter - while he doesn’t know who House is, he knows who Cameron is. Remember that when he came in and asked “Which one of you is Dr. House?”, House responded with “The thin brunette.” And the shooter replied that he knew who Dr. Cameron was - she had been his doctor.
So the shooter doesn’t know House, but does know Cameron. But he hates House enough to shoot him.
Girlfriend. Stacy was his girlfriend; they were never married.
I thought he said “not ketamine” not “want ketamine.” I’ll recorded it, maybe I can see if the close caption will work - after the Poseidon Adventure ends.
I suspected something was up because House and the shooter were right next to each other in the ICU. While it’s believable that they might have to be in the ICU at the same time, it’s not believable that they’d keep them right next to each other, especially if they were both conscious.
Could somebody explain the “Moriarty” thing, please?
And what the heck is the problem with the leg, anyway? (I obviously don’t watch the show very much.)
Moriarty is the arch-nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. He actually killed Holmes until popular demand brought Holmes back from the dead.
The fact that the shooter didn’t know who House was, and then later in the ICU said that he was House’s patient made me think that there was some error in the script. After all, if House had talked to him and found out that the killer was cheating, wouldn’t the killer know who House was? I never put that together with the the idea that it was ALL a hallucination though. I guess that just shows the level of faith I have in TV writers these days.
I watched it by “other means”, and I just replayed it, and he definitely says (with very visible lip movement to confirm it) “Tell Cutty I want Ketamine.”
You know, he does love his drugs. Maybe he enjoyed the hallucinations and is hoping for some more.
I think he remembers what it was like to not be in pain. If you’ve ever suffered chronic pain, you’d know the temptation.
I watched it with closed captioning, and he asks for Ketamine
Well, I used mental telepathy to read Hugh Laurie’s mind, and … oh, I shouldn’t tell.
Well, he could have had somebody else talk to the guy. Doesn’t seem too implausible.
Also, keep in mind that he wasn’t the patient, his wife was.
But the impression during the hallucination was that House got him to confess to infidelity and then told the wife… although the final conclusion was that the wife had a genetic pre-disposition toward whatever it was that was ailing her.
It was more common in the first season, but IIRC we’ve seen it sometimes this season as well, House frequently doesn’t even meet the patient. He doesn’t like to talk to patients, because patients just lie. He directs Foreman, Chase, and Cameron to do all the dirty work, like taking histories, interviewing family, breaking and entering, etc… The patients get to hear that Dr. House is directing their care, but frequently don’t get to meet him.
Of course the guy would know Cameron. She would be the one doing all the lab work that would normally be done by lab people, the medical treatments that would normally be done by doctors with a different specialty, etc. 
I don’t think you can take ANYTHING from House’s hallucination as fact. House didn’t seem to recognize the shooter, the shooter didn’t recognize him, House got shot. That’s all we know for sure happened in the real world.
The whole story of the shooter’s wife, illness, infidelity, reveal, suicide was told entirely within the hallucination. For all we know, the shooter is a hitman hired by Vogler as retaliation.
House: Have you seen enough?
Tongue guy: No.
That would be interesting. The article I mentioned above says that the procedure worked for one girl until she bumped the affected knee and the pain came back. A brief period of relief and then relapse would really rachet things up.
I discovered “House” a month ago, and I am so pissed I didn’t watch it from the Beginning. This is one fine show! I’m glad the ad that was aired said reruns would be showing back-to-back this summer.
The halluciniation was a lovely glimpse into the workings of House’s mind, and Hugh Laurie carried it off perfectly, allowing for a complete suspension of disbelief.
Minor idea: I can see Dr. Spencer Reid of "Criminal Minds: getting wounded in the leg on some case and becoming Dr. House.
DO NOT READ MY BOYFRIEND’S MIND!
Why we all get a kick out of the shooter being named Moriarty
House is based on Sherlock Holmes. There are numerous parallels through the show. First the names are similar, House / Holmes. Their apartment numbers are the same. They both have drug problems. And they both can deduce solutions from seemingly useless pieces of fact.
So for such a blatant character crossover, is pretty cool. Moriarty was the only person who could think on the level of House, he could outwit him or at least put up a fair fight. And as was mentioned above, Moriarty and Holmes were both originally killed in an epic struggle until the public outcry could not be ignored and Sir Conan Doyle brought Sherlock back from the dead explaining how he survived.
Here, House gets shot by Moriarty, gets locked in a mental battle (with himself) and eventually figures out that it’s all a hallucination, thus coming back from the “dead.”
So yeah, that’s it.