Directed by: Katie Jacobs
Written by: Matthew V. Lewis and Eli Attie
Dr. Foreman tells Dr. Hadley about a trial for a new Huntington's drug. She's not interested. Meanwhile Dr. House is in Dr. Cuddy's office, looking through the papers in her desk, when a patient comes in asking to see Dr. Cuddy, House tells him to go away, which he does. But then he comes back in with a gun and several hostages, including Hadley and a nurse. House will diagnose him, or hostages will die.
"I've been to sixteen doctors in the past two years," the patient explains. House tries to reason with the patient, but since he can't be talked out of it, he decides to go along. After reviewing the patient's medical history, House determines he needs propofol to make the diagnosis. On the phone, he asks for a guard to bring it in, but the patient demands Cuddy bring it in, she does.
The patient is so unwilling to give up his gun that it hinders the diagnostic process. Rolling up his sleeve is extremely difficult. Some SWAT team members are scurrying about to get into position outside of Cuddy's office and the patient is able to hear that. His "amped-up hearing" could be a symptom.
Cuddy agrees to make more deliveries, despite the SWAT team leader's concern and his suggestion that she should have refused.
House gets the rest of his team on the phone, even including Dr. Chase. But Chase doesn't stay for long: there are quite enough people in New Jersey who have both unexplained symptoms and a gun, and they don't merit seven doctors on their case.
Foreman rules out lung infection, House checks the patient's pulse. House calls Dr. Wilson, who suggests the patient could be suffering from a metastasized tumor.
"How many hostages will it cost me for a trip to radiology?" the patient asks. He releases more hostages and takes the remaining hostages to radiology.
The guy goes into the CT machine while still holding his gun. But the image is useless, because the metal in the gun produced a starburst effect. The patient hands the gun to House, and the remaining hostages leave, except for Hadley and some random guy who's just curious.
This time, the image is good, but it shows no tumor. "It's over, thanks for trying," the patient says, but House gives him his gun back, much to Hadley's dismay. For the next round of drugs, the patient agrees to stop using Hadley as a "taster." But he goes back on his word. Hadley agrees to go along: she's going to die from drugs she doesn't need to take or from a bullet.
The SWAT team blast in. The patient is arrested, and Hadley and House are rescued. In a conversation with Cuddy, House suggests that her willingness to go along with the whole thing was because she's in love with him.
Hadley agrees to the clinical trial Foreman mentioned earlier. Cuddy goes to her office, which is a mess: a list of symptoms written on a wall, a shoe, some blood, etc.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Brick Joke: At the beginning of the episode, it looks like Dr. House is looking for something in Dr. Cuddy's desk. Maybe he was, but his primary purpose was to invert a drawer so that when Cuddy opens it, the contents will fall out on the floor. At the end of the episode, this prank is adding insult to the injury of everything else.
- Code Silver: The main plot of this episode.
- Contrived Coincidence: The patient brings in some hostages (a mixture of potential patients and hospital staff) in to Cuddy's office, while House is rummaging around for his prank. He then demands from House to see the best doctor in the hospital, who happens to be House.
- Human Shield: The patient uses Dr. Hadley, Dr. House and a few other hostages as an all-around human shield to protect him from snipers while he makes his way to radiology.
- Improperly Paranoid: The patient keeps believing that every time House asks him to inject himself with something to test the disease, House is trying to make him inject himself with tranquilizers to pass out and be arrested, so he makes Hadley inject herself with all of them first. The injections eventually react rather harshly with her Huntington's Disease, to the point that she begs the patient to stop forcing her to do this because she is afraid of dying.
