Directed by: Greg Yaitanes
Written by: Sara Hess and Liz Friedman
Three animal soldiers are hesitant to proceed with a mission. They go ahead and the whole thing goes wrong: Game Over. It turns out to be part of a video game under development, a game that's due out in three months.
Dr. House doesn't want to return to work at Princeton-Plainsboro,
Dr. Foreman convinces Dr. Cuddy to have him head up the diagnostics department
The patient diagnoses himself by reading medical journals on the Internet. Due to his "findings", the patient wants mercury chelation, but Foreman thinks that's a pointless test.
During spinal stimulation, the patient's lungs fill with fluid. Foreman finds out that the patient hacked his online profile and found a photo of him with Dr. Hadley in a swimsuit.
Dr. Hadley and Dr. Taub go to the patient's office and play the game. They're impressed by the animation, particularly the birds. Back at the hospital, they ask the patient if he has studied birds: it turns out he has done so extensively, going so far as dissecting them. This might explain his original illness; however, a new symptom has appeared: an erection that's lasted three hours. The patient demands an MRI. Foreman acquiesces, and, just as he expected, it shows nothing out of the ordinary.
House sees Dr. Nolan (Andre Braugher) for an outpatient consult. Nolan suggests he take up a hobby with Dr. Wilson, so they try cooking classes.
Cuddy visits House while he's cooking in the kitchen with a Chinese woman who doesn't speak English. She reveals that she does speak a little English and tells Cuddy to kiss House or get out. House spends the night cooking.
Hadley shows up at Wilson's apartment to see House and complain about Foreman. She also mentions that the patient has posted his case online.
With his face swollen up, the patient offers a $25,000 reward. Flooded with bad theories, Foreman confronts the patient, who now insists on being tested for amyloidosis because that's what most of the crowd is suggesting. It seems to be the correct diagnosis, as the symptoms begin to subside.
Taub quits and decides to go back to plastic surgery, which he abandoned to work with House.
House puts Labrador retriever urine in Wilson's toilet. Confronted by Cuddy and Wilson, House produces a urine sample in a cup made by Wilson's nephew.
Out of his hospital bed, the patient hallucinates the hospital lobby is a scene from his video game, grabs a woman's fast food soda cup, and throws it at Foreman as if it was a grenade. The patient falls down screaming, with a high fever. Amyloidosis doesn't explain these symptoms.
Foreman believes that the diagnosis is LCDD and decides to start the patient on chemotherapy. This time the patient doesn't argue. "You're my doctor, I trust you," the patient says. "You're scared," Foreman says.
In the locker room, after taking a shower, Foreman notices his fingertips are wrinkled from the water. The patient was in a tub of water earlier, but his fingers weren't wrinkled at all, which means Fabry's disease. Foreman rushes to stop the chemotherapy, but Hadley had already stopped it. She posted the new symptoms online and someone answered Fabry's, claiming the reward.
Cuddy makes it official: Foreman is the head of the diagnostic department.
House shows Nolan the check for $25,000 he got for solving the patient's case.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- "Eureka!" Moment: Dr. Foreman notices his fingers are all wrinkled after a shower (he had to change his shirt because of the drink the patient spilled on him). This leads him to realize that the patient has Fabry's disease.
- Medium Blending: The usual film and digital video is mixed with 3D animations for the patient's hallucination in the hospital lobby.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: The patient of the week works on video games, but it's not clear what he does. Apparently, he and two others do all the work of programming, modelling, animating, marketing, etc.
