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| House episode | ||||
| "Birthmarks" | ||||
 House stands over his father's casket. |
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| Episode no. | HOU-504 | |||
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| Airdate | October 14, 2008 | |||
| Guest star(s) | Diane Baker as Blythe House R. Lee Ermey as John House Samantha Quan as Nicole Scott Paulin as Bob Christine Healy as Janice Jack Conley as Sheriff Costello Ho-Kwan Tse as Fang Dong Wen Raymond Ma as Wu Zheng Esther Kwan as Wu An Lan Jonathan Palmer as Minister Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse |
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| Final diagnosis | Metallic pins embedded in patient's brain shifted by magnetism | |||
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| All House episodes | ||||
"Birthmarks" is the fourth episode of the fifth season of House and the ninetieth episode overall. It aired on October 14, 2008.1
Plot
A 25 year-old Chinese woman, adopted by American parents, seeks out her birth parents in China, but they dismiss her, stating they never had a daughter. While praying and lifting up a small Buddha statue, she collapses, vomiting blood and claiming stomach pain. She is brought back to America and treated at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Meanwhile, House finds out his father John has passed away; he is reluctant in attending his funeral, due to his father's abuse. In the initial diagnosis, House theorizes the woman contracted SARS in China and the patient's parents state their adoptive daughter overly abuses herself with alcohol and tobacco. Using a ruse that the patient could have infected House with SARS, Cuddy injects a sedative disguised as a SARS vaccination into House. House passes out and wakes up to find himself in a car driven by Wilson, who is taking him to the funeral home and his father's funeral. Wilson, however, is reluctant to speak to House but finally says he is only driving him to please House's mother and Cuddy.
As House is traveling to his father's funeral, he works with his diagnostics team over his mobile phone, while at the same time trying to stop Wilson from driving to their destination. When the patient develops further stomach pains, the team suggests the presence of gallstones, but before House can explain further, they are pulled over by the local police after House uses his cane to force Wilson to speed past a police cruiser. Furthermore, Wilson is arrested due to an old Louisiana warrant out for him. Explaining to Sheriff Costello, the arresting officer, Wilson tells the circumstances of the charges brought up against him: While attending a medical convention in New Orleans years ago, he was upset when a man repeatedly played "Leave A Tender Moment Alone" by Billy Joel on the jukebox of a bar, causing him to angrily chuck a bottle at a mirror inside the place, breaking it. Although Wilson paid for the damages, he was still put in jail, until House, who was also attending the convention, bailed him out, due in part to his ascertaining of the situation surrounding a package Wilson clung to (which were divorce papers from his first ex-wife), and his subsequent interest in him amongst a sea of "boring people", thus revealing their first encounter and eventual friendship.
Back at Princeton-Plainsboro, the team is still stumped at the patient's illness, when her blood clots and bleeds profusely at the same time. House finally arrives at the funeral, delivering a eulogy telling of his father's commitment to his job above all else, which leads him to realize he has turned out the same. House concludes he might have been a better son if he had had a better father, and stages an emotional outburst, giving him an opportunity to take a small sample of his father's ear with a nail clipper for use in a paternity test, due to House's theory that the man he called his father was not his biological relative at all. Following another outburst at the funeral home over Wilson not admitting that he cannot live with himself if House is no longer his friend (in which Wilson breaks a stained glass window), the two discuss a brief differential over the patient. After calling the Chinese man who accompanied the patient to China and finding out her birth parents' adamant refusal of acknowledging a daughter, House theorizes the patient's biological parents attempted to kill her as an infant by pushing needles into her brain through her fontanelle, due to her having been born in 1983, four years after the country adopted the one-child policy. The needles were disturbed by a powerful magnet contained within the Buddha statue, affecting her brain functions and causing her first collapse.
The patient is expected to recover after surgery, and though her adoptive parents hope the team will not reveal the truth of the diagnosis, Kutner claims that due to one of the needles imbedding itself in the portion of her brain containing her addictive impulsives, thus explaining her consumption of alcohol and tobacco use, she will be able to handle it. As House silently reflects on the day in his office, Wilson drops by, states about taking his job back at Princeton-Plainsboro and admits House is right about Wilson regarding losing a friend. While seemingly content, House reveals the results of the paternity test and proves his suspicions were correct: John was not, in fact, his biological father. Wilson concludes perhaps one cannot always choose the roles of the people in one's life, including their friends. Reconciling their differences, the two leave for dinner. House solemnly admits that he has lost a father, to which Wilson offers his sympathies.2
References
- ^ "Birthmarks Press Release". Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
- ^ "House- Recaps". Retrieved on 2008-10-21.
External links
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 7 November 2008, at 14:55.
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