Moving On

Moving On is the 7th season episode of House, the twenty-third episode of the season, and the season finale, which first aired on May 23, 2011. It was directed by Greg Yaitanes.
Well-known performance artist Afsoun Hamidi (guest star Shohreh Aghdashloo) is admitted to the hospital. House is intrigued enough to take her case even though he's confined to a hospital bed. When the team learns that her symptoms may have been self-inflicted as part of a documentary for her latest performance piece, and later find evidence that the patient has been doing research on House, they begin to question whether treatments are necessary and if they are unwittingly participating in the creation of a piece of her art. Meanwhile, Cuddy's insistence that House deal with the fallout of their break-up prompts House to do something very unexpected, a move that could change his relationship with Cuddy and Wilson permanently.http://www.tvline.com/2011/03/house-season-finale-spoiler-shohreh-aghdashloo/
This is the last episode to feature Lisa Cuddy in the series, as she would quit as Dean of Medicine, and would be replaced by Eric Foreman.
==Recap==
Lisa Cuddy is surveying an accident scene. Wilson is hurt, but not badly. She tells the police detective to hurry up because she has to contact the hospital, call her mother and get her daughter. The detective asks if the perpetrator threatened her, but she says that he didn't and there was no real fight. The detective asks if there was any indication anything would happen, and Cuddy confirms that would cover every moment she spent with him, but she never imagined anything like this. She says she has no idea where he is. The detective supports her if she wants to pursue it. She says if that's what it takes, she will file charges as long as Gregory House is thrown in jail if he comes anywhere near her or the hospital again.
The scene switches to three days earlier. At an art gallery, the patrons are watching a performance piece involving famous McArthur award winning performance artist Afsoun Hamidi. She is surrounded by dangerous and mundane objects the audience is encouraged to use against her in any way. Suddenly, the scene switches to House's hospital bed, where his team is reviewing the artist's case as Thirteen and Chase argue about the quality of her work. They go back to the video of the performance piece, where one of the participants uses paint thinner and goes to light a match. The artist's assistant intervenes even though he had been told not to. The artist collapses on the floor. They start arguing whether it's an organic disease or mental illness. Taub spots a space heater in the video and argues for carbon monoxide poisoning. House agrees and orders that she be put in a hyperbaric chamber.
Cuddy is out for a snack and runs into her sister's banker, Jerry Barrett. He tells her that Julia has been trying to set them up, but Cuddy plays like he has the wrong person. After an awkward moment, Cuddy politely leaves. As she goes, Jerry tells her to say hello to Lisa Cuddy at the office they share.
Cuddy gets back to the hospital and answers House's "emergency page". He wants to return her stuff to show her he wants to go back to the way they were before they started dating. He tells her he's going to stop doing stupid things. However, Cuddy says he has to talk about why he does stupid things. However, House just wants to evade the issue. He finally agrees to do it if she brings him lunch the next day.
During the hyperbaric treatment, the assistant is upset that he didn't check out the space heater, and the artist is upset he interfered. Foreman lets it slip that he knows about the artist's work as well. The artist dodges questions about whether the guy with the match was a set up, but the assistant says he was real. Foreman feels the patient must be mentally ill to risk that, but she insists it's part of her art. However, she vomits inside the chamber. They get her out and Thirteen asks the assistant to get an oxygen mask, but he just stands there.
Taub is doing an ultrasound of his girlfriend Ruby. He gets a phone call from Rachel Taub, but he tells Ruby it's just House.
Cuddy and her sister are arguing about the set up. The sister asks if its about House, and Cuddy dodges the question.
The reaction to the hyperbaric chamber seems to rule out carbon monoxide, but Thirteen wants to test the assistant and patient for infections because the assistant seemed to be in a daze. Foreman figures the assistant is in love with the patient. House asks if the assistant brought anything from the patient's room to the chamber, and Foreman says he just brought a handbag, flowers and a stuffed elephant. House thinks the stuffed elephant is a weird choice. House calls Thirteen's phone and instructs her to go to the patient's room. When she arrives, he directs her to the elephant and tells her to talk to it. She inspects it and finds a camera. House realizes that Luca was told not to intervene during the treatment and they are now the artist's latest work.
