'House' writers' room: The Huddy breakup and all that jazz

The “Bombshells” episode of “House” this past Monday shocked (and dismayed Huddy shippers) a lot of viewers. It was written by Liz Friedman and Sara Hess. They’ve taken a little time out of their busy schedule to answer a few questions about  this critical and unusual episode.

“Bombshells” had two major, major plot points: The breakup of Huddy and the re-addiction of House. What was the rationale behind tackling both of these game-changers in 44 minutes?

Sara: Well, for us the two things went hand-in-hand.  A major theme on the show is that people don't change.  House has been clean for a year and a half now, but addiction isn't something that just goes away.  When Cuddy started dating him, she told him she could accept him just the way he was ... but remember, he was sober at the time.  And while she's a doctor and knows the reality of his situation, I think she was able to convince herself for a long time that things would turn out OK.  But when someone with House's drug history starts using again, it's a seismic event.
That said, Cuddy doesn't break up with him because he took one pill.  We used House's addiction as a symbol of his inability to deal with pain. He's spent so much time and energy trying to insulate himself, but being in a relationship basically means making yourself twice as vulnerable.  And he can't accept that.  He won't let himself really experience what Cuddy's going through; selfishly, he uses the drug to protect himself, and that leaves her--in any real emotional sense -- alone.  Maybe Cuddy thinks she doesn't need him to change, but she does at the very least need him to be present.  And in the end he can't do it.

Whose decision was it to incorporate the dreams/nightmares as a plot device?

Liz: That idea came out of the writers' room at House.  The staff collectively hatched the notion of Cuddy contemplating various futures with House, each of those futures being a different genre, and those visions ultimately leading to the end of their relationship. In the original pitch, each act was a different genre ... but as we got into it, we realized that the break-up really needed to be grounded in reality, so we re-approached the dreams as a way to show what our characters were really thinking/worrying about.

‘House’ recap: Everybody on stage for the big surgery number!

 
Sundance does yoga and eats salads. Butch is an ex-Vicodin addict (more on that later) and drinks like a fish.

So who has the cancer scare?

Of course, because Mother Nature (and the staff writers) aren’t fair, it’s Sundance, alias Lisa Cuddy.

Cuddy wakes up, and instead of having a pre-shower roll in the hay with her boyfriend, ends up having blood in her urine instead (no fun!) and the wheels of her life start to fall off. The best thing about this week’s episode was how the writers use Cuddy’s health crisis to put the actors into several fantasies under the guise of dreams of nightmares.

First is Cuddy dreaming in multiple-camera sitcom convention: A cop brings home Rachel, now flirting with tween-dom, after she’s caught shoplifting at the mall. Wilson is on stage, and House (wearing a two-toned, retro bowling shirt a la Charlie Sheen in “Two and a Half Men” – what a coincidence -- there’s an opening on that show!) enters to canned laughter. Are you her dad, the cop asks. No, he explains, but ever since her mom died, the tyke is his favorite, little tax deduction. More canned laughter.

The “B” story this week is Ryan, a troubled teen who has half a dozen symptoms, including blood in his urine, or as House puts it, “Looks like peeing blood is the new black.” (And when I call the kid “troubled,” I mean he builds small, improvised explosive devices for fun. High school sure has changed since I was there.)

‘House’ recap: Lie, Masters, lie!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled 24/7 coverage of Charlie Sheen’s meltdown to bring you this week's "House." Viewer discretion is advised. (But it's a lot more credible than Charlie Sheen.)

When we meet Bert, a hard-working, 40-ish husband, he's scrubbing human blood off a floor like Mr. Clean. Nah, he's not a murderer, but he has been lying to his wife about his work. Seems he's lost his real estate firm during the recession and has been doing custodial jobs ever since: mold removal, septic tank repair, crime-scene cleanup. This guy has "future House patient" written all over him like tattoos on an NBA player.

And so during a romantic dinner of worms (or perhaps grubs; I turned away), he has Seizure No. 1 and ends up in PPTH.

Foreman and Taub check out Bert's vacant real estate office, which is packed full of toxic cleaners. (They also find a bottle of Vicodin.) The team initially diagnoses boric acid exposure, but at 12 minutes after the hour, he spikes a fever, negating that diagnosis. Meanwhile, the team awaits autopsy reports from the deceased he was mopping up after.

Bert has a rash, fever, joint pain (but he's still in better shape than Charlie Sheen … sorry, that was uncalled for. I'll stop). Next guess: meningeal toxemia. While having the lumbar puncture to diagnose that, Bert admits he's maxed out his credit cards, taken a second mortgage out on the house and sold off investments. Naturally, Masters (3M) thinks he should be totally honest with his wife. (Note to viewers: 3M has never been married.)

