- A teenager collapses on stage, and the outcome will lead to a surprise for Cuddy. Wilson convinces House to be nice to his patients during the holidays. Foreman and Thirteen have issues when a trial patient drops from the program.
- Natalie Soellner, the school's laughing stock, is brought in after vomiting during a Christmas show while drugged with mushrooms by her classmates. She also has tranquilizers in her locker; even her mother doesn't exclude the possibility of a suicide attempt. However, her heart and liver results fit neither hypothesis and more secrets are unearthed. House sent himself a fake Christmas gift to test his new team, but Wilson thinks he needs to experience both sides of kindness himself but is incapable of being kind to anyone.—KGF Vissers
- It was all about the Christmas spirit on "House" as we opened on a school choir singing, "Joy to the World." A couple of unruly teenage girls were looking to shake things up with their performance and tried to convince an awkward girl to join in by singing lyrics calling their teacher "stupid." She did it, but no one else did. Then she got dizzy and threw up.
As the team discussed the case, Taub (Peter Jacobson) had a Christmas gift with a card reading, "Greg, made me think of you." House threw it away. House threw it in the trash, but Taub took it out and unwrapped it. It was "Manual of the Operations of Surgery," by Joseph Bell. House threw it away -- again.
Chase (Jesse Spencer) got the girl's friends from school to admit they'd given her mushrooms. Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) was undergoing an experimental Huntington's treatment with Foreman (Omar Epps), who told her the woman she'd seen in previous weeks had dropped out of the program. When she left, she'd slipped Foreman a gift certificate to a day spa as a Christmas gift. Taub and Kutner (Kal Penn) found a big bottle of painkillers in the girl's school locker. The girl told Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) she wasn't trying to kill herself but wondered what the point was of getting better because all the kids in school hated her and were mean to her.
Taub and Kutner were wondering what was happening with the book House received. They went to Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to see if he knew anything about it. Wilson guessed the wrapping paper was green. He messed with them a bit before admitting he'd given House the book in green wrapping paper last Christmas. The girl, Natalie (B.K. Cannon), had a quick emergency. "I guess this means she didn't try to kill herself," Kutner said.
Cuddy continued to linger as House and his crew tried to figure out what was happening with Natalie. Taub pressed House on Cuddy, saying he thought she gave him the book as a present and said House should just tell Cuddy he loves her. Thirteen and Kutner giggled and House realized they'd talked to Wilson and knew the truth. House got mad at Wilson, who wondered why House would try to mess with his team by giving himself a fake present. House seemed to see the light and decided he should "stop being such a jerk." Then he took Wilson's ice cream sandwich and said, "Guess I undercut myself there."
Suddenly, House showed up to work clinic duty on a day he wasn't assigned, and was being extra nice to his patients. He came upon a woman who he thought was pregnant but she insisted she was a virgin, as was her fiancé. Natalie then went into some kind of seizure in another room, with Cuddy watching her.
Liver, lungs and now Natalie's brain made House's white board. He also noticed Cuddy had reappeared. House wondered if the patient was reminding Cuddy of the girl whose baby she tried to adopt. Thirteen, whose first name we now know is Remy, told Foreman she talked to Janice (Lori Petty), the woman she'd met before, and told him he should apologize for telling Janice to "deal with it" when the medication was making her nauseous. Thirteen told Foreman he was being House.
The pregnant woman came back to the hospital and asked House to tell her fiancé she could've gotten pregnant without having sex. House told the man she'd probably cheated on him.
Natalie seemed in a cheerful mood and she told Kutner her friend Simon (Lucas Till), who'd supplied the girls with the mushrooms, brought her homework for her. Kutner called security and demanded Simon tell him why he came to visit Natalie. He must have felt guilty about something. Kutner threatened to call the cops. Taub pulled him aside to say just how unreasonable Kutner was being. They tried again, more calm this time. Simon admitted he used to be friends with Natalie and said he used to supply her with a few bottles of vodka each week.