Thirteen is upset but not surprised. All of the artists work is based on trauma. Taub gets another phone call from his ex-wife, but doesn't answer it. Foreman thinks the patient has faked her symptoms. However, Thirteen says that goes against the artist's reputation for honesty. House agrees with Thirteen, but only because faking the current symptoms would be suicidal. House thinks it's coxsackie B virus infection and orders a CT Scan of her biliary tree to rule out gallstones. He then gets out of bed. Foreman protests, but House has realizes that Foreman is going to scan her lungs instead just to prove that the patient inhaled the paint thinner, so he's going to follow him to make sure that he can make fun of him when he's wrong rather than letting him hide it.
Foreman does the scan with House supervising. There is nothing wrong with the patient's lungs and House collects a bet, telling Foreman he can always live on beans. The patient complains of dizziness. Foreman sees the patient is pale, shivering, and her blood pressure is very low. He thinks it might be internal bleeding. House agrees and orders her scoped.
Cuddy arrives with the agreed on lunch and finds House missing from the ICU.
The colonoscopy was normal and they do an ultrasound on her liver. When the assistant starts taking pictures at the direction of the patient, Foreman grabs the camera and tosses it in the trash. They can't find where the missing blood is going, and Foreman heads for the patient's feet. Chase asks what he's doing down there, and Foreman smiles and says he doesn't like beans.
Cuddy comes back to the ICU and finds House in his bed. She gets angry, but House said his patient needed him. She says he's still playing games. She tells him they're finally going to have a real fight, not something where he pulls pranks or has a temper tantrum. She wants to talk about the breakup. However, Foreman comes in. House agrees to meet Cuddy for lunch the next day in the cafeteria. House takes some Vicodin. Foreman tells House the patient had a puncture wound in the dorsal vein. House thinks she has been using heroin, but Foreman tells him she has been injecting herself with her own red blood cells. The "bleeding" was just her hematocrit normalizing and it would explain her other symptoms. House says he's speculating, but Foreman comes up with her laptop browser history - she's been reading up on blood doping and House. Foreman tells House he's been set up.
We go back to the scene of the accident. The detective is questioning Wilson. Wilson asks if House is going to be arrested. The detective confirms that he has no reason not to. Wilson says House has probably gone to a bar that matches the mood he's in - dark and depressing.
Going back to the case, House is interrogating the patient and her assistant. The assistant says he knew nothing about her research on House, so House tells him to stop talking. The patient tells House not to take it out on her assistant. He wants to know the point. She admits to the blood doping, but says she was already ill before she started. She says she knows what's wrong, but won't tell him because then there will be no game for House and no art for her. She refuses to tell him why she chose him. When he resists going further, she tells him this is the ultimate puzzle, which symptoms are real, which are fake, and which are hidden. He agrees to continue.
House brushes aside the objections of his team and orders blood cultures. Thirteen agrees to do them to keep him in his hospital bed.
Rachel Taub calls Taub again and Foreman wonders why he's dodging her. He realizes that Taub hasn't told her about the pregnancy or that he plans to stay with Ruby. Taub says he's doing it to spare Rachel's feelings, but Foreman doesn't buy it. He finally admits he's afraid Rachel will never speak to him again. Foreman tells him that Rachel will find out, and Taub better be the one to tell her.
As they do the blood tests, the patient complains of nausea and her assistant tells them she's been having back pain. The patient rates it a 5/10. They realize they can't trust her. Thirteen turns her over and she has bruises along her spine - Turner's sign. They realize her pancreas is now poisoning the rest of her body and if they don't treat the cause soon it will be too late. The assistant tells her to tell the doctors the diagnosis. She tells her assistant not to worry so much and to trust her.
House is watching Prescription Passion when Thirteen comes in to tell him that the pancreatic cyst they drained has returned and the patient doesn't care. House thinks that the patient knows that her condition can't be treated.
