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Broadcast:
- March 16, 2009
House (Hugh Laurie) reluctantly agrees to treat a nurse who claims a cat's affection has predicted her death in the HOUSE episode "Here Kitty" airing Monday, March 16 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
©2009 Fox Broadcasting Co.
Credits: Chris Haston/FOX |
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- Written by
- Peter Blake
- Directed by
- Juan J. Campanello
- Music
- Timeline
- Must be 2009 from House's guess about Taub losing money in the market "Last year"
- Patient of the Week:
- A 35 year old woman named Morgan, who is head of nursing at an old age home which has a cat (Debbie) who always goes to sleep with a person who is about to die and that cat came and slept next to her when she reclined on her couch when she wasn't feeling well one day.
- How House gets involved:
- Cuddy brings the patient to House in the clinic where he is pretending to be doing followups but is really playing with toys. When House asks the patient why she came to the clinic she has what he thinks is a seizure and urinates on herself and the urine is green.
- The privacy invasion / ethical breach / Rule Breaking
- It has to be against Hospital rules to smoke anywhere inside the hospital as House does early on.
- Preliminary diagnoses:
- The patient thinks she is dying because a cat slept beside her and when the cat does that at the old age home, the person is dying. With help from Taub House determines that the patient is faking the first symptoms she shows but when she developes bronchospasm, House and Foreman agree it cannot be faked. When Cuddy insists that the patient be released, House takes her outside and blows cigar smoke in her face and gets another doctor to diagnose her with bronchospasm so he can keep her in the hospital. He later decides she has Cushing¹s Syndrome
- The final diagnosis
- House finally realizes that the cat likes to sleep next to what is warm: some of the dying patients had had fevers, some had had heating pads, and Morgan was warm due and since they had ruled out everything else, House deduces and when he presents the facts to Wilson, he too can see Morgan must have a carcinoid tumor in her appendix which can be easily removed.
- Clinic Patients
- The patient of the week starts off as a clinic patient and Taub sees someone he thinks is a friend from school in the clinic.
- Additional Information:
- House smokes two cigars in the episode.
- Taub went to Collegiate High
- Kutner turns out to be extraordinarily superstitious.
- House is fooled by a fake seizure.
- Taub suggests that Kutner plays online games with Japanese teenagers.
- Kutner says he considers Taub a good friend even though they "don't hang that much outside work."
- Taub has lost money through his investments and he almost loses more when he believes a con man.
- Taub tries to quit but House doesn't accept it and tells him to bring snacks for the morning.
- After House spits up cranberry juice on Kutner making him think it is blood, Kutner pees on House's chair (House thinks he got the cat to pee on the chair)---House accepts this with only an insistence that Kutner pay to dry clean the chair.
- About that first scene with House and the toys, "Sarah1281" posted on the Television Without Pity's House Forum about the significance of the shark having such a prominent place in the experiment:
"Ha! Cuddy stopped House from jumping the shark!" (editor's admission: we missed that but when we read this, it made perfect sense).
House (Hugh Laurie, second from L), Kutner (Kal Penn, second from R) and the team look for a cat belonging to a patient who claims the animal's affection has predicted her death in the HOUSE episode "Here Kitty" airing Monday, March 16 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
©2009 FOX BROADCASTING COMPANY
Credit: Paul Drinkwater/FOX |
| - Additional Resources
Cast: Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House; Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy; Omar Epps as Dr. Eric Foreman; Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. James Wilson; Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Allison Cameron; Jesse Spencer as Dr. Robert Chase; Peter Jacobson as Dr. Chris Taub; Kal Penn as Dr. Lawrence Kutner; Olivia Wilde as Thirteen
Guest Cast: Judy Greer as Morgan West; Christopher Moynihan as Neil Zane; Jennifer Crystal Foley as Rachel Taub; Whitney Cummings as Courtney; Charlie Carter as Billy; Lorene Noh as Business-Suited Woman; Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse
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- Quotes, Quotations, Dialogue, Scenes
- Taub arrives late to the meeting and wonders why they are taking this case: "Green pee does mean the only diagnostic criteria you care about: it's interesting.... It's not life threatening, it's not important."
Later Kutner is worried about Taub and House arguing but Taub tells him, "Airing disagreements doesn't qualify as arguing."
Still later when House opens and smokes a cigar from a package that were meant for and addressed to Taub, House asks him during the team's meeting, "Why is some fancy CEO sending you a box of Cuban cigars? Is it related to your money worries?"
Kutner asks, "What money worries?"
