Emancipation
Updated 2008-11-19 09:18:57
Welcome to the drama factory! A woman is trying to get a co-worker to donate to a fund for another injured co-worker, but he doesn't want to give. I'm guessing he doesn't help out when the mothers come around with their daughters' Girl Scout cookie orders, either. The woman persists, saying that they're like a family. The guy says they're only co-workers, and in the case of the injured guy, not even that anymore. "I can't believe you just said that," the woman says. See, now, this is why men don't want to work with women. Look at all the talking and drama-making they do! Their supervisor is also a female, and she walks up to tell the woman to go back to work. She does, and the supervisor reminds the cheap guy that the injured man is the person who got him off the night shift. Cheap guy doesn't care. The supervisor continues that the injured guy covered for him on Labor Day weekend, but before that can cause the Cheap Guy's heart to grow three sizes, all kinds of things go wrong in the supervisor's chest, according to the Magic School Bus Cam. I guess sending people on guilt trips taxes your system. Also, maybe if that other guy hadn't been so nice and selfless and covered everyone else's shifts, he wouldn't have been all tired and had the accident that injured him in the first place, hmmm? Something to think about. In distress, the supervisor chooses the absolute worst place to lie down: on the conveyor belt that's rolling towards some kind of crusher device. I wonder if that's how that other guy got injured, too? The cheap guy sees her in time to save her life, thereby freeing him from having to donate to her get well soon fund. Not like he would have done it anyway.
House de-elevators to find Wilson waiting for him. House admits that he didn't ask Cuddy out, to which Wilson just says "oh." House finds this suspicious, but repeated attempts to keep Wilson's elevator door from closing with his cane and asking him why he doesn't seem to care are not productive.
House enters the meeting room to find the Cottages seated around the table. Kumar reads off the stats on their latest patient, a 16-year-old with fluid in her lungs. Taub says the girl's factory worker job means she probably works with a lot of immigrants. People from other countries make your lungs fill up with fluid, I guess. My dad is an immigrant, and my mom married him because he made her heart fill up with love. Aww! Now I don't have to feel so bad for forgetting their anniversary, because I wrote that. Kumar tells us that the reason why a 16-year-old is working in a factory in the first place is that we've gone back in the time before child labor laws, which gives House an exciting new sci-fi twist! Actually, she's an emancipated minor. House says that makes her either an Olympic gymnast who suffered a career-ending injury, a child star who already blew her money on drugs and apparently couldn't find any convenience stores to rob instead, or a lying runaway. Yes, because those runaways just love working in factories. Kumar says the girl's parents died last year and she has no relatives. Instead of going into foster care, she got her GED and became emancipated. So now, instead of attending high school and living in a foster home, she's working in a factory? Yeah, that's great. Not to knock people who do work in factories, but that one is all dimly-lit and you'd think the state would at least force the girl actually graduate high school. Foreman thinks the girl is pregnant, but Kumar says she claims she isn't sexually active. Foreman reminds Kumar that they never believe what their patients tell them. "Not every teenager is having sex," Kumar says feelingly. I guess we know one teenager who didn't have sex, don't we? Kumar thinks that the patient is too busy working full time and paying rent to have sex, because it's not like people with jobs ever have time to have sex. Just ask Hadley. House gets all annoyed and tells them to stop arguing and just give the girl a pregnancy test since it takes all of five seconds. That's the first time he's ever advocated giving a test to prove something. This Cuddy thing has really messed with his mind.
Hadley comes forth with a drug-related diagnosis, because she's got drugs on the brain. And in the brain. And the bloodstream. Kumar says the tox screen was clean, but Hadley says they could be looking at damage from doing drugs a long time ago, which wouldn't show up on a tox screen now. Kumar gets all angry on the patient's behalf again, saying they shouldn't make assumptions about her lifestyle just because she's 16. House tells him to shut up and check the girl's home for drugs and toxins because arguing about it gets them nowhere. Again, what's happened to House? Doesn't he like watching people argue? I guess not when it's Kumar doing the talking.
The Cottages disperse except for Foreman, who wants to talk to House alone. He says he's been asked to run a clinical trial and needs House's permission. House asks what's in it for him if he says yes. Nothing, but Foreman thinks that with four doctors working one case at a time, House should be able to spare him. House doesn't think so, asking what he's supposed to do if there's some kind of emergency with the patient. Foreman says Sophia, or any of House's patients, will remain his priority over the trial. "No," House says. Foreman storms off.
