So Wilson and Sam thought that House would be spending the night in New York. Anyone want to guess what he was doing in NY? Jazz concert? Meeting with a malpractice attorney? Part of me wonders if maybe Mayfield is in New York (state, rather than city) and he had a late session. Ideas?

I don't know, Sam didn't expect House to be home in the morning, so are we to assume that he stays overnight each time he has a session...?

I particularly liked the way the episode played with the classic love triangle of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot. The POTW was involved in one and House played a contrasting role in two others, but in each case he was the odd knight out, compelled by a sense of loyalty and duty to stand aside to let Cuddy and Wilson pursue their own loves. House, ironically and painfully, can only prove the true nature of his love by abandoning it. With this as his central dilemma, no wonder House's pain is on the rise. I was impressed that Sam took the completely opposite tack to Amber in her struggle with House for Wilson. Rather than indulging in jealous rages and childish pranks to establish territory, Sam was humble, honest about her own past errors, and respectful of House's place in Wilson's life. Her refusal to joust for Wilson made House rethink his opposition. In important ways Sam is the temperamental opposite of House and it is interesting to reflect on what it says about Wilson that this was the first wife and perhaps the model for all his subsequent relationships. To go with the Arthurian theme of this episode, I think Sam is Wilson's once-and-future wife. But by employing Lucas I wonder if House has now left himself open to a new line of attack. The audience knows that House refused to even read the pilfered report on Sam, but Lucas will assume the contrary and how long will it be before he tells Cuddy about the spying he did for House? House may live by a rather archaic and noble code of honor, but Lucas does not. My guess about Cuddy's odd moodiness was that she was reacting to the info spilled by House that Wilson had betrayed her confidence about her youthful affair with the best friend of her father. So now we know that Cuddy was involved in yet another form of love triangle that couldn't turn out well. Cuddy's relationship to her father (he of the photograph that House mangled) is clearly a fraught one. This makes her long interest (begun when she was a teenager) in the older and commanding House all the more intriguing, I think. Given that this was a new writer used to dealing with an ensemble cast, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that the scenes for the three women (Cuddy, Sam, and Thirteen) were given the weight, strength, zest and importance that is often lacking from the scripts produced by the stable of regular writers. I hope we get more from this writer. Overall a solid episode, and Hugh looked gorgeous either entirely bare or clothed in layers of costuming!

I agree with your assessment, Blacktop, about the writers and how the women have been written on this show. Interesting this new writer came from NCIS that has more of an ensemble cast. I thought he did a nice job in bringing out the characters. I said this a few weeks ago, with the exception of a few writers, I would welcome a shakeup of the writing staff to bring some freshness into the show.

To me, the NCIS-ness of the show encapsulated everything that was wrong about the episode to me. I know that a lot of people have said they liked the episode because it was very much old-school House, I disliked it because it felt very old school and (with a few exceptions) the written characteristics could have been plucked out of anyplace and any drama and dropped in. We're not in the third season any more, and I want to see something moved on from that. Thirteen felt like a substitute for Ziva, Tony's quips were placed in Taub's mouth, (Although PJac gave them a Taub spin, thank God.). Foreman could have been giving Ducky's lines. The main story was a by-the-book who/whatdunnit plotting in which they worked down the series of suspects. If I wanted to watch something that was just whodunnit/whatdunnit ensembly-casty-thing, then I'd watch that. To me, the scenes that saved the show were those that concentrated on the specifics of these characters -- the strange dance that is House and Wilson's relationship when they have to figure out the new steps when another person in the room (and I say that in a platonic relationship form, not a 'shipper status). The expansion of House's pain issue, his dinner as an intricate plot to undercut the interloper ... I'm not saying it was a bad episode for me, but it just .... felt very standard, mid-season placeholder we get through to get to the ramp up of the final episodes. ETA: And whatever NCIS did or didn't have to do with anything long term is beyond the point, since he's only a freelancer, brought in for one episode -- which may be required under the WGA contract, to keep TV shows from becoming "closed" to new writers -- and nothing indicates he's going to join the staff.

John C. Kelley left NCIS 3 years ago. In terms of the regulars, this was a House/Wilson episode. Often it seems that when one of the 6 supporting characters is front and center, the writers throw a dart to see which of the remaining 5 will get 90% of everything. Where I think his experience with an ensemble helped was that CCFTT each got some good moments. Even though I'm the one who whacked -- excuse me, wanked -- the time line into sort of fitting, I'm beginning to think it was deliberately screwed up. House refers to Sam as "The souless harpy you were married to before we met." Then he tells Cuddy "So you'd rather sit back and watch while the evil blonde gorges on Wilson's tender flesh and then tosses out his bones like she did the last time? You remember what he was like after that?" and Cuddy says that she remembers. Then Sam says "We were married young, we both made mistakes, and yes, I did make most of them. But that was almost a decade ago." These statements don't just contradict canon from earlier episodes, they conflict with each other. I now think there are two possibilities. a) We're going to find out that Sam and Wilson tried again about 10 years ago -- between his marriages to Bonnie and Julie -- and she gorged and tossed. I don't know why she didn't meet House at the time, but it would explain how both House and Cuddy remember the aftermath and why Sam talked about "a decade." b) The mess was deliberate. People frequently aren't accurate about their own time lines. I recently told someone I've been in my current field of work for 20 years, but I realized afterward that it's been 25. House met Wilson right after he and Sam broke up so he heard all the bad stuff, Cuddy remembers what Wilson was like after a breakup and Sam used "a decade" to mean "a long time."

I have almost finished transcribing Knight Fall and am hoping than someone can help me with one particular scene. It is the scene where House bounces the eyeball like a bouncy ball and Thirteen lists some of the disgusting items Miles has required his Knights to eat. Chase is eating something in this scene. Does anyone know what he is eating? This is one of those small details that seems important to me, given that Taub makes a comment about “breakfast in Australia.” If no one can tell me what he is eating, than I will let it go, but I would be delighted if I could include it in the transcript.

You're better than I am (Lockdown is still only half finished.) I think he ate a potato chip then picked up his sandwich. The thing hanging down when he grinned at Taub had to be cheese so I'll go with "cheeseburger."

I didn't think it looked like a hamburger bun, though. More like a deli-type sandwich -- something on a Kaiser roll or a croissant. Maybe. :D

My other thought as to what was hanging from his mouth was something coleslaw-ish. That would fit with the deli thing. Maybe just call it a sandwich.

Outdoor latrines. Food prep going on next to livestock. But they forgot one of the most delightful aspects of living in the Middle Ages. It definitely looks like they've all bathed and washed their clothes.