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HOUSE: Season 5 Opener
In front of her boss and a roomful of clients, Lou, an uptight legal assistant, develops hallucinations and senses ants crawling all over her body. She totally freaks and Season Five of Fox's House, M.D. is off to the races.The season debut plot is complicated by unfinished business from Season Four. Dr. Wilson is still grieving over the death of his girlfriend (and former House fellow) Amber. Wilson announces that he is quitting Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital - a decision that completely perplexes House. So rattled is House that he ignores his new patient Lou in order to persuade Wilson to stay. His friendship with Wilson is more important than any challenging case.
The tables have turned in this episode. Whereas the 'social drama' typically represents the back story, this time the severely ill patient comes in a distant second. Oh, House also blurts out that Thirteen tested positive for Huntington's chorea, but that is one storyline that will need future episodes for deeper exploration.
The initial workup reveals anemia, bradycardia (slow heart rate), and hallucinations.
The team wants to cure a patient without relying on House.
In House's absence the team quickly burns through these diagnoses in order: Vitamin B12 deficiency, colon cancer, ordinary pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, multiple sclerosis, extra-adrenal paraganglioma, amyloidosis, and secondary amyloidosis caused by lymphoma. Team members lie to Lou repeatedly. Very few confirmatory tests were performed. Without their mentor nearby to offer restraint and discipline these hotshots burp-up a suspected disease and treatment begins immediately: colonoscopy, laporotomy, therapeutic abortion, interferon, transrectal fiberoptic tumor manipulation (ouch!), even cancer chemotherapy. Somehow they still had plenty of time for the commercials!
The team realizes that they are pretty helpless without House. Sadly, he is no position to offer help. As a result the patient continues to suffer.
Meanwhile, House cannot accept the reality/responsibility that Amber died in the bus crash because she (instead of the unavailable Dr. Wilson) went to a bar to retrieve him. Dr. Cuddy tries her best to get House and Wilson to express their true feelings. It ends up that Wilson does not blame House, he simply is sick of enabling House. Wilson is tired of covering-up for his emotionally-troubled buddy.
Wilson says farewell. With nothing left to do, House returns to the ICU to see Lou. Inexplicably (as always happens in the final segment of this show) House order the chemo stopped because Lou does not have lymphoma! Get ready...Lou has lepromatous leprosy - that's the non-disfiguring kind. He takes a blood sample from a leg bruise for culture and orders antibiotics.
House was unclear how he arrived at the diagnosis, but after seeing how many other possibilities were already exhausted, House probably figured it had to be either lupus or lepromatous leprosy. And as taught in all previous episodes: "It's never lupus!"
I hope the soap opera ends quickly. As soon as Wilson's status is finalized it is possible that patient care will ascend in priority at Princeton-Plainsboro.
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