House “Joy” Recap

There are some who might tell you that World Series Game 5 is postponed due to inclement weather. Those of us on the inside know what the truth is: “House” will not be denied. This week’s episode brings us significant events from the Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) wants a baby story line that began in Season 2. She has been so desperate that she tried to adopt all of the world’s underprivileged children and homeless pets. I kid, but glance at those, that woman is all sorts of admirable. Meanwhile “Huddy” shippers (that’s jargon for fans who hope/predict that certain characters in a book/show/movie are going to bang) around the world are rejoicing because House and Cuddy share an on-screen kiss.

Also some guy is having massive blackouts and sweating blood but honestly, no one cares about that this week. More fun after the jump.

I’ve been tweaking my recap style continuously these few weeks, and I’ve decided the best way to go is probably stream of consciousness, because 1) I’m getting lazy and 2) If I take it all out of order, then I might be messing with the message. The downside, if any of you are grammarians and/or literary critics, this is probably going to make your skin crawl.

Alternate Titles: Omigod, They Just Made Out; The Narcoleptic Cocaine Pandemic

After the intro credits Cuddy presents the case of Jerry Harmon (Salvator Xuereb), the blackout guy, to House. All House wants to do is prod her about her impending adoption. We learn that Becca the birth mother (Vanessa Zima; is that like softcore Tila Tequila? imdb is safe for work or school, it’s OK) admitted to some past usage of crystal meth.

The team discusses the case, House sets up a pool for when Cuddy will jump ship on the adoption, which only Kutner (Kal Penn, three guesses who I’m voting for) participates in. He requests that House give him a pseudonym on the whiteboard, presumably because he doesn’t want his boss to know he is betting on her not wanting the baby, so House makes his name Skutner instead.

Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) visit the patient’s home where Taub expresses his opinion that only mothers are parental. She disagrees because her father raised her, then he tells her that she’s “fairly screwed up.” They find some mold, those of you who took 3:1 on “Finding mold in the patient’s house” in this week’s faulty diagnosis pool, congratulations. It’s never the mold. Back at the hospital Thirteen is talking to Harmon’s daughter about her deceased mother but the child shows no emotion. Then the guy is trying to leave and when Foreman and Thirteen stop him they discover that he is sleepwalking, and sleeptalking for that matter.

It’s my dad‘s birthday so I talked to him for a few which turns out to be a great thing because I got to FF this commercial break full of political ads which have given me a tick in my right eye.

After the break the team is convened in the office and they learn that the mold is not the problem. I told you, it’s never the mold. The team says he never leaves his home, but House reminds them that the guy sleepwalks with that special condescension that only he can muster.

Cuddy goes to a coffee shop to meet Becca the birth mother and tells Becca that she wants to name the baby Joy. The birth mother expresses no worry about the fact that Cuddy will be a single mother. Cuddy, however, does express concern over the birth mother’s nasty rash and decides to take her in to the hospital.

Taub and Thirteen are monitoring the patient at his home when he starts sleepwalking. Hey, a Dell and a Mac, equal opportunity product placement.

Cameron is hesitant to admit the mother to the hospital solely because of her rash; Cuddy orders a full fetal workup, because she really wants that baby, real real bad.

So badly, in fact, that she only says, “Well played,” in the next scene when House throws some baby vomit on her.

We see Taub and Thirteen following Jerry Harmon, who is now sleepdriving. Turns out the guy is not just sleepwalking, sleeptalking, and sleepdriving but also sleepsnorting coke.

Commercial break full of political ads. I’d probably hate the ads a little bit less if they weren’t also the candidates’ speeches. Seriously, those guys are like those dolls with the strings in their backs. I’m just waiting until McCain shouts from a stage “Somebody poisoned the waterhole,” to which Obama will reply, “There’s a snake in my boot.”

Fetus has pulmonary hypoplasia, which is Latin for undersized lungs (I worked that one out all on my own, mind you I probably spelled it wrong. So if you were going to cite me in your medical journal, hold off on that) so Cuddy is starting to get worried.

Taub and Thirteen go back to the guy’s coke dealer. Taub says “I’d like to buy some cocaine, please.” Dealer deduces he’s not a cop from this clear lack of understanding of drug dealer protocol. Taub is lucky Thirteen‘s got a wealth of drug knowledge. She knows the coke that the dealer gave them is the good stuff, but they want the bad stuff she gave Sleepy McNarcolepsy. They later find out it was cut with lactose powder, so House says the guy is lactose intolerant, but it’s only 8:27, so that definitely can not be the right diagnosis.

