House is Right

House Episode 4.12 - Don’t Ever Change - Recap

by Lynn on February 5th, 2008

The show began with a couple’s orthodox Jewish wedding. There was celebration and happiness and just when the newly married couple was raised into the air on their chairs, the bride collapsed on the floor with no explanation.

We saw Wilson walking into the hospital and as he went to press the button on the elevator, House’s flame cane pressed it for him.

House: Cross-species mating. I feel like Darwin, with Galapagos.
Wilson: Amber and I have a lot in common.
House: She’s a Cutthroat Bitch. You cry over Dark Victory.
Wilson: Bette Davis, another strong, assertive woman.
House: You don’t like strong. You don’t like assertive. You like needy. She’s not dying, is she?
Wilson: Yes. Go away.

(follow the jump for the rest!)

The elevator arrived and they entered it.

House: I give it two months.

The doors closed.

Wilson: A hundred bucks.
House: Not really fair. You’re not objective. But I’m all about the teaching.
Wilson: We’re at four months.
House: You hid this from me?
Wilson: I was wrong, OK? I thought you’d be upset. I thought you’d track me down in hallways and…
House: I shouldn’t have discounted the sex. She’s obviously limber enough to put off the meltdown for two months.
Wilson: She’s not needy. I don’t need needy.
House: She’s scary. Why does scary need pathetic?
Wilson: Are you going to talk to her?
House: I don’t see that I have any choice. (Wilson turns to go) You’re alright with that? No impulse to save her from me?
Wilson: I’ve broken the pattern, House, Which is why this has a chance. I know you’re too suspicious to accept that without getting out your ruler and your calipers and your scanning equipment so…go ahead. Get it out of your system.

Wilson walked into his office and closed the door.

As House walked into his office, Thirteen started to brief him on the patient.

House: Did you guys know Wilson was dating Amber?
Foreman: No.
Taub: Wilson & Amber?
Kutner: I knew. I asked her out and she said she had started seeing someone.
House: I thought Amber scared you guys.
Kutner: She does. But she also has legs that go all the way up to Canada.
House: So do Canadians. Doesn’t mean I want to date one.

They discussed possible diagnoses.

House: Was it just the legs, or did you detect something resembling a soul?
Kutner: She grew on me. She’s got carbolic acid in her system. We’re talking about the patient now.
Foreman: That much carbolic acid, someone would have had to poison her.
House: It could have been a Cossack, if this was 18th Century Poland and Cossacks were into to household cleansers. Which is why it’s more likely that the poisoner was the poisonee.
Taub: Suicide’s a sin.
House: Corollary - People lie as people sin. In my world, “people” includes Jews.
Thirteen: She was getting married.
House: Hasidic women marry young so the can start pushing out little Hasidilings. Thirty eight means a woman who’s not on anyone’s hot list being pushed onto a guy who’s not on anyone’s hot list. No way out, no way out.
Thirteen: Endometriosis fits better than an epiphany that her life is meaningless.
House: Fine. Check her innards for bad cells and her home for bad karma. Carbolic acid should be on the shelf, right next to the regret and self loathing.

Taub and Foreman searched her home and discussed their jaded points of view about commitment and religious people. They found that she was listed as a producer on some hard rock albums and had sexy lingerie in boxes. They decided that where there’s hard rock and sex, there must be drugs.

Back at the hospital, Kutner & Thirteen questioned the patient about her history. She admitted that she had just converted to Hasidic Judaism six months before and that prior to that she was using heroin. They decided to do a hair test to see if her drug use might have caused lasting damage of some sort.

Just then, we saw Amber come into her apartment and discovered House waiting for her. He confronted her and asked if she was dating Wilson because she had hoped it would be a way to get him to hire her. She taunted him back and they discussed her intentions at length. Things were not comfortable between them at all.

Back at the hospital, House, Kutner & Taub discussed the patient. House told them that since she changed her life six months before, it must be a symptom of something. She gave up all the things she had as a part of her life and changed everything. That must have been caused by something.

After House told them what tests to run, the new husband went to Cuddy and asked to have a different doctor.

Cuddy: I assure that Dr. House is our best…
Husband: Then we’ll settle for second best. Someone who doesn’t think my wife is sick, just because she’s religious.
House: If you prefer, I can give your wife my second best diagnosis. (then to Cuddy) Did you know Wilson’s dating Amber?
Cuddy: I have reviewed the chart.
Husband: My wife’s body is sick. Her mind and soul are fine.
House: (to the husband) You live according to God’s 600 commandments, right?
Husband: 613.
House: Do you understand them all?
Husband: It takes a lifetime of learning.
House: But you follow the ones you don’t understand because the ones you do understand make sense and you believe that the guy who created them knows what he’s doing.
Husband: Of course.
House: So, you will trust my diagnosis, and you will let me treat her because in this Temple, I am Dr. Yahweh.
Husband: I want a new doctor.

The patient went into a crisis and had to be intibated. The team huddled to discuss the situation.

Kutner: I saw Amber drop off Wilson this morning.
House: Yes. The male always drives the female.
Taub: Did she kiss him or did he kiss her?
Kutner: I don’t know. The lab tech with the tongue stud also pulled up.

After House and the team discussed possible theories about the patient, House showed up at a bar where Wilson & Amber are.

