House: Painless – Best Epiphany Ever
A mom and her son drive back home to pick up a forgotten hockey stick. The kid is upset about being super lame at the icy sport. He’s comforted by his mother’s observation that at least 3 other kids suck worse than him (solid parenting). When they pull up to their garage they see daddykins has decided to off himself via the stinkiest way possible: vehicular carbon monoxide poisoning. A little dramatic considering he has a medicine cabinet full of pain meds at his disposal, no? And, even more puzzling, why would he snatch five shirts off their hangers before carbon monoxidizing (totally not a word) himself?
Suicidal guy, Jeff, is in chronic pain and seriously wants to die. After being admitted to Princeton Plainsboro, he blows into his IV which, apparently, is not a great idea. He’s not only suicidal, he’s crabby, bitching at wife and son to give him privacy so he can squeeze his tennis ball. And, no that’s not a euphemism. Once quail poisoning is ruled out (could there be a whiter affliction?), House decides he needs to separate the guy’s nervous system from the rest of his body to figure out whether the cause is in his brain. During the procedure, Jeff tells House he’s lucky he doesn’t have a family. Because when House is in pain he doesn’t have to put up a front; he can be as unapologetically douche-y as he deems necessary.
Junior lies on the floor, screaming bloody murder, and everyone comes to his aid. Except House, who in addition to being an extraordinary diagnostician, can sense when others are over-acting. He snatches an empty bottle of isopropyl alcohol from Seriously-Let-Me-Frickin-Die guy’s hand. Next, on to a treatment that causes more harm than good: taking Jeff off the pain meds altogether. A strange solution coming from someone who pops Vicodin like they’re tic-tacs. Jeff wallows in agony for a while before his wife tells House to dope him back up and get him in decent enough shape for the ride home, where he can off himself for real.
Offsetting the heavy subject matter is a parallel plotline involving House’s bathroom plumbing. Fortunately, for many of you, this means we see House in a steamy bathtub massaging his leg. And that’s just for starters. Later, he uses his cane to poke at a soppy ceiling that inevitably collapses, pouring water straight down atop him. It’s House Gone Wild: Wet T-Shirt Edition. The plumber tells him the pipe was pulled, citing negligence, and insurance won’t cover it. So House does what any sensible home owner would do. He “accidentally” sets his kitchen on fire below bathroom pipes. And when that doesn’t work (since the burned pipes were actually his neighbor’s), he bribes the plumber to make a false claim so the insurance company can’t weasel out of paying. Plumber scratches his boys, giving House a Testicular Epiphany. The root of Jeff’s pain is epilepsy, which started in the part of the brain that controls the muscles supporting his testes. His gonads. His taters. His acorns. His…well, you get the idea. House also discovers that, after all his shenanigans, he actually is responsible for the pulled pipe, since he grabs it for balance when getting in the tub.
Thirteen has a problem with commitment. She doesn’t want to disrupt anyone else’s life by getting romantic so she’s avoiding Foreman. It’s thoughtful, actually. Not unlike a puppy, Foreman doesn’t understand the word no. He switches the schedules around so Thirteen can see the progress Janice (the advanced Huntington’s patient) is making. Yawn, yawn, yawn…Thirteen asks Foreman out on a date. He then finds out she’s on a placebo in the trial, which means she might as well be using leeches to cure what ails her. And so continues the Saga of Foreteen, a union as exciting as 3 Valium and a glass of chardonnay.
There is really no development on the Huddy front. Cuddy is frazzled by her duties as hospital administrator and new foster mommy. Differential diagnosis is held in Rachel’s nursery, where House boxes a stuffed giraffe, Cuddy notes House’s musk, and “clean, squeaky rubber nipples” get a mention before the two lock eyes. 
She looks fed up; he looks playful…apropos of their usual shtick. Despite the messiness of her home and hasty shoving of a dirty diaper into her purse, she is easily approved by the foster care fellow. Wilson drops by, with a giant duck, for an all-too-brief exchange with Cuddy. She’s upset that she passed by “their meager standard” and failed by her’s. He tells her women always set ridiculous standards that no one can meet. “You’re not superwoman. Don’t be a martyr.” Cuddy asks Cam to take over for her. Might we see a little Hameron action next week? Let’s hope there is also more than a lil’ nugget o’ Wilson.
“No hurry. I already bathed once this week; I don’t want to look elitist.” - House
