House M.D. Episode 4.09 Games

Jimmy Quidd, a hard living 40-something rocker, hangs out in an alley behind a nightclub. His band waits for him to go on stage. Quidd takes his bandmate's new guitar and smashes it. He declares that he is ready. Following the musicians inside, he coughs uncontrollably and collapses in the alley.

Cuddy interrupts House's soap opera watching to press him to make a decision about the Fellows. She threatens to move his parking spot if he doesn't pick his new hires.

House searches for a case in the ER and finds Quidd. He introduces Quidd to the Fellows in the lecture hall as the final case of the competition. With multiple problems, Quidd also has drugs in his system. Foreman argues that Quidd is merely a drug addict, but House is insistent that the patient suffers from so many symptoms that it has to be something else making him sick. House declares that only the person who is given the anatomical model of an eyeball can run tests. He hands it over first to Amber.

Foreman complains to House about making this hiring process a game. House asks Wilson for his opinion on Amber. Wilson just realized that he has misdiagnosed a healthy patient with terminal cancer.

As they wait for Quidd outside the men's room, Amber and Thirteen bicker. His oxygen tank explodes when he sneaks a cigarette. He lies injured on the floor of the bathroom.

Accompanied by House, Wilson meets with the misdiagnosed patient to tell him the good news. The patient is actually upset that he will live because of how the terminal diagnosis changed his life for the better.

House tallies up each Fellow's points. He asks Amber and Taub to do a biopsy on Quidd, who resists their attempts to insert the tube in his arm. His heart rate rises. Foreman quickly gets the tube in Quidd's arm. Foreman reveals that the patient's arm is covered with nicotine patches. The man's fingers have blood clots.

House asks the Fellows what could be causing the clots. Thirteen suggests Malaria. House gives the eyeball to her. House inquires about why Amber hates drug addicts, but he really wants to know why she is so afraid of not winning. Amber says she will do anything to not lose.

Taub has a bag of prescriptions for House. He really doesn't care about the patient. He and Thirteen realize Quidd is missing. House is in Wilson's office playing a song by Quidd. Wilson is going to give money to the cancer patient and get a liability waiver. Taub and Thirteen tell House that the patient is missing. House talks to Thirteen to find out why she has sympathy for Quidd. She believes the drugs are masking something else.

Taub and Thirteen find Quidd playing with kids in the pediatric ward. Quidd collapses.

Cuddy tells House to contain his patient. He says that he wants to keep all the Fellows. Cuddy would keep Kutner and Taub. Kutner and Thirteen come in to tell them that the test for Malaria was negative but that they found bad blood fragments.

House goes to talk to the members of the band. He finds a dirty syringe in one of the guy's jackets. Sharing needles is the cause for the blood clots and the bad blood fragments. They find Quidd on the floor in his room suffering from respiratory failure. They put him in the ICU. Foreman watches as the Fellows and House regroup in a laundry room.

Wilson writes a check to his patient but the man rips it up. He wants to sue the hospital for more money because when Wilson told him he was going to live, it ruined the happiness he had found.

House finds that Quidd has masses around his heart. He looks over the test results with Taub and Kutner. House wants Chase to do exploratory heart surgery on the patient. Chase resists but then Taub convinces him. Taub assists Chase on the surgery and they see swollen lymph nodes. Quidd's blood pressure suddenly drops.

In his office, House fires and rehires Kutner and Thirteen in order to shake them up. Until they can find the source of the drugs, House tells them to treat Quidd for heavy metal poisoning. Amber treats Quidd in the ICU.

Wilson comes to House about his legal problems. Kutner tells them that one of the guys in the band told him that Quidd visits an orphanage every week.

In the lecture hall, House becomes frustrated and fires Taub and Amber to make them more competitive. House and the Fellows go to Cuddy to get approval for a brain biopsy on Quidd. House diagnoses measles in the brain. He could have contracted the disease from his lowered immune system and the time he spent around children. Cuddy agrees, but only if he can induce a seizure. House blasts Quidd's music to irritate his brain.

In the lecture hall, House plays Quidd's early folk music from before he went punk. House fires Amber and Thirteen. He's keeping all the men. Amber is upset. Amber tends to Quidd in his room as he is treated for measles.

Cuddy insists that House keep one woman on his team. She wants him to hire Thirteen back. House smiles. That was his plan all along.