Kumar does an echocardiogram of Sophia's heart. She's annoyed that they're checking for drug use damage, and thinks that they think she needs drugs to ease the pain of being alone at such a young age. Kumar says it must be hard feeling like there's no one to "back you up." Sophia says she doesn't want to do the "pity thing." Kumar finishes up and says he was actually doing the "I get it" thing, as he does with all patients who are orphans, which is kind of a lot of them, really. New Jersey has the highest amount of toxic waste dumps in the country and, it would appear, the highest amount of orphans. Coincidence? "It gets easier. You learn to deal," Kumar says. Sophia softens and says she still gets nervous every time there's a knock at the door, although I don't know why. It's not like there's any more bad news to get, right? Now a knock at the door can only mean good things, like flowers. Kumar says Sophia's heart looks healthy, which means they still don't know what's wrong with her.
Meanwhile, Hadley and Taub are in Sophia's apartment, which has been kept up quite nicely with furniture that she apparently makes herself. Taub notes that even her checkbook is balanced, and I start to wonder if we haven't gone back in time again. I'm no 16-year-old living on my own, but I do live on my own and I don't balance my checkbook. I don't need to. I use online banking and don't write very many checks in the first place these days. Taub wonders what Sophia will be like at age 30 if she's this grown-up at age 16. "You turn back into a kid. Like Kumar," Hadley judges. Um, okay, so Kumar might eat sugary cereal and watch TV, but he's more of an adult than you, Hadley, with your little rebellious sex drug party phase. Hadley whines that Kumar wants to see the best in everyone. Wow, how childish of him. Hadley thinks he's too trusting. Good for him; that just means he's never had to deal with anyone who would cause him to question putting trust in people. Taub says that the other side of that is not trusting enough, which is just as bad. "Excuse me if I don't take relationship advice from you," Hadley snarls. Ugh, she's so unpleasant. Can you imagine having to work with someone like that? If I were Taub, I'd be giving money to Huntington's. Not the research to find a cure foundation, but the disease itself. To find ways of making it bigger, faster, stronger, and prone to making its victims lose the ability to communicate as one of its first symptoms. "Trust should be earned," Hadley says, producing some drug paraphernalia. I guess we're supposed to think it came from Sophia's apartment, but I'm pretty sure it fell out of Hadley's coat pocket.
While House looks at the bong longingly, Kumar says that it isn't relevant to the case anymore since Sophia's heart is fine. House is stuck on the fact that Foreman wasn't present at the echo, and says that just because it showed that Sophia's heart is fine structurally doesn't rule out every single drug-related heart problem. Hadley says that an irregular heartbeat could have caused the pulmonary edema, but Kumar thinks vasculitis makes more sense, because he has no problem showing everyone just how personally involved he is in this case. Taub counters that Sophia's bloodwork doesn't show any signs of vasculitis, and she'd be too weak to work in a factory if she had it. Enh, I don't know about that. All I've seen Sophia do in that factory is walk around being sassy. Not much heavy lifting there. Kumar says that if Sophia can build her own furniture, then she's not going to shy away from her job because she's not feeling well. But that's just it, Kumar. If Sophia is feeling well enough to build her own furniture, then she doesn't have vasculitis. Nevertheless, he wants to put Sophia on steroids. House says no, since if it's not vasculitis, the steroids will make Sophia's irregular heartbeat even worse. Instead, he orders Foreman to start Sophia on beta blockers and the rest to do anything but that. As soon as House is out of the room, Foreman tells the Cottages to do his job for him.
You know Taub and Hadley aren't covering for Foreman, so it's Kumar who gets the treatment ready, happy to have more time with his fellow orphan. Sophia's a clever girl, and figures out that they're treating her for a drug-related heart problem even though she said she doesn't do drugs and that echo said her heart was fine. Kumar reveals that they broke into her apartment and found a bong. Sophia maintains that the bong is her ex-boyfriend's, and is why she's no longer with him. And yet ... he left his precious pot smoking device behind? Doubt it! Those things are pretty hard to lose track of, even for potheads. Kumar decides that his personal connection with Sophia is worth putting his job in jeopardy, and says there's another possible diagnosis with a different treatment, but if he gives her that and she was lying about not using drugs, then she could die. Sophia looks him in the eye and swears that she's drug-free. Kumar goes for the steroids.
