Guardian Angels

Guardian Angels is a fourth season episode of House which first aired on October 23, 2007. While having a seizure, a funeral-home cosmetician (Azura Skye) hallucinates that she's being assaulted by one of the corpses she's working on. Later, in the hospital, she acts as though her dead mother is in the room with her. Meanwhile, Cameron offers advice to one of the seven remaining candidates for House's team and Cuddy tries to woo Foreman back to the hospital.
==Recap==
Irene, a funeral home cosmetician, is talking to a corpse she is working on to help pass the time. When she goes for a coffee break, she has a hallucination that there is someone in the room who is assaulting her. Soon, the rest of the corpses join in to the attack. When her co-worker comes in, he finds her on the floor having a seizure.
The Applicants are killing time while Cutthroat Bitch and Thirteen discuss the last case and whose fault it was, with the Cutthroat Bitch saying House is not blameless himself. House calls in on the phone about the patient who sees dead people, but the applicants haven't received the file yet.
Cameron, who is with House in his office, threatens to send the case to Foreman, but House tells her Foreman was fired from his job at Mercy.
The old guy comes in with the case file and the applicants start discussing the case. Taub notices House called the old guy a "fraud" and House admits that the old guy isn't really a doctor, but won't talk about why he hasn't been fired. House refers to the Mormon applicant as the "Dark religious nut", but he asks to be called "Cole". House sends some of the applicants to the funeral home and others to do tests.
Cameron bets House $100 that Cole will eventually be pushed to the breaking point and "kick (House's) ass".
The applicants prepare the patient for a MRI, and her mother is there to provide support. The plastic surgeon and Cutthroat Bitch discuss their chances, thinking old guy is a lock despite the fact it has now been revealed he's not really a doctor. The plastic surgeon wonders if it would look better to quit or be fired.
Foreman is interviewing for another job. The interviewer asks why he was fired from Mercy, but the interviewer has already spoken to Foreman's former boss at Mercy. Foreman says there is nothing more he could add. The interviewer says he could admit he was wrong to break procedure, then suggests Foreman stayed too long with House.
House is mad at Cole for suggesting the patient was affected by embalming fluid—the emergency room would have ruled that out. House suggests digging up a dead body she had worked on to do a brain biopsy to look for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Cole objects, saying he needs to be home by six. House thinks he doesn't want to do it because of the sabbath, but it's Thursday. House figures out Cole is a dad and has to get home to his kids. House tells him to get one of his wives to look after the kid, but Cole tells him he's a single dad and he has no idea where the mother is. He then leaves before House can insult him again.
Cutthroat Bitch introduces herself to Cuddy as Amber Volakis. Cuddy informs her that sexual harassment claims go through HR, stress-related leave through workers' comp, and accusations of criminal activity go directly to the police. Amber asks to work clinic duty. Cuddy tells her to do what House told her to do and that if she has a problem with that, she should quit because it will only get worse.
Some of the team goes to dig up the body. Amber arrives three hours late, with coffee and doughnuts. The team has reached the coffin and breaks into it, only to find he was buried the wrong way around.
Cuddy tells House that she found out about getting the applicants to dig up a body from the dirt and picks in the doctor's lounge. She tells him to clean up the mess. House gets the plastic surgeon to do it. The brain biopsy is negative. House tells them to get back to work.
The patient is feeling fine and wants to go home. However, when she says her mother can drive her home and she points to an empty chair, they realize the patient is hallucinating again. Her mother died years ago.
House reprimands the applicants for failing to detect the ongoing hallucinations. Old guy points out she's not only hallucinating, she's having delusions because she thinks her mother is still alive—that's a new symptom. They ask the patient how her mother died, but the patient continues to deny the mother is dead. The patient also talks about a man in a wheelchair who says Thirteen killed his dog.
Cuddy meets with Foreman. She needs someone to understand and control House, but Foreman isn't interested. Cuddy offers him more money, but Foreman believes Cuddy is working behind House's back and rejects her offer.
The applicants report to House that the patient is seeing the dead patient from their previous case. House dismisses the patient knowing about the last patient as something she overheard and tells them to run more tests. House, having fun with his bet with Cameron, escalates his insults of the Mormon. Old guy suggests asking the hallucination of the mother how she died.