House: Oh, my God. What are you two doing here? I just had a sudden yen for fusion. (He joined them.)
Wilson: (to Amber) I put a different restaurant in my date book. I’m firing my assistant.
Amber: That’s ok. Hi, Greg. And I call you Greg because now we’re social equals.
House: And I call you Cutthroat Bitch. I don’t try to hide what an ass I am.
Amber: I assume you’d like to join us? It’ll be easier to observe our interaction if you’re at the same table.
Wilson: If we ever get seated.
Amber: Excuse me.
Wilson: (as she walked away) No, no!
Amber walked up to the host and talked to him about the fact that they had been waiting for a while.
House: Look, now she’s going to hit him in the face with your testicles.
Wilson: She tends to treat…. She tends to treat every event like it’s the last copter out of Saigon.
House: She’s the Anti-Wilson. A force for evil.
Wilson: She has an annoying quality. Maybe two. If I was perfect, I’d date perfect.
Amber waved to them to join her at a table.
House: You liked that!
Wilson: It’s annoying, but she’s good at it.
House: Wait a second, you like her personality. You like that she’s conniving. You like that she has no regard for consequences. You like that she can humiliate someone if it serves… Oh my God! You’re sleeping with me.

They looked at each other, stunned. Then House left the restaurant.

When Taub was putting the patient through a stress test, the husband asked him a question. He wanted to know if they cured her, would she go back to being the person she was before he met her. Taub told him it was unlikely, but couldn’t be certain.

The patient finished her test, but suddenly developed unexplained leg pain.

House and Foreman were discussing the patient when House demanded that he give him #10 because he had missed lunch. He also seemed quite grumpy…even for House.

While they were doing an MRI on the patient, Foreman tried to get Thirteen to let him in on some of the things she might be keeping secret about herself, but she didn’t.

The patient’s symptoms got even more puzzling and the team had to do more brainstorming to try to figure things out. Just then, House saw Wilson arrive at the hospital and went to talk to him.

House: I went by your hotel this morning. They told me you moved out. You moved in with CB?
Wilson: No, apparently, I moved in with you.
House: The very fact that you’re resisting my insight proves to me…
Wilson: House, You’re right. Why not? Why not date you? It’s brilliant. We’ve known each other for years, we put up with all kinds of crap from each other and we keep coming back. We’re a couple.
House: Are we still speaking metaphorically?
Wilson: Amber is exactly what I need and you would agree if you weren’t mired in self-loathing, topped with a thin crust of megalomania.
House: Hey! That’s my best friend’s girl you’re talking about. I was wrong.
Wilson: House, you’re right!
House: She’s not me. Well, she is me. But that’s not why she’s attractive. She’s a needy version of me.
Wilson: Hard to imagine such a mythical creature.
House: You started seeing her right after I fired her.
Wilson: I started seeing her four months ago.
House: She told Kutner it was four weeks. You lied to me. There was money on the line.
Wilson: I knew how you’d react and I knew you wouldn’t pay me anyway. She wasn’t needy. She was in a bad situation. There’s a difference.
House: Not to your libido.
Wilson: Wait a minute. Why are you doing this? Every time I agree with you, you find a new argument. What are you trying to avoid? (House just glared at him.) Well, if you had looked at me with those flashing eyes before I was involved. C’est la vie. And, I used the French because you’re an ass.

Kutner & Taub ran some more tests and were still stumped about the patient’s diagnosis.

House walked into Cuddy’s office.

House: I need you to sleep with Wilson.
Cuddy: Good morning.
House: He’s involved with an inappropriate woman.
Cuddy: His people are sheep herders and Amber’s are cattlemen?
House: He’s combining two of his worst qualities, his love for me and his love for need. As administrator of this hospital, you have to save your star oncologist.
Cuddy: Wish I could help, but as administrator, there are some people in accounting I’m scheduled to sleep with first.

Cuddy told him that he was more worried that his best friend would change and the relationship might actually work. He continued to argue that people don’t change.

The patient went through more tests and still the symptoms didn’t match any diagnoses. The team huddled once again.

Cuddy walked over to Wilson in the hallway.

Cuddy: Are you sure she doesn’t just want to take you back to her lair, hang you upside down and deposit her eggs in you?
Wilson: Excellent disguise, House!
Cuddy: You two are really that serious?
Wilson: She’s pretty. She’s funny. Maybe she’s a little more…
Cuddy: Evil?
Wilson: …aggressive than you’d expect from me. But I’m happy. Can’t I just enjoy what that feels like for a while?
Cuddy: How many people have looked at you trustingly while you gave them a fatal prognosis? You knew it was kinder to tell them the truth. Amber compulsively looks out for number one. You compulsively look out for the person that you’re with. Your needs are going to feed her needs until all that’s left is a Wilson chalk outline on the floor. Sorry.

The patient started bleeding internally and Chase decides to do exploratory surgery to find the source. She refused to have the surgery until after sunset so she could spend time with her new husband. House told House that they needed him to help. Chase just left the room. Then, a few moments later he walked back in and suggested that they tell her it’s sundown, even before it is.

House: I told you, we needed you.

Then, House called for Amber and she came to talk to him. He told her that if she could diagnose the patient, he would give her the fellowship. She told him that Wilson was worth more to her than a fellowship. But she did offer a possible diagnosis before she left. House was surprised that she may have actually changed.

Then, House got a spark of inspiration and figured out that the patient’s kidney had broken loose and was floating in her abdomen. He told Chase to put it back and the blood leak would be nearby. She was going to be ok.

House stuck his head into Wilson’s office and told him that he could do worse than a female proxy for him.

Wilson was stunned and followed after him to see if he would admit that people can change. Of course, House wouldn’t admit it, but he looked up at the sky and told him, “Shabbat. Shalom, Wilson.”

Wilson: Shabbat. Shalom, House.

I loved the way that this episode showed us more of the personalities of the new team members and I especially loved that House was able to tell Chase that they needed him. Could it be that our man, House could actually be softening?

What did you think of the episode? Leave a comment to share your thoughts!

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