And where is Foreman? Down in the Clinic, for a welcome change. I really miss the Clinic. Cuddy's there, too, and ready to pounce when she sees Foreman there since she has every single PPTH doctor's Clinic hours schedule memorized and knows that Foreman's not supposed to be there. Foreman says that's exactly why he's there -- because House doesn't want him to be. Cuddy knows about Foreman's clinical trial thing and guesses that House said no to Foreman's request. Foreman says that House said no because he wanted to and not because he needs Foreman, which doesn't surprise Cuddy one little bit. It shouldn't surprise Foreman, either. She's not willing to help Foreman out by ordering House to let him do the trials (because she knows she can't order House to do anything, although now that he's all awkward around her this might be the one time that he'll do what she tells him to), but she will give him a case file that she says will help Foreman prove to himself and House that he is able to be a Cottage and do other things on the side.
The patient is a small child. A less small child, his older brother Evan, informs us that the kid is puking up blood. He's got a stomachache, too, and has for four days according to his worried mother. She doesn't have much to say, but Evan orders Foreman to make his little brother better.
Guess who isn't better? That's right -- Sophia. She's all sweaty and delusional. Kumar and Taub run in and tag team her, with Kumar tackling her onto the bed while Taub shoots her up with the handy nearby sedative. Taub is confused, saying that beta blockers don't cause psychotic breaks like this. Kumar has to admit that Sophia isn't actually on beta blockers. Busted!
After the break, Sophia is tied to her bed and Foreman is getting the blame for this because he didn't administer the beta blockers as House ordered him to. Instead he gave the job to Kumar, who gave Sophia steroids, which caused her little outburst. Whoa, did Sophia get 'roid rage? That's cool. Actually, no, as Kumar says there's no way Sophia was on the steroids for long enough for them to be the cause. The delirium is a new symptom, and it rules out vasculitis. Kumar is quick to point out that it rules out the heart problem, too. And yet, Foreman's next diagnosis is heart-related, which thoroughly annoys House. But Foreman counters that it could have caused an artery in Sophia's brain to spasm (nice job letting Foreman the neurologist make the brain-related diagnosis, writers!), causing both the delirium and the pulmonary edema. The Cottages turn back to House for his argument, but there isn't one. He tells Foreman to run an fMRI and says in no uncertain terms that it had better be Foreman doing it this time. Then House unwisely takes off, so Foreman tells the Cottages to do all the work setting up the fMRI while he does his own thing. He'll come back for the actual procedure.
In the meantime, he's going to shove a camera down his other patient's throat to see what's doing in his digestive system. This time, the camera comes in handy pill form. Little Jonah refuses to do swallow it, so Foreman makes the kid feel perfectly at ease by telling him that if he doesn't swallow the camera willingly, they'll make him swallow it. Fortunately, big brother Evan is there to lie to the kid that the camera is a "power pill" like a vitamin that will make him big and strong. Jonah swallows the camera, and Foreman is charmed by Evan, saying he used to be mean to his brother when he was Evan's age. Well, yeah, but probably not if he was dying in the hospital. That tends to trump sibling rivalry. Suddenly, Jonah starts giggling uncontrollably. "What's happening?" Mom asks. "I dunno," Foreman says. Well, that should make everyone feel confident in his skills as a doctor.
And now it's time for our three seconds with Cameron and Chase. Today they're getting some rank pizza from the cafeteria when Foreman asks them if they're getting along, which Cameron immediately realizes is because he's worried that if they're in a fight they'll be too distracted to give him the help he needs. Cameron and Chase agree that this is insulting, and Foreman is so jealous of their seemingly functional relationship. He shoves Jonah's file in between them and asks for a differential on uncontrollable giggling. Chase's diagnosis is that the kid is four years old. Cameron's is that Foreman has "three other doctors and a grouchy gimp" (way harsh, Cameron! I guess she's still mad at him for interfering in her relationship last week?) to run these things by. Foreman says this isn't House's case. Chase and Cameron agree to take a look at it, but Chase reminds Foreman that whatever he's using this case to prove to House, it won't be enough. Foreman can't stick around, though, as he's paged to the fMRI.
