House: Acronyms Aplenty

Nothing drives me crazier than a sports game taking up valuable primetime slots on a network. Yes, more so than the Jay Leno show. This week, it was the Yankees vs the Angels which decided to take up forty-three extra minutes before House finally came on. Closing the Facebook chat window where I had been ranting with a fellow House fan, I gave my full attention to the action taking place on the screen.

An exciting, fast-paced police chase (on foot) opens up this week’s episode. Our Patient of the Week is a cop named Donny who is faced with the decision on whether or not he wants to jump from one roof to the next to catch the suspect or if he should just let the suspect escape. Donny decides to jump, but misses the roof and falls from a deadly height. Miraculously, he survives and ends up at Princeton Plainsboro with some broken bones and a collapsed lung.

At first, you may think Donny takes his job extremely seriously and wanted more than anything to catch the suspect. However, we quickly find out from Donny’s partner that Donny has a habit of being reckless because he believes he’s going to die at forty, anyways – just like his father and grandfather before him. Cameron insists he go under Dr. House’s care and that they can find out what’s wrong with him and prevent such an early death.

House doesn’t think the team has much of a case going for them. If he were officially in charge of the team, he would have made them drop the case. Lucky for Donny, it’s Foreman who is making the calls here so the team begins to try and diagnose him. Meanwhile, a bombshell is dropped when Donny’s former girlfriend arrives to tell them that she and Donny had a son together, Michael, whom Donny doesn’t know about. She’s worried Michael may have the same mysterious condition as his father. Once he finds out, Donny wants nothing to do with his son; he believes he is sparing Michael the pain of having to lose a father.

House is becoming fed up, thinking this whole case is pointless. So dragging Chase along, the two of them come up with a completely made up disease (“Ortoli Syndrome”) and House gives him some candy pills to take home. Later that night, Foreman pays House a visit, and now I think my notes on the episode are really the only way to give you the raw rundown of what happened next:

Donny collapses and dies four hours after being discharged. Noooooooooo Father/son were supposed to get better and reconnect!

House blames himself before performing autopsy with Foreman: “I don’t think there’s anything we screw up we haven’t already screwed up.”

WTF HE’S NOT DEAD

That was definitely by far one of the creepiest moments ever on House. Slicing a man open only to find out he’s still alive?! OMG. Only acronyms seem to be able to describe this situation!

Now House believes they really do have a legitimate case on their hands (and it only took slicing someone open to figure that out!). The team plays around with the theory of bone cancer. Donny begins complaining of jaw pain and pulls out of his own perfectly healthy tooth! That’s when it clicks for House: Donny is suffering from a type of brain aneurism which causes Donny to do reckless things. House calls it a “self-destruct” button that eventually causes the heart to stop.

There were a lot of things going on in this episode aside from Donny’s case. The guilt from killing Dibala is starting to catch up to Chase even more. He can’t enter the ICU room without having flashbacks from Dibala’s final moments. Chase goes around looking for answers: he consults with Donny who tells him of two cops he knew who once shot suspects. Donny says one cop was perfectly okay afterwards, while the other was never able to get over it. Chase also goes to confession, hoping to find an answer there except it’s not the answer he particularly wants to hear. The priest tells Chase to turn himself in. Cameron is still supects something is wrong, but Chase remains mum even when he returns home completely drunk.

House is still living it up with Wilson, but Wilson wants him to move to the second bedroom (aka: the shrine of Amber) instead of sleeping on the couch. House hears whispers at night and begins wondering if he’s going crazy again, even though he’s off the Vicodin. Turns out it’s nothing more than Wilson’s voice carrying through the vents as he speaks to Amber at night. Sadness all around.

It should also be noted that this episode was Thirteen-free and I, for one, certainly did not miss her presence. And with that, I shall see you again in November.

For another take on this episode, read Brave Heart (No, not with Mel in a kilt) by Cameron Cubbison.

Season 6, Episode 5: Brave Heart (originally aired October 19, 2009)

For more on House, click here.

Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Michael Yarish