House: My position is, you’re wrong.

Yay. It’s another Thirteen/Foreman centric episode. Because that’s totally the reason I and 15 million other people have been watching this show for five years. Because we want to see more about Thirteen and Foreman.

So let’s get it over with.

House, who I guess is bored with this storyline too, issues an ultimatum: Either they break up, or one of them quits. They decide to call House’s bluff by refusing to do either, so House fires Foreman. Then Foreman and Thirteen (or “Foreteen,” as House insists on calling them, which has irritated me ever since I saw Omar Epps crowing about it on the red carpet) angst and argue about what to do. Yes, it’s just as lame as it sounds.

When Cuddy refuses to give Foreman a letter of recommendation, he realizes that he really did ruin his career with that stunt in the clinical trial. Well, yeah. Maybe now he’ll go work for a free clinic somewhere and help actual people instead of torturing/treating one patient a week and getting to feel smart about it. But no, no, Foreman is too good for that. He must have his old job back and he must have it now.

So Thirteen finds another job and gets House to agree to hire Foreman back. Then Foreman and Thirteen have a big fight and break up right in front of House. House is thrilled, because, according to him, “Conflict breeds creativity.” Well, that, or he’s so miserable he can’t have Cuddy that he’s determined to screw up everyone else’s relationships. But then it turns out that Foreman and Thirteen just pretended to break up for House’s benefit. And I was all set to give the show credit, since I didn’t see that coming, but then I realized that it’s even worse this way, because now we have to watch Foreman and Thirteen make out and fight in every single episode until House finds out.

In another of the episode’s low points, now that Thirteen isn’t dying anytime soon it’s apparently okay for the male characters on the show to start making crude, offensive jokes about her bisexuality again, because Kutner, Taub, and Foreman all indulge (and there’s one Kutner/Taub exchange that I can only assume made it past the censors because the censors didn’t get the joke).

Plus, not to keep making everything about Chase and Cameron, but since Foreman brought them up when he was trying to justify himself to House – remember how Chase and Cameron, like Foreman and Thirteen, got together over a multi-episode arc? And remember how, unlike Foreman and Thirteen, the Chase/Cameron stuff was always a teeny tiny subplot of every episode, which usually focused on, you know, the patient, and also, that guy whose name is on the title of this show? Yeah. Also, remember how that romance didn’t come out of nowhere? How it had been foreshadowed a full year in advance and how it built up out of a believable camaraderie and also directly related to their histories with that guy whose name is in the title, without having to squeeze in new, boring subplots to connect the dots? (And, speaking of Chase and Cameron, they actually get to appear together in a scene this episode, and a reference is even made to an upcoming wedding, though it’s unclear whether that’s a joke or for real.)

Meanwhile, this week’s case is actually interesting. Our patient is a 29-year-old priest, Father Daniel, who drinks and smokes and complains a lot because he lost his faith after having been accused of molesting a teen parishioner (he says the kid was confused). Also, the actor playing the priest looks so familiar I paused my DVR to look him up. He’s Jimmi Simpson, who I guess made a big impression on me in that small role he had in Zodiac,  since I haven’t seen him in anything else. Or maybe it’s just that he looks a lot like Michael Weston, who fortunately has not appeared on House in a while but who always freaks me out because he reminds me of that Six Feet Under episode where it looked like it was going to be a normal episode about how all the characters were dumb but then it turned into a super-freaky hour-long sequence about David being carjacked.

Anyway, back to Father Daniel. In the teaser, he has a vision of a crucified Jesus, which is also freaky, and which I also can’t believe made it past the censors. Father Daniel winds up in the ER, where Cameron diagnoses him (correctly, as it turns out) with drunkenness, but House poaches the file because he thinks it’ll be a nothing case and that it will make it easier for him to get rid of Foreman and Thirteen, or something. Father Daniel confesses to his doctors that he’s lost his faith, thanks to the teen’s accusations and the church’s subsequent treatment of him. House adores Father Daniel, as he often does with characters who agree with his outlook on life, but no one thinks Father Daniel is actually sick until his toe falls off at the 12-minute mark. (Seriously.)

So then they run their usual tests and get their usual diagnoses and Father Daniel goes blind in one eye, etc. In the meantime, Kutner and Taub, especially Taub, are rude to him, but Father Daniel is still in a good enough mood to psychoanalyze House and imply something about his faith that I didn’t quite follow. Also, House comes up with a metaphor for Father Daniel’s condition that involves Duran Duran, which causes Kutner to out himself as a major Duran Duran fan, which made me laugh.

For a while, they think Father Daniel has AIDS, and Taub shows off his prick side by breaking confidentiality and tracking down the kid Father Daniel was accused of molesting and telling him so he can get tested. But then the kid makes it clear that he was indeed lying (or “confused” if you prefer), which is shocking to Taub and Kutner and to absolutely no one in the viewing audience. Then House figures out that Father Daniel is free of AIDS and instead has a genetic disorder that just behaves exactly like AIDS but is, I guess, curable. And then there’s a scene where I swear it looks like Daniel is hitting on House, but it turns out he’s just using House as a vehicle to regain his faith. Cop-out.

Oh, and hey, remember how there’s a character on this show who’s in the opening credits and who is a devout Catholic who was almost a priest himself once upon a time? Yeah, he gets his traditional one-and-a-half scenes in the ep (one scene with lines, one without). But they have nothing to do with Daniel. They’re just there to further other people’s romances. Thanks for stopping by, Chase. Here’s your check.

And in the C-plot, Cuddy’s planning a Simchat bat (baby-naming ceremony) for Rachel, and she wants House to come because whatever. I am officially over House/Cuddy. But I guess a lot of people aren’t because we get a ton of filler scenes with House and Wilson and Cuddy discussing whether House should go to the ceremony, and whether he wants to go, and whether Cuddy wants him to go, and whether he’s pretending he doesn’t want to go, and whether she’s pretending she doesn’t want him to go so he’ll decide to go after all, and on and on and on until in the end, he doesn’t go and instead hangs out at home, drinking and playing the piano alone. And we’re nearing the point in the series at which such scenes will no longer make me feel sorry for him.

But it’s okay, because Robert Sean Leonard is kinda funny this week (which is a relief, because it’s getting harder and harder to watch Lisa Edelstein try to work within the terrible scenes she’s given). And we get to see half the cast dressed up in nice clothes for the ceremony, which I always enjoy. (Well, okay, Chase doesn’t even shave for it, but at least he puts on a tie. And a yarmulke! I love Chase.) Also Cuddy and Cameron bond briefly about Cuddy’s crush on House. This show totally violates the Bechdel Rule over and over and over. I would love to see Cuddy and Cameron bond over being, like, you know, smart doctors or something.

Next week, a shocking episode about the unheard-of concept of intersexuality. Thanks, Fox. This must’ve been what 1955 felt like.

Season 5, Episode 15: Unfaithful (originally aired February 16, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Religious Hokum Against Sponge Bath by Cameron Cubbison.

For more on House, click here.

House, Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of FOX Broadcasting Company and IMDbPro