Breckin Meyer of Clueless and Road Trip fame plays an artist painting a nude portrait of an insecure soccer mom for her eager husband. His brush glides sensuously across the canvas as he applies the finishing strokes. The couple approaches the easel for the grand unveiling and the artist is quite proud of his latest work, deeming it his best piece to date. However, Mr. and Mrs. beg to differ. The artist claims he did his job well and painted Mrs. just as he saw her. Hubby promptly punches him in the face for painting his wife looking like the Elephant Man.
At Princeton Plainsboro, House tries to get his new buddy Private Dick on the hospital payroll by passing his bills off as “medical expenses.” Cuddy isn’t buying it, but she is taken aback by Dick’s flirtations. Uh-oh.
The team gathers to discuss Picasso’s case. Foreman says acute visual agnosia (the brain’s inability to recognize familiar objects) is an indication of a probable brain tumor or stroke. Taub points out that an MRI already came back clean, so Foreman suggests a second scan with contrast. Thirteen is convinced it’s either drugs or environmental factors, such as mold, fungus, or toxins. House shoots her down and asks her why she’d pay 12% interest on a car loan. With Dick’s help, House has run background checks on his team just to dig up dirt and mess with their heads. The only thing he could find on Kutner is that he once crawled 20 miles to land in the Guinness Book of World Records. What? No stereotypical “ethnic” issues like arranged marriages or illegal immigrants in the family? House claims to have nothing on Taub but does indicate he knows something about his wife.
Taub and Kutner visit Picasso’s loft to search for environmental causes for his illness. Kutner starts getting into Taub’s head about his wife and what House knows. Is she or isn’t she an adulterous slut?
Foreman and Thirteen administer another MRI, this time with contrast. They discover no apparent neurological anomalies. Foreman notices that Picasso’s agnosia seems to have disappeared while in the hospital once he spies a sketch of his girlfriend he’s completed. In order to explain the cycling symptoms, he suggests a cavernous angioma (grossly dilated blood vessels within a lesion in the brain). But Thirteen knows Picasso won’t consent to petrosal vein sampling since he almost refused the contrast injection before the MRI.
After cancer and MS are ruled out, House turns back to drugs and toxins. Upon hearing that Picasso’s girlfriend is hot, he incredibly deduces that he must be participating in clinical drug trials (yeah, I see the connection too). He figures the starving artist is struggling to make ends meet and live up to his woman’s expectations by earning extra money being a guinea pig. Picasso admits to being on three experimental drugs, the names and serial numbers of which we’re never to learn thanks to those clever folks at Fox. Instead, the writers make House mask their true identities with snarky nicknames based on his team members: Bisexadine (an anticoagulant) for alleged bisexual Thirteen, Cuckoldosol (an autoimmune treatment) for Taub whose wife may or may not be stepping out on him, and Worldsoruskneesasil for Kutner – he seems to be the only one amused by his namesake.
House orders a rapid detox via dialysis to rid Picasso’s bloodstream of all traces of the bad drugs. Taub warns him that they risk arrhythmia, but House insists. He tells Picasso that since he’s been symptom-free since his hospital admission, it’s definitely the drugs and he’ll be fine. Picasso’s only concern is that his girlfriend doesn’t find out he lied about the drug trials and his success as an artist (or lack thereof).
Taub finally gives in and approaches House about the background check on his wife. House reveals that she’s been making cash deposits into a secret bank account for about a year. Taub tries to play like he already knew about the account, but he obviously didn’t. Later that night, he confronts his wife over dinner about her secret stash and she spills the beans: she was saving $83,000 to buy him the car of his dreams. Now don’t you feel dumb, Dr. T?
Back at the hospital, the rapid detox seems to work until Picasso swells up like an engorged leech. To open up his throat, Foreman performs an emergency tracheotomy; later, they put him on steroids. House determines that this reaction could be withdrawal, so he orders the team to put him back on the bad drugs and wean him off slowly this time.
Private Dick is still hanging around the hospital and Cuddy spots him. He uses a decoy to lure her out of her office so he can sneak in. When she catches him rifling through her desk drawers, he claims he’s just doing research before he asks her out. I knew it! After four seasons, this greasy, unshaven, creepy guy is going to be Cuddy’s first real love interest? Somebody tell me I’m wrong! There had to have been previous candidates that were a little more decent: doctors, professors, researchers, politicians, anybody but Dick. I know all about dating down, but come on! She’s the freakin’ Dean of Medicine! Dick offers to spy on House for her in exchange for personal Cuddy information and she agrees.
Picasso’s slow detox seems to work until he turns into a horndog and tries to hump Thirteen. But she knows how to take care of herself and punches him in the face. Isn’t this guy sick of getting popped? Kutner rules out clinical drugs because he’s been clean twice and is still exhibiting intermittent symptoms. Taub suggests that the drugs could’ve set off a dormant neurological condition and Foreman thinks it could be Kluver-Bucy Syndrome (bilateral lesions in the temporal lobes) which explains the visual agnosia and hypersexuality.
Taub can’t get over how House made him think bad thoughts about his wife and demands an apology. House essentially tells him to get over it and hints that Taub is acting a little suspicious. Guilty, even. Hmmmm…
House goes home at the end of the day to find Private Dick lurking in his closet, looking for embarrassing things about him. But it turns out it’s all just a scam – he and House are trying to mess with Cuddy and find out embarrassing things about her. Except Dick really seems to like Cuddy. Complicated.
The next day, Taub tells House that the combined experimental drugs caused Picasso to have an arrhythmia, triggering all of his symptoms; if they can recreate it with electrodes, they can correct it. During the procedure, Picasso’s heart starts doing flip flops and they have to use shock paddles on him while fully conscious! A new symptom emerges: the roots of his hair start turning red. House rules out Kluver-Bucy and Foreman suggests Waardenburg Syndrom which causes arrhythmia and changes in hair color. Kutner thinks it looks like Romano-Ward Syndrome and recommends a cardiac sympathectomy. I don’t know what any of these syndromes are or what a sympathectomy is, but I’m just glad they have nothing to do with me.
Private Dick meets Cuddy at a local diner baring a gift: an old photo of House on the college cheer squad with some coed’s thighs wrapped around his neck. However, Cuddy’s lack of shock reveals to him that she already knows that the picture is fake. But why did she agree to meet him if she was onto their scam? Again I say, uh-oh.
Picasso’s visual agnosia returns when he can’t recognize Taub and Thirteen. Taub offers the hypothesis that toxins stored in his fat cells are slowly being released. House tells him to question Picasso about old paintings. While in the room, he tries to avoid revealing anything to the girlfriend but Picasso finally breaks down and admits his failures. She doesn’t care and they live happily ever after…except for the whole head and heart sickness thing.
Picasso sends Taub to an old storage facility where he can find old paintings. Taub discovers that some of the previous paintings were fine while others were distorted, with a pattern corresponding to the times when he was exposed to all three drugs simultaneously. He calls House who checks Picasso’s file – he was on an antacid (probably Worldsoruskneesasil). House calls Chase and tells him to stop the cardiac sympathectomy; instead, he wants him to perform abdominal surgery to remove a bezoar (a ball of undigested food caused by low stomach acid). The bezoar had trapped some of the medication he was taking and was releasing it in large doses all at once, causing his wild symptoms.
The episode ends with Taub getting ready to confess something to his wife, while House and Dick make beautiful music together. On the piano and electric guitar. Dirty minds! Oh, and Dick finds out House really was a cheerleader! How sad…
Next Week: House’s dad dies, forcing Wilson into a cross country road trip with his ex to attend the funeral.
