Pardon the Interruption: House 6:11 - Remorse

Overall: 7.7

This episode provides yet more proof that the writers take ethics and philosophy at least semi-seriously and are relatively good students of human psychology. 'Tis a pretty solid showing with an interestingly creepy patient of the week.

SPOILERS below the cut.



Plot Synopsis:

The Patient of the Week is a 27 year old consultant named Valerie who presents with acute bilateral ear pain. House takes her case primarily because she is hot and her husband is not. But the case takes a turn for the strange when Valerie's former co-worker makes an appearance and accuses Valerie of poisoning him. Foreman believes this co-worker may be projecting, and House agrees, suggesting that Valerie may have been poisoned with thyroid medication.

The one dissenting voice in the room is Thirteen, who has a gut feeling that Valerie is up to something. Behind Foreman's back, Thirteen schedules Valerie for an MRI and discovers during the test that Valerie's limbic system is not functional - that she is, by definition, a psychopath. When confronted, Valerie admits to sleeping with - and then poisoning - her ex-coworker and states that she only married her current husband for his money.

House believes that Valerie's psychopathy may be connected to her other symptoms and recommends ruling out Wilson's, Hashimoto's, and tertiary syphilis. When Thirteen goes to draw the blood for the tests, she makes a few veiled remarks alluding to Valerie's recent activities, and Valerie threatens to get Thirteen fired if Valerie's husband learns anything about the aforementioned affair. After this confrontation, Thirteen reaches for Valerie's arm to get the blood sample and inadvertently breaks it. Valerie's kidneys are now failing.

The team then decides that Valerie may have cancer and schedule her for radiotherapy. While Valerie is away from her room, Thirteen tells Valerie's husband to check into the landscaping class Valerie claimed to have been attending over the summer on the pretense that information regarding the "class" is medically relevant. In the meantime, House visits Valerie in radiotherapy, where Valerie observes that House is very much like her (not true).

Later, Valerie's husband storms in; he has discovered that Valerie's story about the landscaping class was a complete fabrication. As Thirteen looks on in shock, Valerie smoothly covers her lie with another whopper blaming her Thursday night absences on work. This mollifies Valerie's husband, and they hug - with Valerie shooting threatening looks at Thirteen all the while. After this, Valerie calls Cuddy and threatens to sue the hospital if Thirteen is not kicked off her case immediately. Cuddy tells Valerie that she will remove Thirteen from the case, but for Thirteen's protection, not Valerie's. Not entirely satisfied, Valerie then calls the medical board and accuses Thirteen of sexual harassment. In response, Thirteen storms into Valerie's room and angrily confronts her. Foreman, however, quickly cuts this altercation short and advises Thirteen not to give Valerie what she wants. (He also apologizes for firing Thirteen some episodes ago.)

At this point, Valerie's liver fails and she starts to bleed out. Before entering the operating room, Foreman meets with Valerie's husband, who seems uncertain what to do; Valerie, apparently, makes all of the decisions in their relationship. Foreman urges him to step up, and the husband timidly agrees to the stop-gap procedure to stop Valerie's bleeding. What the team discovers, however, is that Valerie will ultimately need a liver transplant.

Thirteen is certain no one from Valerie's family will volunteer to be a living donor, but to her surprise, Valerie's older sister appears. Thirteen questions the sister on her decision to visit, and the sister tells Thirteen that Valerie wasn't born the way she is now - that before she hit puberty, Valerie protected her older sister from their drunk father. Thirteen brings this new information to House, and House ultimately diagnoses Valerie with Wilson's Disease, which can cause psychopathy. Valerie is started on chelation therapy, and her psychiatric status eventually changes. In the end, she drives her husband away because she feels remorse over the way she has treated him.

Meanwhile, as per usual, House is beset by distractions of a more personal nature. For one thing, an apology letter House wrote while an inpatient at Mayfield comes back to haunt him in the form of Lorenzo Wibberly. Apparently, during a seminar both Wibberly and House attended in med school, House switched his final paper with Wibberly's to test a theory that the professor was out to get him. This week, Wibberly comes by to visit.

