House, M.D. s08e08 Episode Script

And you're sure he didn't leave until after 9:00? Absolutely.
We watched the Devils demolish the Rangers.
The game started at 7:00.
Neither of you stepped out between periods? Get beer, pick up a pizza? We stayed at my place, we were together the whole time.
And you said the Devils won? Yeah.
Four-zip.
Kovalchuk had two, Arnott and Parise each had one, and Marty got the shutout.
I'm sorry? Marty? Martin Brodeur, Devils' starting goalie for, like, the past 20 years.
He played awesome, as usual.
Your Honor, may I submit the sports page from the New Jersey Chronicle on October 9th, 2011'? Objection.
Relevance.
Goes to the witness' credibility.
Go quickly.
Would you please read the caption under the photo? "Martin Brodeur stops one of his 36 saves "on the way to a shutout victory.
" That's what I just said.
That the defendant couldn't have possibly committed the robbery because he was with you, watching Martin Brodeur shut out the Rangers.
Yes.
Thank you.
Your Honor, may I submit the Chronicle sports page from October 10th? Your Honor This is what you call going quickly? Just two more questions.
I promise.
Please read the highlighted text at the bottom of the page.
"In Sunday's sports section, "New Jersey Devils' goaltender, Johan Hedberg, was" That's it.
Keep going.
"misidentified as Martin Brodeur "in a photo caption and box score.
" An understandable mistake given that Martin Brodeur was scheduled to start, but bowed out after taking a shot to the throat in warm-up.
Which brings me to my most relevant question.
Did you and the defendant spend the evening of October 8th watching the Devils game on TV, or did you just read about the game in the Chronicle while concocting this false alibi? I l Excuse me, Your Honor, may I approach? You sure you don't want to wait till after he answers your question? No.
I'm gonna need a continuance.
Now? You're one answer away from destroying their whole defense.
Your Honor Oh, shut up.
You know it's true.
Let's finish this up.
I can't.
Why the hell not? Because I think I'm having a heart attack.
Great.
Call an ambulance.
Thinks he had a heart attack, but didn't.
His EKG, cardiac enzymes and catheterization are all normal.
Because it's an anxiety attack.
Probably because he just turned 40 and still goes by the name "Tommy.
" It's not anxiety.
I had the ER docs interview his wife, she confirmed he's been feeling fine.
Nothing out of the ordinary at work or at home.
She probably also believes that he thinks Salma Hayek's breasts are too big.
Which is why I had them admit him anyway and treat with alprazolam.
No improvements.
Because Because for some patients, the diagnosis of anxiety disorder can actually increase anxiety.
Which is also why I told him he had a minor respiratory infection that was easily curable by the medication.
You lied? I ruled out heart attack and anxiety disorder.
Interesting.
I know.
Impressive.
What, the wiliness with which Foreman ruled out anxiety, or his complete wiliness-lessness before he met me? The fact that you managed to smear jelly on nearly every page.
Shingles could cause chest pain before a rash appeared.
Pain would be restricted to one dermatome, not cross them.
Asthma induced pneumothorax would, and might not show up on a posteroanterior x-ray.
No history of asthma.
They did a lateral view as well.
No sign of pneumothorax or deep sulcus sign.
I treated an inmate once with similar symptoms after he tried to poison his cellmate with chlorine gas.
He didn't realize sharing a cell also meant sharing the air? Chlorine gas pools near the ground.
He thought he'd be safe in the top bunk.
But why would anyone try to poison our guy? He makes a living sending people to prison.
But he's not in prison, and it's kind of hard to gas a guy unless you can seal him in a room first.
Which is why Arceus created a universe with three states of matter, and 300 solid and liquid poisons that could cause his symptoms.
Arceus? Look it up.
And alkalinize his urine.
Then search his home, talk to his wife.
See if you can get her to tell us what she used.
Wait, why would you think his wife poisoned him'? Because dangerous people don't break into your home, they live in it.
And although his kids are old enough to want Daddy dead, they're still too young to do anything about it.
It must be such a pleasure to live in your head.
You're right.
The kids might be precocious.
You handle his house.
You handle him and his wife.
They get to just hang out and do nothing? If you need help, you can take whoever you want.
I'll take Taub.
I'll take Taub.
Interesting.
No, it's not.
