'House': Scratch and Sniff

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Meanwhile, Cameron is back, sort of. House kept saying she was trying to get her old job back, which would be great. Chase was also front and center in this episode. The dynamic duo, with a laid-back Foreman chiming in, still remain the most engaging doctors on Team House. House gleefully noted the specialness of having members of his old team together by chirping "The Formster and the Camster, kicking it old school." I too would clap and jump up and down to have our original trio back, focusing on solving medical mysteries by deductive reasoning and searching people's home for toxins. I would also love to have Chase pop by and capture my dust bunnies.

But they'd be welcome back mostly because Cameron gets House. During the differential, she answered House's impudent queries about her love life, explaining to her dumbfounded newbie cohorts, "It moves things along much faster just to give him the answers." But Thirteen didn't seem to be buying it.

The episode did not move along at a nice pace. The doctoring shenanigans felt samey and rote. Even the diagnosis didn't astound — the phobic shut-in is obstructed because he was poisoned by bullet fragments that were missed when he was originally shot. The patient was constipated and so was this episode. Yes, so is House, emotionally, we get it. Now if only someone would cut his psyche open and get his poisons out — yes, another metaphor. House spent the entire show bugged by a mosquito and kept scratching at the itch, even surgically excising the poison. Hopefully House will be the physician who can heal himself and hear the words he told Cameron about the patient: "He's also a coward. You want to change your life, do something, but don't believe your own rationalizations."

Maybe House, like this ep's patient, will get past the doorway once he gets the lead out. What did you guys think? Did you really think House would knock on Cuddy's door? Could Wilson have been covering up the truth when he agreed that he asked Cuddy out to make House jealous?