At first, House tries to hide from Wibberly, first in Wilson's office, then in Cuddy's, where he defaces two of Cuddy's personal photos. When Wibberly finally manages to track House down (with Wilson's help, natch) and take him to lunch, everything Wibberly reveals about his life seems to confirm House's worst fears. Wibberly claims, for example, that he never graduated from med school - that he ended up one credit short because of House's stunt. Wibberly then tells House that he bags groceries for a living. And it gets worse: when House visits Wibberly's home to ascertain whether Wibberly is currently happy, Wibberly tells House that he is moving, as he can no longer pay his variable rate mortgage.

Feeling guilty for he knows not what, House decides he's going to cover Wibberly's mortgage for the next few months. Wilson, however, remarks that throwing money at a virtual stranger is far easier than apologizing to a real friend - like Cuddy, for instance, who was genuinely hurt to discover that House had destroyed her father's final photo. House snarks that "easy" is just the way he likes it, but when he goes to present the check to Wibberly, he seems almost desperate; indeed, at one point, he threatens to shove the check down Wibberly's throat. Wibberly declines House's offer, however; he comes clean and admits that he did finish med school after all and is only in dire financial straits now because of his gambling problem.

In reality, House knows he needs to apologize to Cuddy, but in the end he can't bring himself to walk through Cuddy's door. Thus, another opportunity for progress is wasted.

Writing: 7.0

This script doesn't bring quite the same funny that the last episode did, but I do think bringing in a patient like Valerie serves to provide a very useful - and telling - contrast with House. As it turns out, there is a very real difference between the genuine lack of concern for the welfare of others displayed by Valerie here and House's affectation of same. Until Valerie is treated for the right disease, she goes after Thirteen and manipulates her husband without compunction. House, on the other hand, shows signs of remorse all the time - even when he's being Mr. Deflect-O-Matic.

Acting: 8.0

The actress playing the patient of the week holds her own this time around, I think. She conveys her character's complete lack of human feeling with sufficient creepiness to retain my interest at the very least. And this is also a very good episode for Hugh. I don't know if the rest of you noticed this, but after Wilson says his piece about the relative ease of apologizing to total strangers as opposed to apologizing to one's friends (and House makes that exaggerated show of returning to his work), there is a moment when House falters. It happens just after Wilson turns his back and leaves the room, and it is great: briefly, we see House sag. It's as if he's acknowledging in the privacy of his own thoughts that Wilson is right. Flashes of vulnerability like that are what endeared me to House - and to Hugh's portrayal of him - to begin with.

Message: 8.0

I'm thinking SABR Matt may be right - the writers on House may in fact be covert religious propagandists - or if not that, they are certainly true blue moralists. Two scenes in this episode (which are highlighted below) give me cause to believe thus.

First of all, there is the great scene between Valerie and House in which the nature of the conscience is discussed. House, of course, offers his usual opinion that the conscience, like anything else self-sacrificing, is something wholly irrational. But Valerie zeroes in on where exactly this train of thought goes if followed to its natural conclusion with pinpoint accuracy: "If the conscience is merely an animal instinct," she says, "then you don't need to follow it." Valerie points out to House - and to all of us, incidentally - that she is the end result when the conscience is cast aside. And she implies - quite accurately, I must say - that House fears the consequences of his own Nietzschean ideas.

Secondly, there is another fantastic scene between House and Wilson that - pleasingly, though probably accidentally - cuts right to the heart of most white liberal attempts to obtain absolution. I can name a whole slew of leftist intellectuals and power brokers who claim (or claimed if they are no longer living) that they are fighting for the welfare of the proletariat, or women, or the children, or whatever, yet are complete and utter bastards to the workers, women, and children closest to them. I'd say it qualifies as an epidemic of moral perversion on that side of the political aisle. If the lives of these elitist jerks is any indication, it is indeed much easier to throw money at strangers - or speak of the ideal of "mankind" - than to make things right with your family and friends - in other words, to live a life of private moral rectitude.

Highlights:

WILSON: It's complicated to tell someone you don't like to screw off? That's practically your hobby.
HOUSE: A few months ago, he was... sort of... part of my therapy. My shrink told me to write a letter of apology to someone I hurt.
WILSON: And... how did you hurt him?
HOUSE: We were in a seminar on flatworm genetics. I switched my final paper with his.
WILSON: You plagiarized? That doesn't sound like you. (I'm betting he's being ironic here.)
HOUSE: I was testing a theory that our professor was biased against me. I assumed he'd get a high grade with my paper and I'd get a low grade with his. Interestingly... I was wrong. I got an A.
WILSON: So you're in this mental hospital delving into your subconscious, and this is who you choose to apologize to?
HOUSE: Yep. Lorenzo Wibberly...
WILSON: Of all the people in the world you've hurt?
HOUSE: Not everybody has a name that's so easy to find in the white pages.
WILSON: Ummm... I'm in there. And so is Cuddy.
HOUSE: Yeah... and yet I picked him. Funny, isn't it?
WILSON: Yes, it's hilarious. Great to see what a success your therapy was.
(Wilson leaves.)
HOUSE: You said we'd never go to sleep angry!