It's already in progress by the time he arrives, and Kumar's passing the time by chatting with Sophia about local foster homes. He says most foster parents are good, well-meaning people. Well, Sophia's already got her GED and emancipation papers, so that ship has sailed, Kumar. Stop trying to sell her on the foster parents. Foreman's not seeing any spasms on the fMRI monitor, but Kumar sees something odd and asks Sophia how she found out that her parents were dead. Sophia says a state trooper came to her door, and Kumar presses on, asking her for more details. Foreman notices whatever's caught Kumar's eye now, and they both exit the booth to talk to Sophia. Kumar explains that the fMRI showed that she was using the limbic region of her brain when she was answering his questions -- and that's the region of the brain that houses the imagination. Which means that Sophia was lying. Well, well, well -- it would appear that it's the fMRI that's the polar opposite of the MRI (of DOOOM!!) and not the CT scan after all. The fMRI is good and honest and true, and it'll sell your ass out if you aren't the same. The MRI (of DOOOM!!) just makes your ass bleed. Kumar is pissed, saying he put his job for her because he trusted her. I guess he's learned his lesson about that now. Sophia says that she wasn't lying about doing drugs, and only claimed that her parents were dead because the truth is that her dad raped her and her mom refused to believe her. Well, that's a conversation-ender.
Back from break, Kumar tells the meeting room that the fMRI was negative for Foreman's diagnosis but positive for the fact that Sophia is a liar. It also means that Kumar is no longer personally involved in the patient. He was only using her for her orphan-ness. Now that Sophia's problem is more unique to women, the personal connection shifts to Hadley. It always does eventually. House gets right down to business, and Hadley gets all bent out of shape that he didn't stop to observe a moment of silence for Sophia's rough childhood first. Taub suggests that Sophia got an STD from her dad. Kumar suggests that Sophia is lying about the rape, too. Hadley loves Sophia now, and defends her lying by saying it's better to have dead parents than rapist parents. "You find that unsympathetic?" she demands. What's her problem? Kumar put a lot on the line for Sophia, and she lied to him and he feels like a chump. House says Sophia's life is a mess, and asks what rhymes with that. Um ... chess? Did she play too much chess? Can you get sick from that? Oh, no -- it's stress. House says severe stress could cause Sophia's symptoms, because the human brain is so freaking amazing/evil that it mental problems can have physical manifestations. Hadley says that in this case, if House is wrong the treatment is just some simple anti-anxiety meds, so they might as well give it a whirl. House orders Hadley to shoot Sophia up with diazepam (Valium? That's a simple anti-anxiety med?) and Foreman to watch her. And Hadley to watch that Foreman is watching her. But ... if she's watching Foreman, how can she see to shoot Sophia up? He'll have to, like, sit on Sophia's lap or something so Hadley can watch them both at the same time.
This gives House a chance to finally talk to Wilson, who's busy trying to scrub in for one of those surgeries that oncologists apparently do. He says he went to Cuddy's house, but left without going to her door. "Huh," Wilson says, non-committal. House assumes that Wilson is processing the information in order to give him some advice, but Wilson says this huh is simply for acknowledgement purposes, and could be easily replaced with "ha" or "hmm." When Wilson says things like that, he reminds me of Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation . Not that I ever watched that show because I'm cool, okay? House clearly wants to be told what to do next, which is why Wilson's not giving it to him. "I can't tell you what's right for you," Wilson says. Ha! And that's not an acknowledgement ha, that's a "yeah, right!" ha. House points out that Wilson's never had a problem telling him what to do before. Wilson asks House if he wants him to tell him what to do. House would never admit to this, so he just says that acting inscrutable makes Wilson annoying. "Interesting ... " Wilson says, heading into the OR. "Holding things in can give you cancer!" House shouts after him. "A little late for the cancer prevention tips, but thanks anyway!" replies the OR patient.
Foreman checks up on his secret Cottage team who are supposed to be busy doctors but have plenty of time to do things like stay in a shut-in's house for days and take on extra cases. I'm not complaining, though -- I love seeing them back in differential action! Chase diagnoses meningitis, but Foreman says all tests have come back negative. Cameron is being a party pooper, and tells Foreman that he's playing a dangerous game taking on two cases at once, and could compromise patient care. Cameron knows a lot about compromising patient care because she gets yelled at for doing it often. Chase goes for stomach cancer. Foreman thinks porphyria is more likely. Well, if he's so good at coming up with the diagnoses himself, then why does he need Chase and Cameron? "Neither's perfect," Cameron says, so helpful. Foreman says they'll test for both. And by "they" he means Chase and Cameron.
