Bo-ring. Lots of dead time, boring dialogue, uninteresting developments, lack of Wilson.

1. House’s three-mile-long nickname making fun of Wilson’s obscure pop culture references, and Wilson buckling his belt. That makes, what, three times now that we’ve had gratuitous Wilson-at-urinal scenes? Wait, no, two. Feels like three for some reason. Someone set me straight here.

2. House doesn’t usually do it for me, but he looked darn cute in that knit hat and one other time when he was looking up from that chair, maybe around the nurse’s station with the files. Some kind conjunction of hair and eyes and expression and lighting.

3. Exploding spleen!

4. Dr. What’s-her-face leering over Cuddy’s C-cups. Heh. She had House for a second there.

5. Uh... There must have been a fifth thing. Oh--Chase trying to pull a House when he walked in on the couple having sex at the “patient’s” home, managing some quick observation but balking when the woman insulted him. Almost, kid. By the time your fellowship’s over you may be able to swing it.

Anyone else spend the first few minutes of the show clutching their hair and muttering through clenched teeth, “Do NOT make her Mary Sue Doctor. Do NOT make her Mary Sue Doctor”?

Nice to see House sacrificing his personal image for the sake of the patient again, baiting the parents and letting them pour out their wrath on him so Foreman and Chase could do the colonoscopy. Bit of the old “Socratic Method” House there. Looks like they’ll be making up for that next week.

Liked the tic-tac-toe patient diagram. And the kid--though not enough to make up for the played-for-laughs Romany extended family--with his interest in medicine, sacrifice for his family and keen insight into the three fellows being alone. (Everyone together now: Awwww, they’re all alone.) I kept thinking the patient’s father got lost on his way to the set of The Sopranos, and am still trying to figure out who the mother looked like, besides Ileana Douglas; one of the writers from Buffy, maybe.

Chase was eating again. For someone who’s got a problem with overweight people, he sure does snack on camera quite often.

In closing: Wilson in a scarf in the snow = yummy. Why didn’t House lean on him? Would have made up for RSL’s two-minute screen time. But no, House has to be all uber-self-sufficient.


Commentaries: elynittria ep-specific and series-at-this-point