It was a 50-50 choice.
I'm totally fine with Taub or Park.
Cool.
I'll take Taub.
And I'll take Park.
That was fun.
Not really.
Nice move, boss.
Lying to the patient.
I had no choice.
I knew House wouldn't take the case unless I ruled out anxiety.
You need a girlfriend.
To keep me from lying to patients? To give you the excitement you need so you don't go looking for it.
You're not working for House anymore.
Which means you no longer have him to blame if you get caught.
I'm not looking for excitement, I'm doing my job.
Part of which is to make sure House does his.
Girlfriend might not be so bad.
It's less dangerous than where you're headed, and that's from a guy with one alimony and two child support payments.
It's this new curve control thing.
It automatically slows the car when it senses I'm taking a curve too fast.
You really think I care about your car, or are you just trying to avoid talking about why you don't like working with me? There's nothing to talk about.
House liked poking ant hills with a stick when he was a kid, and now he wants to do the same with us.
House is an ass, but he's an intuitive ass.
He obviously noticed something.
Yeah' the fact that we work well together.
He thrives on conflict and is looking for someone to torment.
Don't let it be us.
I don't see how that's possible.
Tommy's the most popular guy in his office.
He's even had defendants thank him after they were sentenced.
Why would they thank him? Because he doesn't treat them like scum.
He makes them feel like he's helping by offering a plea, or even just by letting them pay their debt and clear their conscience.
And even if someone wanted to poison him, I don't see how they would do it.
He never eats or drinks anything that we haven't made at home.
Wail, you mean, literally, like, not even a bottle of water? No.
So, he was obviously afraid of something.
Yeah.
Rats, mice, cockroaches.
My first job out of law school was at the Health Department.
If you'd seen some of the kitchens and the processing plants I have, you'd cook all your own food, too.
The poison wouldn't have to be in food.
Have you gotten any strange letters or packages recently? No.
It also wouldn't have had to be at work.
We've got two young kids.
There's definitely no poisons I could've accidentally been exposed to at home.
What if it wasn't an accident? How are things between you and your wife? Are you asking me if I think my wife is trying to kill me'? Yes.
I am.
Absolutely not.
This is coming from a man whose eyes are wide open.
I've prosecuted hundreds of despicable acts by husbands, wives, parents.
I can assure you I love my husband.
And I would not ever, even for a second, consider doing anything to hurt him.
No pesticides, fertilizers, or fuel in the garage.
You find anything? No.
There's not even a bottle of Wite-Out in this place.
Maybe we should look again.
Maybe we should leave before the police get here.
Well, even if a neighbor saw us break in and called 911, unless they said we were armed, it's low priority.
We've got another five minutes.
He's a prosecutor.
Obviously he knows a lot of cops.
His house is not gonna be a low priority.
Good point.
Wait.
The dining room's on the other side of that wall.
Yeah, so? But it ends, like, You gotta be kidding me.
A second ago, you wanted to run like hell and now you want to look for secret passages? There's a magnet on the fridge they use to open child proofed cabinets.
Go get it.
Hurry HP Here.
Holy crap.
Don't tell me.
The jealous wife, in the dining room, with bipyridyl herbicide.
We didn't find any poisons.
You obviously found something.
Yeah.
A hidden bunker with enough guns to defend Fort Knox.
Or break into it.
Cool.
That's impossible.
You must've broken into the wrong house.
Then you have creepy neighbors because there were photos of you and your kids all over.
I don't understand.
How could this I had it put in during the remodel last year.
But we went over the plans together.
It's not on the plans.
I didn't want the city to know about it.
I'm sorry.
I should've told you.
I just I didn't want you and the kids to worry.
About what? Tommy, what is it? Why would you think you needed so many guns'? You're not gonna believe this.
He's worried that "Too big to fail" applies to our banks but not our government.
How'd you know? Because it's what every idiot with a bunker full of assault rifles is scared of.
Heather Sweeney? It'll just be a couple minutes till someone's ready to see you.
Maybe it's not stupidity, it's a symptom.
Cocaine abuse can cause paranoia and chest pain.
This isn't necessarily paranoia.
Societies do fall apart.
Look what happened with London in the riots.
There's a difference between an isolated riot and the fall of civilization.
April Donaldson? Sorry, misspoke.
