TV Review: House – "The Jerk" - Page 3

She denies being the one to ruin Foreman's interview, with a bonus denial of not being in love with House, and then Jennifer Morrison gets to do the face of dawning realization. She accuses Chase of canceling Foreman's interview solely to be a jerk, and he bristles, implying she's a jerk for thinking so, but still managing to spit out his weekly reminder that he likes her and wants to go out with her. It's about as unromantic as you can get without being House, and yet it still made me say "awww."

Chase, not usually the cleverest of the bunch, is the only one to figure out what's going on. Of course he had the advantage of being the last in the chain of accusations, assuming the night janitor who wears his pants backwards was never seriously in the running. He accuses House of not only sabotaging the interview, but manipulating the team into "chasing ghosts" and Foreman into rejoining the land of doctors with contributions to make.

"Sometimes I forget why I hired you," House smiles. He does not, however, take Chase's advice to tell Foreman he wants him to stay, or feel any remorse at costing him that job: "I cost him a crappy opportunity."

"It would make him feel like maybe you aren't evil," Chase insists. "He needs that." I need us not to go down the same road as in "DNR," with the whole "I want some clue that he knows it’s a big deal, that it scares him, that it matters." I need to know Foreman's learned something, even if House hasn't. On the other hand, I need to win my bet that he's not leaving for good, so I guess I do need us to go down the "DNR" road again.

Cuddy gives Foreman another option besides capitulation, offering to double his salary and put him in charge of a competing diagnostic department. He's tempted for a minute, but rejects the offer, since he knows he'll still have to turn to House for the cases he can't solve, and he doesn't want to work for a place that would sabotage his other job interviews. That would be an intriguing, show-changing solution, but my gut tells me they're not ready for show-changing yet. My gut isn't known for being highly accurate, though, so I'll be curious to see how they resolve this Foreman situation.

Article Author: Diane Kristine Wild

Diane writes about boring things by day, pop culture things by night. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news about Canadian television. Follow her on Twitter @deekayw for more random thoughts.

Visit Diane Kristine Wild's author page — Diane Kristine Wild's Blog