Foreman stops by his real patient's room, where Hadley is trying to explain their latest stress diagnosis. Sophia notes a lack of Kumar in the room. "There's four of us. It's my turn," Hadley says. Sophia is not amused. Would you be? She's probably heard about how Hadley's patients either die or are properly diagnosed by someone else. "I'm sorry I lied about my parents," Sophia says. Hadley takes up the cause of womankind and tells her that she did what she thought she had to do. Foreman pipes up that Sophia should be feeing better soon if their latest diagnosis is correct. In an effort to not stress Sophia out any further, Hadley dwells on her rape, urging Sophia to file a police report against her father for closure purposes. She says continuing to not address the rape won't make it go away. Sophia points out that nothing will make it go away. Oh yeah? What about a time machine? Sophia says that reporting her father will just label her as a rape victim. "It doesn't have to define you," Hadley whispers, so caring. Sophia points out that it already has where her doctors are concerned. Meanwhile, Hadley is so wrapped up in her patient's personal drama that she isn't noticing an actual medical problem. Fortunately, Foreman's there to notice that Sophia's pee is brown. See? That's why House needs Foreman. To catch what Hadley misses. Which is everything.
After the break, Taub announces that Sophia's discolored pee has been caused by "shredded red cells." Oh, that sounds extremely not good. Kumar and Hadley both come up with dirty factory related diagnoses, but Foreman says neither of them explain the initial lung symptoms. House has different idea. He asks about Sophia's homemade furniture. Hadley says it was made out of wood with little holes all over it. House knows that this means the wood was pressure-treated, and pressure-treated wood releases arsenic into the air when sawed. That's yet another reason why Sophia should have just gone with stuff from IKEA. It's cheaper and easier than making it yourself, and you can't get poisoned! Foreman gets a page and can't hang out there any longer. He tells the kids to test a strand of Sophia's hair for arsenic since it won't show up on blood tests, which all of them should have known in the first place. Foreman takes off, and House nods at the Cottages to get arsenic testing.
The page was from Chase. The results are back, and Jonah doesn't have stomach cancer or porphyria. Chase thinks Foreman should consult with House, and that he and Cameron aren't enough anymore. Foreman thinks he can do this without House as he stands outside Jonah's room. Mom comes outside looking hopeful. Foreman tells her they need to run more tests, and her hope turns to frustration and rage. And if she thinks things are bad now, just wait one second as Jonah's monitors start beeping and Evan calls for help. Chase springs into action, grabbing a crash cart and zapping Jonah's heart back to life. Point proven, he turns to Foreman and says it's time to talk to House.
It turns out that Sophia had arsenic poisoning after all. Way to almost kill yourself with homemade furniture, little lady. But some chelation therapy has gotten all the arsenic out, so Sophia will be just fine. Except that we're only slighter more than halfway through the episode, so not so much. Sophia is happy to hear she'll be discharged tomorrow, and asks Hadley where her motherly advice is. "You want my advice?" Hadley asks, touched. "Want is one thing. Expect's another," Sophia says. Hadley says that Sophia is strong and makes good choices (except for the choice about making her own furniture. That proved to be a bad choice), so she'll be fine. And just to show how incredibly wrong Hadley always is, Sophia follows that up with a big ol' seizure.
After the break, Hadley puts up the latest films of Sophia's MRI, and compares them to her MRI a few days ago. Suddenly, she's got lesions all over the place. Kumar calls them "magical lesions," deciding that they, like the person whose brain they're on, lie. The lesions grew too fast for it to be cancer, but her blood tests are negative for an infection. House has an idea, though. He tells them to re-poison Sophia with arsenic. I hope she doesn't have to build all new furniture to do that. That would be inconvenient. Hadley points out that the arsenic was killing Sophia, to which House points out that now that the arsenic's gone, Sophia's not doing any better. The arsenic was actually treating Sophia's symptoms. So, what does arsenic treat? Kumar comes up with syphilis and Hadley contributes acute promyelocytic leukemia, which I will call APL. I typed it out once, that's more than enough. Taub agrees with that, saying it explains why the arsenic took the lesions away and why they suddenly came back when it was gone. Hadley says they can re-arsenic Sophia, but that won't cure her. "If she wants to see seventeen, she's gonna need a bone marrow transplant," Hadley says. I'll bet Sophia would much rather see seventeen than, say, Thirteen. The problem with the bone marrow transplant is that it'll come from either a rapist or a rapist-enabler. House tells them to do a biopsy to confirm the APL and re-arsenic Sophia to slow the cancer while they try to convince her to take some marrow from her parents.