Imagine what would happen if there was a terrorist attack on the food supply, or a pandemic where we had to ration the antibiotics.
That's ridiculous.
Ouch.
Oh, shut up.
We know what you're trying to do and it's not gonna work.
It was a little harsh.
Stop being so What? Paranoid? You're gonna look pretty foolish if that was a wrong guess.
I think you're a good person and a fine doctor, but it's ridiculous to think anyone needs an arsenal of assault weapons.
He's obviously paranoid.
What about Fahr's disease? He's not hallucinating.
As far as we know.
We should do a mental status examination and get a CT of his basal ganglia.
No, we shouldn't.
If it's not poison, it's most likely atrial fibrillation brought on by hyperthyroidism or sleep apnea.
Looks like we got ourselves a good old fashioned cat fight.
No, we don't.
We have a reasoned disagreement.
Still, there's only one way to settle this.
Actually, there's two, but we don't have enough Jell-O for the first.
Mini-mental, CT, and get a hair sample to check for past cocaine use.
Check his TSH levels and get a sleep study.
Sorry, gotta make it a fair fight, which means you're stuck with her.
He's not stuck with me.
And it's not a fight.
Excuse me, miss.
What is your name? Mariel Wilkerson.
Hah.
You don't look like a Mariel.
You're up.
So what do you think? ls the patient paranoid or am I? I don't think stockpiling weapons is the most reasoned response, but given what I've seen at Bloomingdales on Black Friday, I wouldn't say it rises to the level of mental illness.
And me? Again, given what I've seen at Bloomingdales Don't let House get to you.
It's all of you.
I feel like you don't respect me.
Chase certainly didn't try to hide it.
Chase respects you.
He's just more comfortable working with me because he's known me longer.
And I'm not just saying that because you own a gun.
I don't own a gun.
I've thought about it, but I'd probably end up shooting someone in my own family.
Like, when my brother tosses his toenail clippings behind the couch.
What about you? If anarchy breaks out I plan to do what my ancestors have done throughout the ages, run.
Sounds like a good plan.
You got a moment? Stop telling the nurses I'm looking for a girlfriend.
What makes you Two lunch offers and a box of cupcakes since this morning.
So a few people are nice to you and your first thought is, "Hmm.
This seems strange.
" I haven't even had time to eat my own lunch, much less run around trying to recruit nurses for yours.
So can I get back to work? You're lying, aren't you? It's for his own good.
He's not paranoid, he's just stupid.
Well, shouldn't you put yourself in that group? You own a gun.
Our patient doesn't own a gun, he owns an arsenal.
And I don't own a gun.
Yes, you do.
And you're a felon.
So.
you'll end up back in jail That is actually not one of the many reasons that I don't own a gun.
Why would I need a gun? The only thing I own worth protecting, a thief would need a crane to get out of my apartment.
You don't own anything you need.
You own things you want.
And you're definitely the type who'd want a gun.
You like anything dangerous.
Monster trucks, motorcycles, fireworks.
Everyone loves fireworks.
Watching them, not making them.
I'm telling the truth.
I stand corrected.
If you believe me, then this issue will be resolved with no further action necessary.
Absolutely.
It's not resolved, is it? Not even close.
It's not cocaine.
Hair samples were clean.
It's not looking good for Fahr's either.
I'm not seeing any calcifications.
You sure? They can be pretty hard to detect in people under 50.
See? What? We all disagree all the time.
It's not just me and Park.
Nice try, but I'm not getting in the middle.
So why didn't you want to go with her this morning? She's weird.
She's not weird.
She's a good doctor.
Most good doctors are weird.
Look at House.
Am I weird? Yeah, but you're hot, so it's easier to put up with.
You're completely normal and a pleasure to deal with.
You're weird.
In a good way? Maybe we should just concentrate on the medicine.
You own any guns? That's not medicine.
But it's related to medicine.
Kind of.
What do you think? Yeah.
But not for protection.
Despite what the media would have us believe, you think we live in a very safe world.
You just think they're fun.
How did you know? Working in a prison, you learned criminals rarely target random strangers, and you've got more money than you know what to do with, so anything that seems different and fun is worth trying.
And you? Not here in the States.
Back home, I keep a few for hunting 'mos.
You hunt kangaroos? But they're so cute.
They're also delicious.