House does an MRI of the patient. He realizes her performance piece to shave her head was to hide the fact her hair was going to fall out. House finds a brain tumor. It's primary CNS lymphoma with associated paraneoplastic syndrome. When the assistant confronts her, the patient admits it. She started having vision and balance problems four months previously and got the diagnosis at New York Mercy. It's inoperable, and the radiation therapy didn't work. The assistant realizes that's when she broke up with him. However, the patient says that although she thought it would be otherwise, House took the case personally. House denies it and tells her that maybe she was looking for a different answer. He tells her to call her work "It Doesn't Mean Anything".
House returns to the ICU to find Wilson there accusing him of forging his name to prescriptions again. Wilson has already alerted the pharmacies. He reminds House of the consequences. He also points out that House used the equivalent of two week's supply in three days. He tells House he's miserable and angry and that he has to deal with it, not medicate it. House says he feels nothing, and it feels great. He tells Wilson he's going home.
House goes to discharge himself, but because he's acting against doctor's orders, the nurse insists he has to do the paperwork. House points out he's a doctor himself, but the nurse says it will be easier to check the box on the form. He sees the patient in her room and goes to see her to ask her why she hasn't been discharged. She's complaining about eczema and she's waiting for something to treat it. House gets intrigued. He realizes she doesn't have eczema or cancer.
The patient tests positive for granulomatosis with polyangiitis. The inflammation of the blood vessels looked like eczema, and the "tumor" was just a granuloma. Standard treatment is radiation therapy and steroids, but the patient resists radiation because it affects her ability to think and it's hard to recover from it. House tells her it's better than dying. She still refuses the radiation because she says life is not worth living if she can't do art. Her assistant tells her that her friends are more important than her work and that's it's not a performance work, she's just acting crazy. He says he can't watch her die when she can save herself and leaves. House stands up for her.
House and Cuddy meet for lunch. They have trouble getting started. House asks if Cuddy is dating anyone, and after some prompting, she tells him she isn't. They finally start talking about his leg and their relationship. He comes up with a dozen reasons why he operated on himself, many contradictory and all unconvincing, but he says in the end that it was a bad idea. He goes to leave, but Cuddy follows him. She tells him he has to talk and then notices he's pulled a stitch in his leg. He finally gets angry and says, "You want to know how I feel? I feel hurt." She says she knows and says she's sorry. He says it's not her fault and leaves.
Thirteen is giving the patient steroids and the patient asks if she made the wrong choice about her assistant. Thirteen tells her it's not too late.
Cuddy runs into Jerry again and apologizes. He says his approach was off as well.
Taub sees Rachel looking for him. He finally talks to her. She tells him she's pregnant. He says he didn't expect that.
Thirteen finds House checking his stitches. She tells him the patient changed her mind about the radiation. House goes to find the patient and her assistant together again. He tosses out the assistant to see the patient alone to ask her why she changed her mind. He tells her that the assistant may leave her again and that she's a hypocrite for giving up the thing that brought her life meaning. She asks why he's doing this, but House has no answer and leaves. As he goes, he sees the assistant embracing the patient.
House is at home and hears a knock, and then his phone rings. Wilson calls through the door. House finally gets up to let Wilson in. House doesn't want to talk about his lunch with Cuddy. Wilson invites him for a drink. House finds Cuddy's hairbrush and says he has to return it on the way to the bar so he can get it off his mind.
They drive to Cuddy's and House gets out of the car to walk to the door. He sees Cuddy with Jerry, Julia, and her brother-in-law sitting together at the table. He goes back to the car. He tells Wilson to get out. Wilson asks what's wrong, but House won't answer. Wilson tells House not to bottle up whatever's bothering him, but to let it out and he'll feel better. House races away. However, at the end of the block, he turns the car around hard. He drives the car straight up Cuddy's lawn into her dining room. House forces his way out of his car, gives Cuddy her hairbrush back, and silently leaves. He tells Wilson (whose hand injury seen earlier was the result of falling on the sidewalk as House blew by him going up Cuddy's lawn) that Wilson was right, he feels much better, and walks off.
