House Recap: Fools for Love

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GMMR’s resident HOUSEkeeper, LaLa was forced into a brief retirement when Dr. House took a mini vacay in favor of America’s pastime. But he’s back, and so is LaLa with a recap of last night’s episode.

Title: Fools for Love
Original Airdate: 10/31/06

After an annoying month-long hiatus (I’d take Hugh Laurie over baseball any day, but maybe that’s just me…), House is finally back! And with a vengeance, too – literally, as it turns out. But more on that later. First, judging by the title and main medical mystery of this episode, the writers are obviously fans of Sam Shepard’s plays. Anyone who has seen or read his play, “Fool for Love”, knows exactly what I mean. But in case you aren’t familiar with the works of Mr. Shepard, and/or you haven’t seen this episode (which would be a good reason to read this recap), I won’t spoil it for you – yet.

So we begin the episode with a restaurant robbery, in which a young, multi-racial married couple (he is white, she is black), are held at gunpoint by the robbers, who threaten to rape the wife. A violent scuffle ensues, in which the passionate and protective husband manages to get the robbers’ guns and beat the *bleep* out of them (that’s some guts, kid!). The butt-kicking is stopped short, however, when the wife inexplicably starts choking and hyperventilating, causing the husband to rush to her side. Looks like a job for House! Or rather, Cameron, Chase, and Foreman, as House is initially more interested in why Wilson is chatting with the new hot nurse in the hospital. Wilson insists that he’s not dating said nurse, but House spends the rest of the episode snooping around and harassing Wilson about it anyway. Oh that House – he just loooves to harass people.

But unfortunately for House, he picked the WRONG clinic patient to harass tonight. That would be guest star David Morse, who I’ve never seen play a more scarily intimidating character than he does here. Morse is initially miffed that he had to wait two hours for House, which elicits nothing but the standard insulting sarcasm from House. This in turn causes Morse to call House a bully, and thus a war of words ensues in which some very personal insults are hurled. After Morse harshly trips House when he tries to leave, a livid House comes back and gives Morse the thorough exam the man had been demanding. And when I say thorough, I mean reeeally thorough – as in, turn-around-and-bend-over thorough. Later realizing that House had humiliated him with a pointless and embarrassing test, Morse complains to Cuddy and demands an apology from House – who, of course, refuses. Dude, NOT smart.

Meanwhile, House’s minions have been running tests on mysterious illness wife; but during a particularly stressful test, her husband gets so concerned for her well-being that he starts hyperventilating and choking himself, thus landing him in the same mysterious illness predicament that she’s in. Now that things are more interesting – a married couple with the exact same unexplained symptoms! – House begins paying closer attention to this case. Through the standard very personal questions and home snooping, the House team learns that this young couple (who are both only 20 years old) are very passionately devoted to each other. The husband repeatedly asserts that he would literally die for his wife. And, after the wife has a coma-inducing violent hallucination, the team learns that the husband’s drunken pill-popping father broke the husband’s arm upon discovering his 16-year old son’s relationship with his then-girlfriend, now wife. In fact, it was this violent incident of perceived bigotry and racism from the father that caused the young couple to immediately run away together and get married at 16.

Oh, but as it turns out, the now-deceased father’s violent outburst was not, in fact, racially motivated. Upon further testing, House realizes that their mutual malady is a rare genetic disease – which, given what he knows about the incident with the violent father, can only mean one thing. That’s right, boys and girls: them two is brother and sister! Or rather, half-brother and sister with the same father – a man who had a darn good reason for not wanting them thar kids to git together! (OK, can I get a collective “EWWWWW!!” now?) And yes, in case you were still wondering, “Fool for Love” is about a violently passionate relationship between a pair of ex-lovers, who also happen to be half-brother and sister. And yes, this plot-point is just as disturbing as it is in this episode of House. But unlike the crazy lovers in Shepard’s play, who can’t seem to quit each other, the half-siblings in House immediately separate far away from each other upon learning this utterly devastating news.

Those poor kids. At least Foreman has enough compassion in the end to stick around and comfort the poor, destroyed husband. He even delays his date with the hot nurse in order to do so. Yes, that’s right; as it turns out, the hot nurse wasn’t dating Wilson but was instead secretly dating Foreman, who also manages to win some betting money from House over this news as well. Foreman, you dog. Things get even worse for House when, as he is driving home on his sweet motorcycle, he is pulled over for speeding by a cop, who turns out to be none other than David Morse! Dude, House, I TOLD you it was a bad idea to mess with this guy. This new, mortal enemy has a serious vendetta against House; and, just as House abuses his doctor powers to abuse his patients, now Morse abuses his cop powers to abuse House, and arrest him for illegal possession of drugs without a prescription. Looks like our favorite crusty doctor is heading to the BIG House tonight! (*rimshot*)