House visits the patient to talk to her mother. The patient is seeing a third hallucination—an older man who looks like House. House says that it's "Grandpa House." Irene says the hallucination identifies himself as Walter, and House leaves the room. He tells Wilson about it and says that he didn't have a grandfather Walter. House says he's pretending to be spooked so that Irene will trust him. House returns to Irene's room.
House talks to the patient about her mother and discovers the symptoms the mother had prior to her death—fatigue, clumsiness, fainting, difficulty walking and shivering hands. House leaves the room. He tells the applicants Irene has Parkinson's disease.
Cameron talks to Cole about the way House treats him. She tells him to stand up to House to earn his respect, but he rejects her advice.
The patient has a nightmare that Thirteen and Lawrence Kutner are trying to stab her with a large intravenous needle. Thirteen wakes her up, then notices the patient's arm is bleeding in several places.
Parkinson's doesn't explain the lesions. The old guy thinks it's vasculitis. When the plastic surgeon challenges his conclusions, old guy comes up with a rational explanation on medical grounds. House goes with old guy's idea and orders steroids.
House and Cameron discuss their bet. House figures Cameron wants him to hire Cole.
Foreman interviews with a doctor who has met House and is impressed with him. He too knows about Foreman being fired and likes the fact he stood up to his boss. However, he says he doesn't have the "stones" to stand up to his own Board, which is what it would take to hire Foreman.
The patient is still talking about the dead wheelchair bound patient while they test her eyes. Thirteen finds a dog collar in the examination room. Suddenly the patient complains about stomach pain and starts vomiting blood.
Cole helps Chase in surgery with the patient. Chase has no advice to give and says he had to put up with House too. He tells Cole that House will fire him sooner or later. They see House in the observation gallery, who points out the patient is bleeding. They find that her liver is necrotic and her spleen is enlarged.
The plastic surgeon insists he was right about Irene having acute intermittent porphyria. House notes they are fighting amongst themselves to see who is right while ignoring the patient. He once again backs the old guy's suggestion and orders an angiogram.
Cole prays in the ear of the patient to calm her, but she gropes at his genitals before they can start the angiogram, and her antics make the test impossible to continue.
The applicants tell House they couldn't complete the angiogram. House continues to argue with Cole. Cole wants to concentrate on the patient, but House keeps up the insults and Cole eventually strikes House. Suddenly, Amber realizes the problem—ergot poisoning from the organic rye bread the patient was eating. They tell the patient it explains all of her symptoms, including why she got worse on bromocriptine and why she kept asking for milk. Once they start treating her, Irene is willing to accept that her mother really isn't there. Irene says, "I'll miss you, Momma," and her mother places her duplicate necklace onto Irene's necklace and leaves.
House meets with the applicants again. He has flowers for the six he is keeping. House says they're roses and the South Asian applicant corrects him, saying that they are peonies ("but I'm sure they're part of the rose family"). He is surprised Cole is sticking around, and House does keep him on. He keeps Amber on because she was feeding the patient information and planted the dog collar so that she could freak out Thirteen. House keeps Thirteen on too. He gives Grumpy and the South Asian doctor flowers too. He gives the plastic surgeon the last flower, and fires Henry. The old guy realizes its because, "You don't need someone to tell you what you're already thinking."
Cameron collects her bet from House.
Foreman sees Cuddy to make a deal, but Cuddy won't offer him anything special this time because she knows he's been blackballed. She calls him "House lite" and says the only person who will hire him is the one who hired "House classic"—herself. The only concession she will make is to pretend she's not doing him a favor. Foreman agrees to come back on Monday.
==Eliminations and Call Backs==
*Foreman is called back and rehired by House as a consultant on his team to help narrow down the applicants.
*Mr. Dobson (26) fired as an applicant due to his similarities in thinking to House.
*Applicants Remaining: 6
==Major Events==
*The number of applicants has now been reduced to seven.
*It's revealed that Cole's full name is Jeffrey Cole.
*Foreman starts interviews for a new job but finds himself being rejected as everyone assumes his behavior is related to the time he spent with House.
*Cuddy tries to get Foreman to come back to PPTH with a large pay raise. He refuses.