House enters Cuddy’s office and starts trying to provoke her about her sick potential adopted baby. His newest “what it will be like to have a child” scenario is dumping her desk lamp on the ground. The anecdotal reasoning is that one day the baby will grow up to have secret sex in the house. Cuddy is not amused.

Becca and Cuddy are having a heart-to-heart, Becca starts bleeding, then commercial. I knew “24: Redemption” would make an appearance.

House and Cuddy are discussing the fact that the birth mother is sick and waiting to deliver the baby will be risky to her, but not waiting will be risky to the baby. House tells her that her motives in the case are not medical and tries to convince her that she doesn’t truly want the baby.

House and Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) discuss Cuddy in the break room. Damned rich doctors, you think Joe “The Plumber” Sixpack has a Sub-Zero in his breakroom? Wilson tries to convince House that he is torturing Cuddy because she is leaving House behind and he can’t take it. House takes a bite out of the apple that Wilson has been polishing all scene and says, “Why do you think I did that?”

Taub talks to the guy about his guilt over his narcoleptic coke habit, then he starts sweating blood and they know their previous diagnoses are incorrect. Now Taub thinks its leukemia but Kutner presents a case to the contrary. House orders Kutner and Taub to perform a bone marrow biopsy, but it’s still too early for leukemia to be right.

The birth mother asks Cuddy what she should do and Cuddy tells her that she should wait, but the birth mother doesn’t want to wait because evidently she does not want to die.

During the biopsy Kutner and Taub notice discoloration of the skin on Jerry’s ankle which rules out leukemia and now they need Cuddy’s approval for a kidney transplant from the minor daughter to the father. That would be easier to attain if Cuddy wasn’t watching the emergency Cesarean of her adopted baby. House barges in on the surgery and the mother asks who he is. A masked Chase says, “That’s Dr. House. He’s the one you’ll be suing when you get sepsis.” Seriously, how does he walk into sterile environments, like every week? He’s House, that’s how. If one of those secret underground bunkers in the Rocky Mountains really does exist in case of nuclear warfare, I hope that House and Jack Bauer are the first two on the list of people who get to go there. Followed by Will Smith. House tries to get her out of the room to sign his kidney transplant order. Cuddy doesn’t want to leave because the baby’s head is popping out. Turns out the baby is fine but House ruins the fun by saying, “Mazel Tov. Now it’s time to say those magic words you’ll be telling her for the rest of her life: ‘Mommy’s gotta go to work’.”

Cuddy explains the risks of the surgery to Jerry’s daughter Samantha while House badgers her to just say yes. After she agrees House discovers that the consent isn’t applicable because, as it turns out, the daughter is sleepwalking too. Commercial.

The team decides that the diagnosis must be a genetic disorder and House goes to Wilson for help. They start talking about Cuddy and an off-hand remark gives House the answer he was looking for. Then Wilson says, “I’ve just given you the answer, haven’t I? And now you’re going to walk out without saying a word.” I like the self-awareness, Mr. Shore.

It’s neither the coke, nor the allergies. As always, everybody lies, and it turns out the guy is actually named Jamal Hamood, not Jerry Harmon, which leads House to the conclusion that they have Familial Mediterranean Fever, a disease that people of Mediterranean descent are especially predisposed to, since they’re from the place the disease is named after. Then we get some cross-Cuddying (heh) of painting the presumed nursery yellow. I guess that was the recovery montage, because sick daddy and daughter are no longer emotionless zombies.

Cuddy visits Becca the birth mother, who is feeling guilty about her decision to try to save herself. She says that seeing the look on Cuddy’s face while holding Joy was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and it made her want to keep the baby. She’s crying, Cuddy’s crying, I think I might be crying, but that’s mostly due to the evocative usage of Daniel Lanois’s “Fire” as the soundtrack for the juxtaposition of the patient-family joyously repaired and Joy-less Cuddy sitting in her finished nursery. It is a replication of the head-on shots we got at the beginning of the episode to signify the patients’ lack of emotion. But I’m not quite getting it, because Cuddy is obviously having extreme emotions. Heart-wrenching nonetheless.

House shows up to contradict everything he said earlier and tell her she would have been a good mother, she calls him a sonuvabitch, then they make out. How that happened, I’ll never know.

Next week’s teaser: House and Cuddy need to talk, some agoraphobic guy has to be treated in his house, because agoraphobia means you’re scared of the outside world. I just thought it was the opposite of claustrophobia. Then again, I didn’t go to Hopkins Med.

To conclude, the aforementioned Lanois song that may very well bend your heartstrings all out of shape.

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