At a celebration dinner for an author, a harsh-tongued editor has a nosebleed and collapses to the ground. The team compares this new patient to Phineas Gage, a popular case study in psychology about a man whose frontal lobe was injured, which changed his personality forever, in a negative way. Nick Greenwald, the patient, continues to speak uncensored to the doctors and his wife, saying his every thought aloud.

Per usual, the team differentiates the diagnosis. Meanwhile, House is upset because Wilson cancelled plans to see monster trucks to play racquet ball with Taub instead. House challenges Taub to hit a little red ball in the morgue to prove he can play racquet ball – or else House will fire him. When he causes a shelf to fall and crash, Taub admits that he is not and never did play racquet ball with Wilson. After some double agent snooping and deleted email-printing, House and Taub discover that Wilson is meeting with a female doctor from New York who specializes in suicidal tendencies in oncology patients – which makes House and Taub wonder if Wilson is A.) depressed and B.) sick.  

The only way to cure Nick is to operate, but the problem is too close to the brainstem. This means that one little thing could go awry and Nick will die. Nick begs House to return him to normal – he understands that this means get better or die and is okay with that because he cannot stand hurting his wife and daughter any longer with his rude comments. House gets Chase to pull a favor so that the surgery can happen.

Eventually, Wilson breaks down and discloses information to House, but House already discovered this on his own.

When Nick’s surgery is successful, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. But, just a few minutes later, Nick is still loose-tongued, resulting with his wife in tears and walking away when he goes into V-fib. But the pieces of the puzzle finally come together and House cures Nick.

Spoiler Alert!

I may need to bite my own tongue after writing this, but… House is finally 100 percent back to normal! It’s funny in the right moments, it’s serious when it needs to be, and it focuses on the relationships we actually care about. Seriously, the simple fact that Thirteen and Foreman were not showcased in this episode, and, instead, House and Wilson were, made all the difference. It was also interesting to see Wilson let House deeper into his life, especially with the problems concerning his runaway brother, Danny. It was very heartwarming to see this. Albeit a predictable format, the cases of “House” have also been getting more interesting, so this episode certainly receives a thumbs up for quality and a thumbs down for lupus. Yay!