House on anti-depressants is just as inappropriate as depressed House, but in a different way. At least miserable House isn't bursting with joy about the prospect of a patient's heart attack or telling her exactly how she's going to die a painful death.
But House takes Foreman's objections as a clue he wants to stay: "Suddenly you're trying to turn me into a kinder, gentler ass." That sounds like a familiar quest. Maybe Foreman's been hanging out on the Internet.
House takes the point enough to learn the patient's name before telling her she's dying, but he can't help but smile at his cleverness for deducing her rare disease that offered few clues. She shuts him down, though, and won't let him tell her what that disease is. She is a smart college girl - she couldn't have hit him where it hurts any more accurately than if she were Wilson.
"What's the point of living without curiosity?" he rages, but with a smile, which she points out. She doesn't point out that when you're dying, you don't really need a point to live.
Glancing at something shiny, House gets visual proof that Addie is right, he's smiling, and he finally pieces together why Wilson has been bringing him coffee every day. He does not, however, accept the proof of what that coffee has done to him, insisting that he's been hazy rather than happy since being dosed. Wilson scoffs at the idea that a dying girl mistook hazy for happy, leading House to realize that the dying girl was no different than she'd ever been.
His diagnosis just got another layer. A physician telling a patient she's going to die really shouldn't be happy, but a patient being told she's going to die really shouldn't be the same as she was before. Like half the people in this episode, Addie's depressed.
She also chose a strange way to commit suicide, by making kitchen cleanser into a pill, which burned a hole in her intestine, created a bridge between an intestinal vein and an artery, and allowed bacteria to flood through her body. "Surgery to fix the bridge will take two hours. Psychotherapy'll take a little longer," House tells her.
Article comments
1 - Maddoc
Hmmmmmm.
2 - Kaonashi
The exploding head scene was sooo gross. They were picking up pieces of her scalp and putting it in a bag! *BARF*
I'm not sure about the patient's form of suicide though. Turning kitchen cleanser into a pill sounds far-fetched to me. If she were truly depressed and suicidal, wouldn't have she just done the deed much quicker? Is this based on a real event?
3 - Diane Kristine
I don't know - I wouldn't be surprised if it's based on truth, but it did seem like a too-convenient way to commit suicide (and then go to karate?), designed to create a medical mystery instead of being all that believable. It didn't bother me too much, but it was a little jarring.
4 - Kaonashi
Hi Diane,
Exactly! She tries to kill herself and then goes to karate class? I wonder if it was an actual attempt of suicide or a desperate call for help to her parents.
5 - MT
I kind of buy the suicide thing. She doesn't know why she wants to do it, and she doesn't want others (like parents) to know, doesn't want to have traces of drugs in her system, so have the kitchen cleaner in the pill sounds like a good way of going about it. Although I'm not quite sure how House got the kitchen cleaner and pill thing; I didn't recall it's been mentioned anywhere till he brought it up, so that's a bit wierd.
Also, she would have done it a while ago(thus the scars forming), but no immediate effect, so she's still going abouther business like karate as usual, kind of like a routine that one just does but without actually experience the moment. That's my take on it.
6 - Diane Kristine
You're right about the timing - I'd forgotten about the scar tissue, so she didn't likely gobble the pills and then go to karate. It still felt they created a convoluted suicide attempt to turn it into a medical mystery, but whatever. I was too distracted by exploding heads to be bothered too much.
7 - PDESR
I believe that the only way Foreman is going to stay is if he winds up overriding House on a decision and saves a patients life. I think it may be the only way he could personally justify his continued existence on the team.