You're screwing with me.
Totally.
There's no calcification.
Looks like we're both wrong.
You don't need to stay.
We won't have the results until the morning.
It's okay.
I'll stay.
Go.
I'm sure your mother's ready for a break by now.
Give the kids a kiss for me.
You think it's the end of the world, but you wanted kids.
Oh, honey, come on.
I don't think the world's coming to an end.
Look.
You have a spare tire in your car, right? That's what those guns are.
I mean, I hope to God I never have to use one.
But if we can wake up and learn that the entire banking system has gone bankrupt overnight, it just seems stupid not to have a jack in the trunk.
Just in case.
And you've always What's that from? I don't know.
You don't feel that? No.
He also spiked a fever overnight.
Could be TB.
You wanna say it? Say what? There's no sign of atelectasis or infiltrates on the chest x-ray.
Yeah.
That's med-speak for, "She's an idiot.
" Systemic sclerosis can cause lower extremity ulcers.
It would have to be pretty far along.
His first symptom was just a few days ago.
His paranoia started at least a year ago.
If he's paranoid.
So it's either not sclerosis, or it's extremely aggressive sclerosis.
We should biopsy the skin lesion and start him on enoxaparin.
Shouldn't we wait for the biopsy results before we start treatment? Now's your chance.
She's leading with her chin.
I agree with her.
No, you don't.
Which means you're both idiots.
Get to work.
I know you don't think I'm an idiot.
Does it matter? If you're just looking to amuse yourself at my expense, then no.
But if you feel the need to manipulate me to make me useful, then yes.
I thought we'd gotten past that.
If we hadn't gotten past that, you wouldn't be here.
But ability isn't always enough.
Just ask Yngwie Malmsteen.
So this is you trying to help me? No, this is me helping me, and amusing myself at your expense.
Which brings us back to, why do you care'? I deserve respect.
I'm a good doctor.
People respect you.
They just don't like you.
Where's your wife? She just needed some time.
Not a fan of the guns, I take it.
It's not the guns, it's I shouldn't have lied about it.
I'm guessing it's a little of both.
And a little of "Who the hell is this guy?" I'm not a nutcase.
I just want to do everything I can to protect my family.
Don't worry, I'm sure she understands.
At first I though! It might be frostbite.
But I haven't really been out in the cold.
And yet your first thought was frostbite? Yeah.
I guess I was just going by how it looks.
It looks absolutely nothing like frostbite.
You serious? With some difficulty.
Then what is it? A sign that you need to take a long vacation.
At least a month.
A vacation? Wait, is this like a Bucket List thing? It's cancer? It's silver.
I'm guessing silver nitrate mixed with petroleum jelly that your boss put on the petty cash so he'd know who to have arrested for stealing it.
Damn.
Yeah.
Damn.
It's diffused into your skin.
The only way to get rid of it is to get new skin.
That normally happens every 30 days, so I hear that La Crosse, Wisconsin has got the world's largest beer can.
Here's the per diem schedules.
These are supposed to be in a computer file.
Sorry, since Claudine left, no one's been inputting the numbers.
I miss Claudine.
She left because of you.
I thought that was Nadine.
Her, too.
Where are you going? You still have an hour left.
Emergency page takes precedence.
Can you I don't know how to use the program.
Then find someone who does.
I gotta get out of here.
Got your page.
You're an ass! Admit it.
Let me down.
After you admit it.
I'm a little tired.
I think I'm gonna go All right, I admit it.
Despite the fact that I know there's a gun in here, I'd never find it because you are more devious Clever.
Devious.
All right.
Fine, clever.
More clever, and you'll always be one step ahead of me.
You're either preparing to fight Pacquiao, or you're having one heck of a bad day.
I'm Anita.
Eric.
Nice to meet you.
And you can tell Taub that he's gonna get the same treatment as this heavy bag if he doesn't cut this crap out.
Who's Taub? You know, I'm sure you're a nice person, and you have no idea what you've gotten sucked into, but really, I'm not interested.
Okay, and I'm sure you're a nice person, but I just moved from Atlanta, and this is my first time at this gym, so I definitely don't know who this Taub guy is.
But I already agree.
He's a jerk.
Are you sure you don't want to start over? Take your time.
I'll be around.
Taub, it's Foreman.
