House Season 8 Episode 8 Recap: Perils of Paranoia
The camera opens on a courtroom where a lawyer is questioning a witness about his alibi for the night of a crime. Although the witness is caught in the lie, the lawyer has little time to celebrate because he begins to feel short of breath and collapses to the floor.
When presented with the case, House suspects toxins. He tells Adams to search the home and Chase to run some tests and tells them to choose who they will take with them. At the same time, they both say “Taub.” House is intrigued as to why neither doctor wanted to take Park. But Adams quickly recants and says she’ll take Park and that it’s no big deal.
On the way over, Adams reassures Park that she likes her and that they work well together, even as they start arguing over the patient’s diagnosis. At the house, they can’t find any toxic chemicals, but they do find a hidden room containing a stockpile of guns and ammo to supply a small army.
Meanwhile, Chase and Taub question the patient and his wife about possible poisoning. They both deny that he could have been maliciously poisoned. Then Adams and Park show up and mentions a stockpile of weapons. The wife was unaware of the stash, and the couple begins to fight. Later, Park and Adams do a sleep test on the patient, but before the patient can go to sleep, a mysterious wound appears on his leg, and the patient says he can’t feel it.
House and Wilson discuss the guns and Wilson asks House if he has a gun. House denies it, but Wilson presses, saying that House definitely has a gun hidden somewhere in his apartment. When House arrives home that night, he opens the door to find Wilson hanging from the ceiling in a net—caught while trying to snoop around House’s apartment trying to find the gun. House makes Wilson say that House is smarter and more devious than he is before cutting him down.
Foreman (who the writers have to find something to do with during the episode) is bothered by a comment by Taub that Foreman needs a girlfriend and Taub’s attempts to push single nurses and other female staff in his direction. So when an attractive woman strikes up a conversation at the gym, Foreman thinks it is a set-up by Taub. He determines it’s not, but when he goes home with the woman, he finds out she’s married.
The patient is not responding to treatment, and instead begins to hallucinate that he is being attacked by bears, becoming extremely violent. But they get the patient sedated and discuss whether he might have a psychological problem. Adams and Park continue to disagree about the diagnosis, and Adams keeps pointing out that it’s not because she doesn’t like Park, they simply disagree.
When House arrives home that night he finds a booby trap in his apartment and springs it without getting caught. When the trap goes off, Wilson springs from a neighboring room, thinking he has caught House. Be when he realizes his trap didn’t work, House gloats and Wilson leaves. But when House walks into the bathroom, the door handle comes off, trapping him, and Wilson proceeds to search the apartment for a gun.
Although he couldn’t find a gun while House was trapped in the bathroom, he confronts House the next day with a gun he found hidden in a box after House had gone to work. House says it’s a prop gun that only fires blanks and that he is still more devious than Wilson. This leads him to think about the patient, and when he goes to the patient’s room, the patient is having trouble breathing. Finally he diagnoses the patient with Diphtheria, which fits all the symptoms and starts him on treatment. The patient gets better. Hooray!
After work, tired of not asserting herself more and be disrespected by the other doctors, Park asks Chase out for a drink. Chase balks at first, but then decides that it doesn’t really mean anything, and agrees. Foreman also goes out for a drink after work, but instead of going out with his co-workers, he meets the married woman from the gym in a bar.
After last weeks’ train wreck of an episode, this episode goes back to the regular House plot structure and, although not a spectacular episode, it had some great humor and interesting dialogue. Foreman’s relationship troubles seems a little off-topic for a show who’s main focus is now the new team of doctors, but the last scene added a bit of intrigue to the show that has been missing in the last few episodes.
Image courtesy of Fox
About the author: James Ged is a writer who watches too much TV. But he’s found a good outlet as a blogger for CableTV.com. You can follow him on Tumblr: TV Buzzer.
