It's a nice tie to last season's "Daddy's Boy," where we discover that House keenly feels his parents' disappointment in him, and confides this to Cameron. Here, he's both more and less revealing, since afterwards he dismisses her with: "My parents love me unconditionally. Get out of here."
When the usual suspects — the parents — seem to shockingly not be poisoning their child, House realizes the kid might have eaten something poisonous by accident. So he tries to get Adam to communicate by choosing from pictures of things in the back yard, including a Polaroid of the weed they suspect.
This is where the title was a detriment to the story, because when Adam's hand wavered over the images, I realized it must be the sandbox. I thought House got that, too, especially when Adam actually picked the sand. So the next scene, where House hilariously preaches to his diagnostic disciples in the chapel, confused me a little, until I cleverly realized he hadn't been quite that clever. Someone should have told him the title of the episode.
House is finally convinced to speak to Ali to crush her crush, so he goes into melodramatic Casablanca mode — "the problems of two people don't add up to a hill of beans" — and she eats it up, crying for her noble lost love until her milky tears become a clue. House realizes that she's infected with spores that are affecting her brain. It's a mirror image of a senior citizen clinic patient from season one, Georgia, who fell in love with House due to syphilis.
While he's moping over that — and, maybe, the case — a glimpse of the squiggly lines Adam had been drawing clue House in to the final piece of the puzzle. Worms in the sand Adam ate have been causing his symptoms, and House watches the family being discharged.
"First tongue kiss, an 8 on the happiness scale. Child being snatched back from the brink of death, that's a 10. They're clocking in at a very tepid 6.5 because they know what they have to go back to," he tells Wilson.
But then, as Wilson points out, they hit a 10 when Adam thanks House in his own way, by handing over his game and making eye contact.
The guy who can't see the value in Wilson's keepsakes from former patients can not only see the enormity of Adam's gesture, it's the perfect language between the game-obsessed, socially withdrawn boy and the game-obsessed, socially withdrawn man. He can't dismiss the wordless thanks the way he did the parents' effusive thanks, and maybe — but probably not — sees that hope is not, after all, futile.
Article comments
1 - Haider
Can't wait to watch it!And can't wait for House to replace Baseball!
2 - Ibrahim Ng
I'm still wondering if Ali (the lovely Leighton Meester!) understood that House was riffing on "Casablanca" or if she has never seen the movie.
3 - Ann
GREAT review!! Looking forward to more.
Thanks, Ann
4 - rochelle
Glad to have found good treatment of this episode. I blogged about it immediately after watching it and have been waiting to see what others thought.
5 - Phillip Winn
Simply brilliant review/recap. I love the ending, and I feel your pain!
6 - Mat Brewster
Geesum that was great. I watched and blogged the episode, but couldn't muster anything more than a tepid recap of what happened. Thanks for showing me what a brilliant review of TV looks like.
7 - Gena
And Wilson was back to being Wilson. Love how he was the one to finally tip the scales and get the carpet back. That's his job - to be House's wingman, sounding board and protector not to just hang around and lecture him - that gets old fast.
8 - Bliffle
Good episode, tho I thought the chapel scene was overdone. And I'm glad the side characters explicated and demolished the asperger syndrome without leaving the viewer to conclude. House really IS a jerk!
As for the "Casablanca" homage, it was fine, and I doubt the girl knew what it was. I did the same as House when I was young and villianous (now things have changed: I'm old and villianous). It's fun to play a literary scam against a naif.
Too bad we are up against the baseball season: my reception was erratic, and the picture was dumbed down to 4x3 480P on a FOX UHF subsidiary, instead of the usual glorious 9x16 1080I. *Sigh*. I guess I could watch it off BitTorrent.
9 - Bliffle
"House returns on Tuesday, Oct. 31. I'm uncomfortable with the change in routine."
Haha. That's a good one!
10 - Diane Kristine
My ego is getting bigger than House's - thanks for the kind words.
I also don't think Ali recognized Casablanca, making House's "you'll understand when you're older" a little funnier, too.
11 - Joan Hunt
Congrats! This article has been placed on Advance.net
12 - T.L.
I've never read your blog before, but I LOVED it! I just adore House - and waited eagerly for a week to watch this episode. I've got a son with mild/moderate autism, and I wanted to see how it was handled by Dr. House and crew. Despite his seemingly offensive comments, I GOT what he was saying - I see all sorts of "insider" ideas/prejudices/opinions about autism and its various treatments, and recognized some of his comments as directed toward those arguments - VERY well researched (ie; monkey see, monkey do - a reference to some in the autism community who see discrete trial training or Applied Behavioral Analysis, the Lovaas Method - what dad was doing with the boy at the beginning of the show, using the picture exchange communication system - as nothing more than "dog training". Excellent episode. The ending had me in tears....and humorously, I've said often to my husband....I think Greg House has mild Asperger's Syndrome, so I was cheering for Wilson when he was reading the criteria for Asperger's (then again, I think Monk has it in addition to his OCD as well....but that's a whole other network...).
Anyway, GREAT blog...putting you in my favorites!
13 - Jan De Vries
Definitely the funniest episode so far. They've really gone from smart inside jokes to hilarious belly-laughter without anyone noticing. What a nice welcome back to witty dialogues it was as well.
One question though: is the girl really infected with spores, or did House find another genius way to get rid of her? The way he keeps yelling 'Damned' in a way too overreacted manner makes me believe it's the latter.
And sorry for the change in routine, Diane, but I've heard somewhere lately that not all change has to be bad....
14 - rewriter
You must have studied literary criticism....this is great stuff! Way better than the standard BS printed in the local rags.....
Thanks!
P.S. I agree the DX of spores and spouting "Damn" many times was just to get rid of his stalker; I'd like to know what the prescription was for!
15 - Mat Brewster
Well, she did have mily tears which lends credence to the idea she really was ill.
I thought all the "damns" were due to House being upset that the girls obsessive attraction to him was due to an illness and not his own brand of charm.
16 - Diane Kristine
Thanks rewriter ... 15 years later, the English degree comes in handy. But in defence of local rags, the average newspaper reader wouldn't sit through my longwindedness.
I also think Ali really was ill. But that doesn't mean she wasn't actually attracted to him, just that her actions were exaggerated, and her inhibitions were as low as her necklines.
17 - Haider
Hey!I liked the episode......Alot!
And I had a question,
Whats House'e middle name?
I was writing my own name,and suddenly it struck me that they never told us his mid name!
Anybody???
18 - J-Money
Great site...glad I found it! I was wondering about the middle name too. I have read that "House" as a surname is a play on Sherlock Holmes. Makes sense since House makes his home at #221, same home address as Holmes. Yes, I'm an unbelievable dork. And yeah, I posted my own love letter to Hugh Laurie here.
19 - archied
Did anyone notice that they rolled up the new carpet over the old one? Was his old carpet there all the time?
20 - Marissa
I am so passionatly,overwhelmingly obsessed with House MD. It just so happens that I also have asperger's syndrome. In Fact, I saw this episode just before receiving my formal diagnosis.
21 - Adam
I wonder if I can pull off what House was doing to get away from wearing school uniforms.