The "I love you" thing could have so easily been played completely sarcastically but HL's tone wasn't completely sarcastic, I think it sounded sincere or at least more sincere than it should have for just a joke. For playing it that way, I shall love HL forever, not that that wasn't already going to happen.

In regards to the ILU scene, it's been AGES since I've seen a hospital keep a patient's chart on the end of the bed. All the ones that I know of have them locked in a cabinet just outside the room that only the RNs really have access to (MDs via the RNs). It's just incredibly odd to see Wilson take the chart from the bed and place it back there. ETA - Aside from tonight and Three Stories, when was the third "I love you?" I can't seem to recall.

Remember in that Volger episode where Volger-the-totally-not-a-doctor wandered into a patient's room, picked up the chart and started reading it? Actually in the hospitals I've been in they still keep it at the end of the bed. So the guy killed his dog? I did volunteer work with this woman who was wheelchair-bound due to CP, her will stated that if she died before her dog the dog was to be euthanized and buried with her. ETA Didn't House say "I love you too" to his mother on the phone in "Daddy's Boy"?

ETA - Aside from tonight and Three Stories, when was the third "I love you?" I can't seem to recall. When House tricks Cameron so he can get the swab sample in Need to Know. Specifically manipulative. I'm not sure the guy gave the dog the meds deliberately. I do think that when he didn't take them, he either forgot to point it out or deliberately didn't mention it, but the entire situation beyond that is highly ambiguous. After all, if a doc gave you meds & you didn't take them, wouldn't you bring that to their attention? Was that part of what the PotW was trying to communicate to 13 in that scene where she kept telling him not to talk?

That was the other episode I thought you might have meant Taiga. I don't recall it specifically, if he was on the phone he wasn't looking at her, uh he always seems a little uncomfortable talking to the folks. Saying I love you to your Mom, nothing out of the ordinary. Might have been there to set up the contrast with Dad, ("I hate him.")

Remember in that Volger episode where Volger-the-totally-not-a-doctor wandered into a patient's room, picked up the chart and started reading it? Actually in the hospitals I've been in they still keep it at the end of the bed. Also in Kids, when House had the scene with Mary towards the end of the episode he picked up her chart from the end of the bed and wrote something on it.

Thanks z! It would have driven me nut. As for the chart at end of bed thing, that just seems an open invitation to break the HIPAA laws of doctor/patient confidentiality. House has shown via Vogler that anyone can walk in and just look at the chart. That's why the hospitals in our area locked them up, and even at the nursing home I work at, we're not allowed to have them in/near the resident's room. They are in a file cabinet behind the nurse's station.

I don't think the potw intentionally killed the dog. we don't know I guess. Can I just add one thing? I.hate.montages. They just annoy me. Was that alanis morisette? I could't help but thinking about the corrolation between wanting to die and being dumped by ryan reynolds!

Well, because of my crazy work schedule (dumb rehearsals until 11), I'm very, very late to this party, and I haven't had time to go back and read everyone's comments yet, because I JUST finished the episode. I just wanted to share my humble little opinion and say that this has been my favorite episode of the season so far. As much as I loved all the House and Wilson goodness in Alone, neither of the first two episodes felt like a real episode to me, but this one did. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I thought it was great. :D

That was definitely Alanis. Her shrieky voice took me right out of the moment. And seriously, someone needs to smack that director with his handheld camera. It is not cute.

Re: dog vs. POTW in the crosswalk -- well, we knew the guy would survive the teaser, or there wouldn't be an episode. The poor dog had no such guarantees. I was totally eeping for the dog. Not a dog person by a long shot here, but I make an exception for working animals. Doggies do tend to snarf whatever they find. Wouldn't an assist dog be better trained though? Maybe he was trying to pick up the cup to give it back and swallowed the pills by accident. Okay, don't we have TWO not-a-doctors here? I don't mean to rag on vets, I know they have plenty of their own medical training, but that training doesn't qualify them for a human medical license, does it? Wouldn't the veterinarian be just as forbidden as Scooter/Dobson to perform procedures on humans? Also, she wasn't a very good vet, if she didn't even notice the poor dog wasn't doing well. I noticed and wasn't even in the room. Glad she's gone. I used the Foreman scenes to run to the kitchen and keep my dinner from burning. I don't feel I missed anything. I would have been happier if his patient had died. Not just because I would have enjoyed seeing him cut down to size, but because I really wanted to see his Boss Lady shown as a reasonable person, a good doctor, and a good administrator. There are too few of those on this show, and I wanted the good contrast to Cuddy. Instead, we just got the reinforcement that everyone outside House's court is either a moron or a bureaucrat. Also, I didn't like that it set up another parallel with House's multiple firings (though that parallel is one reason I can forgive House for firing Chase). Was I the only one dreading with fear and trembling the possible fall-out from "why did you call me?" and the.... shudder... touching? Nope, but thankfully it was short-lived for me. I'd already decided from the promo last week that she would be leaving, since House wouldn't want to keep someone around who had seen him that vulnerable so early in the relationship. And I figured his reason for calling her before they stated it. But then there was the ...touching... and that ... horrible excerpt from a bad fanfic "nobody to care" line... and I almost lost it for a moment. But I regained it after House stalked off. Remember, too, that last week she was a "pixie" and this week she's just a "bitch". I think he's already decided to fire her and is just keeping her around as a reagent for the other candidates. I don't think paging her meant anything other than what he said it meant. Chase and Cameron likely would have ignored a page, thinking he was just trying to harass them -- they might have come, but not quickly enough. Re: House quoting Wizard of Oz -- thank you guys so much for catching that! I thought it was nice but way too treacle-y to be believable, but if it was a quote, that's entirely different. She's potentially going to have to deal with a yips problem early & House has an opportunity to do a better job of managing someone through that. I thought it had much more in common with Chase's mistake than Foreman's -- without the mitigating factor, obviously, but it was the lack of doing something right rather than the act of doing something wrong. And I thought House finding her at the autopsy scene (that is where they were, yes?) confirmed that she was sticking around, because that's one of House's schticks. its not about pissing off House <snip> its about expecting the respect he is due from his peers, most of all House. Thanks for this explanation! I'll have to keep it in mind during rewatch.

What have they done with this show? I didn't like much about this episode. The POTW and his dog were great but the others - not so much. Even HL seemed to be mailing it in. The ILU was funny but the whole light socket experiment just seemed ridiculous to me, and I didn't buy into it. The canvas is so big right now that no one is getting enough screen time. The Foreman sub-plot seemed like a parody of the show, and a waste of time. I'm caring less and less each week about the numbers.