One of the more intriguing cold opens, despite its dryness: A man finds himself blacking out, finding large portions of his day completely absent from his memory. No epilepsy, no drugs, no alcohol.
House does his best to discourage Cuddy from adopting. He expresses the same doubt to his team during the differential. Jerry Harmon is a consumer product tester, explaining the five coffee makers he was sniffing at the introduction. House orders the team to investigate his home, where Taub and Thirteen find mold. Taub expresses his own doubts in single parents.
Samantha (Jerry’s daughter) tells Thirteen that she and her father lack any semblance of a social life. As her mother died when she was young, the patient’s daughter doesn’t know “what the big deal is about death.” Thirteen is concerned about her ambivalence. Foreman and Thirteen find Mr. Harmon trying to leave the building “to an appointment,” apparently sleepwalking in the middle of the day. House suggests that they send Mr. Harmon home and follow him later.
Cuddy meets with her adoptive child’s birth mother, Becca. Cuddy asks her why she chose a single woman to be the mother of her child. “I saw your picture…I don’t want her raised by a loser.” Cuddy notices a rash on her wrist. She takes her to Cameron, who is taken aback by her overprotective tendencies. Cuddy has Becca admitted for a heat rash.
Taub and Thirteen conduct a sleep study in Jerry’s house. They find that his brain’s turned off motor function just as he’s leaving the house. Taub and Thirteen follow Mr. Harmon to a shady alley, where they find him buying cocaine and using about a block down.
“Sleeping Beauty has a jones for Snow White…”
Lacking an explanation for Jerry’s first sleepwalking episode, House orders the team to buy cocaine to test for whatever Jerry’s dealer cut it with. Taub awkwardly approaches the dealer.
“I would like to buy some cocaine, please?”
House spills baby spit-up (courtesy of the maternity ward) on Cuddy’s shoulder in another attempt to turn her off from being a parent.
“Why do you care? It’s not like I’ll ever ask you to babysit.”
“I’m a humanitarian.”
Cuddy has Becca kept in the hospital to monitor her. Becca expresses guilt for endangering her child’s life. “If you had done everything right in your life, I wouldn’t be getting a baby.” Becca begins bleeding from somewhere below the waist, which is never good.
Placental abruption, losing blood rapidly. If the baby is delivered now, they endanger her life, if they wait the mother’s life is risked. House tells Cuddy to deliver immediately, but only does it to test Cuddy’s judgement.
“Your motives aren’t medical. Some part of you doesn’t want this baby. And that part wants to tell her to kill it.”
Cuddy leaves on the verge of tears. House visits Wilson in the breakroom, Wilson tries to reassure House that Cuddy has made a firm decision.
“I need your advice–”
“It’s not cancer.”
Jerry tells Taub that something inside him told him to buy the coke. Taub notices him sweating blood. Cocaine and allergies are off the table. Leukemia is suspected, House orders a bone marrow biopsy. During the biopsy, Taub notices a difference in the skin tone of Jerry’s legs. Leukemia is out. Kutner finds that Jerry’s kidneys are failing and they can’t put him on dialysis. He needs a kidney transplant.
The storylines converge when Cuddy is at Becca’s surgery and is unavailable to sign a consent for Samantha to donate a kidney to her father. A c-section is successfully performed on Becca, and Cuddy becomes a mother ten weeks early. “Now it’s time to tell your daughter those words she’s going to hear for the rest of her life: ‘Mommy’s gotta go to work.'”
Cuddy explains the risks of transplant surgery to Samantha, but House notices a familiar vacant sleepwalking look on her face. They are both afflicted with the same illness. Samantha begins sweating blood. A genetic disorder is determined to be the most likely. House consults Wilson on the diagnosis.
“I’ve just given you the answer, haven’t I? And now you’re going to walk out of here without saying a word.”
“…Nope!”
House notices that Jerry and Samantha are incapable of expressing happiness, possible non-functioning dopamine receptors. Jerry had subconscious craving for cocaine to stimulate his emotions. House’s intuition kicks in, and has discerned that Jerry is not a natural born citizen. He reveals that his real name is Jamal Hamud and that he changed it after Gulf War I. House diagnoses them with Familial Mediterranean Fever, a hereditary disorder that only affects those born in the Mediterranean region. Triggers for the disorder are stress and age. Treatment is started, but there are no guarantees. Jerry wakes up later smiling, and his daughter smiles back.
Becca has changed her mind about giving Joy (Cuddy’s temporary name for the infant) up for adoption. Cuddy tries to rationalize her sudden decision with medical reasons, but Becca is unmoved. She hopes that taking responsibility for her child will help turn her life around.
House goes to Cuddy’s, and she’s outraged when he tells her that she would’ve made a great mother. She asks him why he always has to negate things, and they suddenly kiss and embrace. He leaves abruptly.
This episode was very bloated. Last week we had some empty storylines that went nowhere, here we have storylines going all over the place. The medicine took a backseat to Cuddy and Becca. Cuddy stories are rare, and she is a wonderful character, but I found the medicine far more interesting this time around. That story had a few holes too. There was at least one 15-20 minute gap with absolutely no mention of Jerry and his daughter. Also, his daughter had maybe 5 minutes of screentime tops. House’s epiphanies are making less and less sense. I think the last minute oi the episode was the most disappointing of all. Why would they resort to that? That’s a lot of griping, but for the last new episode for the next two weeks, this one failed to deliver for me.
Mike Trevino is a rabid fan of House and The Office and blogs out of San Antonio, TX.