House is at a bar finishing a drink and asks the bartender what he should do. The bartender suggests going home, but House says he's not going to do that tonight. He turns around and we see he's on a beach. He starts walking along the beach.
==Major Events==
*Cuddy confronts House about his failure to talk to her about their break-up.
*Julia Cuddy tries to set up Cuddy with her banker, Jerry Barrett.
*Wilson finds out that House has once again been forging Vicodin prescriptions.
*After seeing Cuddy together with Jerry, House smashes his car into Cuddy's house.
*House flees the country to avoid the legal consequences of his actions.
*Cuddy quits after the events of this episode, and Eric Foreman takes her place.
*Taub finds out his ex-wife is pregnant.
==Zebra Factor 8/10==
GPA is not only very rare, it's also very difficult to diagnose as its symptoms mimic many other diseases.
==Trivia & Cultural References==
*This is the last episode to feature Lisa Cuddy and her relatives.
*The car crash scene finished #16 on TV Guide's Best of 2011: TV Moments of The Year.
*The fictional Afsoun Hamidi is based on renowned performance artist Marina Abramović, and the performance during the opening is based on Abramović's Rhythm 0, which took place in 1974. In the original piece, the artist got threatened by the audience as well, but with a loaded gun aimed to her head, instead of paint thinner and a lit match. After it finished, this was she had to say on her performance: "I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."
*The MacArthur Fellows Program, often called the MacArthur Genius Grant, is a $500,000 award from the MacArthur Foundation to persons who show merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work. Some of the past recipients include palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, performance artist Bill Irwin, and composer Lin Manuel Miranda who had a recurring role in Season 6 of House.
*The New Yorker is a weekly magazine containing a mix of fiction and non-fiction pieces that has been published since the 1920s.
*Taub's ring tone for his ex-wife is Escape by Rupert Holmes, better known as "The Piña Colada Song". It was the last #1 hit of the 1970s and two weeks later returned to #1 as the second #1 hit of the 1980s. The song is about a man who is looking to have an affair due to being bored with his current relationship with his wife, only to discover that the woman he finds that fits all of his desires is actually his wife. The situation in the song somewhat mirrors the relationship between Taub and his wife/ex-wife Rachel - they divorce, and shortly after they begin to start seeing each other again because of how much they like each other.
*"Elephant in the room" is a common English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored by everyone, based on the presumption that if an elephant is in a room, if no-one is talking about it they're just trying to ignore it.
*The brit milah, commonly referred to as a Bris, is the circumcision ceremony performed when a Jewish male is 8 days old.
*The Lindbergh baby kidnapping was one of the most infamous crimes of the early 20th century, where persons unknown held the son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh for ransom and later murdered him. A man named Bruno Richard Hauptman was tried, convicted and executed for the crime.
==Cast==
*Hugh Laurie as Gregory House
*Lisa Edelstein as Lisa Cuddy
*Omar Epps as Eric Foreman
*Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson
*Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase
*Peter Jacobson as Chris Taub
*Olivia Wilde as Remy Hadley
*Paula Marshall as Julia Cuddy
*Jennifer Crystal Foley as Rachel Taub
*James Hiroyuki Liao as Luca
*Thom Bishops as Jerry Barrett
*Zena Grey as Ruby
*J.R. Cacia as Officer Soltes
*Shohreh Aghdashloo as Afsoun Hamidi
*Jay Tapaoan as Bartender
*Liz Benoit as Nurse Anne
*Amy Shelton-White as Nurse Felicia
*Adrienne Whitney as Artsy Young Woman
*Jake Martin as Julia's husband
*Damien Bray as Drunk Man
*Bobbin Bergstrom as Nursing
*Tiffany Marie Wilson as Dress Cutter
==References==
==Video==
thumb|300px|left|Episode promo
thumb|300px|left|Art or crazy?
thumb|300px|left|Giving Back
thumb|300px|left|Flattered?
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 7