House: Instant Karma

Hey! Someone’s dying of an impossibly obscure illness that no doctor can pinpoint! Good thing Dr. Gregory House has decided to stick around and work his magic. Without James Earl Jones, this episode isn’t quite as strong as last week’s, but it’s smooth sailing. House seems to have found its groove again.

The patient this week is a young boy named Jack, whose father Roy is a super rich business magnate. Jack has been sick for a long time, suffering from intense stomach pains. Roy barges into Princeton-Plainsboro and demands that House treat his son. Cuddy tells him that Foreman is in charge and that House is unavailable (you know, that whole not having a medical license thing). Roy says that unless he’s dead, crazy, or in jail, he wants House working on his son now. House fits two of those criteria. Good enough.

This kid has a whole lot wrong with him. Before they’re done, the team will have injected him, drilled into his skull, messed with his colon, and even pronounced him terminal. But you know that House will be talking about something totally unrelated to the case and then he’ll get that epiphany look in his eyes and he’ll hobble into action to save the patient at the eleventh hour. Very rarely does he or the team ultimately fail.

Of course, the B storyline this week results from exactly that: the team failed to save James Earl Jones’ murderous dictator Dibala. Actually they didn’t fail. Chase intentionally sabotaged his treatment and effectively killed him. Don’t worry, Dibala had it coming. Except now Chase and Foreman have to face a review board at something called a “Morbidity and Mortality” conference. Foreman covered for Chase last week and seemingly burned all the evidence of the sabotage. But there was something he missed, and now he and Chase have to conspire to find a way to protect themselves from any reprisals. Although Foreman, being the ass that he is, would happily sell Chase out to protect himself. So Chase is the one who really has to find something, some lie, some explanation that Foreman can use so that Foreman can save himself and then save Chase. And they have to keep all this from House and Cameron.

Speaking of Cameron, this is the first episode that she was in that she didn’t irritate me for as long as I can remember. Maybe I’m going soft. Or maybe I hate Foreman so much that seeing Cameron call him a baby made her rise up the ranks in my book. And speaking of supporting characters, no Taub at all this week. Is he gone for good? I still have my doubts.

And Thirteen has it in her head to take off somewhere tropical, to get some perspective. But someone goes and hacks into her email and cancels her flight reservation. Was it House? Foreman? The Easter Bunny? You’ll have to find out for yourself, but it’s not who you might think.

The big development that occurs with the actual case comes from the father Roy. After a series of misdiagnoses, Roy confesses that everything he touches turns to gold, in the business world at least. He thinks that because of that, his son is on his deathbed. He chalks it all up to karma. He thinks his success caused his wife’s death and now his son’s. House thinks this is crap of course, but the father believes it so much that he’s willing to bankrupt himself to hope that it will change his son’s karma. This provides another opportunity for House to explore one of its central themes, faith and belief versus concrete science.

That’s it in a nutshell. The episode works well enough for me to still be optimistic about the show’s future.

For another take on this episode, read Billionaire Karma by Stephanie Jaar.

Season 6, Episode 4: Instant Karma (originally aired October  12, 2009)

For more on House, click here.

Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX