TVSquad

(S02E24) Wow. The second season of House, unfortunately, came to an end Tuesday night, and shocking isn't even the word that should be used to describe it. Most weeks, I really have a good handle on what's actually happening in-episode. This week, I gotta say that I was lost, found, lost, found, and lost. And that's a good thing.

When a man walks into House's office after he and the team are trying to diagnose a patient, asks who he is, and then proceeds to drop a pair of bullets in him, it almost looked for a moment as if it could be the end for our hero, er, favorite obnoxious doctor. But as the episode unfolded, we were shown a House that not only was able to walk without pain in his leg, but was so thrown off by his actions that he was trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't. That got worse once he found himself hallucinating, with the first instance being his "meeting" with an attractive woman outside the room of his current patient. As it turns out, not only was that woman not really there, but she was actually the now-dead wife of the man who came to shoot him.

(S02E23) What's curious about shows that are super-formulaic in nature, is that when they're good, you don't care about how things are constructed, it's all about what is constructed and how the characters interact with each other. And yes, I know, this has been harped on to know end by me and some commenters on this site for a long time now, but that's a good thing. This week's episode, "Who's Your Daddy?" was pretty much spot on when it comes to that concept, with a young girl named Leona coming to the hospital after experiencing a horrible vision of flooding and her dead mother on the plane she is flying on. Leona, we have been told, is a survivor of the devastation that Hurricane Katrina put on the New Orleans area, and is now, for some reason, re-experiencing things that terrorized her.

At the same time, House is experiencing horrible leg pain, which has got to be pretty bad considering what his pain threshold on a regular basis is. He's storming around his apartment, even climbing up a step stool to get a box, hidden on top of a bookshelf, that contains needles and other pain medication that looks like his "last stop" when it comes to fixing what ails him. Once again, Cuddy rings him up on the telephone, and we get to hear his funny answering machine message, but also see that she knows how to push his buttons by saying exactly what curiousness would bring him in to treat a patient.

(S02E22) Gregory House is right up there on the list of people I want to be. There's something to be said about pulling off that whole "likable jackass" thing. That and the flawless even-length beard stubble. I'd say that I've found a new hero... but that would mean setting aside Jack Bauer and I think most people will agree with me that I'd be in for a good ol' butt kicking if I made Jack Bauer play second fiddle to House on my list of TV heroes.

Well, on to the episode. Well written and incredibly funny as usual. I always feel bad when I laugh as House makes a joke at the expense of a cancer patient or an elderly woman... but I suppose that's the beauty of it. Anyway, Foreman is back at work but the team is still one short since Chase requested some time away from House to work in the NICU for a few weeks. House doesn't seem to think it's because of him though. Naturally, he snoops around but that wasn't the only thing on his radar.

(S02E21) Tuesday night, we were shown some serious stress for the House team, with Foreman contracting some sort of mystery illness (and when isn't it a mystery when it comes to House?) in the same way as a patient who loses his own battle with whatever it is that was found in that cop's apartment. When the cop died, locked in the same room Foreman is being kept in, you could almost sense the fear not only in that doc's mind, but on the rest of the team.

Figuring out what the cause of the problem is turns out to be one of the bigger challenges that House has faced, at least during the part of his career that the show has let us see. It wasn't bad enough that a patient, which the disassociated diagnostician manages to keep away from, feelings-wise, but even his love of ragging on Foreman can't keep him from worrying about making a big mistake. Cameron, on the other hand, has a serious interest in healing Foreman, after he stuck her in the leg with an infected needle in the first half of this two-parter. As it turns out, that move could have been a big part in the ultimate resolution of the illness.

(S02E20) In the first half of a two-parter, "Euphoria," House and his crew are treated to a wonderful display of Foreman's attitude towards cops (dirty or otherwise), which is quickly followed by what was given away on the promos, that Foreman would come down with something very, very bad. As it turns out, he contracts whatever horrible thing is affecting the brain of the police officer currently being treated as a patient. This leads to what was one of the more harsh confrontations, even if it was short in nature, between House and Wilson, after Wilson tries to figure out what the good word is in the case. House comes down hard on him, for not really understanding how the doc was feeling because the cancer doctors can't contract cancer from their patients, unlike House's.

Friendship, not a key trait of Foreman and Cameron's relationship, comes up a number of times yet again, but whether or not we're learning that Cameron really is that nice of a person for her wanting to help her colleague, or if House is right and she is just that weak, isn't quite clear. Just a few moments in to this week's show, we're thrown so many curveballs when it comes to the plot that you just knew that it was going to be a good one. Even better, we get two nights of this crisis featuring one of the main characters.

(S02E19) Wondering if House could ever stop being so cynical? Wondering if House could go one week without making a comment about Cuddy's breasts? Wondering where Wilson went since he's not staying at House's anymore? Well, wonder no more, true believers. All this, and more, has been solved this week, and wrapped up into an episode that wasn't even cut short by a long-running American Idol.

Talk about testing your faith. The challenge this week is a 15-year old boy who happens to be hit with chest pains while "faith healing" a woman who can't walk without a walker. In one of the more ironic scenes on this show, the boy is struck down just moments after declaring no need for doctors when one has God. And you knew House would have a field day with this one.

(S02E18) Talk about tension. This show already had enough tension before, and after Tuesday's episode, I'm not sure there couldn't be enough issues between the team of doctors that make up the usual suspects. Cameron is all over Foreman for writing up the same case that she was working on for a medical journal, and publishing it elsewhere, and is mad at House for pushing through Foreman's paper, even though hers was sitting on his desk four months earlier. Turns out, he just "wanted it more" it seems, and got House to sign off on it, while Cameron had let it sit. Needless to say, it was fascinating to watch the team banter on about this in front of a patient. I mean, nothing makes a colonoscopy while you're being kept awake any better than hearing your doctors complain about who published what paper.

The challenge this week for the crew - other than getting along - is to figure out what is keeping a young woman awake for more than 10 days, causing her liver to fail, and making her bleed through her nasal passages. As per the usual, they run a number of tests, but this time it's a little different, as House wants the woman to be awake the whole time, because stressing her will (hopefully) cause the problem to come to light. Of course, it doesn't work that easily, and somehow he comes up with the diagnosis that the woman - Hannah - is going to leave her partner, Max. Apparently the clue was in the dog that Max had given Hannah, and Hannah coming down with an "allergy" to the dog. Of course, her "allergy" wasn't what it was cracked up to be, and the dog was given away.

(S02E17) Whether it was House chewing a stogie in the lobby of a hospital, his strange ability to read everyone else at the poker table, or his interest in what appeared to be a child in need of serious medical attention, I can't say much more about how much I dig this show. When a young patient comes in after a bout with bloody diarrhea (on that list of things I thought I'd never mention in a blog), our anti-hero hops up from a hand of poker at which he's got the table beat with pocket aces. At the least, Wilson's flipping of his pal's cars was to give us a sense of how grave House felt about the situation - or how interested he was in seeing what it was all about.

As it turns out, it was another of his hang-ups. First, we had Stacy. Then, we had the guy that got him tossed from school for cheating. Now, House finds himself in a situation to treat someone who has a similar malady to a woman who died a dozen years ago, and he's not going to let this one go away.

I don't know about you, but the titles to House episodes are definitely making me happy these days. I mean, "Sex Kills?" That's just awesome, and almost as good as the one-liners that House throws out every week. Or, every few weeks, as the FOX schedule (and American Idol) permits. House has simply gone back to his usual messed up self, and he's all over Wilson this week, who appears to be trying to be nice to his wife for some reason that House decides is because his colleague is cheating on his wife again. In some ways, House's reaction to Wilson's call for help kind of surprised me, because the last few weeks have shown a positive side of the doc when it comes to his friends and colleagues. Whether or not Wilson took it to heart or not is unclear, but given that he's known House for quite some time it's doubtful.

What I'm finding curious about the formula to this show is that it ends up looking like a case is solved - almost - about halfway through the show, having you look at the time on the DVR to make sure you're not crazy. And just then, something throws you for a loop. Last night, it was House's heart transplant plan, and "muhahahahaha" evil laugh reminiscient of Vincent Price or some old monster movie.

Boy, it sure feels like it's been a while since we saw Dr. House and his band of merry ladies and gentlemen, and by peeking at the last time we had a new episode, it most certainly has. But, as usual, the intro to the show leaves off pretty much hours after the last episode closed, with House & Stacy attempting to leave Baltimore in the throes of a snowstorm. Hearing Wilson and Cuddy talk about the new skip in House's step was kind of amusing, in an "omigosh did he just lose his virginity?" kind of way. And smartly, we're reminded of the fact that it's just about time for Cameron to get her HIV test and that Foreman's time as the "boss" is almost up.

Seeing that survey on the FOX page asking whether or not Stacy and House should "get together" for such a long time stay stagnant in the 50% each way also had me thinking whether or not we'd ever see these two actually hit the sheets - not that producers are influenced by the outside world, per se - and as it turns out we'd find out what would happen this week, all with a tidy little bow tied up around the story. Who knew?