I could not figure out why House fired Chase, but since it was House who did it, the reason does not matter, eh? But as soon as it happened I knew Cameron would resign during the episode. The medical equivalent of a cliffhanger ending.

Did you find Esteban's ESL skills a bit surprising? When he was in the water he seemed unable to speak any English (could not communicate the importance of the suitcase). Then in the helicopter he understood a few words but still spoke with difficulty. As the episode progressed he bacame chatty Cathy and was conversing very nicely with House.

The scene toward the end, with two very different characters, House and Esteban, happily sharing cigars and drinks was a lot like the scenes between James Spader and William Shatner on Boston Legal. This is a male bonding ritual, right? Obviously I am not a guy.

I like Chase, Cameron and Foreman, so I hope to see them all back. But I hope the show doesn't just bring them in and pretend this whole episode was no big deal, everything is forgiven over night. Like Wilson says, House needs to see that there are reprecussions to his bad behaviour...

Favorite part of the epi was when he got his new guitar. Maybe, '''maybe''' he's willing to try and start changing his mean ole ways. On second thought, naaaaaaaa. Mean is as mean does.

Don't spoil it for me with clinical explanations, Cecil Rose. I'll wait for your full episode review to debate the details :)

Very intriguing recap!

Sincerely,
BunnyLover aka HouseHater

I can understand the bonding, just not the cigars and drinks. Although in the referees' tent in the middle of a soccer tournment on a hot summer day, beers and brats seem to have the same function.

You're right about Esteban's rapid English improvement. I guess total immersion really does work . When watching the helicopter sequence repeatedly on DVD I changed my take on the action. Esteban wasn't sinking and snatched back from the jaws of death by the pararescueman - the diver *held* him underwater to make him let loose of the suitcase.

I kept waiting for there to be some master plan that would explain House's treatment of Foreman and Chase, but it never happened. Is the great House so little in control of himself that everything was just petty reaction?

Did you notice when he finally did make his last second humble plea for Foreman to stay, it looked like bamboo shoots were being driven under his fingernails to make him do so? I kept looking for electical wires leading to Cuddy's office, attached to sensitive areas of his anatomy.

o------

@FenwayBen

>Great recap, Cecil. I have to say, I bever understood the Foreman hates Chase subplot.

There sometimes seems to be a subtext of Black rage to Foreman's outlook. Probably not abated by House's mock-racial digs. Maybe Chase is just the convenient white-bread outlet.

--

>Other than someone saying so, he doesn't act like he hates Chase. Certainly, they're not close (he's not with Cameron either after he stole her research or whatever that was), but I guess I don't get a sense that there is any real tension between those three, only between each and House.

I don't think he so much stole Cameron's research as poached her idea and rushed to be the first one into print with it.

--

>I like Chase, Cameron and Foreman, so I hope to see them all back. But I hope the show doesn't just bring them in and pretend this whole episode was no big deal, everything is forgiven over night.

I respect the writers enough to believe that they're good enough to not just paper over the differences. Let's hope there's a story to why House behaved as he did, and how he manages to overcome the hurts he's inflicted in the upcoming season.

o------

@3 HouseHater (but you'll always be BunnyLover to me) said:

>... I just can't help feeling sorry for House. He's just lost the three best bets for making 'friends' with. But just as soon as I feel bad for him, he goes and does something so cold again and then I back to hatin'.

>Favorite part of the epi was when he got his new guitar. Maybe, '''maybe''' he's willing to try and start changing his mean ole ways. On second thought, naaaaaaaa. Mean is as mean does.

I've seen some hints that the Hice may return but not as subordinates. Maybe Cuddy succeeds in pulling off the reorg she hinted at with Foreman, and House has to learn to deal wih them all as equals.

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@4 Clementine:

>Don't spoil it for me with clinical explanations, Cecil Rose. I'll wait for your full episode review to debate the details :)

I'm afraid my research hasn't turned up any more explanation that we saw in the show. There's a doctor who publishes a medical analysis of House episodes (URl coming shortly in the House News Area), and he doesn't have a good explanation either.

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@5 HouseHater:

>Hey Clementine - her heart started again because she had an abnormal heart. She had an extra artery - I think. I think, therefore I drink...

Bibio, ergo sum?
Cogito, ergo bibio?

It was an extra ostium (connecting passage between right and left heart sides), but why that would stop her heart, or not allow it to restart while connected to bypass, or allow (or cause) it to restart when the bypass machines are turned off is beyond me.

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@6 HouseHater:

>Hey Cecil - over at the LOST blog when you accidently used your "Alabama" handle and I had to (of course) mention I'm a UT fan, you said you live in the Raleigh area. Guess what?! So do I!! I try and watch all the UT games at the alumni meeting places (Bogarts and what used to be Profiles, now the Upper Deck). Perhaps I'll see you there at the UT vs. Bama game.

>I'll be the one in all orange... GO VOLS!!!

Won't they all be? I'd be proud to join you there, if you don't think someone in Crimson and White would get massacreed...
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLL TIDE!
(Oh, and GO HOKIES!)

Oh, and what does "Bibio, ergo sum?
Cogito, ergo bibio?" mean. I suppose I could google it, but I'd rather bug you and have you translate. Thanks!

I'm off to read the full House epi review.

>@ Cecil Rose:
You should be safe enough. The place usually has a "Bama side" and a "UT side." And yes, there will be TONS of orange.

So, you're saying more people leave Tennessee than Alabama...

>Oh, and what does "Bibio, ergo sum?

I drink, therefore I am.

>Cogito, ergo bibio?" mean?

I think, therefore I drink.

Did you hear that DeCartes was in a bar drinking heavily and the bartender asked him if he'd have another, and DeCartes said "I think... not."

And promptly vanished in a puff of smoke.

Oh, and to answer your question "So, you're saying more people leave Tennessee than Alabama..." I guess my only response to that would be "only the smart ones."

So the Hoss Thieves, Scalawags, and Poker Cheats who could read stopped there and settled Arkansas, while the illiterate ones continued on and settled Texas.

Remember the lines in the Ballad of the Alamo:

"The hundred and eighty were challenged by Travis to die,

One line that he drew with his sword when the battle was nigh,

The man who would fight to the death cross over,

But him who would live better fly,

And over his line stepped a hundred and seventy nine."

Well, 1958, I (age twelve) full of Disney's version of Davy Crockett, am standing there right in the middle of the actual Alamo, reading a brass plaque, and learning that the one who didn't cross over the line was named...

...........Moses *ROSE*

We don't claim him.

Now there was the original "Yellow Rose of Texas". (With apologies to the song.) Of course in my more mature years I think of him as the sensible Rose of Texas, who lived to fight another day.