Directed by: Greg Yaitanes
Written by: Liz Friedman and Sara Hess
Dr. Hadley's in bed with a woman, Spencer (Angela Gots), in Hadley's apartment. The two met at a bar the night before. It's a nice, cozy moment, until Spencer has a seizure. At the hospital, Dr. Cameron asks for the patient's name. Hadley doesn't know.
The seizure was simply the result of dehydration after a lot of alcohol and Ecstasy. It doesn't seem like a very interesting case, but it's titillating to Dr. House, thus making Spencer the Patient of the Week this week. House orders Hadley to stick a needle in her girlfriend's pelvis and draw out some bone marrow.
Hadley figures out that her hook up with Spencer was because she was interested in House, who of course crudely boasts about his "huge, throbbing diagnostic skills."
Dr. Foreman offers to pick the lock to Hadley's apartment and make sure House doesn't steal any underwear, but that's not necessary because House already had a key to the apartment. There they find a spider that could be poisonous, and an inhaler that might have gone bad.
Back at the hospital, Dr. Kutner volunteers to check Spencer for spider bites, but House has Hadley do it instead. Hadley finds no bites. Dr. Chase conducts exploratory surgery and finds nothing that would explain Spencer's symptoms.
Foreman wants to know what House's investigator found out about Foreman. House thinks it's just sad that Foreman has done nothing "stupid, spontaneous, or even vaguely interesting" since his teenage years.
Learning about Spencer's case, Dr. Cuddy threatens to suspend Hadley if she doesn't submit to a drug test, but House stands up for her. And then he fires Hadley: his reason to defend her to Cuddy was to prevent a drug test.
Hadley thinks Spencer has a ruptured cyst or a collapsed lung. House rehires Hadley, she figures out it was a ruse to have her spend personal time with Spencer.
Noticing Hadley's chapped lips, House goes to Spencer's hospital room to chop an onion and verify that Spencer is not the least bit teary-eyed. Spencer is suffering from Sjogren's disease. There's no cure, but the symptoms can be managed fairly well.
House gives private investigator Lucas (Michael Weston) a new assignment: Dr. Wilson. House and Lucas stake out Wilson's apartment building that night, they see a woman come up to his apartment. Wilson admits to seeing a prostitute. House of course thinks it's just part and parcel of Wilson's Messiah complex. But it was actually part of a ploy to divert House from realizing that Wilson was a character reference for Cuddy to adopt a baby.
The episode ends with Hadley in bed with another woman, presumably one she also just met and whose name she doesn't know either.
Tropes
- Bland-Name Product: House and Lucas see Wilson playing Carjacking, a video game suspiciously similar to Grand Theft Auto.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: House diagnoses Wilson as having this. House trying to save the prostitute is par for the course for Wilson.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When House notices Hadley's lips are cracked, this leads him to realize Spencer has Sjogren's disease.
- Living Legend: This week's patient is yet another one who thinks Dr. House is the only one who can cure them.
- Onion Tears: The onion makes Dr. House cry, but not Spencer.
- Shout-Out: To Penthouse Forum and Primetime: Medical Mysteries: When Dr. House learns that Dr. Hadley was with the patient at 3:00 a.m., he says "Oh, yeah! Penthouse Forum meets Medical Mysteries."
