Episode 4x15="Dans la tête de House"

Episode Recap: House's Head

Welcome to part one of the shocking season finale of House. I have to say, tonight's episode was a-mazing. It doesn't follow the conventional format that we're used to with House and his team focusing their energies on diagnosing a patient's puzzling ailment. Instead, it focuses on House, himself, and a crazy adventure through his mind.

Tonight's episode starts out with a very disoriented and confused House at a strip joint getting a lap dance—except he can't figure out how he got there! After ruling out that a drunken stupor was the cause, he stumbles upon some blood and realizes he has retrograde amnesia from a concussion. He leaves the bar to see chaos around an overturned bus he was a passenger on, but the real mystery begins when House has a flashback. And all he can remember is he noticed a key symptom in one of those passengers before it overturned, and that person will die if he can't remember who or what it was. "Someone is going to die unless I find them."

Struggling to remember, Kutner suggests House try medical hypnosis, and it turns out that Chase was trained in this field. It actually works, and House begins to piece together where he was between the time he left work at 5 pm and the bus crash. He sees the bartender who took his keys because he was so wasted, but oddly enough, he bumps into Amber there as well. But Chase gets House back on track and he remembers an emo kid picking his nose. Immediately, House storms off proclaiming this kid has a brain tumor, but shortly after he realizes the kid is fine, the bus driver loses feeling in his feet and House's "who" is determined. Now all he needs to do to diagnosis the patient is figure out "what" symptom he saw in this man before the crash.

House tries a new technique of smelling the passengers clothing to try to spark some spontaneous recovery of memories. One box of clothes and four Vicodins later, House has a hallucination where he argues with the bus driver about his symptoms, but then notices a mysterious woman on the bus as well — except, she wasn't a passenger. Weird.

Next up on the list of memory-retrieving techniques is sensory deprivation. This one definitely brought House back into his own mind, but instead of a memory, he has a fantasy of Cuddy pole dancing on the bus in a school girl outfit while simultaneously trying to help him remember the symptom. After she leaves (right before taking it all off), House sees the mystery woman yet again, only this time she refers to herself as "the answer."

Back in reality, House is awoken by his team, but his concussion has left him in pretty bad shape — so bad that he passes out and Cuddy sends him home not only with an on-duty nurse, but a security guard to make sure he doesn't try to do anything but relax. Ultimately, he returns to the patient who is doing even worse than when he left. House has his light bulb moment, but has to act fast. He locks himself in the room with only the patient and 13, leaving the rest of the team and Cuddy to look in from the outside. He tries to explain it's an air bubble from dental work that's the root of the problem, but Cuddy can't let him treat the bus driver for something unconfirmed (btw, Cuddy finally reveals that 13's real name is Dr. Hadly). 13/Hadly has to make a split-second decision on whether to trust House and do as he says by sticking a syringe into the bus driver's heart, or let the others back in. She goes with House's diagnosis and saves the patient. The mystery is over and solved...or is it?

Back at House's place, Cuddy crashes on the couch to keep an eye on him, but House falls asleep only to dream of the mystery woman who gives him more clues. House awakes to realize it's not over yet. He saved the wrong person!

House's last effort to remember involved a reenactment on a bus with staff members each wearing pictures of the passengers around their neck. The self-medicating doc has also been popping endless amounts of Alzheimer medication to speed the process along, as well. And back to the scene of the bus his memory goes. Again, there sits the mystery woman. She keeps asking House to answer what her necklace is made of, and it all comes back to him once he realizes it's made of amber. Amber was on bus! Amber is the one he has to save! Amber is the one who's dying!

I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this episode. The freaky black and white flashbacks, Hugh Laurie's stellar performance, the shocking ending — all of it really made for a transfixing hour of television. I was so wrapped up in the mystery that I almost forgot I was watching an episode of House. Kudos to the writers for portraying the inner workings of Gregory House's mind and how his subconscious would look if we were ever allowed to peek in. It's everything I imagined: brilliant, snarky, confusing — even dirty! They did an amazing job at leaving us with the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers as we wait to see what will happen to Amber.

What was your take on the episode? Were you happy with how the writers broke out of the formulaic format? Do you think it was an accurate portrayal of what House's subconscious would look like? Did you like the way "flashes" were illustrated with House literally in his own mind? Why do you think Amber was on the bus with House in the first place? Any theories on what will happen next week? Let's hear it!