This is completely one of my favorite episodes of all time!!! In this episode, House is still playing games to see who to hire and who to fire. Funny, hire and fire only have one-letter differences.
Their patient is a guy named Thomas Stark and has spinal muscular atrophy. He fainted in his electric wheelchair while crossing the street with his assistance dog.
Meanwhile, House splits his team into two teams, men against women. Thirteen thinks he has strongyloides, a roundworm, in his lungs. Since the treatment “doesn’t work” and Amber, or cut-throat bitch as House calls her, found out that his blood is green, they move on to think he has cancer. The green blood is apparently the liver not working and not filtering out the dye from the previous test and the medicine he was given turning the dye green. The says he would rather die than stay in the hospital bed for the rest of the six months of his life.
Too late, Amber and Thirteen realize that the liquid in the man’s lungs is clear, not cloudy, so it CAN’T be cancer. They immediately move to page House. But he’s already paged Amber. Amber quickly hurries to House’s office.
House talks to a clinic patient who had stuck a metal knife in a wall socket after being wounded in a car crash who says that the 97 seconds(hence the name of the episode
he was dead were the best 97 seconds of his life. He also said that he knew something else was out there, something more.
House is playing with the knife, and begins to get ideas. Amber is hurrying to his office when she sees an electric flash of light. She briefly pauses in shock before rushing into the office to find House lying on the floor with no pulse and a burnt hand… as well as a metal knife sticking out of the wall socket. Amber is forced to do CPR until she can get help.
There is nothing, as far as they know, that the team can do to help the patient. He dies, and they call time of death.
House wakes up and walks into the room, asking them what happened. Then, they finally realize that the patient’s dog is dead. House says “Thirteen, did you watch the patient swallow the pills?” She says she thinks so, while House immediately starts searching high and low for some unknown object. Her and Amber keep stumbling over their words until House finally moves a piece of furniture out of the way to reveal an empty medicine cup with dog teeth marks on it. House asks, “Does this look familiar?” House’s explanation turns out to be the only one that makes sense. House and Thirteen’s original diagnoses were right, and he did have strongyloides. The surgeons found the worms in the patient’s lungs. Stark was too stubborn to take the pills, so instead he dropped them on the floor and drank the water, pretending to take the pills. The dog found the pills and ate them, all followed by the death of both the patient and his dog.
An ironic end to the man’s life, considering it was his own stubbornness that killed him and his dog. Although, I only like this episode because of the electrocution part.
~Kristy