1.21 Three Stories
From tv.com: House's ex-girlfriend Stacy Warner returns – not for House but to get help for her ailing husband. While House decides whether or not to take her case, Cuddy forces him to present a lecture to a class of medical students. As he weaves the stories of three patients who all present with a similar symptom, House gives a lecture the students will never forget. BEST. EPISODE. EVER.

In four years of watching and discetting that episode it wasn't until last night I noticed that when the animal control guy has the timebr rattler, that Foreman does a little shoulder shudder and tongue thing. Seriously, go look, it's pretty funny. Oh yeah Seconding BEST. EPISODE. EVER.

I know. It took me AGES to see that. It's still funny, though.

I LOVE THAT EPISODE! My most favourite quote is from that ep: "Time is not a fixed construct." I can't even remember how often I have used that one since I first heard it. :-)

Rewatching this episode last night, I noticed that for the volleyball player the ducklings all wore red or orange, and the writing on the white board was in red marker. Then switch to the farmer, and we find the group in blues and greens, and the writing on the white board is in blue ink. Never noticed that theme before. It's cool on a visual level.

I was writing a comment about PWCorgiGirl's latest House/Stacy fic when something occurred to me. The thing that always annoyed me most about Stacy was that she insisted that she was always, always right about absolutely everything. And angry about everything he did. There were certainly times he deserved it, but not always. And, of course, the ultimate one of those was the one where she "saved his life." Medicine was the one arena in which he was indisputably the expert yet, when she used the medical proxy as soon as he was unconscious to authorize the surgery, she didn't even consider the possibility that he was right. I was wondering to what degree did ignoring his expertise and putting her medical opinion ahead of his figuratively emasculate him when dealing with Stacy as well as physically crippling him.

Poeia, although I like Stacy far more than you do, I agree with you that her decision emasculated House. IMO, her lack of trust in his medical opinion was a serious violation in his eyes, and he just could not get past any of that. However, I feel so much for both of them. She was in a difficult situation, and she couldn't be sure that she could trust his medical judgment about himself in that moment because: 1. He was distracted by serious pain, so bad that it wasn't alleviated by morphine. 2. He suffered seriously low self-esteem, and he indicated he'd rather die than have his leg amputated. I am no softie, but this episode makes me cry every time. On another note, does anyone else think that Cuddy is not really Cuddy here? She doesn't seem to know House and Stacy, and she just doesn't seem very Cuddy to me. Also, they never refer to her by name. The first time I watched it, I took it at face value that it was indeed her. But after that, it struck me that she's probably just a stand-in within the story-telling.

About 95% of the time I'm positive that the infarction wasn't at PPTH and Cuddy wasn't Cuddy. Was she the Dean of Medicine a decade ago? If not, why did she march in an announce she was personally take over his case? She's an endocrinologist -- hardly a specialty that is essential in dealing with infarctions? If the hospital where he was taken was one at which he worked (i.e. PPTH), the doctors in the ER would have known him and known he was a brilliant physician. They would have simply asked if he were allergic to demerol rather than shilly-shallying until he injected himself. Or, if he had a reputation for using drugs at that time, they would have sent him for tests rather than considering demerol at all. There are a lot of reasons to think that Cuddy and PPTH were visual stand-ins for the real personnel and hospital where he was treated.

On another note, does anyone else think that Cuddy is not really Cuddy here? She doesn't seem to know House and Stacy, and she just doesn't seem very Cuddy to me. Also, they never refer to her by name. The first time I watched it, I took it at face value that it was indeed her. But after that, it struck me that she's probably just a stand-in within the story-telling. That's a very interesting theory, NightOwl. I also did find it odd that House referred to her as "the doctor" and not "Cuddy." However, when you think about Cuddy's expression at the end of the episode, you can see the tell-tale signs of her guilt in there. My theory is this: Our visuals during this episode are all functions of House's memory and what he's choosing to tell the students (such as calling the volleyball player Susan to protect her HIPAA status) It wouldn't matter to us what he calls her, quite frankly we're the only ones who can see her. Perhaps he's calling Cuddy "the doctor" in this to protect her. The students should not realize her part in House's drama. We're the only ones who can see her. There would be no other reason to put Cuddy in there as the visual, opening her up to so much fan criticism, I think.

That's a very interesting theory, NightOwl. I also did find it odd that House referred to her as "the doctor" and not "Cuddy." However, when you think about Cuddy's expression at the end of the episode, you can see the tell-tale signs of her guilt in there. But no one, except for House and Stacy, were called by their names. Not even CC&F. House referred to Cameron as "her doctor" in terms of the volleyball patient, so referring to Cuddy as "the doctor" follows that form. Personally, I think that it was Cuddy, but wouldn't be shocked if it wasn't. In terms of why she was there, I've always fanwanked that she was already in administration, if not dean of medicine at that point, and part of her responsibility was the clinic. (And it was the clinic -- "three guys walk into the clinic" rather than the ER) So when a crappy doctor there screwed up House's case at the start, she felt responsible and stepped in.

I always assume that since it's a class, he did not give the students the real names of patients and doctors. I don't believe that what House says the patient who died "saw" is true, it was just a cool way for him to tell the students the end of the patient's stories.

Who is the actor that plays the House doppleganger?