House Training (House)

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House episode
"House Training"
Episode no. HOU-320
Airdate April 24, 2007
Writer(s) Doris Egan
Director(s) Paul McCrane
Guest star(s) Charles S. Dutton as Rodney Foreman
Monique Curnen as Lupe
Jane Adams as Bonnie
Beverly Todd as Alicia Foreman

House Season 3
September 2006 - May 2007
  1. Meaning
  2. Cane and Able
  3. Informed Consent
  4. Lines in the Sand
  5. Fools for Love
  6. Que Sera Sera
  7. Son of Coma Guy
  8. Whac-A-Mole
  9. Finding Judas
  10. Merry Little Christmas
  11. Words and Deeds
  12. One Day, One Room
  13. Needle in a Haystack
  14. Insensitive
  15. Half-Wit
  16. Top Secret
  17. Fetal Position
  18. Airborne
  19. Act Your Age
  20. House Training
  21. Family
  22. Resignation
  23. The Jerk
  24. Human Error
All House episodes

House Training is the twentieth episode of the third season of House and the sixty-sixth episode overall.

Contents

[edit] Plot

A young female scam artist named Lupe passes out while acting as a shill in a Three Card Monte scam on the street. Lupe suffers from a lack of blood to the brain which temporarily paralyzed her ability to make decisions or exercise free will ("aboulia," says Foreman, as "part of a . . . transient ischemic attack"). Measuring from her background, Foreman immediately suspects Lupe's condition stems from drug abuse, while Chase looks for other possibilities, such as toxins in Lupe's apartment. Lupe senses Foreman's disdain for the decisions she's made in her life, and Foreman grapples with his own humble past when his parents come to visit him. When Lupe's symptoms worsen and her organs begin to shut down, Foreman and the team suspect cancer to be the culprit. When cancer does not meet the situation, the team thinks it must be an autoimmune disease. Foreman presses for a full body radiation treatment. However, severe pain after the radiation leads the team to the final, correct diagnosis: an infection. The radiation treatment destroys Lupe's immune system and there is nothing anybody can do to save Lupe. Foreman tries hard to tell Lupe the news and help her cope with it. The two eventually realize they were both right and wrong about each other. Meanwhile, Cuddy and Wilson go out on a date to see an art exhibit together after House asked Cuddy to go to a play with him (at the very end of the previous episode, Act Your Age) and Cuddy declined. House probes Wilson's ex-wife about Wilson and his dating habits. Lupe eventually dies and when House performs an autopsy, it is learned that Lupe had a staph infection from a scratch due to her bra hook and the team didn't notice it because the strap covered it.

This episode is notable in that (according to both Foreman and House) it is the first time the team directly kills a patient. Although previous patients have died in their care, this has always occurred when House correctly diagnoses a disease which has no cure, or occasionally when he makes a diagnosis too late, and once (in the episode "Maternity") in an ethics-bending decision aimed at saving other people's lives. House and Wilson also indirectly helped a patient (who would have otherwise regressed back into a vegetative state) take his own life, so that his son could have his heart, in "Son of Coma Guy".

This episode also portrays House's obsession for solving the medical mystery in an unprecedented manner. When it becomes clear that they cannot cure Lupe, House tries to perform tests on her while she is still alive. When Foreman forbids this, House becomes frustrated and says "I need to know". By the end of the episode, House too feels disappointed by the patient's death, especially after his autopsy reveals her original illness and its cause to be so mundane. However, unlike Foreman, House feels that the team took an appropriate course of action, stating that their unconventional decision-making abilities make them better doctors.

It ends with a small talk between Foreman and his mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. He realizes at the end of their conversation that she was not aware that he was her son. Foreman asks, "Do you know who I am, mom? It's Eric.", with her replying "Of course it is, of course... my little boy's name is Eric..."

[edit] Awards

Omar Epps submitted this episode for consideration in the category of "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" on his behalf for the 2007 Emmy Awards.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ 2007 Emmys CONFIRMED Episode Submissions. The Envelope Forum, Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.

[edit] External links

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