Bert's high lymphocyte count rules out meningeal toxemia. He's been taking the Vicodin because the physical work has left him in pain. And the autopsy won't help either: The deceased was stabbed. But before you can say, "It's 8:22, do you know where your next symptom is?," Bert’s feet swell up and turn blue.

House guesses serum sickness, takes him off antibiotics and puts him on cortical steroids. Except this sends Bert into the bathroom with raving hallucinations. (So happy to see that the Oscar-winning special effects team from "Inception" got some freelance work on the side.)

‘House’ recap: Telling tales out of school

Why is House in Miss Corwin’s fifth-grade class at Brye Park Elementary? Why does the cute little girl have a black eye? Why did the college student cough up a chunk of his lung? But first, why is Miss Corwin calling House “Dr. Hourani”?

The answer to these and other questions are best answered in flashback.

House sits outside the principal’s office at the elementary school with students Zack and Colleen, the latter of whom is a Wilson in training. It’s young Colleen who sets House on the path of doing what’s right. Coincidentally, it takes only 45 minutes to get there (not including commercials).

Hours before, House is speaking at the elementary school’s “Career Day.” He re-enacts scenes from “Pulp Fiction,” “A Few Good Men,” The Thomas Crown Affair” (Steve McQueen version) and “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.” He gives the children an early education in sex toys and a primer in how to be a jerk. He can, of course, do either with one brain lobe tied behind his back.

He tells the children that his patient, a student at Rutgers, coughed up a piece of dead lung. And yes, it’s shown, and yes, it’s as bad as it sounds. Not “127 Hours” bad, but let’s just say I wish I had the fake blood concession for this episode.

‘House’ recap: A trip down memory lane

House has something in common with the Patient of the Week, a 33-year-old waitress named Nadia. She has a photographic memory. House has a pornographic memory. A match made in … I can’t remember how the saying goes. Tip o’ my tongue…

Poor Nadia. Ever since puberty, she has perfect recall. Although most people might consider that a blessing, she considers it a curse. After she trips carrying a tray of dishes at the diner (nice job, Einstein!), she’s taken to PPTH with temporary leg paralysis and high CK levels in her blood. (That’s creatine kinase, not the potty-mouth comedian Louis CK).

Taub and Foreman are dispatched to her home, where they find dozens of jigsaw puzzles (hint!) and empty laxative wrappers (yuck). Magnesium poisoning? Nah, her BP and respiration is normal. Try again.

Nadia reveals she has been falling at work with increasing frequency the past several years, which leads Masters (yes, she’s still on the team, darn it!) to think it’s Parkinson’s. But it’s still too early for the correct diagnosis.

Enter, Nadia’s older sister, Elena, carrying a bouquet of daisies. How sweet, except sis detests them, which results in a heart episode, the first of what seemed like a record number of attacks Monday. Could it be long QT syndrome? (That’s a heart thing, Mr. Google says, not cotton swabs.)

 

'House' recap: Die, Masters, die!

Honesty not only isn’t the best policy, in some cases, it needs to be taken out and maimed. Nowhere is that more evident than when Dr. Martha M. Masters (3M) is confronted with an “ethical dilemma.” (I use the quotes  because in 3M’s world, there is no such thing.) 

Patient presents with atrial fibrillation. That the patient is Cuddy’s mom, Arlene (Candice Bergen), which sends House and his team scurrying into the safety of the morgue,  because he doesn’t want to be assigned the case. But hey, it’s his girlfriend’s mom, and hey, he’s the best doctor in the history of mankind. Dang reputation! 

House sends 3M and Taub to Arlene’s house. No mold. No radon. But some racy photos of mom and “the help,” a contractor named Jesus, doing the dirty deed. (As far as I can tell, this detail is merely to flesh out –- ha ha -– Bergen’s character, or perhaps add a red herring as to what might be ailing her.) 

Speaking of Taub, he’s moved into a hotel as he and Rachel get their divorce ducks in a row. Rachel, perhaps as a sign of good faith, arranges for Taub to take a 15-hour-a-week job as a medical expert in her brother’s law firm ($50K a year for 15 hours a week! Man, I knew I should have gone to med school. Of course, there was my GPA issue, but…) 

Anyway, House accuses Arlene of being a hypochondriac, so she fires him. Dr. Kaufman is assigned to the case, although Cuddy wants House to still treat her (what’s Latin for “on a behind-the-scenes basis”?) House bugs Arlene’s room. Could be leukemia, Chase says. Kaufman has already ordered a marrow biopsy, House says, then House sends 3M (the Truth Fairy) on a snipe hunt so he can bounce his theory off his “real” team: Arlene has a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency as a result of alcoholism. (Note to Cuddy: Don’t send House out to buy your Mother’s Day card this year.)

