4.05 Mirror Mirror

Was anyone else disappointed that this episode didn't take place in an alternate universe in which House is a nursery school teacher and Cuddy has a backbone? False advertising if you ask me.

Interesting that House doesn’t know the names of all his employees, but Chase does.

Interesting that House doesn’t know the names of all his employees, but Chase does. I think it's more than House simply doesn't care about his employees names.

And all I stayed fixed on was the line about replacing Cuddy's birth control pills and the implication I wasn't sure was a joke or not that there is off screen Huddy going on. See, I took the comment to mean that she 'forgot' to take one, but this makes sense. She's trying to switch out his pills in retaliation for hers. I also took it to mean she's having sex with someone else, and House knows it. (i.e. if she is pregnant, House is not the father.) And yeah. That's all I could focus on, too. I actually didn't understand the last ten minutes because I was too preoccupied on the pregnancy comment, thinking they were going to come out with it. Ah, well. That's what the Christmas episode is for, I s'pose. ;) (Kidding.) I didn't like House being dominant over Cuddy, either. I thought the first act or two dragged a bit, but all of a sudden I found it pretty interesting. I was pretty amused that the POTW was a guest star on Psych once, and he played a man with multiple personality disorder. Now he's got mirror syndrome. Cool beans. P.S. You know how impressive it is when people can raise one eyebrow without the other? It's like, impressive times ten that Omar Epps' eyebrows are always that way.

... does anybody else find it amusing about the mayonnaise thing during it, when there actually is a place called the Mayo Clinic, which has been referenced in the series? (sorry. I'll let you get back to proper discussions now.)

People are talking about the lightness of the ep. How about House's speech to Brennan?...In hindsight he was just manipulating him to keep him from quitting, but I heard truth there too. He doesn't hope to be happy, just to minimize his misery. I've heard of studies that suggest that "depressed" people actually have a more objective view of reality than "happy" people.... I think the notion we all imbibe that we are supposed to be happy, that happiness as a default state is even possible, is a bit of an illusion. I don't think normal = happy. If our expectations were that normal = getting by with enough "happy" to balance the "miserable" we'd probably be a lot less frustrated. Maybe this is what House was getting at? I predict that House will fire Brennan next, giving him an excuse to go back to his old life that he misses. Again with not wanting kill the dream?

Less gag worthy than last week. Took over 60 minutes to play the 43 actual minutes of video, but that probably had more to do with the crappy DL than anything. I'm sick of Foreman. One epidoe back and alrerady I don't like how much he has been featured this season. Patient, pretty decent. I did like the stuff with House and the POTW at the end. I lost it with House all dancing around. Give me a break. I guess I will have to chalk that up tot he same realm of possibilty that allows a guy missing his quad muscle to run eight miles. I did like the machine gun cane though. I wonder if that was Hugh or in the script. Rewatchable, but not sure I would go to the trouble to DL it again.

I've heard of studies that suggest that "depressed" people actually have a more objective view of reality than "happy" people.... I think the notion we all imbibe that we are supposed to be happy, that happiness as a default state is even possible, is a bit of an illusion. I don't think normal = happy. If our expectations were that normal = getting by with enough "happy" to balance the "miserable" we'd probably be a lot less frustrated. Maybe this is what House was getting at? Maybe that's why I can't wrap my head around House being depressed, no matter what I'm told on the show, because his view makes sense to me. I don't think we're supposed to be miserable by default (and I see miserable as used on the show as the only alternative for happy, which just isn't true) but I doubt we're supposed to be HAPPY :D :D :D constantly, either. I think it would be exhausting. We have general periods of being okay, and being okay is -okay. And, sprinkled throughout, we have moments of that happiness that if you don't have it, you're apparently miserable, and well, misery -hopefully less of the misery side. When it doesn't come to sticking knives in sockets, what I see from House (and not what I'm told from other characters) House seems fine.