Can't talk now.
Little busy.
What's going on? Need some droperidol in here! L gotta go He was hallucinating he was being attacked by bears.
Points again to paranoia.
I agree, except for the "again.
" Acute onset points to tularemia.
Or it's been chronic, which points to GAD autoimmunity.
Explains the neurological impairment, as well as the normal blood work.
Tularemia doesn't always show up in the blood work either.
You know what else doesn't show up in the blood work? Nothing.
This could all be psychiatric.
An untreated schizoid disorder, he's finally lost the ability to suppress.
Schizophrenia doesn't cause skin ulcers or fevers.
No, but digging delusions out of your skin with dirty fingernails could cause both.
I don't think he's a psych case.
Because you're paranoid about paranoia.
Because his symptoms point toward an infection that's spread to his brain.
I think we should treat with high dose broad spectrum Which will kill him if it's a GAD autoimmunity.
Treat for GAD.
Corticosteroids and IV immunoglobulin.
I'm not paranoid.
And they don't dislike me.
They don't even really know me.
Did they tell you that? I didn't ask because you wouldn't believe the answer.
If it makes you feel better to think that.
You're the one everyone dislikes.
You probably don't even think it's GAD.
You're just agreeing with her because you think it'll create more conflict between us.
There's only one way to find out.
Actually, there's two, but we're still waiting for that Jell-O delivery.
Let me know how it goes.
Gotcha! You poor dumb bastard.
Touché.
God, this is exactly what I needed.
Tell me about it.
Nita? Oh, my God.
Who's that, your roommate? No.
It's just You have to go.
Why, what's the big deal? Please, I'm I'll explain later.
Just hurry up, please.
You have a boyfriend? No' he's not my boyfriend.
He's my husband.
I'm really sorry.
Hey, I thought you weren't getting back till tomorrow.
His fever's going through the roof, which means we were wrong about GAD, and the steroids kicked the infection into high gear.
Or it is GAD and we started treatment too late.
Increase the steroid dose.
We can't.
If it's an infection, we'll kill him for sure.
With neurological symptoms progressing this fast, he's dead either way.
If we increase the steroids, either death comes slower, which means we were too late with the GAD, or death comes faster, which means we were too stupid with the infection.
We were already stupid with infection, but it's not too late.
He's young and was perfectly healthy two days ago.
He can fight this off, if we give him a chance.
Fine, but a shotgun is not gonna work.
We need a sniper rifle.
Start running DNA assays for sporotrichosis, meningococcemia, and any other Boggle-winning words you can think of.
You just said you wanted to increase the steroids.
Now you wanna just I changed my mind.
But Do what Park says.
Well, you don't have a gun.
But you do have my sunglasses, my tennis racket, I can't imagine why Had to kill a mouse.
It's really hard with those stupid little sunglasses.
And my money clip.
Was there any money in it? Not anymore.
Can I go to bed now, or do you want to do a cavity search? Lock up on your way out.
This is ridiculous.
Every moment we waste looking for a phantom infection is time we could be treating him.
For the wrong diagnosis.
If it was GAD, he'd be having seizures.
And if it was infection, there would be some sign of it in his blood or CNS, which there isn't.
Yet.
I'm beginning to think we should just go with House's idea.
This was House's idea.
He said No, I'm talking about the Jell-O.
At least it wouldn't be so annoying to watch.
Taub.
You got a minute? You're an ass.
You know that? What's the problem? Some cute, young nurse baked you cookies? No.
Some guy almost caught me making out with his wife in their living room.
And how exactly is that my fault? If you hadn't been screwing with me and put the idea in my head So you don't date anyone unless I put the idea in your head.
You really do need psychiatric help.
Unlike you, I don't need drama.
I like my job and I'm happy with my life.
You're so happy with your life you've got nothing better to do at midnight than to come back into work to yell at me? Stay out of my business.
You're blaming the wrong guy.
Good for him.
Married one's not a keeper, but it's a start.
You're an idiot.
He has stridor but no obstruction.
He's anaphylaxing.
Get me a trach kit.
Scalpel.
It's not working.
There's no breath sounds.
Doesn't make any sense.
His trachea's blocked below the incision point.
- We need racemic epinephrine.
- We tried that already.
We're gonna try again.
It's our only choice.