"Extrapolating from the fact that he's been skipping his morning muffin I'd say that he lost almost all his money on the market last year."
Taub comes close to denying it with "I'm on a diet."
"I'm also extrapolating from the online portfolio you forget to log off. But it's mostly the muffins."
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House somehow gets a hold of the cat that is supposedly predicting deaths and he brings in his team to show them an experiment with coma patients. Thirteen thinks it is crazy. "You actually think the cat is going to predict someone's death?"
"No, I know the cat is not going to predict anyone's death. And I will have scientifically disproved—"
Kutner interrupts with "You didn't keep the patient despite the cat, you kept the patient because of the cat. You're scared there's something to it."
"If I could prove the non-existence of an omniscient God who lovingly guides us to the other side, I would. Cat version will have to do." House with the cat walks towards Kutner who takes a step back. "Are you scared?"
"Cats brains are always in alpha mode. The few scientific tests that have seemed to confirm psychic phenomena, that's where it takes place."
"Please tell me that you were kidding so I won't have to fire you."
"I was kidding."
- House deals with this patient more than he usually deals with a patient---trying to argue her out of her belief even after she has told him that after her stepson died for no reason at all, it is only her belief that keeps her going. Wilson objects. "You trying to prove to her she's not dying?"
"That would be dumb as she might be dying."
"This woman lost her kid. Why are you attacking beliefs that give her a little bit of comfort?"
"I don't care if her superstitions make her feel better. I just want her to think more clearly."
"Oh. Maybe that could make her as happy as you are."
- In order to prove to the patient and himself that the cat cannot predict who will die, House takes the cat and his team into a room of coma patients and the cat lies down next to a Mr. Limpert, who had been a fireman. Kutner later calls House in the middle of the night when their patient exhibits new symptoms. "Mr. Limpert died.... He was stable for an year and a half and he just died. The cat was right, House."
House decides to do an autopsy and Wilson objects. "What exactly are you hoping to find inside your dead coma guy?"
"Catnip. Chew toy. I don't know. That's why I'm looking...."
Wilson says, "I've got to stop telling you my theories. You always just try to prove me wrong...."
"I'm exploring a scientific mystery."
"I put up with your obsessions. I even encourage them for one reason: they save lives. I don't know what you're doing now."
- Chase tries to argue the patient out of surgery but she insists. He asks, "Because of the cat?"
"Do you want to tell me what an idiot I'm being?"
"No. I really believe that there are things that science can't understand. That there is a role for faith and prayer. But it's in the waiting room. Not the O.R."
"There's a reason I got sick. There's a reason for all the bad things that have happened to me. I don't know what that reason is. But I know that if there isn't one---If there's no greater purpose in the world. It's not the kind of world I want to live in."
- The cat disappears and while House is trying to figure out why the cat chooses to sleep next to people who are about to die, Debbie, the "Death Cat" comes back into his office jumps onto his laptop and settles down. House feels beneath the cat and figures out what is happening. He immediately goes to Wilson to gloat---forgetting that Chase is about to do an unnecessary operation on the patient. "I was right and more satisfying, you were wrong."
When he explains why the cat sleeps next to dying people, Wilson is not pleased. "Congrats. Because of your crazy obsession with the car, you have solved a completely trivial mystery."
"Completely trivial. My God. It's clearly only partially trivial."
He then goes on to explain to Wilson how that leads to diagnosing the current patient. Now Wilson has to admit that House has something. "Congratulations. You probably saved her life. You definitely saved her needless surgery." At which point House realizes that he does need to call and stop Chase from doing the operation.
- At the end House goes to see the patient. She says, "Thank you."
"I wouldn't come her for thanks. That would be ungracious. It's more about gloating." Seems that House is still trying to change her mind and tells her that she was going to have them cut out a piece of her brain and he stopped it.
"And what made you do that?"
"Science. Logic. Reason. Pick any three."
"A cat chooses that exact moment to sit on your computer. Maybe that's science, logic and reason or maybe that's something else."
"You're an idiot."
House had previously told her about a preacher who had predicted when Jesus would return and when he was proved wrong, his followers stuck with him when he said he had gotten his math wrong but now had the right date. Obviously that was wrong too since it was over 150 years ago. "I looked up the preacher from New York State. His followers never faded out. They became the Seventh Day Adventist. A major religion. That man changed the course of history."
"Because his followers were as deluded as he."
"Maybe he just gave them something to live for."
House finally gives up and as he leaves says, "Feel better."
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