The Cottages leave. Foreman, who's just entered to hear the tail end of the session, stays behind to talk to House. "Is this about the case you didn't want me to know about?" House asks. Foreman assumes that Cuddy told on him, but House reminds him that he has incredible deductive skills, and since Foreman didn't flinch when he heard that a 16-year-old is close to death, it means his patient is younger and dying even faster. Also, Foreman made it incredibly obvious what with the running off to answer pages in the middle of differentials. House doesn't look interested in helping Foreman out of his mess. Foreman all but begs, saying that if House doesn't help, the kid will die. House still isn't going for it, so Foreman accuses him of letting a child die just to prove to Foreman that he's the only one who can diagnose people. House says he's just giving Foreman what he wanted -- a case all to himself. With that, he walks into Wilson's office and slams the door in Foreman's face.
Wilson's getting ready to leave for the day when House accuses him of pretending not to care about his Cuddy issues to make House do what Wilson thinks he should do. House informs Wilson that his little disengagement ploy is "neither artful, nor effective." "So my not doing anything isn't causing you to do anything," Wilson tries to summarize. Then: "I'm okay with that." House is furious, saying that Wilson is supposed to have opinions and the need to force them onto people. People like House. Wilson says House sounds pretty desperate. He takes off, asking House not to "screw with [his] stuff" just as House is reaching out to screw with his desk accessories. I'm sure Wilson came to work the next day to find his desk accessories well and truly screwed with. He should start nailing them down or something.
Sophia's in trouble: it looks like Hadley is doing the brain biopsy. And she's not wearing a face mask or anything while she tries to convince Sophia that a bone marrow transplant from a relative is her best bet. She probably got spit flecks in Sophia's brain. Gross. Not like Sophia's going to care much when Hadley's done with her biopsy and Sophia finds herself with a Rosemary Kennedy special. Sophia refuses to contact her parents, saying if they save her life, it will make what they did to her okay. She'd rather die than get marrow from them. Hadley's out of ideas, so Taub steps up to the plate. "I have Huntington's disease," he says. OH!! Oh no he didn't! Of course, Hadley can't act, so she reacts with a slow head turn in Taub's direction and one eyebrow slightly raised. Taub continues with no shame that he's dying and would do anything not to be. "The only way to make your life matter is to live as long and as well as you possibly can," he says. Cut back to Hadley with a "well! I never!" expression on her face. Ha ha ha, I love Taub. Sophia's not buying what he's selling, though: "have you ever been raped?" she asks. Taub should totally say yes. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? But he says no. Hadley could speak up and lie to try to save her patient's life by saying she was raped, but she doesn't.
On their way back to the office, Hadley is pissed. "You had no right -- " she starts. Taub says he was just trying to convince Sophia to do the right thing and save her own life. The story he told her was true, even if wasn't his story. "It's my life!" Hadley says. "It's her life," Taub reminds her. Oh, snap! Taub just called Hadley out for being self-absorbed. He says Hadley should have said the Huntington's thing first, but instead she listed off DNA facts and urged Sophia to go to the police. "Everything's by the book. Nothing's ever personal!" he accuses. That's because Hadley's not a person. She has no depth. Her character doesn't feel real to me at all. Nor does Taub or Kumar, really, but that's only because I haven't seen enough of them. Meanwhile, House is pissed because their arguing has woken him up from his nap. Taub says the biopsy was positive. Hadley says they should track down Sophia's parents, whether she wants them to or not. She's a child, and she can't make decisions for herself. "Guess I'm the only one who cares about patient rights," House says, making a sad face. Hee hee. He says their job is to diagnose. If the patient wants to be an idiot after they've done that, it's her right. He's going home. Hadley gets angry that House is more concerned about getting his answer than saving his patient. Is she surprised? What has he ever done to make her think he was anything different? She marches off to find a child rapist. Try Myspace, Hadley. There seem to be a lot of them on there.
Instead of trying to diagnose his patient, Foreman is venting to Chase and Cameron in the cafeteria. Cameron says she's not surprised that House is refusing to help. Foreman pushed him by taking a secret case, so now he's pushing right back. Foreman decides to actually give his case a try and asks what he's missing. Chase says the mother could be poisoning her son for attention. Foreman thinks Evan would have noticed something if that was the case. Yes, because most eight-year-olds are keenly observant of their mothers to make sure they aren't trying to kill their younger sibling. Please. Chase suspects the brother, then. I do, too! He's a little too concerned and cares too much. Foreman doesn't think so, saying Evan isn't jealous of his little brother. In fact, he looks out for him all the time. And that gives Foreman an idea. He takes off. "Think we gave him an idea?" Chase asks. "Either that or he's off to kill House," Cameron says. She's always got House on the brain, doesn't she?
