TV Review: House - "The Right Stuff"

This week’s unlucky patient is Greta – a space pilot who crash landed her flight simulator because of some psychedelic disturbances during her test run. She covers her mistake by lashing out at her technician and immediately loses my sympathy. House, in the meantime, has his new squad of 40 ducklings wearing numbers and congregating in a classroom where they are trying to come up with alternate diagnoses for the late Buddy Ebsen’s allergic reaction to aluminum dust. Cuddy, who is beautifully but inappropriately dressed for work, comes in the room to yell at House for hiring too many doctors. House arbitrarily fires row C and then changes that to row D so he won’t lose a pretty candidate.

Greta somehow gets House’s beeper number and approaches him with $50,000 in cash to figure out what is wrong with her without having to go through insurance. She doesn’t want a paper trail to alert NASA to her health problems and thereby lose her chance at realizing her dream of becoming an astronaut. Greta pulls out all the stops to try to get House to treat her; there’s the cash on the table, some general flattery about knowing that he is the best and that he’s willing to break the rules, and finally a compelling puzzle for House to solve – Greta can hear with her eyes.

House takes the case and brings his anonymous patient to his new flock of ducklings. He introduces Greta to the team as Osama Bin Laden and they begin to get her medical history and find causes for her synesthesia. House breaks up the new team into groups and sends them off on varying tasks throughout the episode to find the cause and cure for Greta’s symptoms, without leaving any evidence of tests for Cuddy to find. While these doctors are doing their assigned tasks, we begin to learn a little about them.

There are a few standouts among the doctors working on Greta’s case. The group assigned to wash House’s car includes Amber, (Ann Dudek) and Cole (Edi Gathegi.) Amber convinces everyone that being told to wash House’s car is a sign that they are all going to be fired. Thus, they all quit, except for Cole, who continues to wash the car, grateful to have the opportunity to work with someone as brilliant as House. A few minutes later, Amber returns with House’s keys and suggests going to the car wash. She is manipulative and ambitious. I think I’m going to like this girl.

Article Author: CindyC

Cindy's interests include books, music, charitable work, musical theater, the arts, Hugh Laurie, and House. She is now a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle.

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