Bombshells (House)

"Bombshells" is the fifteenth episode of the seventh season of the American medical drama series House. It aired on March 7, 2011.

Plot

A teenager is admitted to the hospital after spitting up blood. Taub also discovers that the boy has been depressed and appears to have been cutting himself. More concern arises when the team breaks into the boy's house and finds his school yearbook with his classmates' faces crossed out and threatening words written about the school, and when Taub checks the contents of the boy's flash drive, he finds disturbing videos of him blowing up homemade pipe bombs and appearing to show misanthropic and sociopathic tendencies.

It is discovered that a piece of one of the bombs ended up lodged in his system, and the foreign material is what has caused his various medical maladies. Taub, however, is torn between sending the videos to the authorities throughout the case, but in the end, decides to mail the flash drive to the police.

Meanwhile, Cuddy finds blood in her urine and undergoes tests for possible kidney cancer, while House grapples with emotionally supporting her, avoiding her, and denying that she is actually sick. Cuddy goes through several dreams while hospitalized culminating in a stylized version of "Get Happy" before her kidney problems were found to be a benign tumor.

One of Cuddy's dreams parodies the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men,^[1] while another recreates the final scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with House and Cuddy in the roles of Butch and Sundance.

After speaking with her sister, Cuddy realizes that when House came to see her during her illness, he was under the influence of Vicodin. Realizing that he is unable to open up completely and share the pain that she considers to be part of any meaningful relationship, she ends their relationship.

The episode is concluded with a scene that echoes the last scene of the previous season's finale ("Help Me"): House is sitting on his bathroom floor with a bottle of Vicodin in his hand. He expectantly looks at the doorway. Resigned, and with no Cuddy to save him, he takes the pills.

Reception

Viewer response

As a running theme for the last four seasons, the ending of "Huddy" was an abrupt ending of one of the show's main draws. While at heart a procedural medicine program, House relied on the interplay of characters to maintain viewership as the "monster of the week" format was largely inaccessible as a mystery for those without an in depth knowledge of medicine. As such, the sudden closing off of the House/Cuddy storyline, in addition to a seeming regression to earlier presumed dealt with Gregory House issues, was a jarring, and eventually disappointing turn for the show.

Critical response

The AV Club gave this episode a B+ rating.^[2]

References

External links

• "Bombshells" at Fox.com
• "Bombshells" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Bombshells" at TV.com