Paternity (House episode)

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House episode
"Paternity"

Episode no.	HOU-102
Airdate	November 23, 2004
Writer(s)	Lawrence Kaplow
Director(s)	Peter O'Fallon
Guest star(s)	Scott Mechlowicz as Dan
House Season 1 November 2004 - May 2005
Pilot Paternity Occam's Razor Maternity Damned If You Do The Socratic Method Fidelity Poison DNR Histories Detox Sports Medicine Cursed Control Mob Rules Heavy Role Model Babies & Bathwater Kids Love Hurts Three Stories Honeymoon
All House episodes

Paternity is the second episode of the first season of House, which premiered on the FOX network on November 23, 2004. The episode features Dr. House taking an interest in a 16-year-old boy who, after being struck in the head during a lacrosse game, has frequent hallucinations and night terrors that are not due to a concussion. The episode was slated to air as the 5th episode in the series originally, but was moved later.^[1]

1 Synopsis
2 Featured Music
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

When a clinic patient walks in to Princeton Plainsboro complaining of double vision and night terrors, House is skeptical because they have a "letter" that they say was written by him. House realizes that it was written by Cameron, but still listens to the patient. The patient, named Dan (played by Scott Mechlowicz), is a 16 year old lacrosse player who recently got hit in the head in a game. House dismisses the symptoms as a concussion and bad vision and is about to send him home when he notices Dan's foot is twitching, something uncommon in awake people. House immediately admits Dan and begins to run tests.

House tries to bother Dan's parents by claiming that Dan's father isn't his true biological father. His father vehemently denies it, but House still makes a bet with Foreman about it. Soon after, Dan has another night terror. None of the tests show why the night terror occurred, but House finds a large blockage in one of Dan's blood vessels. House and his team relieved the pressure as fast as they could, but they find that the blockage isn't what is causing the other symptoms. It is, in fact, a symptom itself.

During the night, Dan suddenly disappears from his bed. Cameron, Chase, and Foreman search frantically to find him, and they finally find him on the roof. Chase tackles him just before he steps over the edge of the building. Dan is confused and disoriented, and Foreman's report to House about the incident thrills House. House believes that because of the event in the night, Dan's night terrors are gone. When House and his team are injecting penicillin into Dan's brain, he has an auditory hallucination and rules out the neurosyphilis that Foreman believed was the problem. House, after convicing Dan's parents to go to Dan who is hearing voices, steals their cups to run paternity and maternity tests. The tests show that neither are Dan's parents (winning him his bet with Foreman, Wilson, and everyone else who joined), and a new idea hits him. He remembers a baby he treated earlier whose mother did not want to vaccinate the child.

House thinks that infant Dan caught the basic measles virus from his biological mother, who possibly had never been vaccinated, that laid latent for 16 years and reappeared in his brain. After a dangerous brain biopsy, House's theory is confirmed, and Dan gets well and goes back to playing lacrosse. House is later shown watching Dan play lacrosse, and seems to be dreaming about days before, and clutches his cane like a lacrosse stick.