'House' recap: 'Who's a good girl?'

A drill instructor puts his young charges through their paces at a disciplinary camp for youths, in a driving rain. One teen, Landon, seems ready to drop and begs Sarge not to force him to finish. Sarge is in “Full Metal Jacket” mode, and won't take "Sir, no sir!" for an answer: Young Landon falls and cuts his head. But it’s Sarge who ends up in PPTH’s ER.

Seems Sarge, a 38-year-old former Marine, has back pain and has urinary retention, but the ER has ruled out enlarged prosate, stopped-up colon and spinal injury. Enter Masters (3M), who suggests that because he makes his living pushing kids around, perhaps Sarge is on steroids.

Nah, too easy. The team decides he might have something he’s reluctant to reveal: syphillis. To test for it, 3M attempts to take a blood sample, but Sarge grabs her by her throat and starts throttling away.

He’s only doing what we all wish we could do.

Sarge is put into restraints, and the blood comes back negative for syph.

Perhaps there’s something at the camp, Jimson weed? Or maybe he’s into one of the teens’ stash of Ritalin? Maybe one of the kids slipped him something?

Foreman and 3M visit the camp (for a change, Foreman doesn’t have to pick a lock). There, two young men are enthusiastically swabbing down barracks. As enthusiastically as young men can swab. One has allergies that he’s taking an antihistamine for. That might account for Sarge’s symptoms.

Back at PPTH, Sarge is having his system flushed of the antihistamines, but his heartbeat spikes to 170 BPM.

Before you can say, “Wait, it’s too early for a proper diagnosis,” Landon, the young man with the gash in his forehead, is admitted to the ER with, ta da, back pain and urinary retention.

'House' recap: Meet the parent

Patient presents with symptoms of “acute superhero infarction.” Average Joe (actually, this week, it’s Jack, walking with his daughter in a subway) leaps in front of a train that’s barreling into a station, in order to rescue an average Jane (Chloe), who has fallen onto the tracks and is having an epileptic seizure. (Don’t worry, Jack, it’s “House.” Your time will come.)

Naturally, the Patient of the Week isn’t our unconscious woman on the tracks. It’s our hero, Jack, a bass player with a band no one’s ever heard of. A round of applause from his fellow commuters, and soon he’s flat as a pancake near the third rail like Sonny Liston against Muhammad Ali. (The second bout.)

Anyhoo, while Jack's being checked out at Princeton Plainsboro, we meet wife Eva, who isn’t nuts about her husband risking his life in front of their little girl, Daisy. Eva’s also not nuts about Jack being on the road all the time with his loser band. But this ain’t couples counseling, honey. The team has some serious misdiagnosing to do in the next 45 minutes, so stuff a sock in it.

Inexplicably, Princeton Plainsboro’s crack marketing team has made Taub the “face” of the hospital. His smiling countenance is on bus shelters and billboards all over town. As House says, “Now we know what Taub would look like if he were life-size.”

On the Huddy front, Cuddy’s birthday is looming, and she orders House to endure a dinner with, gasp, her mother. Normally, I’d say, “too soon,” but counting the number of times House has undressed Cuddy with his eyes, those two are nearing their silver anniversary. House tries to wiggle out of it by telling Cuddy that he is going to a film festival with Wilson. House then reports to Wilson, saying he can’t make the film festival, because he has to dine with Cuddy on her birthday.

But House is hoist by his own petard. Cuddy and Wilson confer with each other, and decide it will be an intimate dinner for five.

'House' recap: Facade is my co-pilot

Christ on a cracker — are they really going to show a guy getting crucified?

With God as my witness, they do, and it turns out that getting nailed to a cross can be hazardous to your health.

Who knew?

Well, at least one guy – Jewish fella – coupla thousand years ago. It was in all the papers. They even wrote a bestselling book about it.

Anyway, while hanging there, Patient of the Week (POTW) starts to bleed from the mouth, so his buddies take him down off the cross (maybe they can reuse the wood?) and directly to Princeton Plainsboro, where House and Cuddy are busy fighting.

Turns out, this man of faith, this POTW, has a deal with God. Seems his daughter, Marisa, had been diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma (brain cancer, for those of you who don’t have access to Google), which is basically a death sentence. Dad promised God that if his daughter survived, he’d nail himself to a cross every year. (I must have been absent from Catechism class the day they covered that.)

That was four years ago. The cancer went into remission. Marisa is a beautiful, healthy little girl (whose dad is a coupla wafers short of Communion).

'House' recap: And the Emmy for best pustules goes to ...

Fade in: Dutch slave ship off the coast of Bermuda, 1793. Slaves are sick. The ship’s doctor fears the worst. The Dutch decide to throw the infected Africans overboard one by one, to halt the spread of the disease.

Wait, is this “House” or “Amistad”?

Turns out, it’s “House” with “Amistad” roots.

Flash forward to present day Bermuda. A couple waits for their son and daughter (his son, her daughter — it’s a blended family) to resurface from a diving outing. They emerge with a sealed glass jar from a sunken ship. As the teenage daughter, Julie, is handling the jar, it breaks in her hands and cuts her. Gee, who knew that glassware made, you know, back when George Washington was president, just wouldn’t be very sturdy now?

The girl develops pustules (ew, yes, that word is oddly onomatopoeic). She ends up in a quarantine room at Princeton Plainsboro. Dad, Mom and son, Roger, end up in an adjoining quarantine room.

Then we hear two of the most dreaded words in the English language. No –- not Sarah Palin. Smallpox. (OK, that's one word, but then the Sarah Palin joke wouldn't work.)

And I thought the big drama this week was going to be how Cuddy was gonna bring the hammer down on House for faking a blood test last week. (Although judging by the last scene, a sex embargo may be in House's future.)

'House' recap: Enter the Tamblyn

House’s immovable object (everybody lies) meets an irresistible force in the new replacement for Thirteen, Amber Tamblyn as Martha M. Masters (doesn’t lie to patients---ever---not gonna do it). She’s a genius third-year med student who, after graduating from high school at age 15, spent her down time getting PhDs in applied math and art history. Do you think God helped her write her dissertations? (Sorry, lame “Joan of Arcadia” joke.)

“She’s like the Internet, with breasts,” House observes before correcting himself. “Oh wait, the Internet already has breasts.”

Patient of the Week is Joe Dugan (none other than Jack “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” Coleman of “Heroes” fame), campaign advisor to incumbent New Jersey Sen. Harold Anderson. Dugan’s got a rash on his arm that’s well beyond the Gold Bond powder stage.

House’s team diagnoses liver damage and, of course, do what all doctors do in that situation: Go break into Cheerleader Dad’s home in order to uncover the truth. Foreman and Taub take Martha M. Masters (3M) to the abode. When she sees Foreman pick the lock, she figures something’s afoot she wants no part of. She refuses to cross the threshold.

Hey, Diogenes! Yeah, you, you moldy old Greek! Shine that lamp over in this direction—we got a live one here!

Oh, wait, you were looking for an honest man, weren’t you. Yeah. Good luck with that.

'House' recap: The children's hour

Enter the diaper brigade: The theme this week is kids, or as I like to call them, replacement humans.

Our Patient of the Week is a newborn baby girl who comes squirting out of her mom in a hypoxic state (oxygen deprived). Straight into the incubator she goes, as mom (Jennifer Grey -- and no, I’m not gonna get all Perez Hilton over the “Dirty Dancing” star here.  She looked fine) and adult daughter watch in anguish.

The team is stumped: Baby’s full term, lungs are developed, what’s the problem? If only House were around to consult, but he isn’t: Cuddy’s sitter and mom can’t make it. House is relegated to Rachel duty.

Back at the hospital, the team probes the infant, looking for an abscess on the liver. (Liver problems can sometimes cause lung problems, so they say.) What they see are dilated bile ducts. House is introduced via telephone to the newest team member, Dr. Frazier, whom Dr. Foreman has hired. House fires Frazier over the phone before she can utter four lines -- what’s the SAG card ruling on that again?

The job of hiring a new team member (“One who likes ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ ” -- i.e. female), falls to Taub.

House wants to open up the kid, but the team doesn’t think it’s a good idea to poke around in her. Instead, they prescribe steroids, an anti-angiogenesis agent and dopamine.

Back at Cuddy’s homestead, we’re witness to the combined parenting skills of man-child House and man-should-know-better Wilson. The tot is supposed to be sleeping, so House can catch up on his TiVo’d porn or whatever, but he’s confronted by the kid in the middle of Cuddy’s kitchen –- suddenly, there she is, like those twins from “The Shining.”