Directed by: Deran Sarafian
Written by: Liz Friedman
A doctor tells a father (Ben Reed) and mother (Julia Campbell) their baby has genetic mosaicism. The ambiguous genitalia can be "repaired," according to the parents' choice. They choose to make him a boy.
Years later, the boy, Jackson (Dominic Scott Kay), is a point guard who makes a winning shot in a basketball game. Then he falls down.
Dr. Cuddy presents Jackson's case to Dr. House, ordering him not to reveal to the boy that he could have been a girl. They're to refer to the patient's testosterone supplement as "vitamins."
Hadley thinks the patient could have a blind uterus, so the team should do an MRI. House thinks that's a waste of time. The parents come to the same conclusion, so House agrees to the MRI rather than argue with them.
Wilson confronts Cuddy about having sex with House. Cuddy says it would explain House's good mood, but not hers, as she's not feeling wracked by shame.
There's no blind uterus. Jackson needs testosterone blockers. The father tells Hadley they're going to need an euphemism for the testosterone blockers. Hadley thinks this might be the right time to tell the parents the truth.
On clinic duty, House sees a patient complaining of pain. Cuddy refers to that patient as "the moron who broke his finger." Indeed that patient's problem seems to be obvious to everyone but the patient, who practically sets House up to say "Don't do that." Instead of his usual short temper and sarcasm with patients who've misunderstood obvious symptoms, House just puts a metallic finger splint on the guy and he leaves happy and grateful.
Cuddy and Wilson go to House's office to confront him, but find that he has stopped breathing. Foreman opens House's shirt and applies pressure, getting him to breathe again. House claims he overdosed on vicodin. But Wilson thinks House is on heroin.
Foreman and Hadley worry that Kutner and Taub have already figured out the break-up was a ruse. And if Kutner and Taub can figure it out, House has surely figured it out, too.
In Jackson's room at home, Hadley finds a poem that suggests Jackson may be considering suicide.
House doesn't really care about the poem, dismissing it as medically irrelevant, and improvises a continuation:
But the parents are distressed.
Foreman finds out that Kutner and Taub had made a bet. Kutner wagered that Foreman and Hadley are still together, that their break up was staged. When Foreman confirms, Taub pays up.
Wilson takes House to dinner, buys him a shot of bourbon. House immediately figures out it's a covert toxicological screen. House drinks the shot and leaves. Wilson follows House out and finds House vomiting. House admits he's been taking methadone.
Hadley tells Jackson that she's not giving him "vitamins." This leads the parents to ask Cuddy that Hadley be removed from Jackson's case.
Cuddy gives House an ultimatum: quit the methadone or quit Princeton-Plainsboro. House chooses to quit the hospital. Cuddy puts Foreman in charge of the diagnostics team.
The mother confronts Hadley, Cuddy intervenes, tells the mother to go be with her son in his hospital room. Hadley thanks Cuddy, but Cuddy tells Hadley that was for the parents.
Cuddy offers House his job back on the condition that his methadone treatment be administered at the hospital.
Tropes
- Bring My Brown Pants: Dr. Hadley complains to Dr. House that "recreating the moment when you made us crap our pants isn't actually all that funny."
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Jackson's final diagnosis is actually a mundane case of dehydration, but due to Dr. House being on methadone at the time, he decided to humor the parents and do an MRI despite knowing full well that it was completely unnecessary. The tracer fluid used during the scan is what contributed to his worsening condition, since his kidneys was unable to properly filter them out at the time. Dr. House lampshades this to Dr. Cuddy as to why he decided to quit methadone, since it lead to him creating a case that didn't need to exist.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Dr. House humors the patient's parents and fails to notice subtle hints that Dr. Foreman and Dr. Hadley defied his order to split or quit. The only logical conclusion for Dr. Wilson is that House is taking heroin.
- Sherlock Scan: If Dr. Hadley wears the shoes Dr. Foreman likes to work, Dr. House will immediately figure out the break-up was not genuine. But they weren't expecting House's deductive abilities to be impaired by some powerful drug.
- Shout-Out to Sylvia Plath: Jackson's poem was a school assignment, it was supposed to be a poem in the style of Sylvia Plath. Jackson actually imitates her style well, at least her rhythm, which prioritizes rhymes at the expense of meter. Dr. House's continuation, by contrast, is an iambic octameter that would stick out like a sore thumb in a Plath poem.
- Walk and Talk: The first time Dr. Foreman's in charge of the team.