*House and Cameron make a bet over Cole standing up to House. House starts provoking Cole in an attempt to get him to react. Cole eventually snaps, punching House, which wins the bet for Cameron.
*Cole reveals that he's a single father with one son and that he doesn't know where the mother of his son is.
*Irene, their current patient, tells them she's seeing her mother, who happens to be dead although Irene herself refuses to believe this. She also tells the applicants that she's seeing Stark, the wheelchair-bound patient that died in 97 Seconds.
*It's revealed Amber told Irene about Stark to get into Thirteen's head.
*Taub and Henry continually argue over the best course of treatment for their current patient.
*Henry Dobson is fired and promises to keep in touch with House through Wilson.
*Foreman agrees to return to PPTH, but because everyone else has turned him down, he must return to the same job at the same rate of pay.
==Zebra Factor 9/10==
Ergot poisoning is now very rare. Modern grain processing and storage techniques destroy the ergot fungus and do not provide an environment for growth.
==Trivia & Cultural References==
*Bosley is a character from Charlie's Angels, which was a television show in the late 1970s and was produced as a pair of movies in 2000s. The original Bosley was played by David Doyle, and as Taub pointed out, he and Jaclyn Smith were the only on-screen characters who were in every episode of the show (as was the voice of Charlie, John Forsythe). Bosley was played by Bill Murray in the first movie and Bernie Mac in the second.
*North Americans males often use a baseball metaphor for how far they are able to proceed with a woman. First base is kissing. Second base is any touching above the waist. Third base is touching below the waist. Home plate is intercourse. Kutner was right that Irene was trying to go for third base.
*"House Light" and "House Classic" is a bit of a mixed metaphor. "Light" was first used in reference to beer that was brewed with a lower alcohol content than regular beer and was attached to the name of the regular brand beer. "Classic" was first used with a soft drink when "New Coke", a sweeter formulation came out and quickly reversed Coca-Cola's popularity with the drinking public. A few months later the old formula returned as "Coke Classic". Coca-Cola eventually dropped New Coke as a brand and went back to calling Coke Classic "Coke" again.
*The patient's name "Irene" alludes to "Irene Adler", a canonical character from the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia". The piano theme that plays whenever Irene is speaking to her mother subsequently shares similarities to Irene Adler's theme for the BBC's production of "A Scandal in Belgravia", which was the second episode in the second series of the show "Sherlock". The appearance of Irene in both "Guardian Angels" and "A Scandal in Belgravia" is consistent with the depiction described in the originating work, "A Scandal in Bohemia".
*The scene where House is giving out "roses" to the applicants is a reference to the reality TV show "The Bachelor", in which a group of women compete for the attention of a single man. At the end of every round, roses are given out to the women the bachelor wants to stay on the show.
* Despite what Kutner said, peonies are actually in the Paeoniaceae family and roses are in the Rosaceae family.
*The "back in a flash" comment made by house is based from the catchphrase Flash (DC Comics) always uses.
==Cast==
*Hugh Laurie as Gregory House
*Lisa Edelstein as Lisa Cuddy
*Omar Epps as Eric Foreman
*Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson
*Jennifer Morrison as Allison Cameron
*Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase
*Anne Dudek as Amber Volakis
*Edi Gathegi as Jeffrey Cole
*Peter Jacobson as Chris Taub
*Kal Penn as Lawrence Kutner
*Olivia Wilde as Remy Hadley
*Carmen Argenziano as Henry Dobson
*Andy Comeau as Travis Brennan
*Azura Skye as Irene
*Caroline Lagerfelt as Connie
*Tom Wright as Dr. Pilcher
*Scott Alan Smith as Dr. Brady
*Kenneth White as Old Man
*Jerry Hauck as Martin
*Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse
*Vince Deadrick Jr. as Mr. Franklin
*Jose Vasquez as Gang Banger
==Links==
*Episode page at IMDB
*Episode transcript at Clinic Duty
*Episode guide at Ace Showbiz
*Episode page at TV.com
*Episode review at Blogcritics
*A list of the music tracks from Heard on TV
*Episode article at The TV IV
*Episode page at House MD Guide
*Episode quotes from Dr. Greg House.com
 
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 4
Category:Spanish
Category:Zebra Factor 9