CHASE: Where are you?
HOUSE: (in Cuddy's office) Undisclosed location.
TAUB: Who are you hiding from?
HOUSE: Wilson... and a lunch date that Wilson is no doubt right now trying to sic on me. But in the great chess game that is our relationship, Wilson only sees one move ahead. I see dozens. That is why he will never mate me.
(The ducklings exchange looks.)
HOUSE: That's a chess term. (Ha. I can't resist a pun.)

HOUSE: You're ignoring my texts?
WILSON: The crazy ones you sent trying to get me to make you feel better for destroying your classmate's life? No, I never got those.
PATIENT: (in Spanish) Who is this?
WILSON: (in broken Spanish) He is a doctor of medical.
HOUSE: (in fluent Spanish) Also of medicine. Dr. Wilson called me in on a consult. (He switches to English.) Really, he's got some sort of agenda - probably trying to guilt me into getting him a better job.
WILSON: How pissed was he?
HOUSE: Not at all. That's how I know he's got an agenda.
PATIENT: (in Spanish) It hurts a lot.
HOUSE: (in Spanish) Then you shouldn't have hit it.
PATIENT: (in Spanish) Very dangerous working conditions.
WILSON: (in English) If you feel guilty, you should do something to help. You are responsible.
HOUSE: (to the patient in Spanish after a beat) Don't worry. Dr. Wilson is a good doctor who has great empathy for his patients - which stems from his own crippling battle with male sexual dysfunction.
WILSON: (looks pleased, but then stops to think) Wh-what? (LOL!)

HOUSE: So when you watch Star Wars, which side do you root for?
VALERIE: Dr. House - what are you doing?
HOUSE: Just checking in on your radiotherapy.
VALERIE: From what I hear, you never visit patients - and now you've come to chat with me twice.
HOUSE: I want to know how you like being a management consultant. I'm thinking of getting into it - that or psychopathy, maybe. Which pays better?
VALERIE: I think you're already into one of them. Dr. Hadley made a joke yesterday. She said I sound like you.
HOUSE: Sure you understand what 'joke' means?
VALERIE: So you're not just out for yourself? For example, you would never interrupt a sick woman's treatment just because of some personal obsession?
HOUSE: Course I'm self interested. We all are. We're born that way. But the rest of us are born with consciences.
VALERIE: Which is something you just sound ecstatic about.
HOUSE: I'm not saying it's logical. I'm just saying it's human.
VALERIE: So if you know your conscience is just an animal instinct, you don't need to follow it. I think you realize that. That's why you're talking to me. (LOVE THIS SCENE.)

WILSON: What are you doing?
HOUSE: Paying Wibberly's mortgage for a few months. Congratulations on another successful round of hectoring.
WILSON: Wait-wait-wait - is that actually a check for him?
HOUSE: Noooo - it's a giant novelty item for winning the lottery. You're just standing really far away.
WILSON: Of all the people to go the extra mile for, why this guy?
HOUSE: I don't know. He just kind of smells good and makes me laugh...
WILSON: Why not Cuddy? You never apologized after you defaced her photo.
HOUSE: Maybe because I recognize that sending someone to the poor house is a little more serious than editing a snapshot.
WILSON: No, it's because Cuddy actually means something to you, which makes it much harder to apologize.
HOUSE: Oy! If it will get you to shut up, I will tell her that I'm sorry about the photo.
WILSON: Forget the photo. House, she was in love with you, and all she got in return was abuse. For years you toyed with her emotions.
HOUSE: She wasn't in love with me.
WILSON: The fact that you still can't admit it just proves my point.
HOUSE: What do you want? Helping the guy was your idea!
WILSON: No, help the guy. Whatever. I'm just pointing out that it's much easier to soothe your guilt by throwing money at a stranger than by making amends with someone you actually care about. (LOVE THIS TOO.)