I got distracted at the end of last night’s House episode. Can someone spoil it for me? Specifically:
What was the deal with the cold pills? How did he end up taking the wrong ones?
I was watching and I didn’t quite understand if we were supposed to know how he got them or not. At the end when Brandon said his pills did or did not have the letter on them (don’t remember which) we knew he had really taken the wrong pills and his ilness wasn’t the fault of dangerously cut ecstasy. The doctor was looking at all the pills in the pharmacy to see which ones matched in color and had the letter/ no letter difference. Why he didn’t look in that book that describes all the drugs by appearance I don’t know. But we were never really told how he got them. Either the pharmacist really messed up and managed to cover himself when the posse came to accuse him or Brandon was being deliberately poisoned. It’s been bugging me too, that maybe I missed something.
So I guess I didn’t get distracted - the ending was just ambiguous? I thought I must have looked away or switched channels too early or something. Weird.
From what I remember (it was a repeat, so I didn’t watch last night), it is never really explained. I thought it was simply a pharmacy mistake (it happens).
I feel so lied to. Ryan Seacrest said, “Stay tuned for an all new House”
That, my friends, was a RERUN.
sob
Seacrest also says the contestant on American Idol are talented. Why are you trusting his word at all?
The implication was that the pharmacist gave him the wrong pills. Whether he was covering up, or it was just a mistake was not indicated, and really doesn’t have to be.
It’s just showing that House was right after all, and it was the alleged cough pills that sickened Brandon.
Whether the pharmacist was covering up or just didn’t know is unimportant. What is important is that House is right and everyone else is wrong.
God, I LOVE this show.
Actually, I think that House and other doctors were finding out that House was right independantly. House was’t satisfied with the Ecstacy explaination as they discussed the number of types of that drug that are out there and the uses. So, he resorted to endlessly digging through the hospital pharmacy in order to find the possible cause, eventually discovering that the cough medicine and the other were remarkably similar. The point to me, was to show that his stubborness to be right is rewarded, which parallels that tactic he used on Omar Epps character. He explained that he demeans them to ensure they work that much harder to prove him wrong. By endlessly foraging for the pills, it shows that he practices what he preaches. The fact that the patient noticed that the pills had a letter on them was just a way of giving House’s discovery context without spelling it out with more dialogue.
It’s a little vague in the fact that they don’t point out that the initial pharmasist apparently was dispensing the wrong meds, and that they look identical. Whether the blame was with the pharmasist or not, we don’t know, he could have been covering it up (or at least made the same mistake twice) or it could be that the drug manufacturer was the one to mis-package and label the pills. It’s not really spelled out since that isn’t really the premise of the show…maybe Law and Order can pick up teh slack from here…
The implication was that the pharmacy made the mistake - the guy was too much on the offensive when House approached him.
House was looking at all the GOUT medications to see if any looked like the cold pills. One presumes the mistake was the pharmacists, and he wasn’t so much “covering up” as convinced he hadn’t made a mistake in the first place (and he did fill the order correctly the second time). It is one of many “howlers” I’ve been collecting (and thinking of opening a thread on), because the chances that the pharmacist would give the wrong pills based on appearance, or give the wrong pills and that they would look similar, is nil. The pills are not sorted by appearance, so how would he wander into the wrong aisle and grab pills that looked like the ones he needed?
Last night’s biggest howler was House and another doctor freely discussing one patient’s case in front of another. Um… ever heard of the Health Information Privacy Protection Act? Sure, doctors probably do slip up now and then, but even renegades like House would know better, and the other doctor wouldn’t have joined in this free complete disregard for patient-doctor confidintiality.