House: Everybody knows this is going somewhere…

Earlier this week, I had a dream in which House turned into High School Musical, and all the doctors were singing in a gym.  Chase was playing an electric guitar.  It was awesome.  But then I woke up and was ashamed of myself.[*]

On to the actual show.  It’s one of those episodes where the main medical plot is secondary to the doctors’ various interpersonal dramas.  As usual, it works.

Sweeps is over, so the only lasting impact we have from last week’s gun-toting event episode is that Cuddy’s getting her office redone.  This gives her an excuse to take over House’s office.  She then spends the episode flouncing around in gorgeous outfits, offering up come-hither body language, jumping into differentials without being asked, messing with House’s stuff, and generally throwing herself at House in the classiest possible way. (And I really mean that, about the classiness.  It’s way classier than when Cameron did it back in season 1.  Cuddy is incapable of doing anything without class.)

And then we get a real, honest-to-goodness House/Cuddy scene in which they’re straight with each other about their feelings – for about five seconds, until House intentionally ruins the moment by groping her.  I really hate him sometimes.  Cuddy looks like she feels the same way.  You can seriously see the light go out in Lisa Edelstein’s eyes.  Man, Cuddy must hate herself for wanting this at all.

If this were a lesser show I’d say it was unrealistic that Cuddy wouldn’t be 100% over House by now, and married off to some rich, boring lawyer or something.  But it’s Lisa Edelstein, and she’s got me convinced that she truly believes House is the best she’s ever going to do, and that he’s worth all this crap.  Although I don’t see it working out that way, either.  I think they’ll date briefly, break up horribly, and end the series just as alone as they are now, only even more bitter.  And yet I still want them to get together, because the anticipation is worse than all that.

Anyway, at the end of the episode it almost looks like things might be saved when House somehow imports Cuddy’s old med school desk into her renovated office.  She gets all happy and goes to thank him, but then she sees House hanging out in his office with his hooker friend (more on her in a sec) and, again with the light going out of her eyes.  Awww.

Unlike last week’s near miss, this is not the kind of conflict that’s easily resolved, so I expect it’ll be another four episodes before we get our next forward step in getting this relationship going.  Great.  Four more weeks of watching Hugh Laurie do his piercing-eyes look down the hallway as Cuddy’s heels click away from him.  Well, it could be worse.  As J.B. Perlow once pointed out, it could be season 5 of Who’s the Boss.

But lest we forget, there is a patient this week: a young woman who looks a lot like Cameron used to look and acts a lot like Cameron has always acted.  I initially assumed this was going to be a plot point, or at least a source of jokes, but it seems like the casting for this character was just a coincidence.  Or maybe it was to distract us from the absence of the actual Jennifer Morrison from 98% of the episode.

The patient is a Fitness Celebrity who stars in DVDs about the importance of living a healthy lifestyle.  But the docs quickly figure out that she’s a hypocrite – she used to be obese, then had a gastric bypass, then had the surgery removed from her records so her DVD buyers wouldn’t know she got her perfect body by cheating.  Taub is really, really, really angry about this and has no problem sharing those feelings with the patient.  She responds by mocking him for being short.  I never noticed his height before, but now that I have: Ha. (I’m short too, so I can mock him without feeling guilty.)

After the usual rounds of incorrect diagnoses, the patient turns out to have a genetic disorder that has something to do with enzymes.  The treatment is to reverse her gastric bypass and keep her on a high-carb diet rich in sugar.  She refuses this recommendation, and opts for a not-as-effective yet skinny-preserving drug treatment instead.  Taub is disappointed by this, because Taub is the only one who noticed she was there.

And, speaking of Taub, this episode includes a nice moment where House tries to pick Taub’s brain about relationships, and Taub is completely uninterested in engaging with him, and it’s funny.  You know, I think the House/Taub relationship has the potential to be really interesting.  They’d be peers if Taub hadn’t gotten himself kicked out of the entire plastic surgery profession.  And they have a lot in common, in that they’re both big old jerks.  Plus, Taub is probably the funniest minion ever, after Chase.  I love Chase.

Also, remember how I said last week that I was so happy we were done dealing with Thirteen’s issues? … Yeah.

This week, Thirteen, who’s made a remarkable recovery from last week’s near-death experience, is getting started in Foreman’s conveniently Huntington’s-focused clinical trial.  She finds this traumatic because it requires her to interact with other Huntington’s patients.  This triggers flashbacks of Thirteen’s childhood and her mother’s experience with the illness, featuring a child actress who is really, really snotty-looking.  Good casting there, at least.

We also get the hints at a future Thirteen/Foreman romance, which, okay.  Even though logically, if the goal is to pair off everyone in the opening credits, then Foreman should be hooking up with Wilson.

In yet another subplot, Kutner has set up second opinion diagnosis website, claiming to be House, and is raking in the dough.  Kutner is sure House won’t find out about this.  Uh, OK, Kutner.  As if anyone as vain as House wouldn’t have Google Alerts set up on his name.  And then there’s a whole thing where people keep making Kutner give them a cut of his profits in exchange for not telling on him, and then one of his online patients shows up for an in-person consult with House, and Kutner ignores her and then we’re supposed to believe she died, but there’s no sad music and there are too many minutes left in the episode and it all turns out to be a big joke House played to teach Kutner a lesson, via hiring a hooker to pretend to be a crazy, dead patient.

Okay, that was funny.  But look, if the writers really couldn’t think of any storylines for Kutner to do, they should’ve just had House hire Amber instead of him.  And then Wilson could’ve hooked up with Kutner, and Kutner could’ve almost died, and we could’ve had a trippy episode where Kutner was stalking House in his dreams and having sexual tension with him.  And then Wilson and the dying Kutner could’ve cuddled and cried and then Wilson could’ve turned off the machines and it would’ve been sooooo sad.

Oh my God, that would’ve been the most awesome thing ever in the world.  They really should just hire me to write this show.

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[*] But apparently not so ashamed that I had a problem sharing it with the good readers of Poptimal.com.

Season 5, Episode 10: Let Them Eat Cake (originally aired December 2, 2008)

For more on House, click here.

House, Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

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