We got him breathing, but barely.
At least we know tracheal edema isn't from anything we did.
Because we're not doing anything.
Which is a good thing because neither GAD nor a systemic infection would cause anaphylaxis or tracheal edema.
And an allergic reaction wouldn't get worse three days after he was admitted.
So we got nothing.
Unless he was still being poisoned.
By who? His wife wasn't even here when he hallucinated.
Good question.
Now we're the ones being paranoid.
What about squamous cell carcinoma? If it's only in his epithelium, it wouldn't show up on his chest x-ray.
It is possible, but Wouldn't cause hallucinations.
It could if he also had paraneoplastic syndrome.
Get a biopsy.
You think it's cancer? I think you should get a biopsy.
Admit it.
Two hours ago, I found this in your closet in a box with your name on it.
I knew you'd move it somewhere outside your apartment until you were certain I'd given up looking.
So, I had to convince you that I'd given up looking.
It's not a gun.
Yes.
It's a paperweight with a handy storage compartment for .
45-caliber bullets.
And that's not a bullet.
Admit it.
I'm more clever and more devious.
You can even have it back.
It's not my problem if you go back to prison.
My problem is you thinking you're always one step ahead of me.
This proves nothing, because it's not a gun.
It's a prop.
From Dorothy Dietrich's magic act.
Look it up.
She's the only woman ever to do the catch a bullet trick.
I won this off her prop master in a poker game.
House It's fake.
It's plugged.
Look for yourself.
Hey! Hey! Don't point that thing at me.
It's not dangerous because it's not a gun.
House House, just stop it.
Fine.
What the hell are you doing? Pull the trigger.
Don't be insane.
They're blanks.
You pull the trigger, I drool a little fake blood, and I spit out the bullet that the audience thinks I caught with my teeth.
Go ahead.
Shoot me.
I'm not shooting you.
All right.
I'll shoot you.
Don't! House, don't! Even if they are blanks, people will freak.
It's not real.
Which means you didn't prove that I have a gun, which means you've proved nothing.
Admit it.
Admit it.
All right.
All right' what? You win.
And it feels good.
You were wrong.
Don't feel too bad, we all were.
His trachea wasn't swollen, it was blocked.
By a psuedomembrane growing across it.
Means he's not paranoid, is an idiot, and was poisoned.
What are you doing? Give me a Machida scope.
Hold his legs, he's not gonna like this.
Because you're not gonna be able to breathe.
But I need to see down your barrel.
Good news is, the poison didn't come from your wife.
It came from a little bastard of a bacterium whose crap can cause chest pain, respiratory distress, skin ulcers, the growth of pseudomembrane across the airway, and in very rare cases, hallucinations.
Call the CDC.
Tell them we need antitoxin as soon as possible.
Diphtheria? We didn't guess it because nobody gets it.
Instead of building bunkers, you should be getting boosters.
As in the routine vaccines against stuff that is actually scary.
Diphtheria? House pulled it out of nowhere.
Cool.
You just getting in? I had a meeting about a new parking validation system.
Cool.
How are you feeling? Not great.
But better.
The antitoxin is working.
He'll be able to go home in a few days.
That's good news.
But we've moved out.
Oh, come on, honey.
I'm sorry I lied, but I know.
Okay It was for our own good, but I don't care.
I don't want to be lied to, and I can't live like that.
And I can't live in that home.
Oh, please, don't.
I love you.
I love you too, which is why you're not gonna live there either.
I don't care if we might need them.
I just know that I can't live my life feeling like we do.
It's not worth living in fear.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Hey.
Thanks.
You know, there's a bunch of us going to happy hour after work.
I'm craving nachos.
You interested? Thanks, but I got a lot of work I need to get done.
Sure.
Well, if you change your mind, we'll be at Rudy's.
Okay.
Hey.
- Hey.
- Hey.
Would you like to get a drink sometime after work? You mean all of us? Or just us? I was thinking just the two of us.
Did Taub put you up to this? No.
It was just something I'd been thinking about and I figured, "What the heck'? Might as well ask.
" Yeah, well, it's probably not a good idea, you know, with us working together.
Didn't you marry someone you used to work with? Yeah, but All right, sure.
When? Tonight? Sure.
Hey, I changed my mind.
Okay.
Glad you changed your mind.
Hey.