House: Money, Drugs and Showtunes

The doctor is in for the first episode of House of the decade, and he’s got his hands full with his new patient: a drug dealer named Mickey (not the mouse) who collapsed during a parking lot shootout…but who wasn’t shot. He’s got some neurological nightmare going on and House has to figure out what it is. The fact that his client is a criminal is irrelevant for him. But being that Mickey and his associate Eddie (played by Nick Chinlund who almost always plays a lowlife as in Con Air) have to worry about incriminating themselves, they are reluctant to tell House and his team anything about their profession or lives. This makes getting Mickey’s medical and environmental history quite a challenge for the team.

What’s most interesting about this setup is that Mickey’s criminality does not faze House or his team in the slightest. It’s a great window into who House is. He isn’t someone defined by conceptions of morality or ethics. He is aloof, driven only by an insatiable quest to solve puzzles, to master them and thereby transcend them. (House does jokingly ask Chase if he will be able to abstain from murdering Mickey, a reference to the whole Dibala incident from earlier in the season).

In House’s personal life, he and Wilson are still getting acclimated to being roommates and living in a new apartment (the one that Wilson swindled from Cuddy to show loyalty to House after she lied to him about Lucas). The problem: everyone thinks they are a couple. After all, they are two middle-aged men sharing an apartment and a profession. People will talk…and they do, especially a foxy neighbor named Nora. Wilson wants to date her, House wants to bed her. Wilson decides to focus on convincing her that he isn’t gay, while House takes the opposite approach. He decides to embrace being gay, his plan being to become chummy with her in the way that only gay men can with beautiful women. First come back massages, then sleepovers, then “ooh, I’ve never felt this way about a woman before!” It’s a crazy plan. In other words, it’s typical House.

This is the highlight of the episode: watching House do everything in his power to convince Nora that he and Wilson are an item while Wilson tries to undo everything House does. Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard are the most entertaining when they are playing off each other like The Odd Couple, good cop to bad cop. This is certainly the funniest setup they have ever had to work with.

There is also a pretty significant and interesting twist involving Mickey that occurs halfway through the episode. Suffice it to say that he isn’t exactly what he appears to be. The other highlight is seeing Chase, Thirteen and Taub plan a scheme to convince Foreman that they make more money than he does. I also can’t tell you how happy I still am that Cameron is gone for good, and grateful for a break from the nauseating Thirteen/Foreman romance.

For another take on this episode, read I need the drugs! by Stephanie Jaar.

Season 6, Episode 10: The Down Low (originally aired January 11, 2010)

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Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal and IMDbPro