After the previous episode, the question that needed answering was how House would adjust to his old environment after his time in the psych ward. This episode wasted no time in answering; the first line of "Epic Fail" is House quitting his job at Princeton-Plainsboro. Foreman wastes no time trying to take House's job for himself, and Cuddy makes him an offer: He has one chance to solve a case on his own, to see if he can really handle the Diagnostics Department.
"The Internet is a Magical Place"
The case comes in the form of a video game developer, who while testing a new game (a ridiculous Metroid Prime-esque shooter with talking animals) starts burning up with fever. He quickly turns out to be a candidate for Worst Patient Ever, second guessing Foreman's initial diagnosis after searching his symptoms on the internet, and makes the team run unnecessary tests for mercury poisoning. The patient becomes more uncooperative with each wrong diagnosis the team makes, which includes hacking into Foreman's profile, and posting his symptoms online, offering $25,000 for the correct diagnosis. This last stunt prove very aggravating for Foreman, as doctors from all over begin e-maiing and faxing their two-cents on the case.
Also creating trouble is Foreman and Thirteen's relationship. Now that Foreman is her boss, Thirteen feels as if she has lost all control in their relationship (Foreman does not ask her to go to dinner, he tells her). Thus, they spend a good chunk of the episode getting mad at each other and apologizing. While they're power struggle provided a nice dynamic at first, by the end of the episode it seemed a bit tacky. Especially when Thirteen seeks out House for advice on the situation. Not helping matters is Taub's decision to quit, saying he came to work for House, and now that House is no longer there, he has found another job as a surgeon.
Eventually, Foreman figures out what the patient's condition is when he realizes that even after sitting in a cooling tub for a prolonged period of time, the patient's fingers never pruned. Thirteen already got things on the right track, however, because she took one last look at the internet posts and came across one with the diagnosis. Upset she went behind his back, Foreman realizes their relationship won't work as long as he is her boss, so he fires her.
House-Wife
As the team goes about diagnosing, House tries new ways to keep his mind off his pain. Dr. Nolan (who fortunately looks to be a recurring character this season) suggests during a session that House try some new hobbies. Since House has no hobbies he can think of, Nolan suggest trying some of Wilson's (whom House is living with at the moment).
This leads to House picking up cooking. And from what was seen in this episode, he makes a damn good cook. Watching him treat cooking with the same diagnostic precision he would a medical case was quite amusing. As was the notion of House cooking (and later, doing the laundry) for Wilson while he is at work. Eventually, however, cooking loses it's appeal, and House's leg pain returned. This prompts a trip to his old apartment, where he finds a bottle of Vicodin.
When he loses his limp, Wilson becomes suspicious and rigs the toilet to test House's urine. Turns out the urine was that of a golden retriever. Wilson and Cuddy confront him on the matter. House maintains that the golden retriever pee was just him jerking Wilson around, and the proceeds to pee in a mug in front of them to prove it.
When House meets with Nolan again, he confesses what lessened his leg pain: he was the one who posted the correct diagnosis Thirteen found. Nolan then suggests that perhaps changing his life is not the best way to go, and encourages House to return to the hospital (and judging by the previews for the next episode, that's exactly what House is going to do).
Thoughts
The team-tries-to-figure-out-a-case-without-House scenario was very intriguing at first, but as the show enters it's sixth season, it feels like a go-to to try and make cases more suspenseful. And in this episode it felt like the writers were just going through the motions. Which is unfortunate, because the case was pretty interesting, mostly because the concept of a patent relying on the internet over his doctors was pretty clever.
There were a lot of great little things in the episode, and these little things ultimately save it. Thirteen discussing her relationship troubles with Taub as they played the patient's video game was fun, and Foreman's identity crisis and fear of being too much like House is always a great aspect to explore. And perhaps this is looking too much into things, but the juxtaposition of the two story lines (the "two many cooks in the kitchen" scenario with the internet posts and House actually cooking on his own) was very cool.
But there were also too many things that felt rehashed. The quitting/firing of Taub and Thirteen felt very similar to the end of season three, when the original team made their exit. And once again, the team solving the case without House has lost a lot of it's intrigue. Hopefully, this is more of a transition episode, and the season will find a path to take with the post-mental House. The fact that Dr. Nolan seems to be sticking around is a good sign, but tonight felt like a bit of a step backward.