She replaced his secret stash, not all of his pills. I have serious doubts he even took any laxatives. Also, House didn't seem to be in pain while either getting around or in bathroom, ergo, the pill switching didn't seem to affect him too terribly. I wasn't being clear, sorry. I wasn't speaking of whether she indeed switched the pills, but about my puzzlement that she felt it was an appropriate response to his actions. I was reminded of the final scene between them in Needle in a Haystack where she taunted him as if the bet was a game that could be won. It wasn't for House, it was about making his day a little more bearable and she didn't seem to realise that until he stood up and limped over to her. I thought she's learned something from that. I had hoped that she'd come to a new understanding of his disability. However, now she's back to using it against him either to win or humble him. I'm wondering what the point was of Needle in a Haystack, if she's gone right back to seeing him as a recalcitrant child whose honest need for pain relief can be used to rein him in. I honestly don't understand Cuddy's motives anymore. Wilson walked in on Cuddy replacing his secret stash but when she said "Where were you two hours ago?" I took that to mean that she had messed with his regular stash two hours before and was now back to also switch his secret stash assuming he would have to dip into it because the regular stash laxative subs weren't giving him the pain relief he needed. IIRC this scene is followed immediately by House in the toilet...? I think assuming House dropped to the substitution, didn't take the laxative but then pretended to have the runs is taking the subtelty a little too far. I think he didn't realize the switch till the laxative hit him and the timing fits in with Cuddy's two hours ago comment.... I still think the mayo thing was more on par with the Foreman thing and the way she did it, in front of the new candidates, etc and the laxatives were Cuddy taking it to a much low, less mature level than House's retaliation with the mayo. The game got lower with every move and while messing with her Pills was lower than the laxatives, he did warn her in time for it not to have a disasterous result and, imo, after the Foreman and the laxatives she deserved it. That was my interpretation as well. She was fully justified in hitting back (the Great Mayo Scare of 2007 was funny but hardly mature and cost a great many people an afternoon waiting in the clinic) but she stooped too low for my taste, taking it from professional taunting to attempting to harm him personally. On the Taub mirror scene, we see that he's attracted to power. I wonder if that tells us something about why he'd leave a successful plastic surgery practice. After all, the bulk of his work was focused on vanity. In diagnostics, he'd be involved in life and death situations. A plastic surgeon would seem to be very low on the hierarchy of "powerful" surgeons -- especially compared to, say, neurosurgeons, trauma surgeons, cardiac surgeons, etc. They're usually the guys that are the cowboys in every hospital. A plastic surgeon? Not so much. I wonder if he was feeling trapped and powerless in that life, prompting the move into something with a lot more -- to quote House -- balls. Good points. I'm getting increasingly curious about Taub. He's married, settled and appears to have a stable, profitable career and yet he wants to move into a new field. Perhaps he too is looking for meaning in his life. Patient, pretty decent. Cod, no. Frank Whaley did really well in the role, but the idea that he could read people to the point of telling their deep, dark secrets was too preposterous for me to swallow. And FWIW, there's no such thing as Giovannini's Mirror Syndrome – or rather, I haven't been able to find a single piece of information on it. There is a Giovannini's Disease, but that's an outdated name for a type of fungal skin infection. I'm fine with tweaking the medicine a bit and the cases presenting with odd symptoms from time to time but inventing new diseases is IMHO going too far.

That was my interpretation as well. She was fully justified in hitting back (the Great Mayo Scare of 2007 was funny but hardly mature and cost a great many people an afternoon waiting in the clinic) but she stooped too low for my taste, taking it from professional taunting to attempting to harm him personally. I can't understand why Cuddy didn't get that Mayo Scare thing under control right away. As soon as they all walked into the clinic, couldn't she have made an announcement that reassured everyone that the scare had been a fake? She *is* the Dean of Medicine, after all. :)

And FWIW, there's no such thing as Giovannini's Mirror Syndrome – or rather, I haven't been able to find a single piece of information on it. There is a Giovannini's Disease, but that's an outdated name for a type of fungal skin infection. I'm fine with tweaking the medicine a bit and the cases presenting with odd symptoms from time to time but inventing new diseases is IMHO going too far. I just think it's really ironic that David Foster, the one actual MD on the writing staff, wrote this episode. One would think that the best use of his experience would be to create a story with some verisimilitude. But to be honest, I don't mind if they invent new diseases for the sake of "Teh Drama." Other shows (CSI, for example) have gone beyond tweaking reality as well.

Isn't David Foster the one who has actually said that they have previously created nonexistent diseases for the show?

... does anybody else find it amusing about the mayonnaise thing during it, when there actually is a place called the Mayo Clinic, which has been referenced in the series? There was a skit on SNL once, I think, that showed jars of mayonnaise in hospital...that is, in the Mayo Clinic. Stupid, but made me laugh out loud, just like the_xarlster's comment above. Yeah, I'm an idiot...

They used the Mayo Clinic/mayonaisse joke in Airplane too. I thought it was funny.

They used the Mayo Clinic/mayonaisse joke in Airplane too. I thought it was funny. Hold the mayo? Yes, it was hilarious, but I'm twelve sometimes :D Isn't David Foster the one who has actually said that they have previously created nonexistent diseases for the show? I don't recall that quote, and maybe I haven't been paying attention (highly probable) but I can't recall any other fantasy-diseases. I do recall some very peculiar symptoms that didn't fit the diseases they were meant to fit and theories that weren't particularly specific and didn't make sense (e.g. the autoimmune-disease-causing-hallucinations-induced-by-pain-itis from WYD).

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