House, 9/30/08

Last night's House was one of the grosser episodes in a while. It guest starred Travis Birkenstock as an underemployed painter and patient of the week. We learn something's up with Travis after he completes a woman's portrait, and she and her husband go ballistic upon seeing the results. Which really just look Cubist-style instead of realistic. Apparently employing the techniques of Cubism gets Travis a punch in the nose (he'll get another later) and a diagnosis of visual disturbances and anosognosia where it got another guy deemed best painter of the 20th century. Also, how could Travis not be aware of the fact that everyone looked like a Cubist painting? Lame cold opening.

Otherwise, I was pretty entertained by this episode's shenanigans. Travis's head and neck swelled grotesquely, he tried to hook up with Thirteen, and the cause of his problems ended up being a bezoar, AKA nastiest thing to appear on TV since Face Melt-a-Thon Airlines. The bezoar resulted from Travis' repeated enrollment in clinical trials to support himself. One trial was for an antacid, which prevented Travis' stomach from breaking down food, so it all just clumped up and also absorbed the other trial drugs he was taking, releasing them at random and causing horrific symptoms. This reminded me of when I was a kid and thought food just piled up in your body and never went anywhere, and wondered how old you had to be until you were 100% suffused with food, and it also reminded me to not enroll in clinical trials.

Elsewhere, House's P.I. has serious chemistry with Cuddy (and also House, who seems to crave male companionship way more than female, not that there's anything wrong with that.) I am having trouble getting over the fact that the actor playing the P.I. also played the insane crackhead hitchhiker that David picked up, and was physically and mentally tortured by, in the last season of Six Feet Under. The guy will forever seem deeply creepy to me.

Also, Foreman is completely useless now. He just sits in the back and acts wearied by everything. Let's make this show ALL TAUB ALL THE TIME. That actor is doing great, subtle work at building a complex character that isn't in-your-face about his complexity.

And w/r/t that, next episode is about House's father dying. Not looking forward to it. I hate these SPECIAL EPISODES that seem to want to provide clues as to why House is the way he is. I maintain that it's much better if House is just an asshole for no particular reason.