Hadley finds herself at the door of an apartment next to a generic liquor store, courtesy of the Fox backlot. I do love the signs on the window of the store, especially the one that just says "LOTTERY!" A man answers the door, and Hadley introduces herself as the doctor who's treating his daughter for leukemia. She says they need him and his wife to give a sample for a bone marrow transplant. The man is confused. A girl walks up behind him holding a bowl of popcorn. Ew. Sophia's rape-o dad got another girl. Or not. "This doctor says you have leukemia," Dad says to her. "I don't have leukemia!" the girl says, as if leukemia was cooties. I think I'd be more alarmed if a doctor came to my door saying I had leukemia than disgusted. Hadley asks if she's talking to Sophia Isabel Velez. The girl says that's her name. "Do you know something I don't?" she asks. "Just that liars lie," Hadley says. I'll bet the real Sophia Isabel Velez knew that already, though. She's cool. I hope this becomes part of the family lore, like every once in while at dinner one of them will go, "remember the time that woman came to the door and said you had leukemia? And then she was all like 'liars lie' as if she was all deep and stuff. Freak." And then they'll all laugh so loud that the guy who owns the liquor store will bang on the adjoining wall and tell them to keep it down in there.
Hadley confronts Nophia. "You stole her identity!" she says. "To protect myself!" Nophia says in a "no duh" tone of voice. How do you steal a 16-year-old's identity anyway? Did the real Sophia walk around with her social security card in her wallet? I guess she won't do that again. Nophia says she was trying to make it impossible for her parents to find her. "We can protect you. But we need to find your parents," Hadley says, not getting it. Why is this Hadley's cause du jour now? What about Kumar? He was so close to getting his own episode. So close ... Nophia says they can just use a donor from the registry, but Hadley says that now that they know she forged her emancipation papers, Nophia is still a minor and therefore needs her parents' consent for any medical procedure. Not so much, Nophia says. All she has to do is get sick enough so that the hospital has no choice but to treat her with donor marrow. Yeah, tell that to the uninsured kids who die from cancer all the time because they can't afford a marrow transplant.
Meanwhile, Foreman has figured out what's wrong with Jonah. He overdosed on iron, thanks to too many vitamins. "I only give him one," Mom says. Foreman turns to Evan, who looks guilty. He says he thought more vitamins would make Jonah stronger. He didn't know they would make him sick. That's why Mom is supposed to tell her kids not to take more than one vitamin a day and keep them out of reach, like my mom did when we took those vitamins. I always wanted more because I liked how they tasted, but she said no, you can't take more than one a day or you'll get sick. So I didn't. I blame the parent, but Evan blames himself, and worries that Jonah will hate him now. I totally thought Evan's kindness towards his brother was all an act and he really hated him and was trying to kill him. I'm kind of shocked to see this show not go there when it's usually so quick to show us the very worst of humanity. Foreman tells Evan not to worry -- brothers love each other, even if they make mistakes.
House comes to work to find the Cottages waiting for him in the lobby. They've found a partial match on the donor list, but it's not a very good one. Still, Kumar says, a partial match is better than nothing at this point. Hadley wants to wait for a better match to turn up. House gets in the elevator and tells them to figure it out and let him know. He's very annoyed when all three Cottages get in the elevator with him. House tells them to tell Nophia to get over her emotional reaction and start thinking rationally, but Hadley points out that Nophia has actually been very rational. In fact, her first response to the news that they'd need her parents' bone marrow or else she'd die was that she didn't want to give them satisfaction of saving her life. House finds that odd. Nophia should have had an immediate emotional reaction, but she went directly to a rational one. "You're saying she's lying about being raped?" Taub asks. Oh, Kumar called it! And after Hadley complained that he was too trusting, too! House points out that Nophia has a track record. Hadley refuses to believe it, saying Nophia only lied about one trauma to cover up an even worse one. "So ... what's worse than rape?" House asks. Guess we're going to find out!
