Parents (House)

"Parents" is the sixth episode of the eighth season of the American television medical drama series House and the 161st overall episode of the series. It aired on Fox Network in the United States on November 14, 2011.

A patient who wishes to follow in his father's footsteps as an entertainer is admitted with partial paralysis. As they look for a bone marrow match, the team discovers a disturbing family secret. Meanwhile, House looks for creative ways to remove his ankle monitor so that he can attend a boxing match in Atlantic City. John Scurti plays a patient convinced he is suffering from diabetes. Taub faces a major decision when his ex-wife Rachel announces she plans on moving across country with their daughter.

Jennifer Crystal Foley and Zena Grey return to the series.

Plot

A clown is unsuccessfully trying to present a show at a child's birthday party. However, after one of the children hits him in the groin, he suffers partial paralysis. At work, Taub admits that Phil, Rachel's boyfriend, is moving to Portland, and wants Rachel and her baby to come along.

The team tells the patient's parents that if it is endocarditis, it's treatable. His mother wonders whether it was the stress of performing, but the patient insists he wants to be a clown for a living, like his biological father.

Wilson tells House he has scored ringside seats to the big boxing match and he is going whether House likes it or not.

The patient's heart valves were normal, but they found a thickened pericardium, but it would not explain the stroke. After a differential, they settle on Sjogren's syndrome and House orders immunosuppressants.

Taub starts administering the treatment. The patient says he has a law internship after he is released. He says he knows he is not a good clown now, but he thinks he can get as good as his biological father was. The patient says his father was loving, but always broke and on the road. However, Taub is supportive. All of a sudden, the patient develops a severe nosebleed and then starts bleeding from his mouth. Taub realizes it is not Sjogren's.

Taub returns to find House with his daughter Sophie. The team realizes that the two girls have similar names; the other one is Sophia. House keeps asking Adams why she started college a semester late. He figures she was trying to get her parent's attention by letting her grades slip, but she says she was just rebelling.

The team starts looking for donors, but the mother is a bad match as are all the patient's close relatives. Park goes to look in the marrow registry. They go to the mother to ask about the biological father's family, but as far as she knows he has no living relatives.

Eric Foreman pages House to come to his office . Foreman warns House by saying that if he goes to the boxing match, he (House) would definitely end up in prison. Chase and Taub report the patient is having an allergic reaction to the donor platelets. House reviews the patient's file and wonders why, since the biological father died young of melanoma, the mother has never taken the patient to see a dermatologist despite being overprotective. The mother finally admits that the patient's biological father is still alive.

Taub and Park track down the biological father, but when he's told he won't be going to the same hospital as his son to do the test, he tells the doctors that he states he doesn't have a son anymore.

Taub tells the mother that he will have to see the biological father herself to convince him to come. However, the patient develops a pleural effusion. Park figures he's bleeding into his lungs. She manages to get a tube into his pleural cavity, but only a yellowish liquid comes out. She realizes the patient's bone marrow is fine, but his liver is failing.

Taub goes to the mother to get consent. She agrees when Taub tells her that they don't know how to treat him otherwise. He then suggests that she tell the patient about his father and let the father visit, but the mother thinks the suggestion is inappropriate and refuses.

Chase is still pressing Adams to admit to House that her parents screwed her up because House still isn't letting it drop. The patient complains his eye feels weird. It's bulging out.

They treat the patient with steroids to get the eye back into its socket. This problem seems to rule out any problem with the liver. House still concentrates on why the mother is keeping the biological father away and concludes she is hiding something. He also figures Taub has let Phil take Sophia because he's happy. Taub says he's happy because he spent the night with Sophie and Phil will never be a father to his child. As House and Taub go back and forth and the team tries to distract them with diagnoses, House finally ties the swelling together with his clinic patient and realizes that Park is right about Burkitt's lymphoma and orders chemotherapy.

Wilson requests Foreman to allow House to go the boxing match, saying that he has obviously "deserved" it. However, Foreman refuses outright.

As they go to start chemotherapy, the patient is upset he has cancer, but as Taub and Park talk to him, he starts crashing.

The patient is suffering kidney, heart and lung failure. They realize it's probably not Burkitt's because it doesn't progress this quickly. As they discuss a new differential, Taub sees the patient's biological father heading into his room. The mother confronts him, then Taub, but then the stepfather admits he called him. The mother throws him out and he leaves. However, as he turns to go, House tells him to wait. He realizes the biological father has late stage syphilis and the mother kicked him out because he molested his son. The son got the syphilis and the test for it was a false negative. House realizes that the disease is only active in the arteries of his brain, where it hides from the test. House realizes the blow to the groin released some of the bacteria. When they gave him immunosuppressants, the bacteria ran wild. The antibiotics were too little too late and merely created toxins that sent the immune system into overdrive. The mother admits that she found evidence of the molestation, but the patient didn't remember it after a while and seemed normal. House orders antibiotics and antibodies. He then orders that the health department and police be notified. Adams wants to know if they are going to tell the patient he was molested. House leaves it up to Taub how to explain to a virgin how he got syphilis.

The patient rapidly improves. Taub tells him about the syphilis, but lies to him about how he got it.

House meets Adams in the elevator. She finally admits that she ran away from her parents when she was young, to stay with an older man in Manhattan.

Taub goes to see Phil and Rachel. He tells them he can't let them move and then leaves.

Wilson shows up at House's apartment for the fight, but it's empty. He turns on the television and sees House and Foreman at ringside.

Reception

The Onion's AV Club gave this episode a C+ rating.^[1] It was watched by 6.63 million viewers.^[2]

References

External links

• "Parents" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Parents" at TV.com
• "Parents" at Fox.com
• Medical review of "Parents"