Natalie told Cuddy she hadn't drunk in six months. She claimed she didn't drink most of the vodka Simon bought her. Meanwhile, in the clinic, House was finding it tough to be extra nice to patients after a woman said her asthma was still bothering her despite the fact she was spraying her inhaler onto her neck rather than inhaling.
The pregnant couple returned. House brought in some test results and looked surprised when he read them. He told them not to leave, and walked out. Foreman's partner in the Huntington's clinical trial, Dr. Schmidt (Phyllis Lyons), said the patients should be seen as numbers because introducing emotion could throw off the scientific study. House came back to the pregnant couple six hours later with the shocking result of their paternity test: the woman's pregnancy was the result of parthenogenesis -- an asexual form of reproduction never been proven possible in humans. He congratulated the couple and said in seven months they would witness a virgin birth.
Natalie's latest symptoms suggested she might have leukemia, but House preferred more testing rather than treatment, which would have been painful. Cuddy had a particular attachment to this patient and seemed ready to fight for her. House told her "some patients die." Then he noticed a gift on his desk from the pregnant couple and he explained to Cuddy he faked the parthenogenesis explanation as a way to save their relationship. In fact, the woman had cheated on the man. But it got him a gift from a patient, which meant House won his bet with Wilson. He took the gift over to Wilson's office, tossed it to him and said, "I win!"
As he talked about the pregnant woman, Cuddy had a clarity moment usually reserved for Dr. House: The girl didn't have leukemia, she had eclampsia -- a complication of pregnancy.
Cuddy explained to Natalie and her parents about the disease and said the girl could have contracted it up to a month after giving birth. Her parents didn't believe it, but Cuddy said Natalie could have covered it up with baggy clothes and the baby was probably born premature. Cuddy then realized the baby was the reason, why Natalie quit drinking and had asked her so often about whether she (Cuddy) had children. "The baby is ... why you feel guilty," Cuddy told Natalie. She cried and explained Simon was the father and they were "like boyfriend-girlfriend for a while," they just didn't tell anyone.
Natalie explained she gave birth unexpectedly and she felt bad about being unable to save the baby herself, but she left it near a soup kitchen where she volunteered. Cuddy then explained the damage to Natalie's heart and liver were permanent, which meant she would die. Natalie cried as she said she didn't even bury the baby. She just put her coat over her.
Cuddy went into a dark, seemingly abandoned building and ran into a couple squatting there. They'd found the baby and took care of her. Cuddy said they needed to give her up because they couldn't give her the care she needed. Cuddy returned to the hospital with the baby and handed her to Natalie. Simon arrived to visit and was stunned to see her holding a child. Kutner and Simon exchanged looks and one could get the feeling Kutner would tell Simon he was a father.
Next scene: Kutner, grim faced, walking toward the front doors. The other doctors asked him if Natalie would get a transplant, and he told them the committee turned her down. She only has a couple of days to live. The doctors all lamented the fact the baby would likely end up with her father, who'd "just been named captain of the high school bullying team," Taub said.
Kutner left and went to an old high-school acquaintance's house and apologized for all the bad stuff he'd done to him in high school.
House walked in on Cuddy standing over the baby. Cuddy said she'd spoken to both sets of grandparents and they said it was too painful to keep her and they were putting her up for adoption. "I already spoke to a lawyer," she told House. "I become a foster parent, and then I adopt."
"Merry Christmas, Cuddy," House said before walking out of the room, but first he gave a longing look back at the new mother and child.
Foreman and Thirteen met up and Thirteen said she noticed Janice was back in the trial. "That was my Christmas gift to you," Foreman said.
Thirteen said she was wrong and told Foreman he's not like House. "That was my Christmas gift to myself," he said.
They agreed they should go down to the Christmas party, but instead they made out. That's right. Foreman and Thirteen kissed. And they kissed long and hard. That'll keep 'em warm for the Winter! (New "House" episodes are slated to return Jan. 19 in a new, 8 p.m. ET/PT Monday timeslot).
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content