House heads right to Nophia's room and introduces himself. "What did you do?" he asks. He knows she wasn't raped. Nophia says he can believe whatever she wants. House will do just that. He asks Nophia why she doesn't want people to feel sorry for her. "I don't want pity," she says. That's why she developed the website www.nophiawithoutpity.com. I hear it's really taking off! House keeps going, saying Nophia is determined that people to see her as an independent, well-adjusted woman so they won't see that she's a lost little girl. Because Nophia doesn't think she's a lost little girl. She thinks she's someone who did something terrible, House says, leaning over her. "What did you do?" he asks again, this time leaning in and being all intense. But Nophia still won't say. She does say that her parents won't care that she's dead. House gets angry and says she's being an idiot who would rather die than face her parents because she feels guilty about something that's probably inconsequential. "I killed their son," Nophia finally admits. Okay, so, that's not inconsequential. But she didn't do it on purpose. She was supposed to watch him while he was in the bath and apparently she didn't do such a good job. And now she thinks that every time her parents look at her it's like she's killed him again. This is a let down. I really thought whatever she did was going to tie into the fact that she somehow became a factory supervisor at the age of 16. I didn't know what or how, but her job was so random and impossible that I thought it must have tied into her case somehow and I've been waiting for an hour and not making fun of the fact that it's ridiculous that a factory would hire an emancipated minor (with fake papers!) to supervise people more than twice her age and who have been working there for longer than she's even been alive because I thought it must come into play later on. But it doesn't. It turns out that that factory just makes insane hiring decisions. No wonder that worker in the beginning was so bitter.
House actually looks sympathetic. He takes a seat by Nophia's bed and thinks for a minute before saying that if Nophia doesn't take her parents' bone marrow, then she'll have managed to kill both of their kids. And that will make them truly hate her. Good point. "I don't care," Nophia says. "Sure you do," House says. He's not going to tell her that what happened wasn't "that bad," because it was. But is it worse than raping your own daughter? I mean, what Nophia did was an accident. You can't rape someone accidentally. Well, I guess you could if you were walking around naked with an erection and then you tripped and fell and landed in a naked woman, but that would require a very unlikely set of circumstances. I guess Nophia feels worse knowing what she did than she thinks she would feel if that was done to her. House says Nophia can't change what happened to her brother, but she can do something to make it "not worse." He hands her his phone. Hopefully he won't get a call from the Cottages and "Mmmbop" will go off, there by ruining this rare and nice moment of House being a human being.
Kumar leads Nophia's parents into PPTH, looking so jealous that they're alive and his parents aren't.
A healthy Jonah leaves PPTH with her brother. Mom gives Foreman a big hug. And Jonah holds Evan's hand. Now Evan doesn't have to emancipate himself and work in a factory!
Nophia's parents see their daughter for the first time in a long time. I don't know if they hated her because of her brother or she just thought they did. But they're glad to see her now, and come to her bedside. Everyone starts crying. And all the parents in this episode learned a valuable lesson about watching their own kids and not leaving babysitting duties up to the older sibling.
Foreman walks into House's office. House exposits that Nophia's bone marrow transplant went through, so presumably she'll be just fine physically. Foreman doesn't care about Nophia. He says he wants to do clinical trials, and he's now proven that he can work two cases at the same time. Except not really, since he didn't do much of anything on Nophia's case and Jonah almost died from a simple iron overdose. But whatever. "I can do this. And I'm doing it," he says. "Okay," House says. Foreman asks what made House change his mind. "Three days ago, you asked me. Now you told me. I can't say no if it's not a question," he says, and leaves. Foreman should have known better. House never asks for permission, because the answer will be no. That's what he expects from everyone else, too.
House steps in the elevator. Wilson jumps in with him. There's an awkward pause, and then Wilson says House did a "nice thing" for Foreman. House says that "nice thing" almost killed a four-year-old. Wilson doesn't think so. He says House knew Foreman would figure it out once he knew he absolutely had to. "Did I?" House asks. I think he did. "You just needed to prove it to him. You're an ass. But a noble one," Wilson says. Well, three seasons ago I would have agreed with this. Two seasons ago and last season, I would not have. It's good to see that side of House come back again. House says that Wilson's game didn't work. I still don't really know what Wilson's game was or if he's actually playing a game or just doesn't want to deal with the House/Cuddy landmine. House and Wilson see Cuddy across the lobby in the Clinic. "Wanna talk about her?" Wilson offers. "Nope," House says. He casts one last glance at her, but that's it. He leaves with Wilson.
See what ails the docs at PPTH.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me , which she occasionally updates when she has something to complain about. Or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com , especially if it's to congratulate her on the very clever Nophia name.